Why I didn't take AP Biology

rachelmanija on the Night of the Frankenchicken.

In ninth grade bio, for our version of this assignment, we were given the choice of rabbit, cat, or turtle -- corpses provided by the school, and we had to anatomize before skeletizing. One boy picked cat to squick the girls, while everyone else took bunnies -- so of course I went for the turtle.

Which is not the world's easiest animal to dissect. In fact, it's engineered to be hard to dismember. Really hard. It took several class periods to hacksaw through Myrtle the Turtle's shell. I finished on a Friday, just before the end of class, and had to put everything away before actually opening Myrtle up. Can you say "instant delayed gratification," boys and girls? I knew you could. So on Monday, I was ready, even eager, to prize off the bottom of Myrtle's shell. I pulled her out of the plastic bag --

And that's when we discovered two things:

1. There should have been a warning about cutting across the flat, not down the edge, of the shell, lest you puncture the intestines.
2. Not only is it hard to cut open a turtle, it's hard to get enough formaldehyde inside to perfectly preserve it.

I spent that period at a lab bench of my own, by the open window, with a fan blowing out ya you betcha. Also, the teacher had me skip anatomizing (I was running behind anyway, after all that sawing) and go straight to skeletizing. Which turned out to be the neatest-looking skeleton in the class -- until you opened up the shell and could actually see the skeleton.

Me? I became a physics major.

---

As you might guess, I think Jasper Fford pulled something rotten in Something Rotten when he fingered The Faerie Queene as one of the ten dullest books ever. I suspect the_red_shoes would probably agree.

OTOH, Sarah Waters' Fingersmith *rocks*. Even with its problematic bits.

---L.

While we're trading recipes

My favorite thing to cook on a slow Saturday afternoon in winter. It's especially good if it's raining. Simple and low effort. It's the slow-cooking thing.

( Lazy Chili )

* The ideal chili spicing has a 10-second delay between taking a mouthful and having it go off in your mouth. If you do it right, you can have unsuspecting guests take a second bite of Blazing Hyper-Heated Chili-Curry of *D*O*O*M* before they notice. Thai peppers are good for that. But that's too much bother if you're making Lazy Chili.

---L.