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Wednesday, May 17, 2006

Bioethics, Hippies win the Amazing Race, and Elliot gets the boot (FINALLY!)

I just finished the first of two books I am reading for the upcoming staff meeting at work (though I think it kinda stinks I'm having to do this with finals next week, but hey, I love to read so I don't care so much). The book is called How to Be A Christian in a Brave New World. It is all about bioethical issues, such as cloning and embryonic stem cell research. The book pointed out that all the successful medical treatments being done with stem cells so far have been from adult stem cells, which they can get from pretty much any cell except reproductive cells (i.e., the cells that work at making babies). One of the authors, Joni Eareckson Tada (well known as a Christian writer and speaker who is also a quadriplegic), mentioned that this one gal who was also a quadriplegic had gone to a doctor in Portugal and had stem cells taken from her nasal lining and inserted in her spine to allow her to be able to walk. Very fascinating. Up till now I did not know there was such a thing as adult stem cells, probably cause the media, including science magazines, conveniently make you think that there are only embryonic stem cells, and that these should be harvested in order to find cures for diseases such as Alzheimer's and diabetes. Huh.

As I said, finals are next week. Fortunately, my history teacher sent us (via e-mail, since this is an online class) our final earlier than expected, which means I can take care of that this week and get it out of the way so I can focus on piano and health for next week. Actually, I will probably try to focus on prepping for health study in the next couple days so I can focus on piano, which is the first final (next Tuesday). For my health final, I am making PowerPoints. I am almost done for the one on the first chapter the test covers. Thankfully, the final is not comprehensive (covering the whole semester) but only covers 3 chapters--the chapters on drugs, alcohol, and tobacco respectively. Conveniently, we have been doing our Drug and Alcohol projects the last few class periods, which provides us with a lot of info (though I'm sure Professor Shaffer will just test us on the stuff in the book...but you never know, so for the most part I have been paying close attention to the presentations, except during part of the Inhalants presentation, which went right after my group's presentation on alcohol, when I was trying to get internet on my laptop so I could submit ASAP the outline I had forgot to bring).

Speaking of school, the fall schedule is out in print so I picked one up. I have almost all my G.E. classes. I now need to focus on getting some major classes out of the way, once I figure out what my major will be. My main problem is they may require a year of foreign language to transfer, and though I took French 102, I haven't been able to take anything higher cause the higher classes aren't offered very much. This means I will have to take some other language. The languages our school offers are Spanish, French, Italian, German, Chinese, and Japanese. I have heard Chinese is rather difficult, in fact the most difficult language in the world to learn (if you've ever seen any Chinese writing, you know what I mean). I got confirmation of this one day when I was sitting in the Quiet Lounge (which I do a lot cause it's the only quiet place where I can use my laptop or read and eat at the same time...the library does not allow food) and wound up having a chat with a gal who's a Chinese teacher at the school (and believe me, she looked way too young to be a teacher...just like Professor Chang, my piano teacher, who looks not much older than me, but who already has a Ph.D!). I might take Japanese since I already know some words (thanks to anime and a book called Essential Japanese) though the writing is pretty difficult too. The advantage to that would be I could always ask my best friend for help cause she knows Japanese really well.

So basically the only classes that are set that I still have to take are biological science, communications, and the first part of History of the Americas (to complete my two-course "group" for Cal State's American Institutions requirement). To do this, I can take BIO 101, COMM 101, and HIST 116 (the first half of the course I took this semester). The fourth spot is a toss-up at this point. It will probably go to language or a major class.

I am going back to the 4-class format this fall. Whatever it was I did this semester was a disaster with a capital D. I had 8 classes total, four of which were one unit (three sections of Basic Office Skills, and Intro to Career Planning). Then Keyboarding for Computers at 1.5 units. Then I had piano (3 units), health (3 units), and history (3 units). For a grand total of 14.5 units. Dang. And I was telling people it was 12.5 units. Oops.

Judging by my transcript (which I just looked at online), classes that I took which are both on Cal State requirements and IGETC requirements appear to count for both. But I'm not quite sure of this, so I am going to drop by the Transfer Center tomorrow just to make sure so that there's not a bunch of classes I have to repeat or something.

School news aside...work is going pretty well. Lenora and I are getting along for a change.

The 'hippies,' BJ and Tyler
That aside...The hippies (BJ and Tyler) won The Amazing Race tonight. I was so happy. Frankly, I would've been happy even if Ray and Yolanda had won, as long as the frat boys (Eric and Jeremy) didn't win. They are just so cool and fun-loving, those hippies. The picture on the right is of them in last week's episode, in Oman (they don't have pics from the finale on the show's site yet...they probably will tomorrow). They're the kind of guys I would love to have as friends. They're just so fun.

You are NOT the American Idol! Goodbye
As for the other reality show I'm following...American Idol. Elliot Yamin finally got voted off during tonight's hour-long result show. (I don't know why they went to an hour-long results show, when even a half-hour results show is too long. I mean, nobody cares about any of the show except for the last 5-10 minutes, when they actually give you the results). This means Katherine and Taylor will be in the finale, which is good cause I will be happy whoever wins. Not like last season where by the finale my liking for Carrie had faded since she started singing only country (I don't like country), and where I was secretly hoping she wouldn't win. Technically, following the pattern of winners, Bo should have won, because so far it had been Girl-Guy-Girl, so a guy was due to win, according to pattern. But not so. Anyway, though, Elliot got voted off, which was a relief. (I made the pic on the left...sorta. I took a pic from the Idol website and then put the words on it).

Well it's late so I better go to bed. Good Night.

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