Went to the dentist for the first time in 12 years today. I was truly afraid that they'd take away all my teeth, having proved myself too irresponsible to keep them or some such. Turns out I have "beautiful" teeth, per the dentist. I just had to endure The Cleaning. It was fine until they got to the backs of my bottom front teeth, which are very sensitive and have bleedy gums. O.M.G. It was like a horror film in my mouth.

Afterward I went into Teavana which is just so very, very dangerous for a tea-lover such as myself. I'd never been in one before. Oh, my, the Silver Needle! The Gyokuro Imperial Green! The magical German rock sugar! I'm hooked. And all I wanted was a tea bowl. I didn't end up getting any, as I was totally overwhelmed, and now I realize that I should totally check Etsy for those. But tea...oh, I'm going to have to get some tea. As a mall employee I get a small discount, so how could I possibly resist?

In the land of writing, I'm waiting on some research materials to arrive for further work on Europa, for I need to have my ducks in a row before starting out in force. I have a good emotional grasp on 2/3 of my main characters, so I'm also spending some time meditating on my third. In the meantime, I'm writing a short story this week for Husband to read and I'm not telling him anything about it, in a break from my tradition of talking the concept to death. Next Saturday, I'm just handing him pages and getting the feedback.

School lumbers onward. This weekend will also see a great deal of studying, as well as writing and working. But now I am exhausted and I hear Husband has put away Youtube and picked up the guitar, signaling bedtime approaches apace.

I heard that Ray Comfort actually gave out his copies of Origin of Species today, a day earlier than the announced plan. If you missed it, you can read the original book for free here, sans Comfort's introduction.

***

I finished Catherynne M. Valente's (yuki_onna) novel Palimpsest today, and I liked it. I was unsure at the beginning of the book, because I'm not typically drawn into fantasy, and sometimes the unveiling of the "faerie-like realm" can leave me feeling...well..."out of place," I suppose. When I read fantasy, I feel like I'm shuffling my feet at the party, not certain if I'm welcome or dressed appropriately for the occasion. That feeling is less pronounced in urban fantasy -- hey, I lived in NYC; I understand carnivorous, autonomous cities -- but still there. But as I got further into the book, I found myself anchored in the characters, which is where I always want to be anchored, and I started to relax and enjoy myself. The day I read the most of the novel was a day off for me, and I was feeling very "in-between," and I accidentally fell asleep reading it a few times, and would dream strange dreams for 30 minutes, then wake up and read more chapters. Those that have read the book will understand the significance of half-remembered dreams, and I'm honestly glad that it's how my virgin read went down. I read Husband the first three chapters aloud this evening, and he also gave his stamp of approval.

To sum up, Palimpsest is the story of a sexually-transmitted city. An erotic encounter with one of the city's past visitors -- set apart by the city's strange mark upon their flesh -- also marks you for life as one of the "immigrants," fueled by an all-consuming desire to get back to the city, whatever the cost. Of course, there's only one way to get back to Palimpsest...the same way you got there the first time. The book follows four main characters: November, the Californian beekeeper; Oleg, the Russian/NYC locksmith; Ludo, the Italian book-binder; and Sei the Japanese train-lover. I really fell in love with all of them, but particularly with Ludo.

***

That's all for me. I'm so very tired, and just want to sleep for days. However, duty calls tomorrow: class and work. The break between will be much-cherished.

Learned about plant life-cycles in biology this morning, and all I could think of is that damn "Reproduction" song from Grease II. Yes, I've seen Grease II (multiple times) but couldn't make it through 2001: A Space Odyssey. Maybe that's what it needed; some musical numbers and Michelle Pfeiffer in tight leather pants eating hamburgers the size of her head and dancing on a ladder. She needs a cool rider, damnit!

Anyway, now I'm doing a bit of research for my final paper in English, a persuasive research essay. I'm trying to see if I can avoid the inevitable "creationism being taught in schools" debate, but I rather doubt it. There really aren't any other controversies in zoology/biology if you're not in the medical field, and we're not allowed to do our paper on animal test subjects so...yeah.

Speaking of creationism, Ray Comfort is doing his college campus Origin of Species give-away tomorrow, on the 150th anniversary of that books' publication. The version he originally printed was missing four critical chapters as of the end of October, but he's been publicly shamed into correcting that. Both versions of the book includes a 50 page introduction in which Comfort puts forth his creationist viewpoint, and shows a total lack of the sort of scientific awareness that one would glean from even just picking up a New Scientist or Discover magazine once a decade. I am all for students getting a free copy of Origin of Species, and don't even mind the introduction because most students who'd be interested in the book in the first place are intelligent enough to see through Comfort. But I highly object to an abridged copy being distributed, with entire chapters missing. To quote his site:

"So, I want every one of the 194,000 individuals who get the book to make sure they read the entire 304 pages When I read On the Origin of Species..."

"We have published his entire book. Nothing has been removed. The book that we will be giving to students is the complete edition."

"Please Note: When laying out the book for the first print (30,000 copies), we found that it was over 400 pages and was too expensive to be a free book. We therefore randomly removed four chapters and Darwin's Introduction, saying within the book that they could be freely downloaded at www.originextra.com But for the second print (175,000 copies) we dropped the text-size, and that reduced the entire book to 304 pages, making it affordable as a giveaway."

"Randomly" my ass, as Genie Scott notes in the above linked article, the removed chapters presented Darwin's strongest evidence for evolution. While they've been added back in for the larger printing, whatever happened to that first 30,000? They were still given away, as Comfort states that they are reaching 194,000 students with their give-away. (So they got rid of 11,000 of them??)

In case you weren't aware, this is the man who argues that the banana is proof that God created the universe because it has a pull-tab for humans to use. Yes, I am absolutely serious. I'm in the library right now, or I'd link to the Youtube, but if you Google his name and "banana," you'll find it.

But if you're interested in reading Origin of Species for free, you can find it online. Comfort is able to print it because it's public domain, which means it's all over the place.

I've been hiding from the internet of late; mostly this has been to carve out more time for writing and studying. School's been intense, but is going well. Family drama burbles beneath the surface, as always, and the least said the better.

I'm re-posting this from my website. Though I'm thinking that I might put the site on "hold" since my time has been eaten up by academic and writerly pursuits. Coming "back" to LJ in a more controlled capacity may be the ticket, but we shall see.

Anyway, I posted this a few days ago. Just some ramblings on my writing process and an unfavorable review of 2001: A Space Odyssey (the book, mostly; film also, but not as in-depth an analysis), so fair warning on that one just in case anyone out there gets butthurt when people don't like the SF classics...

( Library card, writing, and 2001... )

I need someone to calmly and rationally explain to me WTF is happening here, because I think my brain just broke.

Reposted from my website.

So today in Freshman Seminar, we went through some exercises in "critical reading." This is exactly what we've been doing in my English class, and I was looking forward to it about as much as a ground glass enema. I've been able to "critically read," since well before the turn of the century, kthanx.

Little did I know the wonders I would learn from today's exercise.

We were divided into groups, and each assigned an editorial to read. We then had to stand up before the class and discuss things such as the author's point, if we had any experience with the topic, and our final opinion. The first group had an article written on the question of whether or not the U.S. should grant asylum to abused women.

The group said that they thought "no," because it was unfair to force abused women into insane asylums if they were not mentally ill.

YES. I know. I literally *facepalmed.*

And they were not corrected by the instructor; my guess is because it would have been too humiliating. They went on for several minutes about how it was wrong, and how they each knew someone who'd been abused, but they didn't all have mental problems, and so forth. It reminded me of when that prank petition was going around to "end women's suffrage," and women were signing it because they didn't know what "suffrage" meant. But this example was happening in right front of my face AND I paid good money for the privilege. Sweet Socrates!

Oh, but it gets better.

I went to work after class and was venting about this situation to my co-workers....and I had to explain what asylum was to one of them, too.

And in case anyone reading this right now realizes that they do not know what "asylum" means besides references to Bellevue and Arkham, here, let me Google that shit for you.