Ode to a pig in a Blanket

Part I.
Innocent piggies

Little piggies, little piggies, here I come...!
Wait for me, piggies, there's no need to run–
for good care I'll take of you, soon you shall see,
oh! How nice and warm you'll be in my belly!
But if you want to stay there, I'm afraid it can't be so:
although you may not want to, there are places you must go.
You'll help me build muscles, and keep my reflexes snappy–
but most importantly, piggies, you'll make me very happy!



Part II.
In the oven


Now all you little piggies should bundle up quite snug;
roll inside your blankets and give yourselves a hug.
Stay there on the tray; you must be tired, go to sleep!
Mom will put you in the oven and then turn up the heat,
but what started out as toasty now begins to burn!
"Help! Let us out! This will be our urn!"
Scream and twist, little piggies, there's no way to get out!
Go ahead and try, but you can't even move about
for what started as a blanket soon began to swell
and now confines your movement in this scorching prison cell.
Roll about, you can't get up, here you'll meet your end!

You know what I said before was merely all pretend.
I told you you'd be happy, I said: "How nice and warm!"
except instead of feeling nice you're seeming quite forlorn.
Could it be you've finished baking? Has the oven done its job?
Then come out, little piggies, there's no more need to sob!
Your blankets now are golden, your bodies limp and soft;
my hand reaches towards you, it lifts you up, aloft.
I gnash you, I mash you, with juice I wash you down,

You're delicious, little piggies! You have the best blankets in town!


My mom made pigs in a blanket today. They were dee-licious. Also, this was surprisingly FUN to write, even though it turned out wonky.

Projectile vomit

Just now I got up from my desk to put on some pants and felt something odd inside me, something warm rising fast from my stomach to my throat...

You know how sometimes when you eat too much, you throw up a little in your mouth? It's always totally unexpected, so you're stuck with a mouthful of vomit until you can go and spit it out (that isn't just me that gets that, right?). That's what happened to me just now.

Except instead of just sitting patiently in my mouth, my puke shot out of it. Luckily I have awesome reflexes and my hands, thinking for themselves, rushed to catch whatever it was that was trying to escape from me, without knowing what it was.

And so I was left standing in my room with two handfuls of vomit.

I guess it was OK, because on the floor in front of me was a Calculus book that belongs to my sister and not a drop fell on it. Which leaves me wondering why I'm so bad at sports. I mean, I've just proved that my hand-eye coordination is perfect.

My ego is late

But as some people will insist, better late than never.

I'm 17 now and my mom made cupcakes.

That's not my motto, though. My motto is, HA! It's statistically likely that I'm younger than you!! Suckers.

All the children sing!

You know, the first favorite song I ever had was "The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill", by The Beatles. It's from the White Album. I remember I loved it.

...my dad taught me well (thanks, Dad!).

it's. a. PEA!!!

In my elective Biology class, there's about 20 people, and we usually only take up four tables because not everyone shows up.

I always sit at a table with two other guys. I don't know what they're called- in fact, all I remember about their names is that one of them starts with a J, so instead I call them Metal Guys because J has a Metallica T-shirt. I mean, I call them Metal Guys in my head. When I want to actually talk to them, I say "Hey", which serves both as a greeting and as a name-substitute ("Hey, how many mice are you going to use?").

So I'd sit at their table and do experiments with them, and all was well and dandy, until this foxy girl decided she likes Metal Guy: Not J, and sits between them and me, leaving me all by myself at the end of the table. I mean, M. Guys aren't my friends or anything, so it's not like she's usurping them (can you steal fellow table-sitting folk?), but she'll lean against the table with her back towards me to get a better look at Metal Guy: Not J, effectively cutting me off from all communication.

On Friday we were arranged at the table as previously described. The teacher gave us these magazines, two per table, to look at the articles in them and see how the scientific method was used for reporting experiments. Foxy was absorbed in witty banter or something with Not J, so I paged through it and found an article about peas. Foxy turned around once, long enough to notice that the magazine was in English, and say,

"You speak English, right? Well, good thing you're on my team, then! Ha ha! (We're a team?)"

And she patted me heartily on the back with a hand covered in fake cheese, from eating cheese-covered popcorn. The kind that smells like feet. I was wearing my Diablo Swing Orchestra T-shirt, and she got it all cheesy. That's one of the main reasons I don't like her. I just can't forgive that.

I don't know where she's going after she dies, but it ain't up.

Oh, yeah, so I was reading about peas while she foxed around. Remember that the ensuing conversation takes place entirely in Spanish:

TEACHER: So now that you've had a look at some articles, let's talk about them. You (Metal Guys), what biological material does the article you chose use?

METAL GUY: Uh, it's about (mice or horses or something. You can't expect me to remember such details).

TEACHER: [At Foxy & me] And what's yours about?

FOXY (looking at the title of the article): Uh, Pisum sativum.

TEACHER: Uh-huh. And what's the common name?

ME: Pea.

FOXY: Uuuuh...

METAL GUY: Hmmm....

ME: Pea. It's a pea. It says "Pea" here.

TEACHER: ...common name?

FOXY: It's, uh... uh..

METAL GUY: It should be here... somewhere...

ME: Pea! Pisum sativum is a pea!

FOXY: It's, uh... I can't find it.

ME: PEA!!! It's a PEA!!

FOXY: Oh, it says "Pea" here. I think that's it. What's that mean in Spanish?

ME: Pea! It's a pea!

METAL GUY: Uh, I don't know.

FOXY: Oh, I think it's... a pea?

TEACHER: Yes, good. It's a pea.


Um, hello?

Pipets are cheap, so why not just buy them?

I keep thinking that it's only been about three days since I've written, but then I stop and think about it. Once I've realized it's been several weeks, I figure, "Meh, one more day makes no difference".

Two weeks ago I was in my elective class, making lab material out of glass heated over a huge Bunsen burner. I mean, that's what I was supposed to be doing, except my efforts were producing little more than... well, twisted bits off glass (and yet my bits of glass were some of the best in my class. Hm.). I made four attempts at Pasteur pipets and a triangle. Who knew making pipets was so hard? The triangles were relatively easy, though.


In the process of forming my second triangle- which, alas, was never to be- I was kinda not paying full attention to it, so I bent it too hard when it hadn't heated up enough, so it broke (well, I guess technically I broke it) and then followed a trajectory which led it first to my arm and then to the floor.

Now I've got this burn on my left bicep and let me tell you, it ain't pretty. It's not really gross or anything, but still.

Oh, and that same day, I was taking something out of the toaster oven (fish sticks or what have you) and I burned my hand.

Ouch.

Oh, although one of my pipets wasn't sealed shut, and it actually had a little hole about half a millimeter wide on the small end. Useful for sucking up minute amounts of water.

You know what's tasty?

I do: an octopus! I watched a documentary on octopi once, and not only do they imitate the texture of coral reefs and fish and stuff, they also imitate their shape by arranging their (many) limbs in different ways... AND they imitate behavior. Like, they can mimic both a fish that swims a few centimeters above the ocean floor, and one that swims a few meters above. I assume they can do other swimming patterns, but those were the only two I saw.

See the octopus? The delicious, delicious octopus?

Fun fact, just now when I was writing about fish, I typed "...a fish that flies a few centimeters above...".

Ooooooh god, it would be so scary if fish could fly! Imagine a fish that dies mid-flight and falls on your head!!

I'll leave you with that thought and retire off to bed. Hopefully I won't dream about F.F. (and I mean Flying Fish, not Final Fantasy).

Biologist?

I have a class called Orientación Educativa, which I guess is kind of like career counseling, as well as being a class that I DON'T EVEN HAVE TO TAKE this year, but I do anyway because it can be interesting and it's always warmer inside a classroom (even if there's only 5 to 8 people in it... again, it's optional) than outside... well, mostly I take it because one of my friends makes us. I don't offer up any resistance anymore, but for the first two weeks or so, this conversation happened every Thursday after Biology:

Me: Aaah, let's go see who doesn't have class.

Brenda: Ok!

Wiskas: No! You guys, let's go to Orientación!

Brenda & Me: Aaargh, Wiskas!

Brenda: Why do you want to go? Nerd! You're a nerd!

Me: It's not like we don't already know anything they're going to tell us...

Brenda: And it doesn't even count. There's no credit.

Wiskas: C'mon, let's go! It'll be fun!

Brenda & Me: ... ... ...

Wiskas: Please?

Brenda & Me: Fine, let's go. It's cold out here anyway.

Wiskas: Yay!

[We walk up to the classroom while dozens of people in our class head off for their morning coffee]

Me: Dang, we're all nerds.


The point of all this was that we have to (okay, "have to" is too strong here. We're meant to) find information about someone who inspired us to pick the career that we want to study. I thought about it, and I can't really conjure up any biologists that inspired me.

(Note: My mom is a biologist, but I didn't even know until, like, a year ago. I mean, I admire her, but I didn't grow up saying, "I want to be a biologist like my mom!". How can you not know that kind of stuff? I should sit my parents down and have a serious talk with them. Another example of neglect is that my dad can only hear out of one ear and I had no idea until I was 12 and he told me to walk on the other side of him because he couldn't hear me. I was shocked.)

Sorry, I keep getting sidetracked. Biologists I admire!

Right, so I guess I thought it was cool when biologists would go on Quirks and Quarks, a radio show, and talk about their latest discovery in animal behavior or extremophile bacteria research or stuff. I don't even remember any of their names, but they're awesome. I think one of the things that makes it cool is that they sound like they really love what they do, and they're always being surprised by their findings and all.

There's only one specific biologist I admire, now that I think about it (apart from my mom. Hi, mom!): Roberto Rojo.

He's this guy that hosts a show on channel 11 (well, several, but the most famous one is the one I'm talking about here) where he goes around the woods and jungles and so on, looking for animals, picking them up and talking about them. What makes his shows different from others of the same kind is that he actually respects the animals he finds.

I mean, take Steve Irwin. I know he's dead, was probably a nice guy and lots of people loved him, but SHEESH! He'd go around pouncing on crocodiles' backs going, "CRICKEY! CRICKEY, IT'S HUGE!!". Or pick up snakes and yell at the camera about how they have huge fangs and poison that can kill you, and hoo boy, you don't want one lunging at your face! Just like this one is lunging at mine! Because I'm pissing it off by YELLING IN ITS FACE!

Sorry. Nothing against Steve Irwin (plus he's dead, so I can't say anything too mean about him. Like when Michael Jackson died, suddenly everyone was all, Oh, I never made fun of his nose! How cruel that anyone would. Yeah, right.), but you get my point, right?

Lots of people that host that kind of show will go, "Oh, this bug's gross! You wouldn't want to find one of these! Look at it, eugh" or "This thing's got huge claws that'll --oh! I've got to be careful or it could rip me to shreds! I'm in real danger here--oh! There it goes again! No, get off! Heh.. no, don't bite... don't bite me!"

Roberto Rojo, however, is awesome. Like, once he picked up a cockroach and said that he loved cockroaches, 'cause they're really cool and people shouldn't get so freaked out when they see one. Or if he sees a snake, he's gentle with them and seldom provokes them into attempting murder. Once he caught this lizard that was lying on a branch over a swamp, and he totally fell in the swamp when he caught it but he held it above his head the whole time so it wouldn't get hurt.

I mean, compare that to poking a snake with a stick and going, "This thing is off the Richter's scale! It was so ballistic, it was launching itself out of the tree, trying to sink its fangs into me! Crikey, it was dangerous! Really dangerous!" (actual Steve Irwin quote).

Plus I went to a conference he gave once about bats and MAN, is he cool! He gave autographs after, and he's super kind and fun.

Plus he's hot. THERE. I SAID IT.

Why is this so funny???

A guy walks into a doctor's office with a duck sitting on his head.

The doctor asks, "Can I help you?"

"Yeah," says the duck, "can you get this man off my butt?"

I'm not a dude, but quite a few people have though I am. I like to think of it
as being in touch with both sides of my... what do they call it? Well, being in touch with myself.