Happy Sunday!

I've been thinking that maybe I should change my name. Elenor Teflon was the first thing that came out of my head when I was replying to Tommy a bit ago, but (as my tutors have told me time and again during Don Rags) the first thing to come to you isn't necessarily the best thing to say. Especially when you have the kind of imagination that thinks of "polka-dotted hippos" as an example of adjective and noun before such mundane things as "blue book" or "rational animal". Anyhow, it might be nice to have a name with the same initials that actually means something. Ideas are welcome.

(On the side, my physics teacher recently was expounding to us the carcinogenic properties of teflon. We were going over coefficients of friction. )

Elenor, if you're wondering, was the name of a beloved pink elephant toy that I had when I was little.

Well, I'm on the eighth day of a cold. I missed class last Monday for it, and took Monday's chemistry exam between classes on Wednesday in the "testing center". For various reasons my friday and saturday classes were cancelled, so I've spent the past few days away from The Game. I finished listening to an audiobook of 1984 a few days ago and have listened to all of My Antonia since Wednesday. The funny thing is that I was not listening to it to "get ahead" on seminar readings, but simply for fun- which makes all the difference. I was so fully into the book that when my brother asked what Mom was going to make for supper, I almost answered that she had just said that she would cook the turkey when Papa got home from town. That, of course, was what Antonia had just told her boys. We, on the other hand, were having ziti.

Last night I outlined and started writing my term paper for biology. I'll have to see if the professor will allow the Association for the Banishment of Dreary Papers to have its influence on this one. If not, it may be extremely dry, since it's going to be just the history of a particular discovery. We'll see what we can do. I'm hoping to put the reader in the shoes of a curious layman to the scientific community, following the discovery as it comes along and sharing in the excitement thereof. (The speech with which a nobel prize was bestowed on the discoverers called it "the most exciting chapter in modern biology". If I can get the reader that excited about it while he comes to understand the laboratory techniques and the results of the experiments and what they mean, I'll have done my job.)

By the way, did you know that Schwann and Virchow were really at the beginning of the "cell theory"? I found that out yesterday and I guess I really didn't realize that when we were reading them.

Well, our little parrot is dancing around his food bowl saying things I can barely understand. I think he would like to be fed. :o)