The past week

I am really not sure if anyone is reading my blog any more, but in the case this will be read by one person, here is an update on the exciting/busy last week of my life:

-Tuesday I passed my comprehensive exam (long, oral exam with my committee members). I had been dreading this exam since starting my degree, so although I did not do stellar on it, I passed and am really happy to have it over with.

-After a long day of rating diseased plants and a frustrating morning of juggling appointments (in one case the service person did not show up to work therefore I had to wait an extra 45 minutes) and running errands, on Thursday I arrived at a friends place to help out with some wedding preparations the following day.

-On Friday, I was a small part of a good friends wedding. It was an emotional day. It was mostly tears of joy.

-On Saturday, my little brother proposed to his girlfriend. This was also another emotional day and again it was mostly tears of joy. I was sad I could not be at home to celebrate with my family and their friends. I am most excited that I am going to have a sister. I have wanted one ever since my brother was born. I actually tried to make him into a girl by putting dresses and makeup on him when we were little, but it didn't seem to work.

I am hoping for a couple of dull weeks so I can get caught up on some lab work, some friendships I have been neglecting and some baking for my poor bf who has gotten even a little skinnier since I started studying for my comprehensive.

A Note for Non-Biologists:

You would be quite surprised at the variety of uses salmon sperm has in plant molecular biology.

I love India!

While doing some extra-curricular reading on the suggestion by my supervisor, I came across an article in the 'Sci Tech' section of an Indian newspaper called The Hindu on hand water pumps for rural villages. I would like to highlight the following quote from the article:

"Gender friendly
The treadle pump is also gender friendly as both men and women can easily operate it unlike certain agricultural operations such as tractor which require men to drive them."

Besides the poor grammar, I don't think you would find a statement like that in a Canadian newspaper.

Consuming our live earth

I attempted to comment on Matt's post on Live Earth, but have given up on Typekey, so decided to make a post of my own with thoughts regarding ‘Live Earth’ this past weekend. Yes, I will admit that I did listen to series of concerts from Duran Duran to Bon Jovi (as studying background noise only) and as the day progressed, the more ludicrous I found the whole thing to be. I fail to see how a bunch of selfish celebrities who offset their enormous carbon imprint by sponsoring tree plantings on some uncompensated subsidence farmers land are now experts on climate change or are making any real difference in solving the problem. Especially since the event was just an opportunity to boost record sales (I don’t blame them as it was great publicity). I am tempted to send Tanya Kim hate mail, especially after her and her equally dizzy co-hosts musings on how cool of a city Tokyo is and how we should all travel there … the conversation seemed a little oxymoronic within the context of event. Too bad Sheryl Crow wasn’t featured promoting her 1 square for #1, 2 squares for #2 rule, although that probably wasn’t ‘cool’ enough for the star-studded line up. One of the most annoying things about the event was cell phones. From Enrique Iglesias snapping shots of himself with fans with their cell phone cameras during his performance to encouraging people to text pledges in order to see their name on international television, the emphasis on cell phones demonstrated what I think is the underlying problem causing climate change. Consumerism, the need to buy, the need to do or the need to see is the source of irresponsible use of resources. I think cell phones are the perfect example of it as they are the most disposable electronic devices available. Out of all the performers over 26 hours, only Melissa Etheridge even mentioned that societies mind set needs to change regarding our needs versus our wants. I guess what I am trying to say is that most celebrities are the epitamy of the underlying reason for climate change thus are the most undeserving heroes. It seems ironic that society needs a bunch of hypocrites to tell us to use common sense in our everyday life styles.