Prejudice and Prop 8

I have tried to abstain from the nonsense of the yes/no debate of Prop 8. But I have recently been introduced to several different ads against (and for I might add) the proposition that shocked and appalled me.
For those of you who have not figured this out yet, I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I am not ashamed of my religion, nor was I forced to donate money to the cause of proposition 8. Honestly I never really heard anything about it in my Sunday Church Meetings. I am also not a California resident. I claim to be apathetic, especially in the realm of politics, but sometimes my opinion needs to be heard and understood.

Some of the ads that jarred me most were the misinformed ads demonizing Mormons, and their leaders. They took their words and used them to support their own purposes. I was in TV production in Highschool and I can tell you now that if I wanted to promote tolerance and respect I could make a video using only sound bites from Adolf Hitler and make a pretty convincing video. If there is anything that I detest more than yellow journalism, it is poorly done yellow journalism. With this thought I turn to my next issue.

“I hate those ‘haters.’” With these words more irony is contained than in any sentence spoken in history (With the exception of some statements by Moliere). How can you hate those that hate and not grow to hate yourselves? Is there something wrong with a person that believes in reincarnation? Is there a reason why a person cannot see marriage as it has been seen for hundreds of years without being seen as ‘medieval’?

Terms have changed, ask any person studying linguistics and they will tell you this, but is there a reason why a different form of union cannot have a different form of name? If a man and a man want to be together they can have one term associated with their union, the same for a woman and a woman, but they do not need to use the term ‘marriage.’ To quote Shakespeare ‘a rose by any other name would still smell as sweet.’ The sweetest part of this change in terminology (not rights) would be to alleviate the fight for marriage. Just use a different term, with the same rights.

I do not want to hear your claims that marriage should be based on love. If that is the case, I have one more question for you, do you agree with polygamy? One could argue that polygamy is based off of love; therefore we should legalize that practice as well. I am fully against reinstating polygamy, does this categorize me as a hater?

One more thing that irked me (On either side) was the astounding lapse of logic used in presenting their arguments. Why is it that one can purport to be ‘tolerant’ and ‘forward thinking’ when all they can say is ‘Why Society is Dumb?’ or Protect Families?. Both sides had gaping hoels in their arguments. Please be articulate when you are arguing your point, or just don’t argue it at all.

*After this rant I would like to add that issues like this are why I am not a political science major. I don’t know how one can cope with society as well as that…oi. I respect Political science majors, you guys are amazing.

Lab Fever

Don’t worry… I haven’t caught anything contagious. I work in a lab in my free time (as little as it is) and I have recently been researching, and researching and researching and researching and reserching and researching… You get the beautiful picture. I have gone a looong time without anything to do lab work wise.I know that growing up pure cultures is not the most fascinating thing in the universe, but at least I could see that i was accomplishing something useful. I know that the research can be boring, but I am almost to the point of creating a second research project an starting it up just for the heck of it. Starting a project that has nothing to do with the bacteria that I am working with…or researching. Maybe I’ll discover a use for some of the odd isolates that we just got in… tac plasmid ecoli or maybe the glowing pathogen… I don’t know. All I know for certain at this point is that if I don’t do some actual research work I will go insane and then I’ll never get to work with the things that I want to.

I have been thinking about studying the intracellular pathways of Lysteria Monocytogenes… maybe that will be a break from the tedium of non-stop reading while your other labmates are creating phage stocks and running disinfectant tests. Reminds me of the time I went to a dance and was left behind as all of my other friends got asked to dance. No fun and you feel more than a little left out. Only instead of being asked to dance last now I am being last to be asked to do PCR.

Goobye and Memories

The trouble with life is that sometimes, despite your most valiant attempts to discern the inner conundrums, no matter how many pieces of advice you get from your friends the ‘sure bet’ is never the one that you want, it’s the one that came to you in the first place. The one who talked to you, played with you, protected you. The one who stole your heart and never really gave it back. One who you never thought that you’d see again, the missing friend that will never really be back.

You see, that boy does not exist. He is perfected in memory, and memories of ones loved are always tainted by the rose lens of liking. That man will always be perfect, although I know that the reality was far different. The memory danced with me, he caught me when I fell, he dreamed my dreams, he saw my thoughts, the memory took all of my pain and dashed it, hid it in a wall where no one would think to look. Pain does not make for pleasant rememberings, nor do goodbyes make for a good tale to tell.

Sometimes goodbye is the most painful word one can hear, but to not hear it, that is the worst. To not hear good bye is to mean that there is hope that he will return to you someday. There is the irrational and illogical dream that despite all evidence to the contrary he still holds you in his heart. There is the sad realization that every morning your hopes are brought up only to be torn apart as another day passes.

You miss him terribly, knowing that you hurt him as much as he hurt you. You can deal with your pain, but the thought that you caused another’s pain, the thought that you ripped out his heart makes you want to dig yourself into the deepest hole that you can imagine and thrust yourself down into it.

And then you do. You make yourself believe that the only way that you’ll ever be happy again is to see him smile, to know that despite your worst efforts he can still live life, he can still love something, he can still exist. You cry because of his pain, you celebrate because of his triumphs, and you watch from afar, keeping in the back of your mind the reminder that that part of your life is gone. No matter how hard you try you cannot erase the pseudo farewell from your heart. You don’t believe it, but you must, because despite your imaginations, despite your hopes, despite anything that your foolish, lovesick imaginings can conjure he is gone. That is the sure way to say goodbye. To look at the past and remember. . . that he wasn’t perfect, that dreams aren’t reality, and with that knowledge you can move on with life at last knowing that you tried your hardest, despite the failures. You then look at the past and realize the end of one story is merely the beginning of another.

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.