Emerald Embrace Review

Emerald Embrace by Shannon Drake
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/emerald-embrace-shannon-drake/1100402850?ean=9781605420820

Lately, I have been reading ebooks that I can get completely free on Barnes and Noble's Nook. Every friday they do something called a FreeFriday NookBook and I usually take advantage of that. Well, I have also enjoyed keeping track of the books I read. And, because people often use the review section to do anything other than review the product, I decided to start writing my own reviews for books. As with this book, my review is unabashedly scathing. I have high standards for the books I read. Being a medical student doesn't give you any time to waste not being entertained by your hobbies. So, without further ado, this is what the editor and I thought of this book.

The Smut Gets in the Way

Editorial Review:

Drake (a pseudonym for bestseller Heather Graham) lures readers to 1865 Scotland in this sensual and mysterious gothic romance. Martise St. James pays a visit to Castle Creeghan in the Highlands, pretending to be the sister of Mary, the recently deceased Lady Creeghan, in hopes of finding the legendary St. James emerald and learning the true cause of Mary's death. Though she longs to return to Virginia and reclaim her family's estate following the U.S. Civil War, Martise is soon intensely attracted to Lord Bruce Creeghan and compelled to investigate the castle's secrets. Martise is an eminently affable protagonist, possessed of sensuality, intellect, and wit. Passion and mystery combine as Martise wonders whether she will lose her heart or her life. Readers will thrill to this tale, a brilliant testament to Drake's versatility.

My Review:

The two main characters, Lord Creeghan and Martise, do not have any real chemistry. Creeghan is much more domineering than charming by any stretch of the imagination. As if there were not enough sexual scenes, the descriptions, however original, are laughably dramatic. This was as slow a read as I have ever experienced, but the mystery of Creeghan was this story's saving grace. The writing floundered in my opinion. Though Martise is a southern belle, she often uses the word "Aye" once she is in the Highlands. Such a word coming from her gives the impression that her character has not been executed instead of her coming to adopt the way that the Highlanders speak. This would have been a much better mystery novel than a romantic one as the plot seeks to elucidate why so many mariners reduce their ships to splinters upon the Dragon's Teeth. Witchcraft, murder, and betrayal are all pervasive problems that deserved more focus in order to make the plot twist seem less illogical. Martise as a heroine for the story was far too weak and dramatic for my tastes. But perhaps she was an upsetting byproduct of the shortcomings of this story's already numerous shortcomings.

Research through Biomedical Mentoring Program

     


     DURING the spring quarter, I participated in a program that I found out about through the University of Cincinnati's Honors Program. I worked underneath PhD students there in order to form a project and learn the procedures that were necessary to complete it. What follows will be more of a picture blog than anything. And it is through the visual imagery that I hope to explain what my experience was like.

     MY first day in the lab, I was given a binder and a notebook. Though I didn't know why it was necessary at first, I soon became aware. There is a lot of information to keep track of when going through the motions of genetics and molecular biology. A few visits into the lab and I decided on the fly that I wanted to do immunostaining. I had heard about it before and it seemed the most interesting, if only because I would be able to see vibrant color in my results instead of only a bunch of numbers and statistics. I quickly came to regret that decision, and here's why:

YOU WILL SPEND COUNTLESS HOURS IN FRONT OF THIS

     THIS is what an immunofluorescence assay really boils down to. The left is a picture of a standard immunofluorescent microscope, the Olympus BX61. There is a camera on top and software loaded on the computer that allowed me to take pictures from what I saw on the microscope stage. Then, I used the software to make the colors more vibrant for quantification of cells positive for a variety of markers.

courtesy of greiner bio-one (http://us.gbo.com/bioscience/products/14/)

     BUT, I'm getting ahead of myself. I did prepare the slides for visualization with the microscope. To do that, I had to use coverslips on which the heart cells were grown and use the 6-well culture plate here to go through a series of washings  and stainings in order to mount it on a slide. I always used DAPI to stain the nucleus blue, and mounting media, but other than that, the stain changed based on what genetic marker we were trying to make visible and quantify.

     THOUGH the basis of my project focused on trying to determine the efficiency of the cell lines to differentiate into another type of cell. However, the program, at least for me, was mainly about gaining experience. I learned to work from a protocol, some of which are posted here. I learned about immunofluorescence, PCR, gel electrophoresis as a tool to check PCR and other genetic tests, and more.

Pretty Puppies

So, as winter is looming, I decided that my dogs might need a little warming up for the holidays. The white one is a Maltese named Macho. His coat got very matted about a month ago, so we had the groomer shave almost all of his fur off. He looked so cold (and skinny ^_^)! So, I made him this sweater.

I know it looks a little grungy, but that's because my other dog Bruce got jealous and tried to tear it off of Macho with his teeth. Bruce is a Boston terrier. 'So,' I said to myself 'I'll make Bruce one of his own so he won't have to be jealous.'

This one was a bit more difficult to engineer. Because Bruce is a Boston terrier, he's top heavy. This means that every time he tries to lift his leg up to pee properly, he feels like he's going to fall over :( . So, he overcompensates and pees all over his legs and chest. Gross!

Actually, this problem is pretty common for the breed. But I wanted to make him something that he wouldn't pee on even with his balancing problem. Thus this bare-bones "sweater(vest?)" was born.

He tries to bite it when I put it on, but once he has it on, he likes to strut around in it. I wanted to take pictures of the dogs in their sweaters because the sweaters look better with pretty puppies in them. At first Bruce was confused by the camera...

but he started to like the attention and pose for me.

With Macho it was quite another story. I had to sneak up on him to get this one:

And after that, I had to chase him under the table. But he still turned his head so I couldn't quite see his face.

Clearly, he's camera shy so I left him alone after that. But aren't they cute?!

Dystopia

Dystopia:

from Ancient Greek: δυσ-: bad-, ill- and Ancient Greek: τόπος: place, landscape

(alternatively, cacotopia,[1] or anti-utopia)

-in literature, an often futuristic society that has degraded into a repressive and controlled state, often under the guise of being utopian. (wikipedia.org)

I have read and seen many other dystopian texts. My favorite by far is a young adult book called Running Out of Time by Margaret Peterson Haddix. If you've seen the movie The Village by M. Night Shyamalan, then you basically know the plotline of this book (by the way, Haddix's book came out first). If you haven't seen the movie, then Running Out of Time is a novel about a community living in the confines of a reconstructed 1840's village when a diphtheria epidemic breaks out among the children. In the beginning of the novel, the people seem content to be there, but it is soon revealed that everyone is being kept there against their will. When Jessie, the protagonist, escapes to find medicine in the modern world (1996), she's forced to adapt to the reality of new technology and social interaction.

Super Sad True Love Story is a dystopian novel because it plays on common themes that mark a dystopia. Like Haddix's novel, Shteyngart focuses on the social decline, but SSTLS also puts particular emphasis on consumerism. Whereas in George Orwell's 1984, the control of the government was to be feared, nowadays, the obsessive need for more is more pressing. In a large part, the economic roller coaster that America is on is indicative of the connection to politics. SSTLS touches on this theme as the American state is completely controlled by the whims of Asian influence. Lenny Abramov is the unlikely (and somewhat tragic) hero that strains against the lack of intimacy and emotion that marks his world. Eunice Park becomes an outlet for his affections.

Intertextuality

INTERTEXTUALITY

Intertextuality is the shaping of a text by one or more texts (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intertextuality). This makes me think of the saying that "we are all a product of our times". I think that, not only does Diaz make frequent reference to fantasy lore--Dungeons and Dragons, Dr. Who, and many other texts--he references history as a text. A good amount of the admittedly opinionated footnotes are references to historical places or events. These historical stories shape the novel and the ways in which the characters interact with each other. The era of Trujillo, in many ways, traps the Dominican people into a cycle of machismo and violence. Ironically, Oscar de Leon chooses "the Genres" and intelligence that is often ridiculed. He becomes a product of a different aspect of the times through otakuness. The text also feeds back into itself as an intertext. The story of Oscar's mother, Belicia, and the fuku that follws them is a story within a story that contributes in its own way as well.

Postmodernism?

I, too, have listened to teachers talk about postmodernism without understanding what it meant in a literary sense. I have taken art history, so I understand the significance of the artistic postmodern movement. There are certain similarities and differences between the two. Both seem to have evolved with the rising tide of capitalism and the recession of religion as a prominent force in the world. However, literary postmodernism, for the most part, has added a certain amount of duplicity to the written word. DeLillo plays heavily upon the postmodernist ideals in his piece, Mao II. In every conversation, there rarely seems to be a unity of the characters' thoughts. In the rare situation that the characters can focus on the same subject while together, their respective realities and/or opinions on the situation fragment what could be a meaningful exchange.

In all the definitions or explanations of postmodernism that I have read, I have found no real definition of it. Any attempt at a concrete definition of postmodernism would defeat the point of the movement. Postmodernism focuses on the individual experience and differing perspectives that may (but more than often probably will not) coalesce into a collective reality. I, for the most part, do not understand the use of a literary or artistic style that does not make an attempt to be profound or seek to unify. Yes, the individual is important, but the group can be important as well, so a healthy amount of skepticism is always necessary. Postmodernism in its purest form can become its own meta-narrative.

Test Your Might! (Blog #13)

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Corporate Free Speech - Chris Dodd
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Skate Expectations

Money shouldn't be in the American political system. But, of course, that's being unrealistic. Candidates have to campaign or, put simply, advertise themselves. Advertisements on a national scale take a lot of funds. Unfortunately, allowing donations broke the seal on Pandora's box and when corporations got their hands on it they unleashed the chaos within.

I remember hearing that money was a "new form of speech" when watching the Colbert Report last year. It dumbfounded me. It was the most idiotic and asinine thing I had ever heard in my life. But, as Stephen began to explain the situation in his satirical way, I understood. It was just another turn of the screw of a principle that I knew all too well: if you have enough money, you can control whatever you want. And corporations have a lot of money to put behind politicians.

Now, corporate money could be a good thing if it was a benevolent donation, but it's not. It usually comes with a whole lot of nudging, but more often, it's a done deal. There's nothing democratic about these dealings. The whole "e pluribus unum" crap we live by is a lie. There are good people and bad, there seems to be more bad than good. If there weren't, then more laws would serve the interests of the common people and stick instead of being repealed to serve the interests of a corporation.

The popular vote doesn't mean much if the electoral votes don't reflect it. How much of politics is just going through the motions for outward appearances? How much happens behind the scenes? Only the all-seeing eye knows. And, ironically, it's riding on the back of some big dollar bills.