Done Yammering

 

 

I am finally done yammering in my loud, professorial voice through the weekend!  Yea-ha!  Do not get me wrong... I absolutely love teaching.  But.... the 8:00am - 5:30pm nearly non-stop stretch of big voice speaking..... is damn tiring.  Luckily it only happens once a year during this accelerated Summer session.  During the normal parts of the year, I do just as much of my yammering.... but it is spaced out differently in a way that is not as "intensive."  

A couple of small highlights of my yammering today revolved around:

1.  A description of the physiological factors revolving around the  growth and development of the five layers of the epidermis.  

2.  A lecture about the evolutionary origins of mammalian fur, with emphasis on different types of fur by texture and anatomy, mechanisms behind coloration of fur.... and an emphasis on reminding folks that humans ARE mammals and that we are fur covered (hair... is fur)... and a discussion about the rudimentary hair (vellum hair) that covers much of the human body (and the elephant body).  And, I even discussed how folks with "male pattern baldness" (both men and women can have this), actually STILL have a full scalp of hair.... just of the vellum type.  

3.  A discussion/lecture about our physiological understanding of why humans exhibit a range of different melanin levels worldwide.  

The above are a few of the highlights of my lectures.  I talked about many other things as well.  

• I was able to only get in 7 miles (~11 km) this morning.  I was a lazy lout and did not get up when I should have and needed to.... in order to get in the mileage I had determined I should have ran this morning.  I had to push my time to get in 7 miles.... and I arrived at my classroom only 4 minutes before class was to start. 
• I am getting frustrated at myself for NOT being able to get up when I determine I need to.  The last few weeks, I have been resisting obeying my alarm clocks and sometimes stay in bed anywhere from 30 - 60 more minutes than I should.  It is a very poor and foolish choice on my part. 
• I am giving up on my PCS score for a while.  It seems to not be helping me to better understand my situation.  I had hoped that I would learn how to be a better, more careful, reliable person through the use of the PCS score.
• One bright spot.... it seems my dreams ARE being better remembered by me lately.  My latest dream was another beautiful pipe dream, and in this dream, I was a very young self.... probably ~16 years old.  It was a hot, scorching, and incredibly humid Summer day.  I was sitting/laying on a platform that had been part of a treehouse... the walls of the treehouse were down, but the platform I had built was still high up in the tree.  I was lounging up there, and was reading for the first time, one of my favorite science fiction books..... "Brave New World" by Huxley.  I could hear a lot of cicadas all around.  I could smell the intensity of the growing woods in some fashion... the heat seemed to make all the plants more "robust".  In the dream I watched myself reading that amazing book, and smoking a number of bowls of Sir Walter Raleigh pipe tobacco while reading.  Smoking my pipe while reading enhanced my imagination, and I could envision a film of the images in the book splay through my mind as I read.  It was a magical afternoon.... with a broadening of my mind... and reliving that as a dream..... just so pleasant. The pipe truly enhanced every moment of my reading experience of this.... one of the most amazing works I have ever read.  
  

 PipeTobacco