I'm having a really good day today.

Thank you, Indie Coffee. : )

LoLoLoL!

I love LoL cats. I really do. If you don't know what they are, you will by the end of this post. And hey, you'll probably love them as much as I do. People take pictures of cats and caption them to fit the gesture or facial expression the cats making. This makes the picture 100 times more funny. LoL cats make you LoL. Pretty simple.

The poster child for LoL cats is the "Can I has cheezburger?" cat.

Here are some of my other favorites. LoL away. : )

No matter how your day was going, isn't it so much better now?

LoLoLoLoL ...

Raw

I've been inspired to be more raw. I think when we're raw, when we're real about how we are, we realize that we can relate to people more than we thought.

My friend, Beth, just started her own blog. I know her, I would say, pretty well. She's just a really interesting person; and she's told me many of her stories. Her blog is so raw. You immediately know how interesting she is and how abnormal her life is. But you can still relate to her worries.

So ... here I go. Raw.

I've been on the verge of falling apart lately. In class. With friends. It's because I'm terrified for life. I already feel like I'm not measuring up to this crazy ambitious life that's been set before me. But the thing is, I may not be. I know that God uses ordinary people. I'm not that smart, really I'm not, but I'm convinced that I'm called. I think drive and passion can get you further than intelligence (though it is also important). And we all have to remember that God is the one who is able and He is the one who's empowered.

Everyone I talk to about my future advocates research. I'm just ... not into it. I'm a zoologist who doesn't like zoos or research. Ok? I'm looking into research opportunities for this summer and to be honest, I don't really care about the response of fat cells to this and/or that, or the invasive species of Lake Superior. But should I? Even if I can't care, should I grin and bear it for what I think will get me proper credentials? Cuz I don't know what else there is.

Who do wildlife conservation organizations hire? Researchers. Or attorneys. Baha.

I just want to be someone who cares. I don't want to go to grad school because I should. I want to go to grad school because I want to. But as of now, I have little desire to. That's the thing ...

When I walk by a lab, or a classroom full of people, I think competition. It starts to wear on you when you feel like you're competing for your dreams. Especially when it feels like you're the one who's losing. All those people in there are doing better than I am ... crap.

In bible study this week, my friend Emily said something that I needed to hear. We were talking about just being you, and how much you miss out on when you're not.

Imagine that all different kinds of animals are together. Lions, giraffes, dogs, alligators, panda bears, birds ... and a peacock. The peacock is so unique. But if the peacock sees other animals and realizes that it's not like any other creature, it may start to wish it were like the others. How tragic to have a peacock rolling around in sand in order to be more like a lion, or pulling out its long feathers to be more like other, smaller birds.

Basically, be who you are, and I'll try to be who I am, too.

Anthropomorphism. Say what?!

I am learning so much.

My classes are blowing my mind and shaking everything I thought about animals. It's crazy! One thing we're discussing is animal culture. Yeah, animal culture. I hadn't heard anything along those lines either. But if you think about it, culture can be described simply as what we learn from generations before us; behaviors, rituals, etc. that we don't inherently know, but are taught to us. I'm sure if I grew up in East Asia, I would have Chinese culture instead of American, even if I was caucasian. I would not have learned what it means to have American culture because of my different context.

Animals do the same. They pass down rituals and behaviors that are not instinct. Mothers, fathers, and other adults in a population teach their youngsters how to live. Some behaviors are innate, while others are learned.

This brings up anthropomorphism. Yup, big word. I'll explain it to the best of my ability, but bear with me. I'm just learning it myself. Anthropomorphism (this bold font is starting to make this look like a text book - so sorry!) is our tendency to think that animals are just like us, that their behaviors reflect what the same behavior would reflect if we were to perform it. Some people like to think that we know what it's like to be other animals. Have you ever guessed what's going on in your cat's mind when she does something?

I'm reading The Ape and the Sushi Master by Frans de Waal for one of my classes, and it lays out pretty well how animal culture is different from human culture, just as different cultures from across the world are different from our own. I think there are some universals between anthropological cultures - a smile, laughter, certain gestures and tone of voice. But the difference between animal and human culture is to an even higher degree.

de Waal writes,

Without experience with primates, one might think a grinning rhesus monkey must be delighted, or that a chimpanzee running toward another with loud grunts must be in an aggressive mood. But primatologists know from hours of watching that rhesus bare their teeth when intimidated and that chimpanzees often grunt when they meet and embrace. In other words, a grinning rhesus monkey signals submission, and grunting by a chimpanzee serves as a greeting. In this way the careful observer arrives at an informed anthropomorphism that is often at odds with extrapolations from human behavior (74).

I think we need a healthy balance between anthropomorphism (believing that animals express themselves the same ways we do and that any realizations about ourselves can be made about animals also) and anthropodenial (coined by de Waal to denote our belief that we have absolutely nothing in common with animals - we can't relate to them or learn anything about ourselves when studying them, and that we need to keep a safe distance in research as to not get connected to our subjects). You cannot understand culture, why a person or individual acts the way they do, innately. It takes time, careful observation, and humility that realizes not everyone is like you.

You may be concerned about my readiness to compare the apples of humans to the oranges of animals. We are simply not the same and I believe that we are God's crown of creation. These ideas will be messy as I sift through them. They probably won't be pretty and they might make you cringe. But I believe that in the mess, I'll be able to figure out for myself what I believe about our human responsibility when it comes to interacting with animals. God gave us dominion over animals - but what does that mean? Jesus certainly redefined this word for us.

Anyway, bear with me. I think animals are more important than we give them credit for. I care for them. God cares for them. And my ideas and beliefs are being oh so shaken.

I Once Was Lost ...

I just want to refer you to a blog post that I just read. This is exactly what I needed to hear and it may be liberating to you, too. We all have our deserts, our dry spots - where we feel lost and a bit confused. We ask questions we never thought we would. Where is God? Why don't know Him like I used to? What's the point of this? Where'd my passion go? I'm learning that this is weakness, but God can use it. We need the desert, just like we need the oasis. The desert is where we learn who we really are, and where we are refined to be who God intended.

Find it here.

It's not about YOU.

What do people get for all their hard work under the sun?

Generations come and generations go, but the earth never changes.

The sun rises and the sun sets, then hurries around to rise again.

The wind blows south, and then turns north.

Around and around it goes, blowing in circles.

Rivers run into the sea, but the sea is never full.

Then the water returns again to the rivers and flows out again to the sea.

Everything is wearisome beyond description.

No matter how much we see, we are never satisfied.

No matter how much we hear, we are not content.

History merely repeats itself.

It has all been done before.

Nothing under the sun is truly new.

Sometimes people say, "Here is something new!"

But actually it is old;

nothing is ever truly new.

We don't remember what happened in the past,

and in future generations, no one will remember what we are doing now.

{Ecclesiastes 1:3-11}

I think we often forget that it's not about us. We go on doing our own work, when really, it will all fade when we die. Maybe even before that.

It's not about me and it's not about you. But we make it so. And we'll be left with nothing to show for it.

Historical Talents

It's been a while! I've been unmotivated to blog. I'm home for the holidays and am just enjoying being here. : )

But today I came across an amazing video of the winner of Ukraine's Got Talent, Kseniya Simonova. She's an artist who uses sand to draw a series of pictures about Ukrainian citizens who were affected by German invasion during World War II.

Here's an explanation of the series of pictures Kseniya creates:

"She begins by creating a scene showing a couple sitting holding hands on a bench under a starry sky, but then warplanes appear and the happy scene is obliterated.

It is replaced by a woman’s face crying, but then a baby arrives and the woman smiles again. Once again war returns and Miss Simonova throws the sand into chaos from which a young woman’s face appears.

She quickly becomes an old widow, her face wrinkled and sad, before the image turns into a monument to an Unknown Soldier.

This outdoor scene becomes framed by a window as if the viewer is looking out on the monument from within a house.

In the final scene, a mother and child appear inside and a man standing outside, with his hands pressed against the glass, saying goodbye.

The Great Patriotic War, as it is called in Ukraine , resulted in one in four of the population being killed with eight to 11 million deaths out of a population of 42 million."

Take a look.