Time in

It's now pretty evident that little public demand exists to keep this blog going. Good thing, because then I can take an unannounced two-week break whenever I feel like it.

Not much has happened in the last sixteen days. That first weekend was a very relaxing Fall Break and little homework. The next two weeks were full of insomnia and little more homework.

Today I slept in till 7 a.m. and have all day free for homework.

Everyone enjoy the last three days of October!

Stem cell research just hit home

BBC:

The [study's] aim will be to determine whether adult stem cells taken from bone marrow can repair damaged heart muscle.

. . .

A second arm [of the study] will involve 200 patients whose hearts are failing specifically because of dilated cardiomyopathy - a heart muscle disorder.

Read more.

Midterms week

Hopefully, with that subject line, I can skip the introductory apology!

I only had two tests this week. Tuesday evening I spent an hour and a half writing answers to essay questions and putting a dent in my thumb. Then I worked on calculus with some others till about 11:30 P.M. Today I enjoyed an open-notes test on three hours of sleep. Let me tell you, three hours is extremely substantial compared to zero!

Fall Break is this weekend. Two lovely days off, two lovely days of work.

I'm going to bed.

Guess what!

I was studying the literary paradigm of Biblical interpretation and came across the word ontological. Aside from instantly recognizing it as one of those vague philosophical terms, I also instantly knew the definition had something to do with "being", but I didn't know how... except that Greek had something to do with it. Having none of my Greek books at hand, I used Dictionary.com to verify the definition ("of or relating to essence or the nature of being"), then with Etymonline to verify the etymology. Yes, the onto- part comes from Greek ontos, genitive masculine singular of on, present participle of einai, "to be".

That just made my day!


This is also my first post from the laptop Daddy fixed up for me. It's so much fun to use. I have much still to figure out, including how to select words to link. So I'll refer you to the sidebar if you want to double-check my sources.

Four days

It's been a good weekend.

Thursday was Language Table over lunchtime. A faithful few of us who showed up at 11 a.m. stayed, as usual, till about 2 p.m., when our professor had a faculty meeting. The Spanish speakers have a table all to themselves, and the French and German speakers share another one... for those of us who know both, it can be an exciting table.

Thursday night was French Movie Night. We watched Bon Voyage. I don't think I've ever muttered "Tu es stupide" to the characters so many times during a movie. Good movie.

Friday night I went down the hill for some free cobbler and ice cream and saw the Cotton Patch Gospel production. This link doesn't have the right actors, but it should give you an idea.

Saturday afternoon I walked over to (Great-) Uncle Solon and Aunt Kathryn's house. Aunt Kathryn got up a little tea-party for us: cake and ice cream and sandwiches and chips, and tea of course... and they even convinced me to put some creamer in it. Afterwards we played a game of Scrabble. I think I only won by virtue of having ibex on a triple word score. They kept me thinking hard. Aunt Kathryn tells me that she and Uncle Solon play a game almost every night, and he usually wins.

After church today, I finished most of the week's homework in about five hours, then did some more.

Now it's off to bed and a new week!