Month: March 2020

Barrel of Monkeys

This is another of my (fictional) prompted anecdotes. If you’d like to read the first one, click here. The two brothers “I” have in this story are completely made up, for plot convenience. Enjoy!

We had a great time at Niagara Falls last weekend. Riding in that little boat that goes under the Falls turned out to be quite an adventure — I nearly slipped on the wet deck at least three times, and my youngest brother, Peter, actually did! Luckily, our other brother, Tom, has great footing, so he was there to help Pete up.

Learning some of the history of the falls turned out to be an adventure as well. Did you know someone thought it would be a good idea to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel? Even more mindboggling, she somehow survived! A replica of the barrel she rode was in the museum, and, much to our parents’ dismay when they caught up, we three unsupervised children successfully found a way to fit all of us inside it. Getting back out… well, that was another adventure entirely.

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedinmail

Lost in Translation

For the next couple weeks, I’ll be posting prompted anecdotes (without the prompts — those were written into the stories, so repeating them felt redundant and I like to keep you guessing). Here’s the first! As a word of warning, I really don’t speak French, so if any of the French translations, applications, or grammar are incorrect, that’s because it’s probably from Google Translate or other internet equivalents. Also, this didn’t actually happen, at least not to me. Nor did either of the other anecdotes. Just in case there was question.

Jim is such a funny guy! Our whole trip to Europe was like a big comedy show. When we got to Paris, our first destination, we stopped at one of the produce markets. That, in and of itself, wasn’t exactly surprising — we both love fresh fruit — but what happened that afternoon was. We were chatting with a local who was showing us the Bois de Vincennes when Jim asked her, “Voudriez-vous une pomme?” (“Would you like an apple?”)

She gave him a curious look, replying, “D’accord,” in a questioning tone. (“Alright.”)

Jim grinned, pulling a potato out of his pocket and handing it to her. “Une pomme,” he pronounced proudly. (“An apple.”)

She smirked a bit, shaking her head. “Une pomme de terre,” she corrected. (“A potato.”) “‘Pomme’ est… ‘apple.'” (“‘Pomme’ is… ‘apple.'”)

Jim feigned surprise. “Oh! Tu veux une ‘apple!’ Accorde moi un instant.” (“You want an ‘apple!’ Give me a moment.”) He slipped off his backpack and pretended to rummage around inside for a moment. “Aha! Vous avez ici, madam,” he said with a bow and a flourish, pulling out a pineapple. (“Here you go, my lady.”)

Similarly, whenever we met someone in Germany, he showed them a cheap sausage plushie he had bought online and said, “Isn’t it just the Wurst?”

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedinmail

Endosymbiotic Theory

This is, admittedly, more scientific and probably also shorter than my posts usually are, but I’ve been busy, so this fun micro-essay for AP Biology is what I decided to post this week. I hope that, at the very least, this encourages you to look further into the various theories and system processes in biology; it’s actually quite interesting.

The Theory of Natural Selection states, in priniciple, that the organisms with traits that are advantageous in their environments will be the ones that survive to produce offspring, or to produce more offspring than their competition, passing on the desirable trait. According to Endosymiotic Theory, eukaryotes were formed when a larger organism engulfed a mitochondria and/or a cholorplast, and, finding that it produced energy, kept it.

This, of course, makes perfect sense in explaining why eukaryotes rose in the evolutionary ladder. Where many organisms would still have been respirating anaerobically, producing only 2 ATP (adenine triphosphate) per respiratory cycle, the newly formed eukaryotes, with their mitochondria, would have been able to partake in aerobic respiration, which can produce up to 38 ATP per cycle.

With the increased efficiency of energy production, and the initial lack of competition over the oxygen necessary for aerobic respiration, the eukaryotic organisms would have had a massive advantage over their mitochondria-less counterparts, increasing their likelihood of reproduction to pass the trait on.

To reiterate, the acquisition of a mitochondria, and with it, cellular respiration, would dramatically increase an organism’s efficiency of energy intake, giving it a distinctive evolutionary advantage over other primordial life forms.

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedinmail

The Secret of My Success — the Musical

It should be noted that I rarely write about books, shows or movies, specifically because I find it difficult to properly express my appreciation of the works without spoiling anything. However, this musical was phenomenal, and I feel it warrants a post. Not about the plot, just a little bit of why I appreciate it. I will, as always, try to avoid spoilers.

I should start by saying that The Secret of My Success is new, and it shows. While the musical is based on a film (which I haven’t seen, so I can’t really compare the two), the casual use of (light) swearing and more traditionally “inappropriate” humor (nothing too crude, and if your children understand it’s not the musical’s fault) mark it as a modern work. So do some of its references — both Barack Obama and Prince Harry were mentioned.

One of the keys to this show is the humor. They make fun of themselves (“Is he singing at me?”) and have plenty of in-character comedic moments, so even though the story actually has a lot of deep, serious messages, you spend the whole performance laughing.

I can’t say much about the serious themes of this show, what made it so clearly modern, or the details I appreciated, because that’s spoiler territory, but I will say that I appreciated how intelligent the kid in this story is. Ernie is eight, which, it seems to me, is an age often written with linguistic difficulties and a lack of situational comprehension. Possibly because I was a precocious child, or just because I was close enough to that age to be interacting with real, live eight year-olds semi-regularly, this portrayal always bothered me. In contrast, Ernie is an intelligent, articulate young man, who, while he still (rightly) acts like a kid, is also aware of what’s going on around him. I can’t begin to pick favorite lines from this show, but Ernie definitely had some good ones.

In short, I really, really loved this musical, and I’d highly encourage you to check it out!

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedinmail