why being the first 100 at chick-fil-a will wreck you

I spent 27 hours with 109 strangers camping outside in a concrete parking lot yesterday. All for the promise of free Chick-Fil-A for a year. (52 meals for one meal a week anyway).

I learned how to pitch a tent for this occasion (It's surprisingly easy). I felt a little rugged and outdoorsy until I remembered why I needed to be outdoors.

It is sort of like being on a cruise. Since there were more than a 100 people, there was a raffle to determine the lucky 100 with 10 more alternates. I made friends with a former longhorn who works at a downtown hospital.

The crowd was predominantly middle-aged and female. There were a few other college students. Some of the raffle winners were wheel-chair bound so they had "guests" who stayed to move them around. You have to be at least 18 but there were a handful of kids that stuck around with their parents who had won the raffle. A lot of them, I found out later, are home-schooled. Some moms had brought their infant babies! Fortunately the weather stayed cool so no medical emergencies there.

The same people host the Chick-Fil-A openings nationwide. Many of the people were repeat customers who knew the CFA staff like old friends. A surprising bunch had driven hours and hours for this. One elderly woman told me she drove eight hours from Louisiana and was planning on coming in again next week to Katy.

Let's think about this. At 52 meals valued at $250, I was just at the tipping point of making economic sense, missing an entire day of work and babysitting. But to do this repeatedly? I wanted to ask others how they were spending an entire day sitting out here. I was in the parking lot from 5:30AM Wednesday to 6:15AM Thursday.

After lunch, there was a mini-jam session behind the building in the shade! I took my papers, poured myself a cup of iced sweet tea and studied listening to live music.

I met people I would normally never talk to. Being in the same boat naturally confers a feeling of solidarity. Huddled by the one outlet charging phones, talking about homeschooling, discussing "old" antibiotics (She gushed, "I remember when methicillin came out!"). I danced two-step with new friends, found another Kurt Vonnegut aficionado, checked off an item on my bucket list, and oh, got 52 free CFA meals.

#12 and #13 after an entire day in this CFA parking lot

But about the title (besides having your last exam two hours after you pull out from the CFA parking lot...), from the Chick-fil-A meal calculator I added up what I ate:

I had made some actively healthy choices, such as not constantly pouring myself sweet tea, ordering a chargrilled chicken sandwich for dinner, not winning a milkshake for a contest. But this day was out of control food-wise. My fitness calculator told me I'd gain an extra five pounds in five weeks if I kept this up. YIKES. Many people brought in chips and cookies in addition to the CFA food we were fed, so...

Some final thoughts:
I wondered why homeless/jobless people weren't here. For them this would be a great opportunity right? One speculated they probably didn't know because she heard about it on the Internet- how did I figure this out? (Facebook through a friend). People who could benefit the most from these openings simply don't know about them...

Did you see me on the news?? Houston Press and Click2Houston

Drinking out of a fire hydrant: Global Warming & Civic Scientists

I attended our weekly departmental lecture Thursday by Dr. John Anderson on global warming. He has been in the news lately about his censored article on Galveston. Heading down, I asked my friend, "Is this going to be really technical?" Because I get lecture abstracts from the listserve emails and don't know half the words in them. It turned out not to be. The lecture is part of Rice's UnConvention weekend and many in the audience were community members.

Some thoughts from the lecture:
- Can scientists be too "alarmist"? Dr. Anderson noted that now they are "vulgar" and throwing out phrases like "sea level rise", when decades ago they trotted carefully around the issue. Not to offend anyone.
- Free floating icebergs melting do not contribute to sea level rise!
- Most of sea level rise comes from thermal expansion of water!!!
- Glaciers don't grow back. Glaciers melting is inevitable. (I mean, obviously so but I never stopped to think about it.)
- How do we implement long-term changes that outlive politicians' election cycles???

After an hour of work catch-up, I made it to the Civic Scientist Lecture Series at the Baker Institute. I went to one by the discoverers of Buckyball a few years a back and loved it, so I RSVP'd for this one and invited a friend. The speakers were Dr. David Baltimore, 1975 Nobel Laureate in Physiology or Medicine, and Dr. Alice Huang, a Senior Faculty Associate in biology at Caltech.

It's hard to summarize their accomplishments into one line. But their achievements could go for hours.

Interesting points from this Civic Scientist talk:
- Average age of NIH grant recipients is 42. Much of great science accomplishments happen much younger.
- Why do we train foreigners? (I had never thought about this question...) Because in doing so, we are creating competition. But sometimes they stay in the U.S. and further American progress. (????)
- Wealthy individuals privately funding research is an American phenomenon. Howard Hughes of HHMI dropped out of Rice!!!!
- New Asia might be a good incubator for new scientists because traditionally people hold respect for intellectual pursuits. (Traditional Korean aristocrats called yang-ban's spent their days writing and reading!)
- "Is winning the Nobel Prize awesome?" Dr. Baltimore answered yes, because it is recognized by everyone. "But", he noted, "individuals being singled out for achievements is difficult."
- Scientists should become actively involved in policy making.

I had so many ideas during these lectures (thus the post title). Still organizing my notes from the talks. I love lectures that become a two-way conversation of sorts, where the ideas presented spark new ideas of my own. Much more excited about my career: scientists are not just scientists. We have a responsibility to spread our knowledge and influence policies.

Baker Institute had a fantabulous reception afterwards too. Munched on mini cheesecakes and chocolate-dipped strawberries while chatting with others who'd attended the conference. It's really interesting to hear what different people take away from the same lecture.

Easter weekend: immortality in some form

This quote from A Tree Grows in Brooklyn:

Francie came away from her first chemistry lecture in a glow. In one hour she found out that everything was made up of atoms which were in continual motion. She grasped the idea that nothing was ever lost or destroyed. Even if something was burned up or rot away, it did not disappear from the face of the earth; it changed into something else- gases, liquids, and powders. Everything, decided Francie after that first lecture, was vibrant with life and there was no death in chemistry. She was puzzled as to why learned people didn't adopt chemistry as a religion.

I recently got into watching the miniseries Dating Rules from My Future Self. The main character's future develops an app that sends texts to herself. At a team brainstorm meeting, Kelcy initially thought about developing an app that "creates" you (or who you wish to be) 10 years from now, who would answer your dilemma questions.

With Facebook, Twitter, and Google already gathering so much personal information on individuals, I think it would be very easy to create an immortal persona of anyone. People dying is sad partly because every knowledge they have becomes buried forever. But if a model was created of a person: ("When someone posts this status, you would respond with this sorta thing." "When this kind of picture is posted of your sister, you would comment this.") you could essentially interact with others and live forever.

This reminds me of P.S. I Love You or Incredibly Loud & Extremely Close, cases where someone who has already passed on continues to have a huge impact on someone's life.

Also, something about facebook: when someone passes away but hasn't deleted their facebook yet, their walls filling up with memorial posts? I think it's a little weird...

Heathen matters: this weekend has been delicious so far: our department threw a crawfish boil and I made a batch of delicious yellow cake fudge for N-cakes whose MCAT is next Friday.

Everyone is away for the long weekend - maybe if Rice was a Catholic institution?

Singing in French and debating healthcare.

M who is a co-worker in my department moved into her new apartment couple of weeks ago. She invited a dozen friends, neighbors, and co-workers for her housewarming/St. Patrick's party this Saturday.

I haven't laughed like that in a long time. Or had that much cheese and wine. Two observations: our department is very international and very active. The neighbor who brought over the guitar (he's Moroccan) sang us songs in French and Spanish, and it was wonderful. Also, half the guests had walked or biked to M's apartment. In 80's Houston weather. On St. Patrick's Day with dangerous drivers on the road.

At one point we had a heated debate about social justice and disparities in healthcare. The psychiatrist was dealing with the fact that he had to prescribe instead of treat the patients (pharmaceutical companies throw some awesome parties). Coming from international backgrounds, many of us had different opinions of what works and what doesn't. Socialized healthcare, capitalism, doctors living the same lifestyle as mechanics in Sweden. Korea has a universal healthcare system where everyone is automatically covered and the insurance claims occur between doctors/government. Going to the ER for toothaches is almost unheard of. Everyone was yelling with exaggerated hand gestures and personal vendettas with no resolution in sight. Then M brought over a new plate of Caprese salad and everyone calmed down.

Couple of thoughts:

1) Is it enough to say, "The world is big. You don't have to live in the United States if you don't like its policies. Move somewhere else"? Even if you decided to leave the life you'd built, your friends and families, country boundaries are becoming more and more artificial. It's a global world. I guess you could evade your problem (aka not have a panic attack everytime you turn on the news) by immigrating somewhere else. But when does it stop? Maybe you just have to take some Xanax and stop thinking so much.

2) How do you resolve your social ideals with your personal actions? For example, I could scream all I want about disparities in healthcare, demand changes happen. But I can't start taking in patients who can't pay for their treatments. Or could I? What if I was going to be fired for doing so? 

dental musings over no-coffee.

Here's an occupational hazard for you. Ever since I began working on this acid dissolution study, I have been drinking significantly less coffee. How can I sip on coffee when I can see exactly what that pH 4 solution is doing to my poor apatite crystals?

On my way back from the airport, I had an interesting conversation with the driver. When I told him I was applying to dental schools, he commented "Your husband must be really proud." I thought this comment was fascinating- would he have said the same to a man? After I laughed and corrected him ("No husband yet, but I am proud of myself.") he reminded me to "never forget about us folks" & to give back to the community.

There is an article today in the Chicago Tribune ("More Americans seek dental treatment at the ER") discussing the lack of preventative dental care for rural and low-income families leading to dental treatments in the emergency room. A common grievance for dentists is patients who don't return after initial assessments. But on the flip side is that these people who are not getting the dental care they need. They are choosing instead to "toughen it out" until small cavities become 3AM emergencies.

Hopefully before "tooth hurty." For everyone. Picture

I am slowly realizing that my career can help resolve inequality issues I find so disheartening. In a way, a dentist is more like a painter or a musician: you learn the skills to do things. Over the next four years, I hope to learn these practical skills that can help others- and actually do so. I just happen to have a supportive family; how fortunate am I to be selfishly studying for another four years? Staying grateful and happy about everything I have. Philadelphia, get ready.

women in leadership.

I attended the 12th Annual Women in Leadership Conference at the Jones Business School this Friday. I was inspired by the strong women who were navigating these paths not only for themselves but for the women after them. In addition to the speakers and panelists, I met many empowered women who gave me advice and encouragement to lead a balanced, worthwhile and happy life. Couple of practical tips that resonated with me:

1. Negotiate your pay on your first job and every job that follows. (Women's pay gap widens from 6.5k at entry to 31k at executive levels.)
2. Find good sponsors at several steps above you. And become a sponsor for someone else.
From Martha Feeback of Catalyst

A rainy Friday

3. Take lateral moves if there are no promotion opportunities available.
4. If you can't participate in an event at the moment, tell them to ask again next week. (In male-dominated industries, sometimes you don't want to show your vulnerable side when/if asked to join in on golf, shooting, hunting.)
From Joan T. Eischen, author of Energy and the City

5. "The earth is but one country, and mankind its citizens." Home is anywhere you go.
6.  Don't limit yourself. Look around. Remember this quote by Robert Browning: "Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp. Or what's a heaven for?"
7. Remember that regardless of your chosen career, the world needs public service.
8. You are not alone in your endeavors. Consider the "unseen hands". Believe in the power of prayer.
From Ambassador Cynthia Shepard Perry

Love this notepad: better than "Keep Calm and Eat Cupcakes"

This conference came at a perfect time in my life when I was able to take these advice to heart. This and a ridiculously funny department banquet, and an evening discussing languages and literature back in the college dorm.

conveying excitement: the radio voice.

Something I think about frequently is science education for the public. Is science anyone's hobby? "Oh, I am a science-lover/collector," the way civil war buffs, modern poetry lovers, Baroque music fans are?

I'll admit that the Lawrence M. Krauss books are better at putting me to sleep than teaching me about the fifth dimension, but why is science so sterile? So unsexy? Clinical trials, neuroscience, and cancer research are fascinating, but don't forget about the basic sciences.

An obvious sad fact is that there are limited resources in this world. Orders and priorities have to be set, and often times human-relevant topics place at the top. Many research proposals bring their experiments into a human-relevant application context (human pathogens, energy source, natural disasters) even if far-fetched and unlikely.

My co-worker noted that it's critical to focus on what is important rather than what is useful or interesting. I didn't think there was much of a distinction until he mentioned that there is an over-representation of paleontology in many science journals, simply because it is considered cool.

But if you apply this logic to the other disciplines, we do lots of "useless" things. The arts. Poetry. History. Science is simply not that interesting to those who are not studying it in the first place. A fundamental change in perception of science and scientists may be the answer here.

Red = Wolbachia in fruit fly Picture

And I found a solution of sorts in class Tuesday. The two guys who presented our group's research blew me out of the water with their enthusiasm. It was like listening to talk show radio. If you ever listen to Marketplace Morning Report, guests often talk about economics and finance like there is nothing quite so fascinating in this world. Tune this in for a non-English speaker and she may think he's talking about his latest sports car or something.

I am not sure if those two truly found the stuff fascinating or were simply kick-ass presenters, but... do people give standing ovations to class presentations? Our findings on Wolbachia transformed into something fascinating: they can make insects more pesticide-resistant!!! When they die, the adult worm cells apoptose too!!!

Legality vs. Morality (inspired by a DMV book rec)

Someone behind me in line at the DMV recommended The Teachings of Don Juan when he saw I was reading Gabriel Garcia Marquez. He promised me I would love it, and I picked up the book soon afterwards.

The author Carlos Castaneda who was an anthropology graduate student at UCLA recounts his meetings with Don Juan- a Yaqui Indian- initially to learn about peyote, a hallucinogenic mushroom. Castaneda soon becomes an apprentice of some sorts, gaining deeper insight into Don Juan's world. Turns out Castaneda's series of books about Don Juan are topics of a heated controversy regarding their actuality. But magical realism! You have to suspend your reality and dive into the world you are reading about. Castaneda's accounts are vivid, detailed, fantastic. And they may scare you away from drugs for life. But the way Don Juan uses these hallucinogens as "allies", a way to enhance his thinking and perception reminded me of nootropics a la Aldous Huxley.

Even my favorite store (Costco) sells brain-boosting pills which are really vitamins and omega-3's. We run to the coffee shop for 3PM caffeine pick-me-up's. I can't run without music, and good running shoes may shave an extra minute off my 5k. These are "artificial" advantages our ancestors or our counterparts in third world countries don't have, so does that mean these extras are morally wrong? What guideline can I look to in making this judgment?

I remember an aha! moment in Ethics in 8th grade. Yes, we took Ethics in Korean middle schools and I loved it. In addition to standard etiquette, we learned names to address different relatives, discussed traditional Korean holidays and customs, and held philosophical discussions about social issues.

Our teacher had asked us to draw a Venn diagram depicting the relationship between "morally correct actions" and "legal actions". Most of us drew this, remembering "that policeman will get angry if you don't  share your cookies with your brother". All laws enforce morality and that is their purpose.

The teacher drew this instead:

And further drew this, what is Conventionally accepted:

Relationship b/t what's Moral, Legal, and Conventional

So sometimes laws are there for artificial reasons, not to enforce morality, sometimes they are not even ethical. Ditto for tradition. Some ethical actions are not enforced by laws or even convention/tradition.  Laws aren't the golden standard when it comes to deciding if an action is right or wrong. You can only make that judgment for yourself.

Oohahala, my laptop is dying, but the point may be made clearer with me quoting this poem my best friend gave me upon graduation:

If you feel a law is unjust, you may work to change it.
It is not true, as many people say, that
That is just the way things are. Or, Those are the rules.
Immutably. The rules can be changed, although
It may be a slow process.
~"Some General Instructions" by Kenneth Koch

religion and/vs science.

With prominent atheists such as Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens taking center stage, I feel there is no room for believers or even agnostics in the science community. Being religious shouldn't take away from your credibility as a scientist (or even just a rational person) but campaigns by politicians flaunting religion as their reason for being anti-whatever are not helping. (Anyone think it's interesting how politicians play up their religious views while scientists seldom discuss theirs?)

And sometimes the sky isn't blue.

Here's something I read years ago I keep coming back to: Eric Cornell in his letter to Time "What Was God Thinking? Science Can't Tell".

"Why is the sky blue?" I offer two answers: 1) The sky is blue because of the wavelength dependence of Rayleigh scattering; 2) The sky is blue because blue is the color God wants it to be.

The religious explanation has been supplemented- but not supplanted- by advances in scientific knowledge. We now may, if we care to, think of Rayleigh scattering as the method God has chosen to implement his color scheme. 

Stick with the plainest truth: science says nothing about intelligent design, and intelligent design brings nothing to science, and should be taught in theology, not science classes. 

How beautiful is this? Science and religion do not have to clash but rather co-exist (ha), with religion answering the "why's" to science's "how's"... if I choose not to take religion at face value.

Can I pick and choose what I will accept about my religion? (There is a term for this!- cafeteria Catholicism, so clever.) Take evolutionary vestiges, the appendix, the backward eyes, humans' bipedalism, "junk DNA"... or maybe we're acting on incomplete knowledge? How will we ever know everything?

In "god is not Great: how religion poisons everything", Christopher Hitchens addresses the argument that religion consoles our awareness of the unknown, by suggesting we can appreciate the unknown without religion explaining this void.

...the most educated person in the world now has to admit... he or she knows less and less but at least knows less and less about more and more.

If the universe was found to be finite or infinite, either discovery would be equally stupefying and impenetrable to me.

Once we know everything in the world there is to know, will we may be fazed by nothing? But we discover that knowing more only adds to our amazement about the world.

The Constant Gardener- of evil pharms and love.

After Z and I got back from H-mart, it was still early (10PM on a Friday night is early when you are 22... for once), so we decided to scroll through Netflix. He recognized "The Constant Gardener" as a book by John le Carre, and since this was shorter (we were counting down to our bedtimes) than "Gangs of New York", we chose to watch this gem.

And I am so glad I did! The title is a bit misleading, as is the poster. Both focus on Justin Quayle's love for his wife Tessa, even after her brutal death which seems to have been committed by her lover. Justin, a British diplomat to Kenya, searches Tessa's belongings to discover that Tessa had been on the brink of exposing a pharmaceutical company which was using Kenyans to test a dangerous TB drug.

I was surprised to find that this movie(book) was based on a real-life scandal in 1996 when Pfizer reportedly tested the meningitis antibiotic Trovan on 100 Nigerian children during the meningitis epidemic.

The film is beautifully shot with handheld cameras, intimately angled shots over shoulders and varying height levels. The colors are monochromatic for most scenes except those in Kenya which were full of vibrant accessories and drapey fabrics. There are some heartbreaking parts that portray the political instability and wrenching poverty in Kenya, and the film keeps you intrigued and mystified as you unravel the mystery with Justin Quayle. I was somewhat satisfied with the ending, but the fact something like this occurred in real life was disturbing beyond the 2-hour cinematic adventure.

I think this may be my new favorite movie(watch the trailer here). I realize that textbook classes are not the only way to educate people about worldly issues; different forms of art can serve as effective messages to shout about problems in our world.

balancing it all: the professional woman.

I think this struggle occupies my mind more than it should. In latest family news, my youngest E-mo- aunt in Korean- received her Ph.D. from SNU Monday this week. I'll be cheering her on in her career & family life.

I stumbled upon this opinion piece from Forbes, which made me think. Here is a paragraph that had me deep in frowns once I was done processing this avalanche of correlations.

For our purposes, a "career girl" has a university-level (or higher) education, works more than 35 hours a week outside the home and makes more than $30,000 a year.  

If a host of studies are to be believed, marrying these women is asking for trouble. If they quit their jobs and stay home with the kids, they will be unhappy ( Journal of Marriage and Family, 2003). They will be unhappy if they make more money than you do ( Social Forces, 2006). You will be unhappy if they make more money than you do ( Journal of Marriage and Family, 2001). You will be more likely to fall ill ( American Journal of Sociology). Even your house will be dirtier ( Institute for Social Research). ~Michael Noer for Forbes.com

So, I should give up my career so that my husband does not fall ill and that my house stays clean (who measures these things anyway?). If I happen to keep my career, I should make sure to make less than my husband, okay.

I went through Forbes 2010 list of World's Most Powerful Women and tallied up their marital status & children, which was at least hopeful.

To be honest, I am usually surprised by my friends who grew up with nannies or grandparents, but I am not being fair to my fellow gender. I think the gender equality & career issue is something we are recently coming into, and hope that in my lifetime (in my own life) we are able to figure it out.

It is Labor Day weekend, and I've been searching "paragenesis of [mineral]" for the last hour. I finally watched Vanilla Sky last night and loved it, but I kept thinking about Minority Report (Tom Cruise repeats his facial expressions). Also, did you know Penelope Cruz basically repeats her same role as in the Spanish version just five years prior, Open Your Eyes?

Day trip to an outdoor park and maybe an observatory this afternoon. I'm sending good vibes to Austin!

your American accent.

My friend linked me to this online YouThink quiz where you can see what kind of regional accent you have by answering questions about how you pronounce certain words and make vowel sounds.

According to this quiz, I have a "neutral" accent (because you can't not have an accent). International Dialects of English Archive hosts an amazing audio archive of people speaking English in different dialects. The recordings are tagged with the gender, age, background and occupation.

I adore Southern accents, I think they sound endearing. However, different accents are associated with preconceived notions on level of intelligence and especially living in Houston, I encounter a lot of similar stereotypes about "rural Texans". This PBS article discusses this issue, with a demonstrative example of sample population surveys on accents. Here is a map of regions rated for the "correct English-ness" by about 150 Michigan residents, with 9 being the most correct:

See how Michigan ranks at the top?

Here's a representative drawing of the United States by one of the participants:

At least he drew Texas correctly?

Now look at these rankings for "pleasantness" of regional dialects by Auburn students (in Alabama):

Most pleasing to ears? Alabama, of course.

Just because a region is associated with a high level of [insert whatever you associate with lower intelligence: younger marrying age, more single mom's, violence, theft, etc] does not mean you can make generalizations about someone speaking that region dialect. But it is always interesting to analyze someone's accent and hold off confirming your guess until last minute. I had a physics professor whose accent was hard to pinpoint- Southern? Australian? We finally asked her, and turns out I had met my first South African.

Also, did you know that English is not the "official language" of United States?

am I average in my time and money use?

I like to compare myself to the average man. I don't mean in terms of accomplishments or education, since I am well aware that with my Bachelor's degree I've joined the 6.7% of the world population with college degrees. I am both proud and grateful about this accomplishment. But you know, it's the little things I think about, like: how much do others spend on groceries a week? How often do people do their laundry? How much do people sleep every day?

Deviating from the average on these minor points wouldn't make me abnormal, but still, I am curious. It turns out that Bureau of Labor Statistics compiles data on Americans' daily time use- they have done all the work for me already (ha ha), with the American Time Use Survey in 2009.

For instance, take a look at this:

- The average full-time college student sleeps 8.3 hours a day (really?) and an average of 3.3 hours studying, which is about 23 hours a week. This means that assuming they are taking 15 credits as semester and attending all the lectures, they spend about 8 hours studying outside of classes.

- The average male and female 20-24 years of age sleep for 9.4 hours a day. This means I don't have to feel like a lame ball for going to bed at midnight.

And how the average household spends its dollar$:

- Since the average household of 2.5 spends about $6372 a year on food, that comes out to about an average of $212/month for a single person.

Here's my latest favorite commercial- you gotta live those hours, spend those dollars.

better than average.

This weekend I had to opportunity to bake cupcakes for Iced Capades.You can sign up to bake for or attend the parties that are held monthly for children living in shelters. If you are like me and you love to bake more than you(or your friends) are willing to eat, it is a perfect volunteering opportunity.

At two in the morning waiting for my cupcakes to cool from the oven, I took the moment to consider how fortunate I was to be living comfortably with a full-time job without pressing monetary concerns. However, for those who are not as lucky, the statistics are alarming, even here in the United States:


- Nationwide, 14.3% of the population, or 43.6 million people, are living below poverty line.

- In Houston, 20.6% of the population live below poverty line. This means one in five lives in poverty.

*The poverty threshold for a family of four is $21,954/year

From the 2009 U.S. Census

-About half of the adults(20 and up) will live in poverty before the age of 65.

From Heartland Alliance

-50.2 million Americans had "food insecurity", and 14.7% of households were "food insecure".

 "Food security" refers to the availability of food, and one's accessibility to it. 

"Food insecurity" ranges from starving to eating less than is nutritionally sufficient.

From FeedingAmerica

-In particular, Texas had a 17.4% of households with food insecurity, much higher than the U.S. average. That is almost one in five who has to go hungry.

From U.S. Economic Research Service

We may not be able to wish away global hunger, but we can:
- educate ourselves
- donate money to organizations
- donate items to Salvation Army or Goodwill
- volunteer our time

Here in Houston, there are many organizations that could use our help:

Houstonfood bank
Meals on Wheels
The Beacon
Kids Meals Houston

It is crucial to realize how fortunate we are to be in our own (comfortable) shoes. In life, it could have easily been the other way around, and it is important to have a heart for those who are not as lucky.

Man from monkey.

I'm reading "The Dinosaur Hunters" by Deborah Cadbury, and the last part focuses on Darwin's publication of Origin of Species and the reaction from the scientific community. The suggestion that "natural selection" was the driving force behind speciation and diversity was bold enough, and that Man may not be excluded from this principle, descended from apes rather than created by God, shocked many.

One of the very public debates occurred at the annual meeting for British Association for the Advancement of Science. Bishop Samuel Wilberforce asked Huxley, in a somewhat rude and daring question, who of Huxley's ancestors was descended from a monkey? Huxley replied "he would not be ashamed to have a monkey for his ancestor; but he would be ashamed to be connected with a man who used great gifts to obscure the truth."

1981 satire cartoon showing Darwin as half-ape

The ongoing debate of Bible vs. scientific evidence continues today, and it's an immediately polarizing issue for many. I wonder if centuries from now, history books will write this age of confusion curiously with a "why didn't they realize... ?"-sort of tone.

current reading: and the band played on.

I am in Houston & back at school!

Saturday night, C picked me up from the airport, and we had a super late breakfast-dinner at IHOP where I humiliated him by starting to eat my eggs with my hands before the server went off to grab the utensils. It's nice being back! It's even nicer coming back to a suite full of laughter and homemade tamales, courtesy of suitemate B's grandma.

Over the winter break, I checked out "And the Band Played On" by Randy Shilts, which was mentioned in my immunology class last semester.  I thought (hoped) it would be a thin paperback book, but the 600-something hardcover book barely fit in my purse.

So far, I'm less than half way through, but it's fascinating to read through the development and discovery of AIDS. According to the book, AIDS spread rapidly because of the prominent practices of bathhouses and clubs in the San Francisco scene among the gays, and because the patients displayed vastly different pathological symptoms as result of their weakened immune system, it was difficult for the doctors to make the connection and see that the disease was caused by a common virus. In addition, because the disease was common among the gay population (even called Gay Related Immune Deficiency in the beginning) and the media preferred not to write on this subset of people, there was few interest among the researchers who would rather focus on diseases that received heavier media spotlight.


My first response in hearing about AIDS and its emergence in SoCal/NYC was how frightening and confusing it must have been for a disease to be linked to a behavior, especially one that is constantly shunned and ostracized in society. I mean, as the book mentions many times, pathogens are color, race, sexuality, gender-blind. I can only imagine all the "told-you-so's" and the "God's punishing you" finger pointings that happened while the origin of the disease was being investigated. Isn't this crazy though?, that a disease can be linked to some common-behavioral population? Imagine if a disease broke out among the liberals, or people who slept on their back or... ate yogurt with their forks. It'd be difficult not to read into such interesting happenings.


Initially, I thought the title was about the enduring nature of humans even through the disease, but I read that the title was referring to how the band continued playing on the sinking Titanic ship.


What I found even more interesting was that Randy Shilts, who was gay himself, wrote the book while he was tested for AIDS, and postponed finding out the results until he finished the book. He did indeed find out that he was HIV-positive, and later died of the very complications he wrote about in the book, pneumocystis c. pneumonia and Kaposi's sarcoma.

flowers for algernon.

This has to be one of my favorite books ever. It was recommended to me by my roommate/ Cake Duchess last year. Written by Daniel Keys, this book narrates the story of Charlie Gordon, a mentally retarded adult who is chosen to be the subject of an operation that makes his IQ skyrocket. The operation had been conducted on an animal model, a mouse named Algernon, and Charlie, chosen because of his high motivation and desire to learn, undergoes the surgery. After a successful surgery, Charlie does indeed become smart, but he changes-for better or for worse- with his newfound intelligence. In addition, Algernon begins to display signs of lower intelligence & frustration/aggression why worries the researchers and Charlie who investigates himself. 

I love this book for two reasons. First, it's beautifully narrated. Charlie, as the narrator, writes a series of progress reports for the experiment which show gradually his increasing intellectual capabilities (through grammar, punctuation, and word choice) , other characteristics that come along (questioning authority, desiring women) and subsequently his decline mirroring Algernon's. His realization that this Charlie will soon "die" and will revert back to the old Charlie who has been laughed at and ridiculed, in addition to the fact he will lose and forget his former teacher/love Miss Kinnian, as told by him is heartbreaking.

Charly(1968) movie based on the book focusing on the romance between Alice&Charlie

Second, it makes me think about the meaning of "intelligence" in our society. The researchers in this book have ulterior motives and do not treat Charlie as a human when he is retarded, hinting that he did not even exist before he became smart. Charlie, when he had an IQ of 68, did not realize that people had been mean to him, believing they were his friends. Charlie has been abandoned by his family as well, especially by his mom who tortures Charlie for acting on his native urges without the societal control to suppress them and refuses to believe Charlie can't become "normal" like the other boys. Also, the discrepancy in intellect and difficulties in conversation between C & Alice as Charlie progresses is especially interesting to me, because I experience this on both sides, attending college with some brilliant people.


I love books written from non-traditional view points, and this is one of my absolute favorite books because it is so fascinating and lingers on long after you've read it. Also see: "The Art of Racing in the Rain" by Matt Stein, written from the perspective of an aging dog named Enzo. "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time" by Mark Haddon from the eyes of Francis, a 15-year-old with autism, is fascinating as well.