Why Do The Heathen Rage?

Had a Biology exam today. I think I did pretty well for once. I like genetics. If, for some strange reason, I was ever forced to be some sort of scientist, I would want to be a geneticist. I think Jody said it best when we were talking about learning other languages. It isn't the language which is interesting, it's the people who speak the languages, and who created them, who are interesting. One of the things I've found that really intrigues me about German is that children are gender neutral. While I haven't done a lot of reading about how objects in language are generally given gender, I think it's interesting that an adult female is feminine, and an adult male is masculine, but a child of either gender is neutral. My sociological imagination tells me that it's because people, at least German people, at one time thought young children undifferentiated - or, essentially so, anyway. I know that in days not-so-long ago, little English and American boys wore dresses when they were quite small, and getting ones first pair of short pants was rather a big deal. Though our modern culture is supposedly much more gender inclusive and all that, I sort of wonder if we're not actually much more gender stereotypical toward very young children than our great-grandparents were. It's terribly important to get a little boy blue things these days, and a little girl pink things, but only a few generations ago, not only were things not quite so color defined, the infants were all expected to look basically the same.

Anyway, about genetics. Sometimes I wonder if my calling wasn't really to become a doctor. I come from a long line of women who were primary medical care providers to not only their families, but their entire villages. I remember that when I was rather small, nearly all of my experiences with getting doctored up were in the family. We went to the doctor to get medicine for what was wrong, or because something was seriously messed up or broken or bleeding, but most of the diagnosing and treating happened in the home. My grandmother could spot 95% of childhood ailments on a grubby toddler, twenty feet away. I remember that when I was still really quite small, I regularly studied anatomy and medical texts just for fun. So maybe I was supposed to be a doctor, and my hatred of studying plants in Biology class scared me away.

Oh yeah, speaking of children, my niece Brianne found out today that her baby is a boy. Yay! I prefer boys, first of all. And second, I guessed it would be a boy in the baby-guessing game thingy. Now if the child will only be born on the tenth of June (nearly an entire month early though it may be), I'll be a winner. I've already beat out over 50% of the entrants, based on gender selection alone. Woohoo! For the record, I'd prefer the child be born after the 10th. I chose the 10th on account of its my birthday, and I'm egocentric.

Still don't know what I want to do with myself after graduation. More school? Get a...::gasps::...job? Sometimes I think it would just be easier if the government had assigned me a career when I was nine or ten, like they do in the civilized world

Oh yeah, I want to sell my plasma! Dad was telling me the other day about all the fun he had trading blood for beer when he was in the Navy. The Red Cross used to set up places where you could donate a pint of blood in exchange for a pint of beer, I guess. But these days they worry about sissy health nut fixations like dehydration and such. Well, I can't get a pint for a pint, but I can think of no nobler calling than the selling of ones body parts for a pittance, so I've got to find one of those plasma donation places. Call me a whore for Mammon, if you like. I like it, if you don't, so I'll be referred to that way in the future anyway, thank you very much.

Got a B- on my German exam. That's the lowest grade I've ever had on a German exam. My grades are sucking this quarter. Going to study like mad for my Art History Exam on Thursday.

posted by Sarie @ 4:09 PM >Comments: 0