Days 86-95: A super busy week

So, this past week has been amazingly busy. I had a biochemistry test on Monday, on the Electron Transport chain, Beta oxidation, Oxidative Phosphorylation, Lipid and carbohydrate biosynthesis, release and uptake… you get the point. I spend literally my entire weekend in the cafeteria, where there are whiteboards for announcements. We would get in early after breakfast, use the whiteboards, study all day, take breaks for lunch and dinner (where people were giving us funny looks for what we had drawn up on the boards, entire diagrams of how electrons move in cells, and other unintelligible things) Friday, Saturday, Sunday and half of Monday were taken up on this. As soon (and I literally mean right after) as I finished my test, I ran to the darkroom and started working on my pieces for my second photography assignment. I will post them up once I put up my exhibition pieces, but they are all thematic- they deal with seeing biology in everyday life, and seeing everyday life in a biological context. I spent all my free time Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and yesterday working on this project. I have 24 hour Darkroom access, so I worked until early in the morning hours a few times. All the security guards know me by first name, and a few are photographers. So, as you can see, there hasn’t been much to write about or much time to write about the nothing I have to write about. I will write about this, though:
I am beginning to miss home. I don’t miss my house as much as I miss North Carolina. I don’t want to pick up and go home by any means (I am in love with this country way too much) but I appreciate more every day how lucky I am to live where I do. Two things have catalyzed this feeling. The first is that I have started going through photos of home, to edit them. I have about 8000 pictures, and I want to slim it down to maybe 2000 (a lot are duplicates). So, going through them has reminded me of the beauty of my state. The second is my civil war class- we watch a lot of movies and documentaries, where the misty green hills of the south are illuminated by sunrise. I miss the southern drawl the historians have as they describe a war that almost tore our country in twain. I miss the southern accent, despite how annoying it sometimes get, it has a sort of congenial warmth I miss. I am not regretting staying here in the least, but it makes me proud to be a North Carolinian. To take a quote from a friend:

“The red clay of North Carolina runs through my veins.”

How true. Once a Carolinian, always a Carolinian.