Where’s the limit?

One of the biggest things that drives me up the wall are when people decide that one standard is not good enough for the world. Imagine if we had changing standards for basketball. Come on, moving the hoop with every individual that came along higher for the tall guys and lower for the shorter ones… it would make basketball boring.

I noticed the same thing with the different sects of some religions, they all profess to be ‘christians’ but in some cases they are not christians. What truly is the difference between the Christ of the Baptists and the Christ of the LDS (Mormons)? Nothing that I can tell, the firm walls of legalisms seem to create rifts between religions that really are not all that different. We are honestly getting as bad as the Judiasims I am learning about in my New Testiment class. Some are more reactionary, like the pahrasees that fear anything different. You could have the priestly Sadduces that were wealthy landowners that believed that temple were where the ‘real’ religion was, and cooperated with the Romans. Some like the Zealots believed that everyone was getting too far from Torah so they decided to stop going to temple because it was ‘corrupted.’ They ended up trying to kill each other off and succedding in destroying all of the Sadduces. What makes this so different from our quabbling sects of Christianity? If we are Christians should we not believe that our Christ that saved is the same ? If we do not, then I guess there were several grand teachers and prophets that showed up in the historical record at the same time and never mentioned the other’s existence. (and yes I am aware that the real difference is actually in the details about the godhead or the trinity, but it’s still an interestingly silly docterinal issue in my opinion.)

The Fungus Among us

After studying for a Microbiology quiz (among other things) I have realized that my brain has been taken over by a hostile fungus. Yes I do know that personifying multicellular organisms is sometimes pointless, but I cannot help myself. No matter what I do, no matter who I talk to the fungus seems to come into the conversation, more often at the most inconvenient times. Although I will admit that the fungus itself is not hostile, merely my thoughts about its activities are.

You try talking to someone and then a vision of fungus appears in your head, unbidden, unwanted, and most definitely unwarranted. Fungus are not the prettiest things on the planet, nor are they the most interesting, but somehow I cannot seem to get it out of my mind.

Apparently this microbiologist’s mind has been contaminated, hopefully I won’t have to restart my entire life experiment, because that would be rather annoying at this point.

One foot in past, another in the Future

Have you ever gone to the ‘Four corners’ of the US? Where the corners of four states come together, and if you are talented you can have one limb in every state? (I say talented in case anyone has seen me try to stand on two feet before) Have I been there? No. But it got me thinking today about something that one of my religion professors said this semester about John the Baptist. He continually says that John the Baptist had one foot in one dispensation and one in another, you know part of the old Mosaic laws where sacrifice meant actually going out into the fields and killing a lamb and another with Christ and his ‘love one another’ montras.

I’ve always wondered slightly about how this would have worked… How would you feel if your religion started changing before your eyes? One day the sacrifices were animals and the next the sacrifice was fulfilled and all you needed to give was a broken heart and a contrite spirit. It would be confusing, but still rather exciting to be a part of that dynamic ancient church. Knowing myself (and countering what most people would be saying if they were in that time era) I would not have been one of those who took to the new doctrine as well as I should. It would have taken a few miracles and several teaching sessions to really pound the new thing into my skull. My transition between religions would be about as graceful as my transitions in dance class, I’d get it eventually, but it’d take more than a couple of spills, falls, and mess-ups before i got to where I was going to go.

But John was different. He had one foot in the past, respecting the old rites and customs, but he had one foot in the future where he saw Christ’s purpose and what he needed to do to help that purpose. Kind of funny how that works… John leading the way for Christ, knowing what was to come, yet having to stay within the old bounds of the law. I have trouble keeping the old rules when I know that there is a better thing coming along. I have new respect for this John the Baptist. Do you have a foot in the future?

College and Dancing

Four years of training and work and you find yourself the little fish in a big pond. In actuality it was more like you went from being a minnow in a tide pool to a miniscule zooplankton within the majesty of the ocean. The average SAT and ACT scores have grown so astronomical that one questions how anyone got here in the first place and if they did how much of a life they had to prepare to take said examination. Test scores and classes are wonderful in itself but in order to truly thrive here there is one talent that they don’t teach at most college prep high schools. Apparently the only way to be able to bring yourself to a more multi-cellular experience at college you must either be able to speak twelve different languages, be well on the way to curing world hunger, or be a pretty darn good dancer.

By good dancer I mean for guys you have to actually ask girls to dance and for girls this means that one must be acquainted with fourteen hundred thousand different types of pairs dancing. Take tonight for instance. I frequented a swing dance where males were dancing with females (the typical arrangement). A male asked me to dance, and I discovered that although I knew West coast swing, balboa, lindy-hop, and various renditions of triple swing I did not know the form of dancing that he was familiar with. Then you get hopelessly lost and there are only two ways to reconcile this inadequacy, you either fake it and pray that you don’t fall, or you admit defeat and retreat to the wall. I chose the latter over the former, and stumbled my way through a few dances before I found a couple of guys that I could at least follow their lead.

Following is the best skill a female dancer can learn in this life. If you are a good follow then you can do just about anything with the guy if he’s talented. And dancing with the talented ones are the only reason I submit myself to the dancing scene.

Mark

I’ve been reading in my New Testament for class. (Surprising, eh?) And I noted something very interesting while reading Mark. (Albeit I didn’t understand why until I took the class) Have you ever noticed how Matthew and Luke start with the birth of Christ and how Mark starts in the middle, when  Christ is in his thirties? (I never count John among the gospels, he is a category of his own in my mind) I didn’t understand it, but my professor mentioned that he has a theory about the creation of the Gospels. (Controversial he said) While many scholars thought that the gospels were put in chronological order, he says that Mark was written first.

Being a scientist means that things like dates do not matter (unless of course it is pertaining to your experiment and that other celebratory occasion that you forget half the time because your experiement takes over your life…) but I thought that his theory had merit, I’ve read the gospels a time or two and I’ve noticed the unusual conincidences between Matthew and Luke, they use the same words, and the same stories, there are times when I cannot tell the two apart. It is always interesting as a religious person to look at the ‘inspired’ documents as intellectual nuances, and in this case you can learn a lot from it.

Certainly one has to remember that religion and science know things in separate ways. You can’t really know religion the same way that you can know science. You could try, but I doubt heavenly revelation comes as predicted (Although anyone in a lab would tell you that experiments rarely work out as perfectly as planned either) and in all honesty I think it’s better that way. Who would want to take part in something predictable as a math equation? Not this blogger certainly.

Piano Man

He sat beside the piano, as though it was the most natural place for him to be. I wasn’t going to talk to him, I had homework and plenty of other things to do, but something made me stop outside my dorm.  Mainly because the something happened to be the most beautiful music I had ever heard was coming from the instrument. The music danced on my consciousness and played with my preconceived notions about what I needed to do with my time.
I waited for his piece to be finished then complemented him on his performance. Fourteen years of practice wasn’t a waste for this blond master.
“Motzart right?” I asked, he laughed kindly.
“No, but it sounds like one right? “ He names a Russian composer that I’ve never heard of before, and still can’t pronounce.
“Do you know anything else?”
“Not without my music,” he smiled sheepishly, a piano key reflecting off his glasses.
The conversation flows away from the piano bench towards the center of the room. Another comes to play the piano. She plays pieces and he whispers their names to me.
“This one’s Beethoven,” He comments as she plays a familiar tune. She starts on another, smoother piano piece as he sighs “Ahh a Gershwin.” I marvel at his intellect. My mind so capable of differentiating cells and chemicals can hardly grasp the beauty of the piece, much less conspire to put a name a piece like that.
I watch his face, his eyes closed drinking in the music. I want to talk more, but feel like I’m intruding into his personal enjoyment.  I close my eyes too, but all I hear is pretty music. I open one eye and can see the chords dance in his blue eyes. If only I could understand the music like that.
He explains the chords, and how they progress. I don’t understand all of it but I grasp the basics. He tells me of different pieces and the beautiful preludes, he describes certain songs and his voice mimics the tune he is trying to explain.
One, then two hours past. The conversation never dies, never stills, never stops dancing like the Russian’s composition. Soon we have to go our separate ways, but something struck a chord within me, I had made a friend.

Welcome Stranger

Some of you may be thinking ‘Pielstickium, why did you choose a name like that?’ I must admit that it is a valid question. In my Freshman year of college my dorms gave out various surpurlatives. Some of them were quite normal, like ‘most likely to succede’ or ‘prettiest smile,’ but unanimously my hall gave me the ‘most likely to have an element named after them.’ As Microbiologists rarely have the opportunity to discover elements that can be named after themselves, Pielstickium has now been reborn as the ‘Human Element,’ showing my general views on life, the universe, and typically anything that pops up in my mind. Feel free to browse about the different posts (although there are not many right now) and make comments as you want. Because even though science is my life, I know that the most important element in life is the Human one.

Evil English Essays and Epidemiology

There comes a time in college when a person discovers new things about themselves. I discovered one the first week of my Freshman English class. You see I was mistakenly under the assumption that I liked writing essays. Two minutes was all it took to dissuade me from said assumption.
“The piece,” the professor began ”is quite simple in actuality.” I half ignored her; I had already finished the assignment. There was no need to pay attention. I continued to put my books and papers into my bag.
“I want you to re -write your piece as though it happened in one day.“ My hand froze as the ramifications that her announcement had on my paper came down on my head like a sledgehammer on concrete.
“One day?” Another student obviously as aghast as myself at the loss of an entire night’s pondering and pain asked the same question that rang in my mind.
“Twenty four hours” she quantified cheerfully, oblivious to the horror struck and pale faces around the room.
I left the room and hurried to my next class angry at my paper’s now useless state. My friend Samantha caught up to my focused walk, breathless.
“What’s with you?” She stopped, wary of the daggers flying from my eyes.
“The paper’s useless.” My voice was venomous, and I knew it. I never could hide any of my emotions from anyone.
“What paper?” The fortunate girl was not in my English class, and she was blissfully immersed in a far less strenuous class.
“How. I. Made. A. Difference” I spat the last word.
“OK,” she looked me over “You know it’s just a paper.”
I didn’t respond and she left me to fume. We met others, but my smiling hellos were as false as some old men’s teeth. I held the door open for the other students as Samantha and I entered the lecture hall, happily allowing my muscles to fight against the heavy wood and forget about my writing for a moment.
I couldn’t focus on the lecture. The words from the speaker were ringing in my head not making any dent against the soundproof wall now erected around my consciousness, a wall called irrational anger.
“There are many different opportunities that you can have even as a freshman to. . .” The lecture started to break through the wall, muffled, but gaining strength as the subject matter became more interesting.  The wall receded back into my subconscious allowing the soft-spoken woman to be heard in my head.
“For those of you who wish to continue on through Graduate school or Medical school there is an office on campus that you can visit to help you in your plans. “ Samantha nudged me at this and mouthed ‘let’s go after.’ I nodded; I needed some scientific distraction to take my mind away from the paper matter before I ripped my first draft into a white flurry of parchment.
We laughed as we walked to the Advisement Center, dodging the unfortunate souls who still had classes to worry about. The advisement office was on the second floor of the building, just beyond a mass of starving college students mobbing the various food venues. We cautiously wove our way around the students, past the Taco Bell and to the nearest staircase. We entered the brightly lit room and marveled at the mountains of  papers and fliers arranged neatly along the bookshelves. Each piece was different in shape and color, as though someone could have just as easily used the paper for scrap booking as opposed to information regarding the different careers.
“How may we help you? ”The man at the desk looked very professional in his shirt and tie; his bright gold badge pronounced his name to be Kenneth.
“I’m looking for some help on planning my major for grad school. I don’t want to miss any classes that I need to take.” I smiled warmly, fingering a lurid pink paper regarding the MCAT.
“An excellent decision. Starting in your freshman year could get you into grad school in three years.” He sounded like he knew what he was doing.
“That’s why we came,” Samantha piped up behind me, her red hair bobbing with enthusiasm.
“What are you majoring in?” He turned to me, his smile matching Samantha’s warmth.
“Epidemiology.” I had done some research about my major. I was happiest studying diseases in history, the pandemics and the epidemics. I sat transfixed whenever I read about them, and about how they spread across the country and the world. There were other careers, but none of them as interesting as Epidemiology for me.
“Epistemology?” His smile froze on his face.
“Epidemiology. The study of disease.” I felt my own face freeze into a pleasant expression. Between the assignment in English and this I could tell that today was not my day.
“Um. . .Doug, will you come over here?” His face had become as white as a person with influenza.
“Yeah Ken?” Doug’s head popped out of an office, with his mouth full of something.
“You have any academic plans for Epidemiologists?”
“For whatty-whats?” The food spattered as he struggled to swallow. I wondered if I would need to perform the Heimlich.
“Disease studiers.” Ken rubbed his temples at his co-worker’s reaction, probably wondering what to do if Doug didn’t know the answer.
“Errr. . .I really don’t know, try public relations, that would be pretty good.” Samantha looked at me nearly bursting with laughter.
“There’s an Epidemiology class if you want to take it.” Ken’s head was still in his hands, eyes closed in concentration.
“I have to take immunology before I take the class.” He nodded weakly and I added, “Thanks for your help anyway.”
“Oh. . .you’re welcome, I guess.” He turned to Samantha warily, bracing himself for another unknown career like Epidemiology” What do you want to do?”
“Become a doctor.” Her chirp brought the color back to his cheeks.
“I think I may be able to help you.” He helped Samantha with her goals and classes, while I sat at the table staring aimlessly at a purple paper about law degrees and medicine.
“Why don’t we call the M& M bio guys about that Epidemiology stuff, that was rather awkward,” we heard Ken say as we left.
“At least you helped the next guy,” Samantha said from behind her monstrous stack of papers about becoming a doctor and going med school.
“I guess I did make some difference.” My heart stopped, I knew what I was going to write my paper on now.