Moos & Tears!

Hello and a good week to everybody. What I want to talk about this week is about an interesting movie I watched on cable last week. The movie was about a young autistic woman who rises above many odds to rein in an education for herself. She also struggles, perseveres and succeeds in communicating effectively with society at large and enlightens the world on the goings on in the mind of an autistic person. What interested me most about the movie was this young woman’s choice of study for her Master’s program – the mooing of cows! Yes my dear friends, a genuine study on what cows moo about. At first my incredulity turned to a patronizing pat on the head, her head, as I erroneously thought that being an autistic person, she had little to aspire to, and the level of self development she had attained, was achievement enough. That is until I began to see the amazing way her mind worked, in a way that was almost impossible for the normal human mind to grasp.

Through her amazing insight and her study of moos, the world has learnt that cows like to move in circles, are more adapted to sloped dips instead of ones with steps, and found the most humane way of sending them to the abattoir. I came away from the movie much wiser and more emboldened to carry out the ‘zany’ projects going on in my head I had hitherto been hesitant about sharing with anyone. Thanks to this young amazing lady I can finally air my thoughts with you my family on a subject, which like moos, most have not been blessed to have an insight into; tears. The eye water that we were so acquainted with as children and still are occasionally as adults – some more often than others- is what I would like to study for my Master’s program.

In the study of, or research on any serious discipline, there is need to focus and specialize on a particular aspect of that discipline. My chosen department in the discipline of tears is to do with the how rather than the whys. I will explain. After watching numerous movies, documentaries, and even in real life, I have observed that people cry or should I say, shed tears from different parts of the eye. Some shed tears from the farthest corners of their eyes nearest to the ears, some from the middle of the eyes while others do so from the corners nearest to the nose. All these observations have been made with the subjects standing or seated in an upright position so that the true source of each tear is determined by the direct pull of gravity.

Just like the moo studying lady had the last laugh on her critics, so am I sure I will be rolling on the floor in months or years to come when I shall be vindicated by my fact finding mission. This is because my research, I am sure, will evolve into finding out which tear duct each individual is naturally disposed to crying from. Once this is ascertained, one will find out which tear duct is responsible for communicating a particular emotion; whether there be a specific tear duct for the expression of anger, which for sadness and grief and which for joy, or which duct is shared by two or more emotions. This will thus leave open the last emotion, or should I say non-emotion to scrutiny – tears of the crocodile kind.

Crocodile tears! I believe very strongly that the considerable economic losses that are incurred yearly by families, businesses and countries to this dreadful anomaly could be reduced drastically once the offending tear duct is found out and labelled appropriately. Through more from instinct than observation, I am strongly persuaded that the duct responsible for the ejaculation of the phoney tears is the one situated at the far corner of the eyes nearest to the ears, but, having sworn allegiance to proof by science I am resolved to stay my assumptions until the ultimate findings of my painstaking scientific research. Imagine a situation where, upon the invention of an emotion pinpointing tear duct machine, a fraudulent business man goes aweeping to his partner, with claims of being dispossessed of their jointly invested funds by unscrupulous fellows. The partner simply employs the services of the fact finding tear duct machine by beaming its rays on the claimant, and the scoundrel is exposed by the silent neon flashing screen screaming. “CROCODILE SERVING DUCT!, CROCODILE SERVING DUCT!”. Even in the home, women would be forced to lessen the strain they routinely put their eyes through, thus restricting themselves to deploying the use of their eyes to the expression of real emotion. The potential of this research is limitless, and will prove to be a formidable ally to its much older sibling, the lie detector. Then again, what do I know?
My mind’s running like a public tap but the powers that be are screaming I have far exceeded the space allotted to me. I enjoin everyone to support me in carrying mini researches in their own lives. Who knows, I may pop up at your doors with a thirty page questionnaire! Till then, this dogged scientist-to-be wishes you all have a great week!

School Ghost

Good week everyone! For some reason I am on a high this morning and I don’t know what it is I am so excited about, which is nothing. Maybe the reason I have so much adrenalin pumping through me is because I am biting my nails in trepidation regarding what I have to do today. Today I go to enrol in a three day course in a field that was responsible for my chronic truancy during my secondary school days – science. Ah, those were the days, the most horrible days of my entire life, and I refused to bow to the enemy – Physics, Chemistry and boarding school! Escape route? Truancy! Man, I was such a pro I had a radar in my head that went off anytime a potential threat – any adult with a questioning look in his or her mind as to why I was not where I was supposed to be, or why I was where I was not supposed to be – lurked behind me. I was so good at truancy that I was nicknamed The School Ghost. I remember my greatest feat; circumventing classes for a full year, and paying the price – I repeated the class. The good thing about my truancy, when I wasn’t roaming the length and breath of the country armed with my school fees and that of my younger brother’s, was that most of it was spent in the library, public or school. I loved to lose myself in the literatures and histories of different countries and times and sometimes hid among the shelves when the library was being locked up for the day only to creep out, switch on a discreet light bulb and continue my devouring of the delicious volumes of fact and fantasy. I learned back then that there is always a heaven in every hell on this side of the world. Now science, my past, has come back to haunt me – and I am ready.

I think I gained my confidence in tackling this monster when I prepared and sat for my GRE exams some years ago. I bought a preparatory book on geometry and algebra, and I think trigonometry, squeezed my eyes shut, prayed and opened it. It was amazing! I was led through a step by step ‘how to do it’ on all the mathematical problems and most importantly why and where it was all going! Suddenly I could see what all this was for. I saw myself, in my mind’s eye, writing calculations that would make the internet go faster, or designing the very perfectly symmetrical cars I loved so much. In short, the reason for poring over the complex figures became increasingly realistic and not abstract like my stupid and visionless teachers in secondary school made me believe.

I think we should be very careful with the way we guide our young ones as we guide them on the arduous path to becoming adults. Education means nothing if it is not going to be applied to some aspect of life in my opinion. Anyway I have a date with science tomorrow at seven and they’d better show me a road map of where what I’ll be learning for the next few days is going or I will take someone’s head off. Early morning tomorrow so early night tonight. Have a great week everyone and do please spare a thought for me. Tara!