TALK

As anyone who knows me probably already knows, I disagree with the Mormon Church on a lot of issues. Most of them, actually. But there is one place where I really think the Mormon’s have it right: public speaking. I don’t know a ton about it, but I know that they get children involved with public speaking at a very young age. Which I think is really awesome. I know plenty of people who are deathly afraid of public speaking – a commonly cited statistic is people fear it more than death. I never really had this problem – sure, I get nervous before I have to give a speech, but I love the adrenaline. I absolutely love talking and debating and public speaking in general. It’s fun for me. It’s part of why I loved speech and debate so much, but I apparently am in the minority of this. Which is why I think that in this case, the Mormon’s have it right. If we get kids used to talking and debating in front of their peers (and even elders) at a very young age, they won’t think of public speaking as something to be afraid of, just something that’s fun and easy and a very very useful skill.

I have three soapboxes when it comes to education: comprehensive sex ed, government/political structure at a younger age than we get it now, and public speaking. I will cover the other too in another post later, but it is so frustrating listening to people in my college classes who have no idea what to do about giving a short presentation to a class. Or people who get sweaty palms at just the thought of giving a 5-minute speech. I don’t expect everyone to be a great speech giver or anything, but I think that if we just engrain the importance of public speaking at a younger age, this massive fear that we have when it comes to talking will be substantially lessened.

I credit my ability (both natural and trained) to speak well with some very important parts of my life. I had to go through an interview in front of five people to get my job for CORE, and while I was nervous as hell because I really wanted the job, I wasn’t worried about the actually speaking part of the interview – because I knew I could do it. I’ve never been afraid to participate in classes, which boosts grades. I don’t necessarily have the best chemistry grades, but I managed to get an awesome lab job in the chemistry department because I was able to express how passionate I am about doing research in the interview, so I got the job over people who probably had more experience and better grades than I did.

So to get back to the point, I think kids at every age need better training in speaking skills. I don’t know anything about being a parent, but I think there’s most likely a correlation between talking to kids at home and their confidence in speaking outside of home. I know we all hated giving seemingly pointless presentations in school, but while the information we present may not be worth anything, the actual presentation is what really matters. So we don’t end up with people who are 20, 30, or 40 years old and are still terrified to talk in front of people.

Ok I’m getting down off my soapbox now. But don’t you worry, I’ll be back.

Fascinating!

       I am absolutely amazed by biology. Like every once in a while I think about it and it just floors me how awesome biology is. The random mutations that led us to where we are today - from nothing to single cell organisms to extraordinarily complex people who can do math and build computers and write and communicate and all sorts of other insane things. And the only thing that can cause that progression is random mutations that happen by pure chance. One misplaced nucleotide here, an extra one there, and it all adds up to 3.5 billion years of evolution.
       I can't even explain it - it just absolutely blows my mind if I think about it too long. It's one of those things that the more I learn about it the more amazed by it I am. Because what if, some million years ago, one of those mutations hadn't have happened? We would not be here in the form we are today. I mean sure there probably would be some sort of more intelligent life, but not what we consider "humans" in the form we have today with the history, thoughts and social structures we have. And it's not just that one mutation, it's every mutation that's ever happened to be evolutionary advantageous. Which is a lot of mutations. A hell of a lot.
       Sometimes I just get caught up in these thoughts about how all this happened - how we went from one cell to plants and tiny organisms to things like dinosaurs and mammoths and whales and eventually humans, and how the genes in each of us really aren't all that different, but the have the ability to cause these massive changes that distinguish not only me from you, but us from a fruit fly or a triceratops (or a double-decker triceratops?).
       I guess the fact that I am so amazed by this indicates that I am in the right major. Perhaps that's why chemistry wasn't quite right for me - it doesn't simply fascinate me like this kind of stuff does. And sure, maybe this makes me a huge nerd, but I love learning about this kind of stuff. I don't know how useful knowing it necessarily is for making a better future, but I still think it is really interesting.
       Kind of along the same lines, the way that people have harnessed biology also is really intriguing. Like how we can take human genes, put them into E. Coli, so those E. Coli cells are now making all these proteins that are unique to humans so we can study them further (I use this example because that's what I do in lab). We think that we are so different from a single celled bacteria like E. Coli, but then here we are using their structures to make our own proteins since all this stuff is so universal, and we really aren't all that unique when you really get down to it. All of these mutations may make us super different from each other, but really, it's all the same when you think about it.


Ok that's enough nerding out about biology for on post. Plus it's time to go to microbio lab!

Yay!

So here's my new blog! Because I felt like it. This will be more of a political/pop cultural/feminist/whatever I feel like commentary blog than a personal blog, because that's what my LJ is for and if you don't have access to that at this point you're probably not getting it. So here this is, and maybe I'll come up with something to actually post about tomorrow.