The Final Week of Death and Doom
Was Not Quite Right Without a Broom,
A Broom? Yes, I say, a broom!
Make room, make room, I will attack all with my broom,
my Broom of Doom,
And sit quietly at my loom,
In quite a state of gloom.

I saw a baby grackle today. I was running to the library to return a late book, and as I went running around a corner, I glanced into a little tree, and there it was! Right in the middle - not a baby, but very young and still fuzzy. There was an adult grackle feeding it that flew off when I came. I stood there and just stared at the little thing. Baby birds are so ugly, but beautiful too. It just sort of stood there and cocked its head and looked at me. The adults scolded me from a higher tree, but the little creature seemed so peaceful. It made me smile from ear to ear.

A single brown necked american avocet, unaware of brown necks other than its own and its own kind, hopped up and down on a leg, on the shore, and listened as the wind whistled over a bottle in the sand.
"whooo. whooooooooo."

I'm tired. It's raining outside.

Thats my update!

One more thing. I just realized that storms make me worry. I like it when it thunders and the clouds collect themselves and the sky gets dark and threatening. It makes my belly feel rumbly and I get excited anticipating it. But it seems like I always sit there when its raining and worry. Not about the rain but just about things that I usually ignore. In Galveston this weekend it was so windy when we were on the beach you could lean forward and not fall over. We could barely hear each other! And we were trying to look at birds. It was really neat being in the wind. On the way back it was gloomy. My clothes were damp and there was mud on the van floor, and I was tired from the whole weekend, and the bird people. I couldn't sleep, and the van smelled like muddy tennis shoes and fish and the ocean. Everyone was quiet and I tried to read, but all I could do was look out the window and worry.

Oh well.

I'm like a chicken roosting in the parted grass, behind the shed, in the dark, on a pile of eggs,
I hide the fact that I'm brooding.

I pretend that it doesn't matter,
I act like I don't care.
I feign indifference,
I am cool to touch, and burn on the inside

I am a rock that easily crumbles, too hard, too soft, softer,
still more.
There is goo I tell you
and love too.
Squishy organs organized to keep me breathing
tears falling in splendor unabashedly filling canyons that sink forever
until a vine at the bottom crawls up.

(edited April 22)

Quick update, in the name of science!

After I posted that post about the amino acids, Michael Hoffman emailed me and corrected me, for which I am grateful. "There are not 20 amino acids. There are, as your textbook correctly notes "20 common amino acids." There are other amino acids even in humans. The most well known is selenocysteine. Also, the standard code is not universal."

He sent me a cool link about the genetic code.

My mom sent me an email yesterday. She thinks I should be an optometrist. I think she's worried that I'm going to end up poor and jobless someday.

About the goggles, nobody has called yet. I'm worried that the sign fell down. I haven't been swimming in a while. But, it wouldn't make much of a difference anymore since the goggles have been lost again. I know where they are! They are somewhere in Argy and Alex's smelly, dirty room. I tried looking for them yesterday, but I couldn't find them anywhere. I just hope no one calls now.

I am Samia. And I have come to a realisation: I am a giant turtle.

I meet some fishermen

Before I get to explaining why and how I am a giant turtle, let's have some Totally Turtle Trivia™!

Turtles are reptiles, or maybe amphibians

Turtles live in both the water and on land (like elephants!)

Turtles are often green

But, how does this relate to me, Samia? Well, consider the following evidence:

I am a reptile, or maybe an amphibian

I live in both the water and on land

I am often green

So, in the future, if you see me walking (or swimming!) along merrily, refer to me as 'Giant Turtle'. 'Hey Giant Turtle!', you might say, as I walk by, oblivious to all but whatever it is turtles eat. Lalala, I will think in my turtle brain, I am a turtle. It is important that I am referred to as Giant Turtle, not Turtle, not Giant, but Giant Turtle, altogether. Friends, if I am green it is not some new illness, nay, I am merely getting back to my Chelonian roots. Should I stay underwater for longer than a human can, I am not drowning, I have simply finally converted my lungs to gills. Finally, if I in the future deny telling you this, deny writing this down for everyone to see, it is just my loopy turtle memory, you know us turtles, always forgetting. Au revoir, friends

-Giant Turtle.
(For the record: The man who wrote this is not Wendall, or Babushka. It was Alexis. But, I am Giant Turtle, and don't forget it! )

The code would somehow need to become more specific. As it is, all of the combinations result in one amino acid or another (of the 20). ... That's so weird!!! I don't understand.

In other news I am back to eating sugar. I lasted all day Monday without, and even all day Tuesday, until that night when certain Temptors provided me with chocolate covered pecans. But I was still determined and lasted all day wednesday and thursday and even till Friday at noon. But then I ate 2 cookies and late Friday night I had some M&Ms. Then today I ate 2 pieces of chocolate pie. Its good to be back. So much for my experiment. :)

I'm studying for gene-ticks and the chapter I am now reading is about how the genetic code was cracked. There are 4 different bases in RNA: adenine, guanine, cytosine and uracil, and there are 20 amino acids that combinations of these code must code for. How long are the words? "If the words are 3 letters long then 4^3 = 64 words are possible; for example, AUU, GCG or UGC. This vocabulary provides more than enough words to describe the amino acids. We can conclude that the one word must consist of at least three nucleotide pairs. However, if all words are triplets then we have a considerable excess of possible words over the 20 needed to name the common amino acids."

Which means that there is enough "three letter words" so that 44 new amino acids could evolve! I wonder how that would happen? I wonder if there have always been 20 amino acids? I guess not always, but yes.... and different amino acids would mean different proteins with new and possibly super-power producing conformations. Maybe betazoids and klingons and vulcans are possible! How cool would that be.

I'm at the library trying to study but I can't because I'm worrying about a stupid pair of goggles. I found them yesterday in the locker room and I took them with me. I didn't know whether to keep them or turn them in. They are an extremely good pair of goggles, and I don't have any and I need some. So I put them in my backpack and thought to myself "I'll figure it out later." I've been asking people all day what they think I should do. I'm about to pull my hair out!!!

I was going to take them back before I talked to anyone. I didn't want to, but I figured I should. In Alex's words "if you play the lost and found game, then you should stick to the rules." And I agree! In the past I have lost and found my wallet, my graphing calculator, and just yesterday, a book. If I don't return these goggles it wouldn't be fair. I have to stand up for my principles.

On the other hand, I have been swindled in the past because of my naievety. I once found a hundred dollar bill at Half price books. It was on the floor in front of the cash register and I (being a dumb idiot) picked it up and said "oh! a hundred dollars" The cashier not being a dumb idiot quickly said "let me see" And he stuck his hand out and took it from me. Like taking candy from a baby. He said "yeah, we're going to have to keep this." I objected and sputtered but eventually I just left. I sat out in the car berating myself for being so stupid. That was my money! Even though I wanted it to get back to the person who lost it, the fact of the matter is that the person who lost it will never see it again. The cashier would keep it for himself. That's just the way the world works.

So, if I return these goggles to the lost and found will the owner get them back? How can I be sure that someone won't see them and take them? They're very nice! On the other hand, if I believe in doing unto others as I would have others do unto me, then I should absolutly return them. But why am I returning them? To get them back to the owner? Why do I care! Why should I? I need goggles very much and I don't have any money. Finders keepers. Each man for himself. But I believe that is wrong. I think the world would be in a lot better shape if people were less opportunistic. But what difference does it make? If I put these goggles in the lost and found and the person who lost them gets them back, would that be good? Does it matter?

Argyrios assures me that if I turn them in the owner will almost certainly not get them back. He also claims that goggles are lost all the time. He's been swimming for more than 10 years and has lost many pairs of goggles himself. So why shouldn't I keep them?

I don't know! I don't know, I don't know. We argued all through dinner. Alex thinks I should turn them in because I play the "lost and found game," but he also says that if he found the goggles, he would keep them because he does not play the lost and found game. Lia thinks I should turn them in.

I think I should have never opened my mouth in the first place. I should have just kept the damn things and been happy. It's just goggles!!! But now I can't do that. I am going to put a sign up in the locker room that says "found goggles" and my number. I'll leave the sign up for a week, and if someone calls in that time and describes them exactly then I will give them to that person. If no one calls, I keep them and everyone is happy. Honestly, I hope no one calls. I need goggles. But I have to put the sign up.

"For a moment Sayward reckoned that her father had fetched them unbeknownst to the Western ocean and what lay beneath was the late sun glittering on green-black water. Then she saw what they looked down on was a dark illimitable expanse of wilderness. It was a sea of solid treetops broken only by some gash where deep beneath the foliage an unknown stream made its way. As far as the eye could reach, this lonely forest sea rolled on and on till its faint blue billows broke against an incredibly distant horizon. "

Cline wants me to get him a plant! Where am I supposed to get him a plant?

Re: humble, humble, groveling appology

a plant

At 12:30 AM 4/3/2003 -0600, you wrote:
>Dr. Cline, I was supposed to meet with you on Monday March 31st at 11:20
am, and I did not show up. I am very sorry. I went out of town for the
weekend and it completely went out of my mind. I just remembered today in the
middle of class. I am reschedualing with Dr. Westbrook. Would you like me to
bring you cookies? I could bring cookies.
-samia

this blog is dumb.

I forgot! I completely forgot my meeting with Dr. Cline.

I ate 4 chocolate covered pecans last night. Today at lunch I had corn bread with jelly. If I closed my eyes i could pretend it was yellow cake with frosting.

Today is the end of day number two of no chocolate, cake, cookies, ice cream or any such things for me. And I'm mostly ok. I decided on the bus ride home that i would try no sugar for a week. I have never in my life done this. Every day I have ice cream, cookies, and chocolate at the least. It is an interesting experiment.

I also went swimming today for the first time in years. I felt like the I was being born! Well, I did swim a few times this summer with Melissa, but that was more just standing in her pool and splashing each other. I didn't have goggles, so I kept my eyes closed and kept running into the side lane. After I swam, I walked back to my room. On the way I identified a bird I've never seen before. A meadowlark! I don't know if it was an eastern or a weastern meadowlark, but I identified it, and that is cause for joy.

Much work in the days ahead.