Agh my brain hurts

And unfortunately I will have to make an admission.

I can't update each week. I can't even update biweekly. Heck, there are things I'm supposed to update monthly that I can't keep up with.

This will change after the MCAT. This will change. But I cannot keep pretending that I have time, when I do not.

Please pray for me, because it is so hard to focus on that which matters. It's a lot more fun to focus on nothing at all.

God bless,
Jen

Prometheus Studies: Orgo Chem Video Series

A'ight people, so in addition to commenting on sci fi that no one cares about, over the weekend I did a few quick "Jesus Geek" videos. Check 'em out.





While you're at it, stop by my other Prometheus Studies vids on youtube. If anything interests you, be sure to subscribe so I can try to throw you more.

Who are you? Who am I talking to? Well, I don't know! But I hope whoever "you" are that you enjoy what you see.

Hopefully you're not me. 0_0

God and...Cartoon Network!

SO it's been a while, but if you check the dates, you'll notice I'm doin' a once a week thang, and I'm sticking to it! So don't be judging me y'all...and broadjam is about to take my primo membership away, so if you want my music, you better get it now.



OKAY so time for a little sci fi. Hopefully you don't know me, but if you do, you know that this new children's sci fi has completely captured my heart. Why the crazy over Ben 10 and its sequel, Alien Force? Well, let's start with the sci fi.



Admittedly, the "science" part of this kid's show is somewhat lacking at times. The producers expect that throwing out the word "DNA" every few minutes and mixing it up with "turbo" will impress their audience, and since it's made up of ten-year-olds, they're probably right. The Omnitrix, the alien watch that melds itself irreversibly with the child protagonist's DNA, stores genetic information from all over the universe and then mutates the wearer into one of "ten super cool alien dudes," as Ben says. How is not explained, but the awesome transformations Ben undergoes takes our nine-year-old minds out of the realm of magic and into that elusive imaginative world of the possibilities of science. What if genetic instability and the universally horrible effect of mutation on the human body could be REVERSED? What if, in the light of the progression of gene therapy, in vitro gene transformation could go BACK AND FORTH? And, more importantly for the target audience, what if a ten year old boy can be a superhero? THAT kind of question, the wonderful what if, is why science fiction is a good thing for kids, and why it didn't hurt to throw a little more science into Ben 10.



However, after doggedly tracking Ben 10's spin-off, Ben 10 Alien Force, I have discovered why it is a good thing the original series did NOT delve TOO much into the science. Sometimes Man of Action, bless his soul, does not merely offend the intelligence of children: he stomps on the beauty of science fiction itself. I made sure to go back and put in the word "sometimes", because sometimes Man of Action very nicely hints at how the Omnitrix works by relating it to topics he/they know about, such as Wi Fi. The diverse alien creatures themselves really do form the backbone of the show, making for some terribly interesting daydreaming, especially in the first series. The danger lies in easily obvious scientific fallacies. The moment any sixth-grader with a periodic table realizes that there cannot be a Uranium isotope with as many neutrons as posited in season 3's "Fool's Gold," the flaw rips attention away from the fiction. Add to that injury the insult of watching a character bounce on Uranium deposit explosions--an absolute impossibility-- and people like this critic show up. Fiction is great, and fantasy is great, but when you're making science fiction, vague is better than pure WRONG, because it allows us, the viewers, to come up with our own explanations. Vague spurs our imaginations; wrong limits them and turns us into critics.



So what is it about this show that makes it somehow awesome, and why am I about to tell you that Christians should enjoy it? Is it the way Ben often learns how he should have listened to his grandfather? Not really. Don't get me wrong: the idea that a child should listen to an adult's loving advice is a refreshing breath of life amidst all the stale, putridly justified rebellion in children's films today. It does bother me that Ben's constant bickering with his cousin Gwen and the tone of voice Gwen uses when addressing her elders (I'm not a parent, but she really makes me cringe) counteract the entire premise of kindness and respect; parents should understand that this show, like any other, is probably not for the littlest ones who are still learning about obedience unless parents are willing to sit down and discuss things with their kids. I do adore the didactic way the bad guys' mental states are extrapolations of common childhood "badnesses", but my satisfaction with the show does not come from knowing that Dr. Animo's mutant guinea pig is showing kids how easily "I've earned it, I deserve it" goes too far.



So, if it's not in the episode lessons...do I simply love the plot? I do admit that I am a biased sucker for kids defeating the same bad guys over and over and over, and will never tire of the old squid-faced supervillian revenge spiel. This may not be your thing. The sci fi aspect of each story, however, makes it an intriguing watch for kids, and despite my harping on Uranium isotopes, I really have to hand it to these guys for talking easily with preteens about carbon dioxide exchange and cell immunity. Each episode leaves us wondering what the heck kind of demented and freaky bad guy they will come up with next and how an ordinary kid will have to deal with it.



Therein lies part of the illusive attraction. Unlike most superheroes, Ben Tennyson does not hail from a troubled childhood filled with science experiments or depressing manipulations that turned him somehow into the hero he is today. No matter how many times he violates the "10" part of the show title's as he collects over 20 new aliens to turn into, he will always be the normal kid who just happens to wear a weird watch. In the original series, Ben often ultimately defeats the "bad guy" by coming up with something clever as an ordinary kid. His powers are a tool, not who he is, and Man of Action tells us over and over that normal Ben is awesome. Christians should be all over this. The idea that every special ability is part of a gift we use to bless others, rather than part of some the search for self-expression: doesn't this sound like Jesus' tale of the talents? Jesus made a point of explaining with his parable of the widow that what you have does not matter half as much as what you do with it, and unlike Ben's genetically gifted sidekicks, Ben is a hero because he does his best with what he's given. The producers did even better when they made a hero in the audience's age range, subtly standing against the cultural obsession with Teen heroes for NON-teen kids. Like Paul to Timothy, rather than saying, "look up to the hip kids older than you," Ben Ten says, "Be someone worth looking up to."



There are so many ways this show could go wrong, but honestly, as long as Ben remains a normally growing kid and the aliens stay fresh foreign aliens, people will probably keep on watching. Writing science fiction shows for young minds is a challenge, and anyone who airs beautifully colored, decently drawn characters on a channel that has begun to produce badly animated crap like "Chowder" and "Total Drama Island" should receive support simply as a matter of artistic principle. In the name of art, God, and all that is sci fi, get with your ten-year-old in front of the TV at 8:30 Friday evenings, because as a Christian parent you can get one heck of a teaching opportunity out of that show! If you don't talk to your child about aliens, who will?



Unless, of course, you planned to go star-gazing or to valiantly defend planet earth from a giant tick--those really are better family activities than TV.

The God of the Endosperm

Two candidates wait, crouched eagerly for discovery within their dark hovel, both of them equally gifted--they are sisters, from the same cell--both poised to burst forth into glorious flowering purpose. Only one of them, however, will usher herself into colorful notoriety. The other, we will call, the endosperm.

HUH, you say? Well, when the megasporocyte (cool name, huh?) inside a seed-bearing plant divides, she produces two megaspores, one of which dies, the other of which divides again three times to make eight cells. Each of these cells is "equally gifted" with the same genetic material, but out of each three, one is chosen to become an egg, and the other two become "polar nuclei." These cells all wait patiently inside the pistil, the female part in the center of a flower, until a pollen grain lands on the pistil and sends a long tube of sperm down to them. The egg, when fertilized by pollen, grows into the embryo that grows into the main body of the beautiful flower. The two polar nuclei, when fertilized, fuse together in obscurity and form the endosperm, the triploid freak with three copies of genetic instructions instead of the customary two. Flowers are the subjects of poems, treatises, research, and poetry from every civilization. The endosperm? Not so much. We shall call it the historical loser.

Much like many biblical characters, actually. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Jesus' ancestors, failed miserably over and over and over again. And again. Abraham, an unloved nobody in a strange land, repeatedly sold out on his wife to save his own skin; Isaac treated one of his sons better than the other so that they nearly killed each other out of jealousy; Jacob not only followed in his father's favoritist footsteps, but also lied to his brother, cheated his uncle, and proved helpless against the rape of his daughter, loss of his son, or the slaughter of an innocent town. Successful guys? Not so much. Each of them lived in sorrow in their old age, not only because of their own failures, but also because of the trickery of others. Classic losers. Classic endosperm.

Yet it is the endosperm that is most crucial to the survival of a plant. A seed would have no purpose, and in fact no body, without the endosperm, for it is this strange entity that feeds, protects, and provides the living foundation for the plant before it fully sprouts. The endosperm really lives on in the spirit of the flower itself, for while the endosperm doesn't need the embryo, the embryo desperately needs the endosperm.

Sometimes our lives, like that of the endosperm, seem to us like pointless failures. We assume that because we aren't rich, or popular, or right all the time, or fit, or A plus students, or ________, we aren't serving our purpose in life. However, over and over in the Bible God refers to himself as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and they certainly didn't have it all together. So why would God essentially call himself "the God of the Losers?" Because just as he builds a flower on the foundation of the endosperm, he builds his kingdom on a foundation of losers who can testify to the power of love and sacrifice. So don't give in to the lie of pointlessness--if you are His, you are NOT a failure. In the words of two lovely songs, "Little is much, when God's in it," and "there's nothing about you that's plain."

I know it sounds funny to say, "I am precious endosperm in God's sight," but hey, I say it, and the laughter makes me live longer anyway. We have a tremendous God. Never forget that.

Information gathered from my Bio 2040 Lab at University of Virginia. Music linked to: Little is much, by downhere, and Plain, by Zoegirl.