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The topic of Stuff Portrait Friday this week is "Hero." Anyone who has known me long enough should know how I'll respond to this one.

My biggest hero is my mom. She has made it through so much in her life, not least of all raising me. I... words fail me.

And she can still laugh like that.

I have a rather large music collection. Among it, there are songs which will infallibly remind me of a particular time when I was listening to them. For example, Rockin' the Suburbs always reminds me of playing Chrono Trigger on an SNES emulator on the computer, in the living room, with mom asleep on the couch, going through the first time-travel of the game. The lamp in the corner was on but it's not very bright, and it gives everything sort of a yellow cast. The peanut butter was sitting on the trunk that mom used as a coffee table (she has a different one now, still a trunk) the front of the label faced toward the dining room. The doors to the dining room were just a couple inches open. They stuck now and again, being rather old pocket doors, and somebody was lazy.

Not all of the songs with memories are that precise, and not all of them correspond exactly with the time that I was listening to them. Kiss from a Rose reminds me of watching Interview with a Vampire and several episodes of Angelic Layer with Jeff on his laptop in a tent at Tracy's house. If You Could Only See reminds me of a very close friend I had, the first girl I kissed, and the extreme confusion I experienced regarding how I felt about her, how she might have felt about me, and all these sort of awkward teenager things. It's more than a recollection though. I actually feel that way. For this reason, I don't listen to that song very often.

The point of relating this experience is to ask a question. Does anyone else experience any of this? For a while I assumed that everyone had it to a greater or lesser degree, but I come to find out that "lesser" is much more common. Do you have any sensory triggers that automatically remind you of certain situations?

It's been quite a while since I posted. Papers will do that to you. Kristine has started doing Stuff Portrait Friday again, which is pretty exciting. I'm late, as usual, but I can't let that stop me from participating in the first SPF of the new season, so to speak.

This week's assignment is "Your Favorite Picture." Unfortunately, I've already used my favorite photo for at least one other SPF. I was sorting through my photos today, though, so I found one I really liked from my trip to the Dominican Republic in the winter of 2006. This dog seemed pretty much domesticated, and as near as we could tell he was just playing in the waves. Maybe he was honestly surprised by the water, but he seemed too comfortable with the beach for that to be true.

What did it take to make Garfield funny? Remove Garfield.

I haven't really written anything of substance lately. I'll be in town for spring break, maybe something comes up.

One time, I dipped some Cool Ranch Doritos in ranch dressing. It was very ranchy.

Did you get a chance to see the eclipse tonight? Was it any good? Blacksburg was overcast and gross, so I couldn't see a darn thing but the orange glow of sodium lights reflecting off the clouds.

Oh well, fingers crossed for 2010.

Today I had my hand, halfway up the forearm, in the back end of a heifer. No pictures, unfortunately. I also helped to bottle feed a Charolais calf, with pictures to follow as soon as they get sent to me.

See, the cool thing about being in Animal and Poultry Sciences is that you actually do stuff in classes. Microbiology lab is like "Here, do a stain on this bacteria we've cultured here for literally millions of generations and we already know exactly what's going to happen if you do it right." Beef Production lab is "This heifer needs a magnet, pelvic diameter checked, and to be deloused so that she can be sold or become a producing cow next year. Watch me. You do the next one."

It's way too early in the semester for this to be the fourth week of classes.

I have three exams this week, in horse production, beef production, and microbiology. I don't feel like I've learned anything yet! Don't they know I'm a senior? I'm old! These things take time to sink in.

I was laid-up for most of last week with what the health center doctor assured me was "not the flu." I don't care what it wasn't, it was a solid week of fever above 100°F. It was probably not helped by being out in barns on Monday and Wednesday for labs. The problem with labs is that you can't make them up. Unless you are being physically prevented from getting to the appointed location, you go to lab. So I went to my labs, and my bug raged on.

Aside from the week of illness (the first I've had since being in college) the semester is going well. I can Gram stain with my eyes closed, estimate slaughter cattle weight within 50 lbs (usually), and point out five reasons why a given horse should never ever have babies. Incidentally, the horses don't seem to mind so long as you do it in a low soothing voice and rub their chest.

Ok, well, maybe I have learned something.