G is for Gee Willikers Batman! It’s been a long time!!

G is for Gee Willikers Batman! It’s been awhile!

 

 

As summer begins, we find it necessary to apologize to you, our readers, for our failure to keep to our weekly word exploration dates. Life has been extremely busy for the two of us, as we make and continue to make the transition from being college students to college graduates.

 

The time has come for A and C to rejoin their forces and proceed to bring you our entertaining thoughts and meaningless movie reviews. We have been on a brief hiatus due to A finalizing her schooling and becoming a full blown biologist! With a shiny degree and everything just like C! So now we are both armed with our new degrees and brains full of knowledge to face this ruthless world which will…not…give either of us…paying jobs in our field.

 

With that bold, beautiful, somewhat depressing yet very true introduction we would now like to give you an update on the past 2 months and what we have been up to. Now here is the rub dear readers…there will be one aspect of each of A and C’s updates that is totally bogus. All but one part of the update will be true, it will be up to you to decide for yourself which is which. Best of luck!

 

Dear Readers,

Believe it or not I have missed you. True I know most of you because you are my amazing friends and family who read this but some of you I do not know, like Mr. New Zealand, and I have missed writing to you and hearing your thoughts on what we write. So please accept my deepest and most sincere apologies for leaving you for a spell. We are back now and ready more than ever to get back on track! So with no more sappy ado I shall go into my mostly truthful update.

My summer started with continued long hours at the grocery store which sadly was nothing new. I got bumped up to supervisor. Which yes sounds like a good thing but really it is more stress and more work for no more pay…welcome to my silly world. Despite this steady yet boring aspect of my life I did receive some fantastic information…I was accepted to graduate school! This summer begins my pursuit of a Masters degree in Zoology, literally a dream come true. The best part about this degree is that I am earning it through a college which has a schooling program at an actual zoo. Therefore I get to spend part of my time working in the zoo and the other part taking classes. All in all best degree ever! And as a wonderful and fantastical present I travelled to Michigan with my parents, our favorite vacation destination. It was a beautiful trip that involved a lot of beaching, wine tasting and pie eating from the best pie shop in the world. To quote a great man….”winning”!

On a more personal and less typical chit chatty note I have started taking up a few new hobbies. The first and grandest of which is being cast in a local medieval faire as the town miller, Goldie Harvest. I now spend my weekends rehearsing and I must say…it is not as boring as it sounds. We do improve exercises such as “What Are You Doing?” a game in which a person mimes performing some task and the other observes and asks simply, “What are you doing?” and the person responds with something…anything other than what they are actually doing. I highly suggest playing sometime, its quite a funny bunny time. Aside from doing silly things all day I get to create incredibly strong bonds with some amazing people. This is the most fun I can remember having in a very long time and I owe a lot of it to the wonderful people I get to work with and especially to my boyfriend who is on cast with me and brought me into this wonderful world.

Moving on from the silly sappiness I have sunk into yet again I will tell you of some of the more extreme things I have done recently. For instance I have started training for stage combat. Nothing official just learning the basics and actually working on some fights I will actually get to perform. I guess to a more sane person this may sound ridiculous but to me…it is just freaking badass awesome sauce! On a very unrelated yet equally entertaining note, I set a fire at work. No it was not on purpose and no it did not destroy the building and no one was hurt. It is one of my duties to make popcorn in the morning because you know nothing goes better with your 8 AM coffee than a bag of popcorn! Anyway, in this endeavor I added the butter to the machine to let it heat and was then distracted by other morning duties, ones that make much more sense than popcorn making. A few brief moments later I turned back to the popcorn machine and the pot was on fire, smoke quickly filling the air. Reacting as any prepared Girl Scout/RA/Red Cross trained girl would I alerted my supervisor…loudly, and ran for the fire extinguisher. Here is where the story gets a little absurd…returning fire extinguisher in tow I remembered a recent staff meeting in which I was informed that I was not allowed to operate said fire extinguisher….only a manager may do so. So I stood there…with my supervisor watching the machine burn…with the extinguisher in my hands. Not for the first time in the past few moments I felt far beyond stupid. All said in done the fire was put out, I broke down in shakes and tears, and the machine died a slow fiery death.

And with that very crazy ending I leave you my dear sweet readers. It is so nice to have you back and I hope you feel the same and find this web of stories somewhat interesting!

XOXO

C

 

As summer begins, we find it necessary to apologize to you, our readers, for our failure to keep to our weekly word exploration dates. Life has been extremely busy for the two of us, as we make and continue to make the transition from being college students to college graduates.

For me, the most time consuming part of the past two months has consisted of sitting at a desk, surrounded by papers and books and writing for hours on end, with of course, an exorbitant time spent complaining about said papers on Facebook. I wrote about a ridiculous number of topics, making me feel as if I was actually an expert in the history of the Spanish Conquest of the Americas, Indian casino gaming legislation, aggression in Canada geese, and revisionist views of the history of Russia since 1801. During this critical writing period, I spent a day babysitting during which I was not only schooled in basketball by a nine-year old, but also hit in the head, an injury that was repeated the following day by a car door in the parking lot of the grocery store. The next day, I arrived on campus confused. I sent a text to my friend asking her “Where am I? How did I get here?”. I had no recollection of getting to campus. I wandered aimlessly to the biology building, knowing that I had to get there for some reason or another, but not really knowing why. My campus friends informed me that I had no idea where I was or what I was doing, but I did ace a test. Later that afternoon, I was pulled from class by my mother who drove me to the emergency room, where I was told I had a concussion. So I spent finals week concussed, trying to write and trying to study but mostly trying to remember where I was.

In spite of these odds, I graduated with a degree in biology. For the first time in my life, I was done with school and no one was forcing me to go on to higher education. I spent the weekend of graduation going on ridiculous adventures with my friend: we went to the zoo and she dealt with me as I sobbed throughout the entire film “Rio”, and I went white water rafting.

After graduation, I traveled to Bloomington, IN to spend time with my best friend since grade school. There we went to museums, a zoo, a casino, and explored a cemetery where I kissed toad. Alas, it did not turn into a prince. It was so refreshing to spend time away from books, just having a wonderful time, eating fabulous food, and enjoying our friendship.

In more exciting news, I was recently accepted to an internship at a wildlife safari in Oregon. So, at the end of July, I will be embarking upon an exciting journey across the country to work in their education department. It will be the furthest away from home I have ever been, and will be my most exciting adventure yet.

I look forward to continuing our journey through the alphabet, dear readers!

~A

 

And there you have it. The mostly truthful updates and interesting stories. We hope that you will stick around to enjoy the rest of the alphabetical musings! Please feel free to comment on which part of our stories are false and we will be happy to respond! We do ask that any close family and friends refrain from commenting as you obviously know the correct answers. Thank you!

F is for Fear

F is for Fear

Fear: an unpleasant emotion caused by the belief that someone or something is dangerous, likely to cause pain, or a threat

We have all felt it.  That feeling that your stomach has just lost it’s bottom, that your heart will beat out of your chest, that you will physically shake apart.  Fear, nervousness, anxiety: no matter how you say it, it is a terrible feeling.  The interesting thing about this topic is that fear can be interpreted in many different ways.  Fear can be so many different things to different people.  We could be very general and say men fear that they are inadequate as a manly man’s grunt man or that women only fear that they are not the “ideal looking woman”.  We could talk about how these fears were developed and how they have been implanted in our psyches as we have grown up in the world.  We could talk about how they are ridiculous and about how we should be worried about more important things.  But, that would be really typical and if you, our glorious readers, have learned nothing else about us it is this: we are not typical.  So instead we are going to take our own personal fears and put them out on the table.  They are not that normal and they are not that common but they are our own.  And so to you our avid readers, we give you our innermost fears.

I can honestly say that I have a fear that is not normal.  One of my greatest fears is…static electricity.  Yes you read it right, static electricity.  That little zap you get when shuffling across the floor and touching the metal door handle, getting out of your car in the middle of the statically charged winter season, or taking your clothes out of the dryer.  I have been terrified of this tiny tiny shock ever since I was a kid.  I really honestly do not know where it originated.  I remember playing on a playground when I was a kid, those big plastic slides and monkey bars.  Well my friend and I had a game, played by many kids, the game of “the wood-chips are lava”!!  The whole idea was one person started sliding down the slide and stopped themselves, calling for their dear friend to be their savior and pull them up to safety.  Now this sometimes brought a shock to both players when they reached for each other from inside a huge plastic slide.  This shock kept me from being saved and saving my friend countless times.  Sometimes I would just allow myself to slide down then find a way back up myself before I perished in the lava.  My fear of the tiny itty-bitty shock was enough to allow myself to theoretically die rather than grasp the hand of my dear friend!  The madness didn’t end there, oh no, I was even willing to allow my friend to slide to her death rather than take on a static shock.  This fear is irrational, it’s absurd, and has no founding that I can think of what so ever.  But there it is, my greatest phobia.  For those who take an interest, some of my other fears include extreme heights with nothing to hold on to, haunted houses (don’t laugh, not the ones people write stories about it’s the ones you go see on Halloween that are at like fairgrounds and stuff…. and yeah this seems rational but ask me sometime about how my friend Melody and I ended up injuring someone, running out the wrong door, and slipping in falling outside panting and whimpering like children…yeah) and the timeless classic…. clowns.  Yes even the little cute one from Toy Story 3. ~C

Ever since I was little, I was terrified of so many things.  I was afraid of the dark, the monsters under my bed, sharks, dogs, anything imaginable.  Some of these fears, like the fear of dogs and sharks came from movies (Cujo and Jaws) I had watched with my father.  Others, like the fear of the dark and the fear of monsters under my bed, came from places I could not locate.

My biggest fear is my fear of sharks.  In second grade, my best friend loved sharks.  She had the best collection of sea creature figurines and we would spend hours spreading them out in her living room and pretending we were marine biologists.  We had ridiculous plotlines in which we would save sharks from horrible villains who wanted to use them in their evil schemes.  Sharks were noble creatures, victims of human treachery.  Then one day, all that changed.  I sat down in front of the television to watch a movie about sharks, thinking it would be educational.  I sat, frozen in terror, as a cruel great white shark terrorized Amity on the television screen.  After it was over, I pushed the movie from my mind and ran off to play.  My thoughts did not return to sharks until bath time that night.  Suddenly, I began to panic.  The tub full of water, which had once been so fun, could betray me, just as the ocean had the innocent victims of Jaws, the shark.  I convinced myself that Jaws had supernatural powers.  He could change size, shrinking to the size of a droplet of water, enlarge just enough to eat me, and then shrink once more to retreat down the drain.  He could do this at any time, catch me at any time I was unaware.  I would stay as far away from the water in the shower as I possibly could, convincing myself to face the danger and clean up.  Over time, my association of Jaws and my shower waned and I was no longer paralyzed by my fear of sharks.  Then we moved to a house near a lake.  The lake had a beach and I was so excited to swim in it.  But no sooner had my feet touched the water than I felt the same paralyzing fear.  I made my little brother swim ahead of me, certain that his neon swim trunks would attract the attention of any sharks that had become lost in the completely landlocked lakes of Ohio.  No sharks bothered us, but to this day, I still make him swim out to the dock first, just in case. ~ A

As we grew older, our phobias remained, but another more intense fear took their place.  This shared fear, a fear of failure, ambushed us like a lion ambushes a baby gazelle on the savannah.  It sprung out of nowhere, crippling us.  There was no basis to this fear, neither of us had much experience with failure or had much pressure from any source not to fail.  At this point in our lives, both of us are employed, degree in hand (or very nearly), and have been generally successful at nearly every venture we have undertaken.  But there are days when thoughts that we are failures in life completely overwhelm us.  For example:  Imagine a simple relaxing day: no work, no homework, just you and your favorite book/movie.  As you settle into read or watch, all of the sudden you think “Wait, what the hell am I doing??!!”  There are things to be done!  We cannot sit and relax! There are resumes to be sent, projects to be finished, job searches to be made!  Anything that will further our chances of success in our lives and biological careers must happen right now!!  And now we return to reality, the real world in which we are nowhere near failure, in fact we are actually considered rather accomplished.  So why this fear?  Why do we fear that failing will end us? Our parents never pressured us towards this; we were never challenged in any manner that would implement such a fear.  Yet it persists.

So to you our dear readers we ask this, what are your unfounded fears and why is the fear of failure so persistent?

E is for Egyptomania

Egyptomania: American Egyptomania is a topic that explores the western fascination with ancient Egyptian culture and history. When Napoleon set up to conquer Egypt in 1797, a sudden burst of popular interest in all things Egyptian spread across Europe, and the term Egyptomania was coined

When we talk about this blog, which is frequently, one of the most commonly asked questions is “How do you come up with your topics for each week?”  When we first came up with the idea, we were certain it would not be too difficult.  Then, we began listing potential topics.  Our brainstorms were ridiculous, each of us spewing out as many words that started with the same letter as we were able.  The task seemed unbearable.  Suddenly, it all clicked.  We were the same person. Agreeing on a topic was going to be easy.

And since then, deciding on the next week’s topic has been nothing but sunshine and rainbows.

Now, you ask, what do you mean you are the same person?  There are two people behind the letters, correct?  Correct.  But not all that many years ago, A & C were practically complete strangers.

Once upon a time, A and C were two girls in the same torturous Organic Chemistry Lab who shared a friend in common.  When they were introduced, A noticed C’s fabulous cartouche necklace.

“I always wanted one of those!” she exclaimed.

C noticed A’s cartouche ring and complimented it as well.  She was envious of the Egyptology class A was taking that semester and discussed her love of Egypt.  A too discussed her love of the country and culture.  Instantly the two were friends.

Why did both love Egypt so much?  Where did this love come from?

My love of Egypt stemmed from a book I read when I was in second grade- The Egypt Game.  This story about children pretending they were ancient Egyptians captured my imagination.  They built their own version of Egypt in the storeyard of an old man who owned an antique shop.  They researched Egyptian practices and beliefs and replicated them as best as they could, even attempt to mummify one girl’s beloved pet parakeet when it died.  After reading this book multiple times, I too began to research Egypt.  But I was a scared child, so the mythology frightened me and I put the books away.

My love of Egypt had reawakened by fifth grade, when I heard rumors that the sixth graders were mummifying carrots.  I renewed my zealous exploration of Egypt; even writing plays with my best friend.  These plays were never performed, as our opening night for our first play (The Night Before the Nutcracker, if you must know) was disastrous, but that is another story for another time.  When we reached sixth grade, we learned that mummifying carrots was indeed truth!  However, I was still a scared child and had recently watched the horrifying movie, The Mummy.  I loved the movie, but was convinced that if I mummified a carrot, I was just unlucky enough that I certainly would make a terrible mistake and unleash horrible undead monsters upon my family.  I was also concerned that it would be a smelly process, and I had just attempted to make cheese to earn extra-credit in math.  Or at least, told my mother that if we made homemade cheese, I would earn extra-credit in math.  So, instead of mummifying a carrot, I wrote, “This is not a mummy” in hieroglyphs, on a pillowcase.

To this day, I love traveling to museums to see various Egyptian artifacts and learning more about this fascinating place and its rich history.  ~A

I cannot tell you when my love for Egypt began.  As long as I can remember I have had a fascination with the ancient and remarkable civilization.  Maybe it was the art, the stories, the seemingly impossible architectural feats, or the many many secrets of Egyptian lore that drew me in.  Whatever the bait was I took it, hook line and sinker.  My love for Egypt really flourished in high school.  I took a World Civilizations class in which we were taught all the basics of Egypt in about a week.  In that week I probably paid more attention and took more notes in that class than I ever had or would again in that particular course.  From then on I did my own independent reading on the subject.  I read books on ancient lore, the pyramids, art, architecture, and culture.

Despite all of the books read and the lessons taught in college and high school courses, a lot of my interest and knowledge was fed via multimedia entertainments.  The first was The Prince of Egypt.  A high profile animated movie of 90’s, which told the biblical story of Moses and Ramses.  I can’t tell you how many times I watched it over and over, I still watch it today.  Once again I cannot pin point what captured me but I was fascinated.  In my later high school years I fell in love with a TV series called Stargate SG-1.  Now while most of the premise is irrelevant to this particular discussion the part that is are the villains.  The Goua’ld are a parasitic alien race that invade human hosts and then portray themselves as gods.  In this case they portray Egyptian gods Ra, Hathor, Set, Isis, Nearti…the list goes on.  This once again only set to feed my love for Egyptian culture and lore.

The closest encounter I have had to real Egyptian culture and lore was ironically at the Ohio State Fair.  I was wandering through one of the barns with merchandise stalls and I gasped as I cam across one chock full of Egyptian wares.  Statues, incense, figurines, jewelry, trinkets, everything!  As I looked around wide eyed and smiling the owner of the stall came over and smiled for a moment before saying “Hello Caitlin”.  A look of amazement immediately came over my face as my heart skipped a beat wondering how a man could know my name.  Instinctively I reached for my necklace as I always do when I am nervous, and therein lay the answer to my wonderment.  My necklace is a cartouche, my name in hieroglyphics given to me by my mother when I was a freshman in college.  This Egyptian gentleman could read hieroglyphics and therefore knew my name by reading my necklace.  I spoke for him for what seemed like forever (actually only a few minutes) before I finally decided on buying an incense burner featuring the god Anubis.      Before I left however he also gave me a stone scarab, a small blue beetle that brings good luck.  He also gave me his card and assured me that if I emailed him he would teach me to read and write hieroglyphics and Heretic…I smiled and giggled for a week.  ~ C

A mutual love for Egypt was just the first sign of our frequently linked thoughts.  We soon discovered that we shared passions for many of the same things: theater, owls, certain professors, bedbugs and many other things.  These shared passions and a desire to do something with our writing skills outside of writing papers, led us to create this blog.  We hoped that we piqued your interest in this fascinating culture and ancient society.  And if not?  Well, at least you know how we became friends.

– A & C