This Is Why I Am NOT An Artist

I am still broke.

But misery likes company: no one has purchased Timothy's painting either. For those of you who want to buy Timothy's Masterpiece off of ebay, here is the link. Hope you have been saving your pennies! My painting is much more reasonably priced if you ask me.

There are more reasons than one that I am not an artist, and yet I still sometimes pretend to be one.

Ebay

I had fun this summer, especially doing things that I have never done before. To my surprise, I began agreeing to wild ideas like: "Hey! I have an idea, Emily- let's guess what we each will make on our exam and whoever guesses the closest wins... and the person who is the farthest off will have to do something.... like, well. I don't know, but they will have to do something", said Timothy.

"I know! The one who guesses the wrong will have to hoe the row of pig weeds in the garden!"I enthusiastically added.

Brilliant idea.

Needless to say, I am glad that I lost that bet, even if I hoed all the pig weeds from the garden. A better grade than having expected is priceless.

This brings me to ebay. This too, (un)surprisingly was Timothy's idea. Once again, we were in the same study room. Once again, studying microbiology. Maybe even for the same exam.

"Hey! Do you know what we should do?" he asked. He threw his hands up in the air and then excitedly slammed them on the table. "Shhh! Timothy! Everyone in the library will hear us!" (he got accustomed to me telling this to him, and I think the library got used to us yelling microbiology terms...)

"We should each make something really creative and then post it on ebay on the last day of class. Then... we will see who makes the most money."

A laughed, but then did something I probably wouldn't have done before. "Sure", I said.

"Really!? You want to do it?" I think I surprised him too.

With a busy schedule, I petitioned an extension through the weekend to "finish my project", or start it. I woke up early Sunday morning to start and finish my project.

Most likely if you are looking at this blog you are probably not allowed to buy my art off of ebay. But I thought I would show you. Humor you.

Scary Sabbath Afternoon Adventure

Once upon a time... on a sunny, Sabbath afternoon... three friends decided to go for a hike. "There are three stipulations for this hike", said Timothy in a dignified manner. "It must be less than 15 minutes away, it must be pretty, and.... it must be somewhere that none of us has ever been before." 

After 45 minutes of multiple series of turn-arounds and an unsuccessful attempt of trying to get lost, the threesome saw a historical land-marker on the side of the highway and made an impromptu unanimous decision to check it out- there was a creek too- with a trail. And... none of us had ever, ever been there before. And we probably never will again. 

We started down the trail. While Timothy was off looking for green coconuts, Jamie and I began to nervously look at each other. "This looks a little fishy...." I said. We made various comments about the probabilities of this being a hideout and great site for illegal activities to happen. 

Soon, we came to a rusty old bridge. Jamie and I weren't too scared yet, but check out Jamie's expression. Priceless. 

It appeared that this was a frequented dirt bike trail, and maybe a place frequently walked as well. "Timmmothy... are you sure this is safe?" we would ask with shaky voices...  He would just give us reassuring comments like, "Let's plan out what we should do if someone were to jump out from behind that tree with a gun... or that tree... or that tree..."

Then: we got to the top of a VERY steep hill, and this is what we found. A little home. Well, maybe a home for the homeless or a hostel for the vagabond. I don't know. But we started to hear things in the woods (or we imagined that we did) and were up there long enough to get scared and take some pictures. We wanted to leave them a note, but didn't have a pen to write with or paper to write on. Oh, wait- we could have used that toilet paper hanging on the branch. 

One of my favorite songs is "Anywhere With Jesus", especially in moments like this. 

But when our racing hearts finally made it back to the car, we all agreed that it was worth it. totally. 

The Famous Antibiotic Song by Emily and Timothy

After studying for several hours, Timothy pulled out his guitar and we began to synthesize a song about the protein synthesis inhibitor antibiotics. We should really do a polished video. I don't have the antibiotics memorized in this recording and I didn't think that he was had started to record, hence my really confused expression in the beginning of this video. 

I hope you feel like you are missing out on my really fun summer. 

A Christian's View of Selective Toxicity

Selective toxicity: Property of an antimicrobial agent to be highly toxic against its target microbe while being far less toxic to other cells, particularly those of the host organism. 

Finding analogies and parallels between nature or inanimate object and Christianity has always interested me. So I was started paying more attention in class yesterday when Dr. Foster started talking about selective toxicity. 

"How can you kill the microbes without killing the person?" 

Yes... this is important. Then my brain kicked in: whoa... this is like sin!!! 

I quickly wrote and passed a note on my yellow stick-it pad to my lab partner, Timothy. "Kill the sin without killing the sinner" to which he replied, "I feel a blog coming on. :)" Thanks for the inspiration, Timothy. Here I am writing a blog. 

God is so amazing.

He hates sin and yet passionately loves the sinner. 

He has conquered sin and saves the sinner. 

How can He kill sin without killing us? 

Selective toxicity tells me that this is indeed possible, but the Biblical sanctuary service tells me that it is true. 

That is what God is doing right now. He is separating the sin from the sinner. He is attacking the bacteria without stopping the heart or lungs in the process. This can be a tricky process, considering that our brain, the control center of our body, is the infected part. 

It took more than an series of Vancomycin, or even the ever-potent Vancocin to kick this infectious sin process. It took God's life. No- He gave His life. 

For me. 

It seems to good to be true. And yet it is. 

"Thank you God, for selective toxicity. For conquering sin and yet saving me, a sinner".