Medical College of Georgia Class Notes

Okay, another new page (well, sub-site, really). Since I am a Ph.D. student at the Medical College of Georgia, I figured I could kill two birds with one stone and publish my notes from class lectures on my site. I figure that, besides attracting Google hits, putting all my personal class notes online as they happen should be a good study mechanism. I can't guarantee I'll put everything up, but I'd sure like to.

This semester, I'm taking Responsible Conduct of Research (SGS 8011), Scientific Communication (SGS 8012), Biochemistry (SGS 8021) Molecular Cell Biology (SGS 8022), Introduction to Faculty Research (SGS 8040), and Introduction to Research I (SGS 8050). Not all of them have notes (or a good deal of notes, anyway), but whatever I write down, I'll try to put up. I imagine it'll be a help for other students, both graduate and undergraduate, as well as people just trying to find out miscellaneous bits of information (which may be contained in the notes, if you're lucky *grin*).

Medical College of Georgia Biomedical Sciences Class Notes

'Twas Brillig: a Jabberwocky Site

“The Jabberwocky” is perhaps the most well-known, well-loved, studied, and revered piece of nonsense literature in the English language (well, ostensibly English, anyway), and perhaps in any language. While it occupies a relatively minor position in Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There (commonly referred to as Alice Through the Looking Glass), its renown has spread far beyond that single opening chapter (well, and Humpty Dumpty's later expoundification thereof.

Its popularity has resulted in its translation into a number of languages, including French, German, and yes, even Latin.

Since The Jabberwocky has always been one of my favourite poems, I've recently inaugurated a shrine to the work by Lewis Carroll (aka. Rev. Charles Dodgson, Charles Lutwidge Dodgson) in my Alice in Wonderland pages. I'm collecting various translations of the work, along with some of the more clever and less stilted parodies. Hopefully it will grow to be a decent-sized site (though I'm sure not rivaling the Ultimate Jabberwocky Site to which I link in the shrine), and it will at least be a repository for my own thoughts and writings on subjects Jabberwockian.

So, do me a favour and visit 'Twas Brillig, which I think is as apt a name as any for the enshrinement of the ancient scrap of Anglo-Saxon poetry, eh? (For more info on the "Anglo-Saxon" bit, visit the site and look at the Anglo-Saxon translation.)

Danny Doyle, Where the Blarney Roses Grow, and C.

I've just put up a new bit of content over at the Sehr Gut Web Codex:Celtic.

Spirit of the Gael (Danny Doyle)

A didgeridoo. In Irish music. Did Celts even have didgeridoos? Well, no matter, because in some surreal way, it actually works. In 2002, Cracker Barrel Old Country Store released this fabulous recording by the distinctive vocalist Danny Doyle as part of their Heritage Music collection.

With a diversity of styles from the high mournful tone of "The Fields of Athenry" to the low melancholy of "Kilkelly", from the bawdy good humour of "When the Boys Come Rolling Home" and "Danny Dougan's Jubilee" to the heady adolecent excitement of "Where the Blarney Roses Grow", there's a song to cover every inch of ground that can be covered on Celtic instruments — plus a didgeridoo.

Celtic Music

New page here! I just put together the beginnings of a Celitc site (including a bit about my favourite song of all time.

I’ve always loved Celtic music, especially that of the Irish persuasion. Now, I am only 1/16th Ulster Scot (Scots-Irish, Scotch-Irish), but I figure that gives me enough Celtic blood to have some right to the music, eh? After all, I’ve been told that Celtic blood takes precedence over any other comers . . .

While I adore the music, I have a great love for all things Irish (odd, since I have more an excuse for Scottish), and hope to transmit a bit of that love of the Celts to you. Enjoy!

Celtic Music at Sehr Gut Web

Sehrgut Anachronism: New Site

I’ve just launched a new subsection of Sehr Gut Web: Sehrgut Anachronism (housing the Codex Anachronisticus: Sehr Gut). Here I&rsqou;ll be depositing all my anachronistic researches and pursuits.

Currently, the Codex is comprised of some ink-related recipes: namely the preparation of yellow dextrine (“British gum”) from corn starch, testing gum solutions for starch using iodine, and the preparation of a dextrine-bound Prussian Blue writing ink using Mrs. Stewart's Bluing.

In Memoriam America

In memory of those whose dreams and schemes gave us this land, of those who died for the freedom that was America, of those whose blood watered the Tree of Liberty.

We have not kept your dream. We have abandoned your hopes. We have sold the freedom you died for us to have. We have failed you.

Forgive us.

In memory of that for which which once she stood,
In hope of that for which she yet may stand.

*****

July Fourth, Two Thousand and Five, a mere two hundred and twenty-nine years after the signing of the Declaration of Independence, found America in the later stages of giving up freedom for security and finding she had neither.

In Memoriam

Retiring

It is both a joy and a regret to announce the retiring of both Tome: the New Metre Weblog and The Random Quill: Prose. However, they have been replaced by Passage to Serendipity, since I got hosted (by Livia of relatedworlds.net). I am running PS on Blosxom, so all my weblogs are able to roll, category-wise, into one weblog.

I do hope to continue to receive your readership at the new location. All extant weblogs and posts will remain for archival purposes.

Meet me at Passage to Serendipity.

Loneliness

Loneliness

There is in loneliness an exquisiteness which longs to be imbibed unadulterated, like absinthe without sugar. Some delicate flavour among the varied bitterness demands to be tasted of unenwrapt in words or harmony. A call to such an inception of pleasure ensues wildly from the struck gong of a lost half-chance and whips through my hair, wailing from the fenestrations of Never.

All Things Feminine

All Things Feminine

There is that which running along after like a lost puppy is no shame.

I have an untoward gravitation, I think, towards all things feminine. No, not in the way that I am some girl-crazy kid, but merely in that women seem to make up a larger part of my life than they do for most men. You see, I would very much prefer being the only man anywhere in my life. It is much more pleasant, and pleasant nearly to a fault, to have anything — even the smallest task — done by a woman.

All beauty seems to spring from The Feminine — from the delicate inklings of nature: please do not misunderstand this as neo-Pagan goddess-worship — whether the clean design of a beautiful piece of architecture or a splendid poppy blowing in the wind, what makes something worth just sitting and staring at is always its feminine properties. The delicacy of the flower, the perfectly-arranged sweeping columns of some Parthenon in any country: all point to the beauty that is SHE.

The Feminine has always, as far as I can remember, held a strange fascination for me. There is that which running along after like a lost puppy is no shame. Indeed, I would be ashamed to not throw myself to the great Wind of Beauty. “From far, from eve and morning and yon twelve-winded sky, the stuff of life to knit me blew hither: here am I.”¹ To stand firm when such a mistress bids me crumble I find the greatest blasphemy; to fall at her word, the stuff of life. Careless of being crushed by such a force, I would ride high on the gales of Her mischance until swept into the face of Wonder, I live, crippled by sweetness, forever.

Above all, I am a follower of the Feminine. I am a worshipper of Beauty.

---

1.

From far, from eve and morning
And yon twelve-winded sky,
The stuff of life to knit me
Blew hither: here am I.

Now — for a breath I tarry
Nor yet disperse apart —
Take my hand quick and tell me,
What have you in your heart.

Speak now, and I will answer;
How shall I help you, say;
Ere to the wind's twelve quarters
I take my endless way.

— “XXXII”, A Shropshire Lad, A.E. Housman.

The Art of Good-bye

The Art of Good-bye

or The Sixth of May

   The astonishing finality of what just happened took my by a languid surprise. I was finished, now. After several definite conquests, executing a gesture (pleasant, at that) of mere friendship was immensely satisfying and filling.

---

   No, ceremonius good-byes are my thing. I was going to say that they weren’t, but that would have been a lie. I suppose I really do adore the carefully-chosen words, the expertly-crafted last impression (which, skillfully-executed, can make a passing acquaintance or even an often-snubbed feel like he not only matters in your conceptions of the universe, but that he holds a special place within it), and the (in the case, usually of a very pretty girl) satisfied emptiness of spirit which accompanies it.
   There is something worshipfull in a good-bye — no matter to whom it is spoken — and it cannot be treated lightly even to scorn one most deserving. Indeed, the power of a good-bye is at its best and most reverent when it is also necessarily insincere.

This was written on May 6, 2004. It is actually a combination of two journal entries related in idea.
Crosspost: The Random Quill and Harbour in the Scramble