BEDUS Day 1: Children's Literature

"Children like a fine word now and then." ~ Beatrice Potter

I shopped two classes today, Complex Molecule Synthesis (previously Natural Products Synthesis) and Literature for Young People. I'm taking both of them and they seem so far apart in subject but they both excite me very much. The Literature for Young People seminar was the fastest I've ever gotten into a seminar and Kelsey and I are taking it together which excites me to no end. We basically had story time today where the professor read us some children's books and we commented on their structures and plots. It was especially interesting to me how many "big words" appeared in Amos and Boris, words like "phosphorescent" and "luminescent" and it reminded me of when I first actually listened to the words in Disney songs, little jokes that are there for the adult viewers. You don't remember not being able to understand the song or the story, but when you look at it again, how could you really at age 6 or 8?

Another theme that really intrigued me was that of loss and death. Many times, the idea of something that went away and never came back popped up in a book otherwise fraught with only a single conflict and had a happy ending. I don't remember by childhood books being that way, though when we read Dr. Seuss, I may be taking a more analytic view toward his literature.

There have been many times during my college career where I have contemplated whether it was right for me to go into chemistry, whether I should have stuck to my eighth grade guns and became a journalism person instead, majoring in English. Were that my university had minors. I think I would have become an English minor for sure.

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In other news, I booked my flight to San Francisco!! SO EXCITED!! (and scared. Wah!)

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Edit: OMG Kelsey got me a Tardis complete with Sonic Screwdriver. ;D

Membranes

I love hanging out in book stores. It brings me back to when I was a kid and I could just sit in bookstores and read whatever the heck I wanted and everything new was on the shelves and the whole world was at my disposal. Book stores like Barnes and Noble always have the huge windows that let all the light in so everything seems brighter and sunnier. That's one of the great things about living in California, I guess, because right now, everything is 70 degrees and sunny and, sitting on my couch looking out onto the tree tops, it's quite beautiful. I also get inspired in book stores, and, maybe it's because I don't have much to worry about in terms of running into people I know, but I tend to hang around and read insignificant and quite crappy books and I get inspired. I always want to write a novel when I'm in there because I always feel like I can write at least as well as some of the stuff that's in the teen section, or the romance section, or the fantasy section (murderous pixies? really?). And I never have enough paper or patience to finish everything. By the time I get home, the need to write has dissipated and when I look at my notes, I think to myself, "What was I thinking? This is just as crappy as anything that's out there." Oh well.

This morning, I peeled an egg and ate it for breakfast. For a long time, I didn't know eggs had membranes. Well, I knew unconsciously, but since I saw this, I didn't really know.



After that, every time I've peeled a hard-boiled egg, I have noticed the membrane, and usually, I am in too much of a rush to deal with it, so I just peel an egg like people do and nom it down. But these days have been quite lazy, so I decided to peel it while leaving the membrane on.

See? It's squishy like a hardboiled egg!

And then I peeled the membrane off...

And ate it. Nom. 

Duck Season

A lot of my Spring Break has been spent cleaning out my old things, deciding what to put in storage, what to donate, and what to save. It has left me nostalgic and not a little sad that I'm growing up literally before my eyes. I have recently found a little...rant(?) that I wrote in high school between the lines of a draft of an excused absence note. It seems oddly, and not oddly, appropriate here.



"Duck Season!"
"Rabbit Season!"
"Duck Season!"
"Rabbit Season!"
"Rabbit Season!"
"Duck Season!"

We all know what happens now. Dear old Bugs will produce a rifle and blow the ever envious Daffy to ashes. Daffy will rise to perpetuate his one-sided rivalry, and again, and again, he will lose. We laugh because it is so predictable, because although our sputtering friend lies in ashes, he will no doubt get up and try again. Bug's craft ingenuity will thwart Daffy's petty jealousy every time. Charlie Brown will never kick the football. The Power Rangers will always win...eventually. These were the norms when we grew up. We would always solve Blue's Clues. Ernie would always splish splash with his rubber ducky. The good guys will always win.

But we grow up. In a world dominated by politics, mind games, and alliances, I find myself wishing more for order, for the days when pushing someone on the playground meant you would trip on a rock and fall down yourself. Human nature is to be duplicitous, I know. People are self-serving; they are closet sycophants. But how I wish I could forget for a little while, and regress (or progress?) to the innocent candy coated world of a three-year-old who willingly gets up early to watch Willey Coyote waste his infinite wealth on backfiring Acme products.

In this world, the one in which I am trapped, Bugs Bunny lives in the future and is green. The Power Rangers wear capes. Stress causes even the strongest people to break down, to give up. Earthquakes, floods, droughts, and famine wreak havoc on the lives of those who are just trying to live. Thus, people seek escape through artificial highs that do just that: clear their minds so that they are as lucid as three-year-olds. I don't blame them. The world is randomly unfair. Cookie Monster no longer eats cookies. There is no black and white. Spontaneity is a beautiful thing, but what I wouldn't give right now to go back to the place I used love, when I was young. What I wouldn't give to regain the hope that the bad guys will always lose, even if the good guys do not always win. What I wouldn't give for it to be Duck Season.