For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are 

your ways, my ways...   for as the heavens 

are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher 

than your ways and my thoughts higher 

than your thoughts- says the Lord. 

Isaiah 55:8-9

Things to Do #18930494

Compose something beautiful

James Horner

Search James on grooveshark

choose "Play all"

let your playlist be capped at 1,000

and thank the Lord for ridiculously-skilled composers.

This video won't load directly, so sorry. This is for McKinzie.
I'm beginning to understand what drives your passion.

Things to Do #1:

Sit on the bench:

Blue Flag beach, Littlehampton

It is the longest bench.
This one is low on the list. It is, however, first on the blog.

Don't sit on train tracks

"Even if you are on the right track, you will get run over if you just sit there." -Will Rogers
At this point, I would like someone to tell me this daily.

I finished a sketch-painting of a deer, inspired by a piece in the Hamilton's home. Joel requested "classy art" for his room next year. Completely appropriate.

And I told you I'm studying cooler things...

from Quantitative Chemical Analysis, 7th Ed. by Daniel C. Harris

This was in my quant book! Not ochem, not micro. Quant seems more and more like the math of the life sciences. It is the most in-depth, all-encompassing, applicable chemistry course I never knew existed.

All these good classes end Wednesday (pronounced wends-dee). Finals week is a different kind of overwhelming with large blocks of time and a wide scope of information to digest. It makes me want to learn more than study, discuss cool things with my prof instead of taking the exam, and take a job that relates to my future. None of this happens though- I end up just studying because everyone else is doing it. And for me, this constitutes "just sitting there" as far as good serious learning is defined, so I'll probably get run over like most students when the real world comes rolling down the track.

Does that make sense? If you just study, your education doesn't mean much. You may have all the credits to get the degree, but without courage and drive and the guts to seek out opportunities and truly learn, your school plan will run you over. Stand up and do work.

(This is a pep-talk to myself)

For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God's glorious standard.  Yet God, with undeserved kindness, declares that we are righteous.   He did this through Christ Jesus when He freed us from the penalty of our sins. Romans 3:23-24

DNA Sequencing + color = pony bead necklace

Next abstract, yes? I haven't painted horses yet... life and friends and school are a bit busy. But this is after the horses!

Before Sun Sinks by Yangyang Pan

And a lecture slide blew my mind yesterday, I'm going to try to explain this:

credit to Dr. Matthew Sachs and Dr. Joseph Sorg,
taken from BIOL 351 lecture slides

The dATP, dGTP, dCTP, and dTTP are nucleotide bases. If you take off the hydroxyl group, you get the corresponding ddATP, ddGTP, ddCTP, and ddTTP, which are chain-terminating nucleotides because the 5' phosphate of the next nucleotide can't bond without that 3' hydroxyl. Researchers marked the dd's with flourescent markers.  If you make many single-strand sequences from the original strand's pattern using the d-nucleotides and flourescent dd-nucleotides, the chains will always end with the chain-terminating dd-nucleotides at random lengths. And these dd's are the nucleotides that fluoresce! So you use electrophoresis to order the synthesized strands by weight (corresponding to length), and you get a colorful sequence. How ingenious is that? I hope you were able to follow.

This sequencing technique can't separate larger fragments due to computer-reading errors, so it isn't as useful for large projects. I'm more interested in the logic behind the process. It makes sense. It deals with chemistry. And it processes genomes. "How neat is that?"

Serve only the Lord your God and fear Him alone. Obey His commands, listen to His voice, and cling to Him.  Deuteronomy 13:4

Have you seen the stars at night?

I would rather be here:

The McDonald Observatory

Looking at these:

photo credit: Zach Schrock Photo Blog

But nonspecific host resistance and intraepidermal lymphocytes are cool too. Thank you, Joel, for making sure I am in tip top studying shape and ready to conquer some tests. And thank you, Mama Russell, for buying good green tea. (I term-dropped the intraepidermal lymphocytes for sympathy, but my real hidden agenda is to make you jealous. I am so positive that everything I am studying is way cooler than whatever you have to study.)

Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there! If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me. Psalm 139:7-12.

Long live Yossarian

I wouldn't recommend Joseph Heller's Catch-22 to everyone. But I recommend it to myself every ten years and I can't wait for that time to come.
     "Death to all modifiers, he declared one day, and out of every letter that passed
      through his hands went every adverb and every adjective."
     "Clevinger really thought he was right, but Yossarian had proof, because
      strangers he didn't know shot at him with cannons every time he flew up
      into the air to drop bombs on them, and it wasn't funny at all."

And watch out, all you who frequent Oregon.  There is a giant fungus.
It is old news, but interesting nonetheless.

Let all that I am praise the Lord; with my whole heart, I will praise His holy name. Psalm 103:1