pul•chri•tude
(noun)
beauty.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This is literally the definition. Pulchritudinous things are things that possess any level of beauty.
I think beauty is something we've talked about a lot, and was something we studied too, but I just want to reiterate something and maybe say something new.
In the world today, the concepts of beauty and prettiness have been so transformed that if we see something that doesn't fill our requirements or reach the appropriate levels, we dismiss it instantly. I need to stress that this isn't me blaming modern society or certain people I can think of; I'm talking about myself.
I know that I have standards of beauty and pulchritude that get so altered by my selfish desires and fantasy-driven imagination that I can never be satisfied.
And I know I'm not the only one.
Consumerist culture keeps reevaluating what we should see as beautiful year after year. My roommate was doing a project on contemporary views on the body and he mentioned that if Barbie dolls were real people, Barbie would have to be something like eight feet tall just so be able to have her body work properly with such a disproportionate torso and limbs.
The same goes for GI Joe, who wouldn't even be able to stand up do to his grossly enlarged muscle mass.
But I'm not saying that capitalist culture or mass marketing is to blame. I think that everyone of us is guilty for our own skewed perception of what is truly "beautiful". Magazines, models and HD televisions are able to capture and provide us with the fulfillment of our desires for something more beautiful, more attractive, and more stunning. But we'll never be satisfied, because beauty on the outside in completely dependent on the beauty inside.
Both inward beauty and outward beauty, that is, the pulchritude of the beautiful body is nothing without the splendour of the soul and the gorgeousness of the mind.
And this goes for more than just people. The beauty of nature and of the biological world are so much more exquisite when you have understand where they come from and how they work. A cytoskeleton can be beautiful just as much as the cell it supports and that cell can be just as pulchritudinous as the organism it is apart of.
Basically, I no longer want to take a dualist point of view when it comes to beauty and my perceptions of it. Body and form are interwoven together, just as God intended. God Himself embodies beauty as it is pinnacle, because He created beauty in the first place, and He saw that it was good, inside and out.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
OK, there's only one more thing I want to say about pulchritude, but it's more personal, so I'm putting it down here.
When I first met B, I thought of her as pretty attractive, but I didn't know that much about her. When we did start to become friends, I was taken back because she was not at all the person I thought she would be, and this worried me because she didn't fit my idea of how she was supposed to be beautiful. However, as I prayed more about it, and got to know her more and more, I realized that she was so much more than I ever could have imagined. Her beauty was not what I expected and I thank God for that, because as much as I love using imagination, I know how limited I am and how little of the possible I can ever imagine. I realized both the depth of beauty in B and the infinite deepness of magnificent beauty in God as well.
And this doesn't just apply to her, but to so many of my friends and family as well. I've been blessed with so many beautiful people in my life that I can't thank God for enough. Thanks for being so awesome, Tim, and so pulchritudinous.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
OK, all seriousness aside,
I got three exams done! Three more to go!
My poetry one was challenging, but still really good and I'm pretty proud of my essays, so we'll see! Rels and Spanish were on the same day, but I put my best into each one, so I know that I learned everything I could out of those classes. I hope my final marks reflect that, but if I made some stupid mistakes, that's not such a big deal, as long as I did the best I could.
And I'm heading home on Saturday!!! I just have to drop off at least two people at the airport and then sleep a lot! I'm really looking forward to the break. This semester has been good, but crazy-busy, so I'm looking forward to taking the time to read some books, watch some movies, and do any other crazy stuff we can think of. Also, I think the igloo might be a little wet this year . . . But we'll still make it! H2O PALACE!!!!!
See you in a week, Tim! Good luck with all your exams, endeavours, and exploits!
Bye!
Monday, December 13, 2010
Thursday, December 9, 2010
Cytoskeleton
cy•to•ske•le•ton (noun)
the protein tubules and filaments present in cells that serves many different function including structural support, movement, growth, etc.
Origin: Greek via English [kyto- (Greek) = container -> cyto (Eng) = of the cell, skeletos (Greek) = to dry -> skeleton (Eng) = various structures forming a rigid framework]
~~~~~~~~~~
The Cytoskeleton is to the cell as a skeleton is to animals, just like Organelles are to the cell as organs are to animals. The cytoskeleton in eukaryotic cells (do you remember what a eukaryotic cell is? what features define an organism as being eukaryotic? what is the counterpart to eukayotes? what features define those organisms as a group? if you don't know, stay tuned for the next post!) is primarily composed of three things: Microtubules (MTs), Actin Filaments (or simply, actin), and Intermediate Filaments (IFs).
Each of these components is a polymer of a simple protein monomer/subunit. In essence, a monomer is like a piece of Lego and the polymer (the filaments and tubules) are made by putingt many of them together in a very specific pattern. Each of the three components has its own monomer: MT are made from subunits called Tubulin, which are proteins that look like two blobs stuck together, kind of like a two-part snowman that stick head-to-tail to form protofilaments, and then protofilaments are arranged in a ring to form hollow tubules; actin is made of subunits called G-actin, which are proteins that look like globose blobs that attach to each other to form double helaces; IFs are made of long, skinny, rope-like proteins that twist together to make filaments.
Like how a skeleton is important for people to be able to live, so is the cytoskeleton important for cells to live. Cytoskeleton components are involved in so many different important cell functions:
Actin:
-provides support for the cell membrane so that it doesn't break easily
-pinches the cell membrane together during cell division so that the two new cells can separate
-bundles together to form fibres that resist stress
-are very flexible and are highly involved in phagocytosis
-are the filaments that move and are responsible for muscle contractions
Microtubules:
-are like railway tracks that direct the movement of organelles
-help position organelles correctly in the cell
-are one of the main components of flagella and cillia
-are the fibres that separate chromosomes during cell division
Intermidate Filaments:
-provide structural integrity to the cell
-is very elastic and the strongest type of filament
-help maintain the shape of the nucleus and the cell
-helps align cells in the tissue of multicellular organisms
~~~~~~~~~~
Can you tell that I'm cheating by using the blog to help me study for my Cell Biology exam tomorrow? =P Hooray for killing two pigeons with one grain of rice! I mean... what?
I had two exams yesturday: NVP Bio and Multivariable Calculus >.< The Bio one went okay; there were several questions that totally threw me for a loop, but I think overall I did well. I was a bit disappointed because remember how last week I had to write the lab exam for this bio class? I got my mark back, and I got 75%; it's not bad, but I was expecting a better mark. A lot of the word answer questions were looking for a lot more than I thought; most of them I answered with two or three points, and it ended up being out of something like ten marks, which I wasn't expecting. I totally would have written way more and gotten more marks if I had known they were looking for so much; instead of concentrating on those questions, I was concentrating on the questions where I had to identify the organism under the microscope in front of me. I was hoping for a really really high mark in the class so that it could boost my average. I dunno, we'll see how it turns out.
Being in the exam halls at UBC makes me feel like an anachronism belonging to the distant past; to think that my parents wrote their exams in the exact same hall exudes a sense of timelessness, I suppose. Your last post made me ponder about why I like being so abnormal, and why I am so adamant to be as abnormal as possible: am I being different for the sake of being different, or am I different because what I want to be just happens to be the opposite of the norm? I think I came to the conclusion that for the most part, I'm different because who and what I want to be just happens to be different from the norm. Certainly, being crazy and wacky, which is totally considered abnormal, is so much more FUN than acting/being what others consider "normal."
Also, I was slightly confused by one of your points: you said that you feel like a misfit at this time of year, but also that you feel like an anachronism this time of year too. Going by your given definition, wouldn't an anachronism in today's holiday season be one of those people among the crowds lining up at stores in the malls? Maybe I'm misinterpreting what you wrote.
TEEHEE lol no offense, but what happened with the dorm christmas decor seems rather stereotypical of you all, not to be sexist or anything =P Sounds like you'll be enjoying the exam season with Christmas spirit for the last few weeks at Trinity this year. LOL and that quote was quite fantastically graphic XD
Anyways, I should get back to my books. Such is the life of a Science student... I feel like a slave to my textbooks, but it's almost over! AND THEN THE INTENSE POKEMON AND SNOW FUN SHALL BEGIN! SO EXCITED!
Good luck with all of your exams!
Chat soon
~Tim~
the protein tubules and filaments present in cells that serves many different function including structural support, movement, growth, etc.
Origin: Greek via English [kyto- (Greek) = container -> cyto (Eng) = of the cell, skeletos (Greek) = to dry -> skeleton (Eng) = various structures forming a rigid framework]
~~~~~~~~~~
The Cytoskeleton is to the cell as a skeleton is to animals, just like Organelles are to the cell as organs are to animals. The cytoskeleton in eukaryotic cells (do you remember what a eukaryotic cell is? what features define an organism as being eukaryotic? what is the counterpart to eukayotes? what features define those organisms as a group? if you don't know, stay tuned for the next post!) is primarily composed of three things: Microtubules (MTs), Actin Filaments (or simply, actin), and Intermediate Filaments (IFs).
Each of these components is a polymer of a simple protein monomer/subunit. In essence, a monomer is like a piece of Lego and the polymer (the filaments and tubules) are made by putingt many of them together in a very specific pattern. Each of the three components has its own monomer: MT are made from subunits called Tubulin, which are proteins that look like two blobs stuck together, kind of like a two-part snowman that stick head-to-tail to form protofilaments, and then protofilaments are arranged in a ring to form hollow tubules; actin is made of subunits called G-actin, which are proteins that look like globose blobs that attach to each other to form double helaces; IFs are made of long, skinny, rope-like proteins that twist together to make filaments.
Like how a skeleton is important for people to be able to live, so is the cytoskeleton important for cells to live. Cytoskeleton components are involved in so many different important cell functions:
Actin:
-provides support for the cell membrane so that it doesn't break easily
-pinches the cell membrane together during cell division so that the two new cells can separate
-bundles together to form fibres that resist stress
-are very flexible and are highly involved in phagocytosis
-are the filaments that move and are responsible for muscle contractions
Microtubules:
-are like railway tracks that direct the movement of organelles
-help position organelles correctly in the cell
-are one of the main components of flagella and cillia
-are the fibres that separate chromosomes during cell division
Intermidate Filaments:
-provide structural integrity to the cell
-is very elastic and the strongest type of filament
-help maintain the shape of the nucleus and the cell
-helps align cells in the tissue of multicellular organisms
~~~~~~~~~~
Can you tell that I'm cheating by using the blog to help me study for my Cell Biology exam tomorrow? =P Hooray for killing two pigeons with one grain of rice! I mean... what?
I had two exams yesturday: NVP Bio and Multivariable Calculus >.< The Bio one went okay; there were several questions that totally threw me for a loop, but I think overall I did well. I was a bit disappointed because remember how last week I had to write the lab exam for this bio class? I got my mark back, and I got 75%; it's not bad, but I was expecting a better mark. A lot of the word answer questions were looking for a lot more than I thought; most of them I answered with two or three points, and it ended up being out of something like ten marks, which I wasn't expecting. I totally would have written way more and gotten more marks if I had known they were looking for so much; instead of concentrating on those questions, I was concentrating on the questions where I had to identify the organism under the microscope in front of me. I was hoping for a really really high mark in the class so that it could boost my average. I dunno, we'll see how it turns out.
Being in the exam halls at UBC makes me feel like an anachronism belonging to the distant past; to think that my parents wrote their exams in the exact same hall exudes a sense of timelessness, I suppose. Your last post made me ponder about why I like being so abnormal, and why I am so adamant to be as abnormal as possible: am I being different for the sake of being different, or am I different because what I want to be just happens to be the opposite of the norm? I think I came to the conclusion that for the most part, I'm different because who and what I want to be just happens to be different from the norm. Certainly, being crazy and wacky, which is totally considered abnormal, is so much more FUN than acting/being what others consider "normal."
Also, I was slightly confused by one of your points: you said that you feel like a misfit at this time of year, but also that you feel like an anachronism this time of year too. Going by your given definition, wouldn't an anachronism in today's holiday season be one of those people among the crowds lining up at stores in the malls? Maybe I'm misinterpreting what you wrote.
TEEHEE lol no offense, but what happened with the dorm christmas decor seems rather stereotypical of you all, not to be sexist or anything =P Sounds like you'll be enjoying the exam season with Christmas spirit for the last few weeks at Trinity this year. LOL and that quote was quite fantastically graphic XD
Anyways, I should get back to my books. Such is the life of a Science student... I feel like a slave to my textbooks, but it's almost over! AND THEN THE INTENSE POKEMON AND SNOW FUN SHALL BEGIN! SO EXCITED!
Good luck with all of your exams!
Chat soon
~Tim~
Friday, December 3, 2010
Anachronism
a•nach•ro•nism (noun)
a thing belonging or appropriate to a period other than that in which it exists, esp. a thing that is conspicuously old-fashioned
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In today's world, we can often feel like anachronisms. Sometimes, as a Mennonite, I feel like an anachronism as I'm one of the few people around here who believe that the military should only be used in cases of defense, never to attack someone directly.
As a Christian, I feel like an anachronism a lot of the time, too, especially around Christmas.
Sometimes holding onto traditional values and trying to keep a perspective outside of myself and my own wants can be really difficult. I feel almost like a misfit among the crowds lining up outside the stores, demanding that I keep up with all the fads and new toys that are coming out. If I'm not up on the newest and shiniest thing, and if it's not on my "wish list", it's like I'm already an antique. I'm not even old enough for childrenses to be calling me that yet!
Yet, there's nothing wrong with being a misfit. If you are cast out because you see things differently than others do, that can be a good thing. Following the crowd can sometimes lead to a cliff.
But the reason I follow Christ and and keep trying to be separate from the consumerist cult is not because I want to be different just for the sake of non-conformity. If I wanted to do that, I could dye my hair a weird colour and start piercing random orifices.
No, I want to follow Christ because I believe it is the right thing to do, because I believe it's what we were created to do. I believe we are here to be loved by God, to embrace that love, and to share that love with all of his creation. That's why God gives presents in this first place.
He blesses us with so much every day, the biggest gift he's given us is the gift that never stops giving: Himself. His sacrifice for us was not only dying for all of our sins, but also humbling himself from a state of omnipresence and omnipotence to a weak and fragile human form, susceptible to temptation and corruption, always reliant upon the Spirit.
This is the God I want to follow. The god whose palace is the stable and whose thrown is the cross.
If following this means I have to be separated, to be an anachronism, then so be it. I would much rather celebrate the real reason for the season than the fake frenzy I see every time I go to Walmart.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
OK, I was actually going to talk about MS Paint Adventures in this post, but then I got carried away talking about Christmas, which I was going to parsimoniously talk about it anyway.
Oh well, maybe some other time. I will have so much to talk about. Soooooooo much!!!!!!!!
On a less serious not however, my dorm and B's dorm did a Trading Spaces and decorated each other's dorms with Christmas stuff! The girls put wrapping paper on all our doors, hung giant snowflakes on the ceiling and made a paper fireplace by our couches!
Their decorations were so creative and all handmade! By contrast, our dorm bought a lot of our stuff at Walmart (part of the inspiration for this post) and put a real tree in their lounge room. We also made a gingerbread house, which somehow turned out a lot less cute then we thought it would.
Here's a quote I had to write down from my dorm mate that accurately describes the differences of the decorations:
"I like how the girls actually put effort into it and were really creative, while we just threw money at it and chopped down a tree. And the only thing we did put effort into ended up with a decapitated Santa whose blood formed a dick on the roof."
So. . . yeah. But the rest of it was really well done and the girls appreciated what we did, just as much (I hope) as we like how our dorm turned out.
Anyway, I hope you have a good beginning of the holiday season! Good luck with your final exams!
I'm sure you'll do amazing!
Merry Christmas from The Minister of Battle Stuff! See you real real soon!
-Clayton
a thing belonging or appropriate to a period other than that in which it exists, esp. a thing that is conspicuously old-fashioned
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In today's world, we can often feel like anachronisms. Sometimes, as a Mennonite, I feel like an anachronism as I'm one of the few people around here who believe that the military should only be used in cases of defense, never to attack someone directly.
As a Christian, I feel like an anachronism a lot of the time, too, especially around Christmas.
Sometimes holding onto traditional values and trying to keep a perspective outside of myself and my own wants can be really difficult. I feel almost like a misfit among the crowds lining up outside the stores, demanding that I keep up with all the fads and new toys that are coming out. If I'm not up on the newest and shiniest thing, and if it's not on my "wish list", it's like I'm already an antique. I'm not even old enough for childrenses to be calling me that yet!
Yet, there's nothing wrong with being a misfit. If you are cast out because you see things differently than others do, that can be a good thing. Following the crowd can sometimes lead to a cliff.
But the reason I follow Christ and and keep trying to be separate from the consumerist cult is not because I want to be different just for the sake of non-conformity. If I wanted to do that, I could dye my hair a weird colour and start piercing random orifices.
No, I want to follow Christ because I believe it is the right thing to do, because I believe it's what we were created to do. I believe we are here to be loved by God, to embrace that love, and to share that love with all of his creation. That's why God gives presents in this first place.
He blesses us with so much every day, the biggest gift he's given us is the gift that never stops giving: Himself. His sacrifice for us was not only dying for all of our sins, but also humbling himself from a state of omnipresence and omnipotence to a weak and fragile human form, susceptible to temptation and corruption, always reliant upon the Spirit.
This is the God I want to follow. The god whose palace is the stable and whose thrown is the cross.
If following this means I have to be separated, to be an anachronism, then so be it. I would much rather celebrate the real reason for the season than the fake frenzy I see every time I go to Walmart.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
OK, I was actually going to talk about MS Paint Adventures in this post, but then I got carried away talking about Christmas, which I was going to parsimoniously talk about it anyway.
Oh well, maybe some other time. I will have so much to talk about. Soooooooo much!!!!!!!!
On a less serious not however, my dorm and B's dorm did a Trading Spaces and decorated each other's dorms with Christmas stuff! The girls put wrapping paper on all our doors, hung giant snowflakes on the ceiling and made a paper fireplace by our couches!
Their decorations were so creative and all handmade! By contrast, our dorm bought a lot of our stuff at Walmart (part of the inspiration for this post) and put a real tree in their lounge room. We also made a gingerbread house, which somehow turned out a lot less cute then we thought it would.
Here's a quote I had to write down from my dorm mate that accurately describes the differences of the decorations:
"I like how the girls actually put effort into it and were really creative, while we just threw money at it and chopped down a tree. And the only thing we did put effort into ended up with a decapitated Santa whose blood formed a dick on the roof."
So. . . yeah. But the rest of it was really well done and the girls appreciated what we did, just as much (I hope) as we like how our dorm turned out.
Anyway, I hope you have a good beginning of the holiday season! Good luck with your final exams!
I'm sure you'll do amazing!
Merry Christmas from The Minister of Battle Stuff! See you real real soon!
-Clayton
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