White Diamond

This is very sweet (as long as the link works!)

"Fairytale" by Sara Bareilles

This is a classic song, though I certainly don't feel this way! (Not these days, anyway!)

Cinderella’s on her bedroom floor she’s got a
Crush on the guy at the liquor store
Cause Mr. Charming don’t come home anymore
And she forgets why she came here.
Sleeping Beauty’s in a foul mood for shame she says,
None for you dear prince, I’m tired today.
I’d rather sleep my whole life away than have you keep me from dreaming

CHORUS
’Cause I don’t care for your fairytales
You’re so worried 'bout the maiden though you know
She’s only waiting on the next best thing

Snow White is doing dishes again cause what else can you do
With seven itty-bitty men?
Sends them to bed and she calls up a friend, says will you meet me at midnight?
The tall blonde lets out a cry of despair says,
Would have cut it myself if I knew men could climb hair
I’ll have to find another tower somewhere and keep away from the windows.

CHORUS
’Cause I don’t care for your fairytales
You’re so worried 'bout the maiden though you know
She’s only waiting on the next best thing
Once upon a time in a faraway kingdom
Man made up a story said that I should believe him
Go and tell your white knight that he’s handsome in hindsight
But I don’t want the next best thing
So I sing and hold my head down and I break these walls 'round me
Can’t take no more of your fairytale love

CHORUS
’Cause I don’t care for your fairytales
You’re so worried 'bout the maiden though you know
She’s only waiting on the next best thing
I don’t care
I don’t care
You worry bout the maiden though you know
She’s only waiting spent her whole life being graded on the
Sanctity of patience and a dumb appreciation
But the story needs some mending and a better happy ending
’Cause I don’t want the next best thing
No, no I don’t want the next best thing.

Sew happy!

I've recently become addicted to craft blogs, and collecting projects to have fun with after the thesis. One particularly cool blog I stumbled across is Mix Tape Zine - "a collision of craft, eco-cool and pop culture kitsch!" Based in Melbourne, Justine and Nichola produce a fabulous-looking magazine filled with crafty tidbits. I'd love to subscribe, but I'm trying not to spend too much money these days.

Mix Tape just had a week of give-aways, and I was fortunate enough to win a book - check it out here! I can't wait to make soft toys for my gorgeous niece Anastasia!! Thanks Mix Tape!

Speaking of my gorgeous niece, I haven't seen her in AGES (can't wait for Christmas!) so I have to settle for photos sporadically put up on Flickr by my super talented brother. Here's a few recent favourites:

Awww... She looks so peaceful!

Holding hands with Hannah.

Flying baby!

Very cool!

From the newsletter of the Faraday Institute for Science and Religion - Denis Alexander is the director:

Denis Alexander took part in a public debate on Intelligent Design (ID) in Fort Worth, Texas, attended by around 1000 people, discussing the topic (as a theist critical of ID) with an anti-ID atheist, a pro-ID atheist, and a pro-ID agnostic. A further 350 people came to a follow-up discussion with the four panel members the next day.

Page 56

Picked this game up from Bec, who picked it up from Gordo, who picked it up from Facebook.

Give it a go for yourself:

Rules:
* Grab the book nearest you. Right now.
* Turn to page 56.
* Find the fifth sentence.
* Post that sentence along with these instructions in a note to your wall/blog
* Don’t dig for your favorite book, the coolest, the most intellectual. Use the CLOSEST.

Mine is:

"'The Ocean,' 'The Phoenix,' 'The Consort,' 'The Dolphin,' were passed in turns; but 'The Vivid' was my ship, and it seemed she lay further down."

From Villette by Charlotte Bronte - a book I've given up on once or twice, but I'm trying once more to get through it. I haven't yet reached the point I gave up last time (at least, I don't think I have), but I am enjoying it so far.

I thought about doing this twice earlier in the day (when I read Gordo's post and then when I read Bec's) but I didn't have any books close by. The bookshelves were the closest, and then I would have to choose one. I'm in bed now, and although there are two piles of books on my bedside table, Villette was the top book on the closest pile.

Natural Theology

You read it in the blue wind,
the blue water, the rock spill,
the blue hill

rising like a phoenix from ash. Some mind
makes itself known through the markings of light
on air; where earth rolls, right

comes after, our planet’s bright spoor… If you look, you’ll find
truth etched on the tree trunk,
the shark’s tooth, a shell, a hunk

of root and soil. Study from beginning to end.
Alpha and omega – these are the cirrus alphabet,
the Gnostics’ cloudy “so – and yet.”

If a tree falls in a forest, a scared hind
leaps, hearing branches break;
you crawl under the log and shake

honey out of a hollow, eggs from a nest, ants from the end
of a stick; resting, you read God’s name on the back of a bass
in a blue pool; God grows everywhere, like grass.

Kelly Cherry, Natural Theology, Louisiana State University Press, Baton Rouge, 1988, p. 36.

Weakness and Strength

In a moment of weakness this morning, I bought a white chocolate, fig and cranberry cookie at the Coffee Cart.

In a moment of strength, I gave it away to a friend.

Twirly skirt

This is an awesome skirt!

Status

Lara is:

• tired
• wishing she'd brought a cardigan today
• wondering just how ridiculous it is that she was at uni before 7am
• amazed that there's still no parking on High St before 7am
• desperate to finish her thesis
• frustrated that this desperation does not translate into energy and concentration
• starting week 3 of Lite n' Easy
• thinking she might have lost a tiny bit of weight
  
• going to get a coffee
  

Natural Theology by Rudyard Kipling

Primitive

I ate my fill of a whale that died
And stranded after a month at sea. . . .
There is a pain in my inside.
Why have the Gods afflicted me?
Ow! I am purged till I am a wraith!
Wow! I am sick till I cannot see!
What is the sense of Religion and Faith:
Look how the Gods have afflicted me!

Pagan

How can the skin of rat or mouse hold
Anything more than a harmless flea?. . .
The burning plague has taken my household.
Why have my Gods afflicted me?
All my kith and kin are deceased,
Though they were as good as good could be,
I will out and batter the family priest,
Because my Gods have afflicted me!


Medieval

My privy and well drain into each other
After the custom of Christendie. . . .
Fevers and fluxes are wasting my mother.
Why has the Lord afflicted me?
The Saints are helpless for all I offer--
So are the clergy I used to fee.
Henceforward I keep my cash in my coffer,
Because the Lord has afflicted me.


Material

I run eight hundred hens to the acre
They die by dozens mysteriously. . . .
I am more than doubtful concerning my Maker,
Why has the Lord afflicted me?
What a return for all my endeavour--
Not to mention the L. S. D!
I am an atheist now and for ever,
Because this God has afflicted me!


Progressive

Money spent on an Army or Fleet
Is homicidal lunacy. . . .
My son has been killed in the Mons retreat,
Why is the Lord afflicting me?
Why are murder, pillage and arson
And rape allowed by the Deity?
I will write to the Times, deriding our parson
Because my God has afflicted me.


Chorus

We had a kettle: we let it leak:
Our not repairing it made it worse.
We haven't had any tea for a week. . .
The bottom is out of the Universe!


Conclusion

This was none of the good Lord's pleasure,
For the Spirit He breathed in Man is free;
But what comes after is measure for measure,
And not a God that afflicteth thee.
As was the sowing so the reaping
Is now and evermore shall be.
Thou art delivered to thine own keeping.
Only Thyself hath afflicted thee!

HURRAH!

I'm going to see Kylie!

I'm so excited!

The concert is on December 17, and my thesis is due on December 15, so it will be a great way to celebrate!

I CAN'T WAIT!!!!!

1 week down...

Well, I've survived one whole week on Lite n' Easy. The food itself is not bad, but the portions are rather small. This morning for breakfast I had one small slice of toast with some cheesy creamed corn, plus a mandarin. And I just realised that the mandarin was supposed to be my morning snack. Oops.

I am on the lowest calorie plan (1200 calories per day), which explains why the portions are so small. I do add a few things in, though. You're allowed to have extra vegetables, and if you really need it, an extra piece of fruit and bread. I usually have a banana, a low-fat/low-sugar yoghurt and a Skinny Cow ice-cream block. Those are awesome - only 84 calories!

So, it's not easy, and I'm often hungry, but it's a lot better than Optifast! I haven't noticed any difference in my weight yet (although I don't weigh myself - just waiting to see if my clothes fit better), but I'm sure it will come. It would help if I was doing more exercise, but it's hard to find the energy sometimes!

Bias, Prejudice and Free-Thinking

Dr Peter Slezak, senior lecturer in history and philosophy of science at UNSW, has an interesting opinion piece in today's SMH.

I first took one of Peter's subjects in my first year at uni. I remember talking to a Christian friend about the subjects I was studying, and when he heard I was taking "Science: Good, Bad & Bogus" he told me that Peter Slezak was really "anti-Christian." This got me worried, but I shouldn't have been. Sure, Peter is a staunch atheist who has no time for unintellectual views, but we actually got along very well. Sure, he'd poke fun of beliefs he thought were stupid, but he was always quite happy for students to stand up and disagree with him, as long as they produced a decent argument.

In total, I took five subjects with Peter as an undergraduate - I like to call that a minor in Slezak Studies! His "efforts at brainwashing" failed, however. I'm still a Christian, and even after 3 years of anti-SSK messages, I've become somewhat sympathetic to a sociological view of scientific knowledge. I think Peter is more disappointed about the latter...

I think it's of crucial importance that academics are allowed freedom of thought and expression in universities. I think all students should have their beliefs challenged, no matter what they are. Universities should be places where students learn to think critically, and to question everything. The great thing about Peter's classes is that he wasn't really trying to brainwash his students with his point of view - he was trying to get students to think. Bias and prejudice are unavoidable - everything is always taught from some kind of perspective - but as long as students are being marked on their ability to think and argue critically, rather than on their adherence to a party line, what is the problem?

God said go forth, multiply - but have fun, too!

It's awesome to see articles like this in the mainstream media!

This is me on a diet

But not this time! Day 6 of Lite n' Easy, and I'm doing pretty well! I feel a bit sorry for my husband and my mum, the ones who hear me whinge the most about how hungry I am!

I love electronic journals!

Currently revising chapter 2 of my thesis. I have a section on natural theology in the Bible, including some discussion of Romans 1:19-20. I'd commented that whatever Paul's intention in these verses, later theologians had interpreted these verses to favour the pursuit of natural theology. I'd left a note to myself asking "which theologians?" Google "natural theology" + Romans. First hit - an article titled "Natural Theology in Paul? Reading Romans 1:19-20" in the International Journal of Systematic Theology. Fortunately, the UNSW library has an electronic subscription. So I can get the article without even leaving my desk. Well, except for walking a few metres to the printer (I printed double sided, of course!)

SCORE!

In other news, I'm on day 3 of my Lite n' Easy diet. I've already eaten my breakfast and morning snack, and I'm HUNGRY!

Vicious cycle

Today, I was trying to finish the final draft of chapter 1. I was determined to stay at uni until it was ready to send off to my supervisors. It's not done. I'm going home. Oh well.

There are two sections that still need major work, and a few smaller points to deal with. I don't ever seem to finish a whole draft in one go. Whenever I send it to my supervisor for feedback, there are always notes to myself in the margin (love the "Comment" feature in Word!) on parts that still need more work or questions that I still need to answer. And then my supervisor adds more comments (he loves Track Changes!), some of which get dealt with as soon as I get the revised version back, but others have been waiting around for a year or more.

While I was working on one section today (criticisms of the "Jacob thesis" concerning the "Anglican origins of modern science," in case you're interested), I came across an old loan slip in one of the books I was using. It seems I borrowed the book on May 6, 2005, and most likely, that wasn't the first time. It reminded me of how long I have been working on this thesis - the number of times I've borrowed particular books and still not finished using them - the way I've gone over, and over, and over these chapter drafts, and they're still not done - the amount of time I've spent on this thesis (nearly 5 years), though it still feels like a last-minute job - and the fact that I'm supposed to submit the thesis on December 15, but there's still so much work to do!

AAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGGGG
GGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(In case you were wondering, as I'm sure you all were, the book in question was Larry Stewart, The Rise of Public Science: Rhetoric, Technology, and Natural Philosophy in Newtonian Britain, 1660-1750, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1992.)

Ouch!

From a review of Margaret C. Jacob's The Newtonians and the English Revolution, 1679-1720 (1976):

It would not be unfair to add that both vigour and tenacity are manifest in the continual reiteration of salient points: something for which undergraduates will be grateful, though more sophisticated readers may be frequently conscious of a numbing effect, not unlike that produced by close proximity to a pneumatic drill.

- Geoffrey Holmes, "Science, Reason, and Religion in the Age of Newton," BJHS 11 (1978), 167.

Visualising the Bible

This image received an honourable mention in the National Geographic's Best Science Images of 2008 competition.

A colorful rainbow brings to light the interconnected nature of one of the world's most familiar books.

The Bible's 1,189 chapters are plotted along the horizontal axis at the bottom of the image, with each bar's length determined by the number of verses.

The arcs above the graph show the 63,779 cross-references between each chapter.

"It almost looks like one monolithic volume," said Carnegie Mellon's Chris Harrison, who--along with Christoph Romhild of North Elbian Evangelical Lutheran Church in Hamburg, Germany--won an honorable mention for illustrations in the 2008 International Science and Engineering Visualization Challenge.

—Image courtesy Chris Harrison, Carnegie Mellon University; Christoph Romhild, North Elbian Evangelical Lutheran Church/Science (and National Geographic).

And from here:

This diagram arose from a collaboration between a Carnegie-Mellon Ph.D student and a Lutheran pastor to create a grand map of Biblical cross-references: "We wanted something that honored and revealed the complexity of the data at every level –- as one leans in, smaller details should become visible. This ultimately led us to the multi-colored arc diagram... The bar graph that runs along the bottom represents all of the chapters in the Bible. Books alternate in color between white and light gray. The length of each bar denotes the number of verses in the chapter. Each of the 63,779 cross references found in the Bible is depicted by a single arc - the color corresponds to the distance between the two chapters, creating a rainbow-like effect."

I think it's pretty, and original, and I would have wondered if it might have won, if not for the religious theme, until I saw the one that did receive first place in the illustrations category:

"Zoom Into the Human Bloodstream"

Deft manipulation of perspective gives viewers a detailed look inside the human circulatory system.

The relationship between a tiny oxygen atom and the giant organ of the heart was accomplished with a common painting technique that fits many scales into a single picture, according to Jennifer Frazier of San Francisco's Exploratorium.

The unusual view won artist Linda Nye first place in the illustration category of the 2008 International Science and Engineering Visualization Challenge.

—Image courtesy Linda Nye and the Exploratorium Visualization Laboratory; The Exploratorium/Science (and National Geographic).

That's awesome!

Still, I think the first one is a nice mix of science and religion!

Colouring in for adults?

I've sometimes thought it a shame that colouring-in is considered a kids' activity. I can't draw, but I have a beautiful set of Derwent pencils. What am I to do with them?

Maybe I could use this:

peer is one big ol' collaboration of 25 of the most exciting working artists that I know of. each artist drew a self portrait for you to color, so you're actually finishing the piece!

Each print is 8 x 8" on an 8 1/2" x 8 1/2" page, with easy removal for framing. With the incredible artists involved, you might just want to keep it in book form on your coffee table.

There's even a Flickr group for people to post their finished products. Very cool indeed.