random thoughts

Yay! So my bread turned out great, I was happy about that. And it doesn't even crumble when you slice it thinly, that's what made me most excited. Spring finals are coming up, and then I'm off to Indiana to see my family! I miss them alot, it's hard being out here without any parents or relatives, I'm used to spending weekends with a grandparent at least once or twice a month. I also wish I could see my brother and sister grow up, Phil is apparently quite the talented guy. I secretly hope he doesn't study music when he goes to school, because I think he has alot of potential in other careers. It's so hard to stop developing a musical talent that you've invested so much time in and that you could potentially become a professional in.

I still mourn over 'giving up' flute, but at the same time I feel secure knowing that I chose a career that I have a passion for and is still very practical. I wasn't passionate enough about flute to carry it out through college professionally, that drive just wasn't there. I think its great that other musicians have a drive because they need that so much. But science really attracts me, I love how there are so many areas of study that directly apply to your every day life, and there is an endless frontier of discovery and information to learn. Not only does it apply to our every day life, it is crucial for our health and the environment.

Music seems to have a sort of finite existence to me, although you can always become better at your talent and find new and better music, I simply find it to have some sort of an end. With flute, for example, I would simply become good enough to maybe get accepted into an orchestrea, and then teach flute to highschool students. Maybe teach at a college level if I was really good. But again, I am not much for teaching it, because most students don't even practice near enough and don't care enough past getting the 'chair' they want or the grade in the class. Or to not look like a fool at a recital. It's just a frustrating thing, I think.

Then again, I have to remind myself that music is important. It brings joy to you and others, it brings confidence to those who master it, and it is a very good skill to develop one's creativity, motor skills, and makes you cultured. So it all depends on if that's your driving factor to teach.

Home-made bread

I am so excited, Richard's mom spoiled us by giving us a wheat grinder and a bosch for our wedding! We have finally decided to start making homemade bread together once a week. During the school year we were pretty busy and had alot on our hands, but now that it's the sumer we are looking for projects and healthy things to do, and I am just way excited to learn how to do this. At first I was intimidated when Richard told me he wanted me to make home-made bread every week like the way he was raised, but now that I appreciate the healthy-benefits and cost-benefits of making your own bread, I am ready to get started. I heard whole-wheat bread is the hardest to make, but I'm willing to keep trying until I get it right. When we went to the bosch store to pick up the nutramill, I saw there was a bread-making class so I dragged Richard there after his root-canal surgery and we watched a lady quickly prepare some bread. It seemed simple, but we also noted there are many things that could possibly go wrong if you are not careful. Bread is a tricky thing.



Other than this, we have been doing pretty good. Richard and I are taking classes this spring and recently Richard had to fix a failed-root canal. He went to an endodontist who actually took out some bone to get to the infected area and remove more of his failed root-canal stuff. I still don't really understand all that happened, but I do know it costed an arm and a leg! I'm so grateful it didn't affect us too bad, we are lucky to have the jobs we do.

Richard is basically shadowing dentists for hours and hours as well as taking a physiology class, and I have been taking a jogging class, a field botany class, and a genetics class. In fact, I'm going to take a 4 hour genetics test in about half an hour, but I think I'm pretty ready so i thought I'd write in here. Jogging is my least favorite, it's hard to run in the morning because I have early classes, and running at night in spanish fork really isnt very safe (nobody has flood lights! It's incredibly dark!). I refuse to run in the middle of the day because I always feel soo sick afterwards. I am going to Indiana in a couple weeks, which I'm really looking forward to. I have to leave Rich behind because he needs to watch the old ladies and finding a replacement for us is very expensive, we'd have to pay them $80 a night when we are gone. Add to that a plane ticket and it's just to much. We will go to Indy for Christmas so that will be nice, we are willing to suck up the cost for such a special holiday & to keep our job :-) The only thing stopping us from living there is if I get pregnant, which we dont plan on letting that happen for awhile....

10 looong daysss

:-)
It really hasn't been as bad as I thought. The first two days were rough, I definitely ached for my hubby wubs. But then once school started up again and my job kept me occupied, time went by faster and I interacted with people constantly all day to help fill the gap of where RIchard would have been.

Weekends are the worst, though. School and work do not happen on the weekend, which is normally a welcome blessing, but not when I don't have my Richard it feels pretty empty and lame. I'm glad nothing can replace him. :-)

I have scrapbooked, geneology-ed, exercised, studied, read "The Host" which is a very interesting book (thanks dani!)...it is somewhat dark but I've heard it gets better towards the end. I'm halfway, I need to read it faster! Also, I have cleaned and ran lots and lots of errands that had been building up since the crazy winter.

I am so relieved that Richard is coming home this Sunday, and also relieved that our summer schedule lends us a break to relax and revive ourselves for the Fall instead of making us burn out before then. I guess when you have two years of school left, it kind of looms far in the distance and motivation tends to creep away once you've realized how much more there is to do.

I am so glad, though, that Richard was able to go to Guatemala. He has had some very touching experiences helping others. Not all of it has been dental work, although 85% of it has. He was able to visit his mission companion "Otto" in Guatemala City, which was a miracle! And he even did his dental work. He told me that he was able to visit a couple very, very poor families in destitute conditions, bringing them food and toys for their children. He had some very personal experiences and conversations with them and really felt the spirit. I can't wait to hear more. He will be flying to Tikaal tommorow to see some ruins, and from there flying home to me on Sunday!

Richard did alot of x-rays and diagnostics, but his favorite part was assisting the Oral Surgeon. I am so glad he was exposed to so many dental situations and professionals, I think it will give him added motivation and a surety that this is really what he wants to do for the rest of his life. I know that he needed to be there, and everything worked out so he could. He has wanted to go to Guatemala, ironically, ever since he and Otto were companions. He must have sensed that they'd see eachother again soon.

Guatemala

I'm trying to come up with ideas of what I can do while my hubby is in Guatemala doing dental work for a week! Since we're still newly weds, I don't know what I will do without seeing him most of the day. It's pathetic, I know.
Here are some ideas:

• Train for 2 half-marathons I'm registered for (although they are in August and September)
• Family genealogy/ temple work--lots left to do
• Scrapbook our wedding/engagement/honeymoon pictures!
• journal and study ahead for school
• FIND A JOB for the summer!!!
• find some good books to read
• find discount prices for my summer-class books (same for RIchard's books)
• Sell tons of Anatomy books that Richard has been collecting. (hopefully this will make bank!)
  
• Play computer games (civ, nancy drew, whatever)
  

Human Bodies and what they were adapted for…..

In my evolutionary biology class we are discussing the evolutionary implications of human development since the stone-age. I know human evolution is a touchy topic, but even if you look at it at the not-so-controversial micro-evolutionary scale, some things might explain some human behaviors/diseases. Here are some examples:

o The pace of cultural change has been so much faster than the pace of evolution by natural selection that modern humans are largely still adapted to life in the stone age. (Evolutionary Analysis, Freeman & Herron)o For example: Humans evolved for optimal long-distance running (read Spark or this journal I have)…so it’s interesting to note why running is so good for us, because our bodies are formed ideally for it in the first place.
o Stone-age humans lived on diets rich in fish or lean game, nuts, fruits, and vegetables—so maybe that’s why our bodies are so well adapted for those types of foods and why they are particularly healthy for us (read “food cures”)


o Lactose intolerance is natural---most mammals are made to only endure milk during infancy and to slowly wean off it completely. But because our society uses dairy products everywhere, humans have gained a tolerance for it over time. Except for me, of course. I try to keep convincing Richard that he is lactose-intolerant as well because he has all of my symptoms. He only recently stopped denying it, he just loves milk too much!

o More menstrual cycling increases risk of breast cancer bc the combination of estrogen and progesterone duing the postovulatory phase of the cycle stimulates cell division in the lining of the milk ducts---and these can have more opportunities for mutations that can create cancers. (Evolutionary analysis, Freeman & Herron) Studies have shown that because we use birth control, we have a lot more menstrual cycles in our lifetime than women did in the past. They have done studies looking at tribal women, and have found that they have 1/3 of the amount of menstrual cycles than western society, because they are always either pregnant or they were nursing (and you don’t menstruate then). Their rate of breast cancer is 1/12 that of our society.

The Cambrian Explosion!

I have literally spent months studying this fascinating topic!!

The Cambrian explosion is a hypothesized time in which an there was a random explosion of evolution during the Cambrian era, 520 million years ago. This is significant because they found really cool animals that they can’t fit into any classification system of known animals today! Here are examples of some cool ones:

Opabina-- it has 8 eyes and a proboscis!

Marella--so bizarre!

Hallucigenia--it lives up to its name....

This explosion hypothesis is based on tons of fossils of soft-bodied animals found in the Burgess Shale in British Columbia as well select areas in Greenland and China. It has many implications on the process of evolution itself, whether it occurs in spurts or if it occurs gradually and we just haven’t found the fossils that occur earlier.

One scientist that spoke a lot about it was Stephen J. Gould, and he’s so famous he was in a simpsons episode!

(pic)

Why biology is so fascinating!

I have some treasured nuggets of knowledge that I have been meaning to share with the world! Some of these random facts of drastically altered the way I think about my body, the earth, and just the nature of living things and how they function. it's one of my favorite things to talk about so I think I will put some of my favorite topics in this blog so I can always remember them and hopefully share them with my future classroom. These are also things Richard and I love to discuss and analyze together because we are both taking so many biology classes. It makes life so much fun and it puts my brain on fire! (in a good way...)
It's always good to be motivated by your subject matter, eh??