Friday's Quick Notes Vol. 2

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I’ve been studying biology almost constantly all week trying to get up to snuff for my applications for midwifery school. In the middle of studying the Respiratory Tract I was surprise swiped by an etymology question (er...from my head). The name for an inhalation of breath is inspiration, and exhalation is expiration. Obviously, expiration later came to be associated with death as well as food ‘going off’. And this sort of makes sense. “To breathe one’s last” etc. The final breath out that signifies the end.

But what about inspiration? My friend Kate and I had fun talking about expanding with fresh ideas and getting the chemical processes together that spark new life (and ideas!).  And thus the connection between the inspiration of breath and inspirational thought.

Thoughts? Anyone actually know?

 

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 Here’s a fun little comparison from Daily Kos of the word choices in President Obama’s and Sarah Palin’s speeches about the shooting in Arizona. I don’t have anything else to say about the incident. Better voices have spoken up already.

-3-

Just finished ordering my next month's reading list! (Yay for Christmas book money)

Here's what I am reading next month:

Where the Pavement Ends: Canada’s Aboriginal Recovery Movement and the Urgent Need for Reconciliation by Marie Wadden
Heart and Hands: A Midwife’s Guide to Pregnancy and Birth by Elizabeth Davis, Linda Harrison and Suzanne Arms
The Urban Homestead: Your Guide to Self-Sufficient Living in the Heart of the City by Kelly Coyne and Erik Knutzen
Penguin Classics Deluxe Portable Dorothy Parker
Witches, Midwives, and Nurses: A History of Women Healers by Barbara Enrenreich
Harmful to Minors: The Perils of Protecting Children from Sex by Judith Levine
Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman by Jon Krakauer
A Strange Stirring: The Feminine Mystique and American Women at the Dawn of the 1960s by Stephanie Coontz
Origins: How the Nine Months Before Birth Shape the Rest of Our Lives by Annie Murphy Paul
Reconceiving Midwifery
Birth: The Surprising History of How We are Born by Tina Cassidy
Recreating Motherhood by Barbara Katz Rothman

(okay this will probably take two or three months to get through)

Fairly eclectic. With the usual large amount of midwifery books. What is everyone else reading?

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I've noticed that I only read non-fiction lately. This has been a sharp change in my reading habits from perhaps the second year of university onwards. I used to read novels almost exclusively. Now I seem to focus all my attention and energy on non-fiction and biographies. Novels I find hard to get through these days. I don't fully understand why this shift happened. I still love re-reading some of my old favourite novels but I can't seem to pick up anything new.

Anybody else noticed a change in their reading habits? Or does anyone have any gripping novels to recommend? The last novel I couldn't put down was Margaret Atwood's The Year of the Flood.

-5-

I've been trying to drink eight glasses of water a day. It's surprisingly like work. 

-6-

My problems with insomnia have actually led to some productive things in my personal life, if not so much on the application and biology front. I got some blogging done, sorted out some personal issues, and started planning my annual cottage party (save the date folks: August 11-13 or so). Who knows, if this insomnia keeps up maybe I’ll even manage to clean my room!

I doubt it. 

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I've been talking to my friend Kate, who I am moving in with next September, about wanting our apartment to be more ‘grown-up’ and less ‘student-living’ as we both have experienced in the past. I’ve determined that this means I can still put up my “Is Your Washroom Breeding Bolsheviks?” Poster. I just have to frame it.


Upcoming on the blog next week: I’m going to take a feminist gander at Battlestar Galactica. And share my thoughts on whether porn can be feminist. Stay tuned!