A Very Ninja Christmas - Part II

As promised, here's Part II of three!


A few hours later……

"Once they killed the secret agents, the pirates took him. However, we found none of Santa's elves with the dead. What we did find were several scared elven townsfolk and a bunch of frantic reindeer. None of them could tell us what happened. Santa's workshop elves have disappeared as well." Colonel Bliksem debriefed a crowded room full of generals, colonels, the secret service, one very embarrassed Ryan, and an attentive Blue.

An enlarged screen above Bliksem flashed images of gutted secret service agents dressed as elves. Their bodies decorated the now not-so-festive Christmas town grounds in the North Pole.

In the brief silence that followed Bliksem's debriefing, Blue stood and pulled out her phone from deep within her cleavage and tossed it on the table. It took the men a moment to pick up their jaws from the floor before Bliksem took Blue's phone and displayed the pirate note on the overhead.

"…Brethren Court?" he asked, looking up at Blue. "We need to find the ship!" Around the room, people voiced their agreement.

"We've already got personnel trying to track down the pirate ship, Colonel," another commander volunteered.

"That isn't good enough." Blue stated. "We need to do something now! Look, read it again. Santa's being held hostage on the Flying Dutchman. THE Flying Dutchman." Gasps before the room went eerily silent. No one had been able to locate the Flying Dutchman. No one. It was a ghost ship that sailed the seas forever. Although the Disney movie, "Pirates of the Caribbean" idolized it as a ship that ferried souls, the ninja and the US Government knew better.

The Flying Dutchman was the last pirate ship to ever exist. During the Ninja v. Pirate conflict, ninja raided the ship and killed every living creature that inhabited it; down to the cat-sized bilge rats. Its captain swore, just as he was being gutted, that he would never leave his ship nor his crew. Since this was a very noble deed for a pirate, he was granted his wish. His dead spirit, along with the crew, would sail the oceans forever. The military has yet to detect, much less find, a ghost.

"Ghosts." Blue mused, thinking deeply to herself. "They must've hired a pirate-like crew. I can't imagine that any of the ghost pirates would be able to do anything more than levitate a candy cane. There must be living men on the ship." Blue said, getting more and more worried by the minute. She chewed on her lower lip while she began thinking of a plan.

"Suggestions?" Bliksem asked.

"OH!" as if on cue, and before any one else could speak, Blue hopped up with a jiggle. "K, I've got a plan! You guys distract. I can teleport through Santa's shadow and send a locator beacon to you. Ryan will parachute onto the deck to protect Santa." Blue drew a boat on the white board, then added a rotund red stick figure and a blue stick figure with breasts. The pirates she represented by multiple stick figures with eye patches. She then drew a plane above, and used an arrow to show Ryan stick figure parachuting down to the deck.

"As soon as Ryan lands, I can…" her eyes glazed over and she grabbed the red pen, popped off the cap and turned to the board, "KILL AND GUT THEM ALL!!!" Blue began to draw glorious depictions on the board of stick figure bits sprinkled liberally with red marker, adding sound effects. "It'll be a slaughter the likes of which Christmas has never seen!!!" She added, drawing red all over the board. "DIE DIE DIEE!!!" She paused to turn. "Ehm… can I have another marker? she asked, looking embarrassed. "This one's out of red ink.".

Everyone was staring at her. "Tee hee?" she smiled cutely as Ryan groaned and slid under the table.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Christmas Eve

"Blue, don't forget that if you pull this, everything goes KABOOM, okay?" Masa said through her blue tooth as she walked with escort on the aircraft carrier.

"Hai! Masa, don't worry. I'm well armed thanks to you guys!" she replied, pulling down her aviator glasses to gaze at the long runway with the line of jet fighter planes. Toshi, Blue's weapons and clothing designer, thought she'd look incredibly adorable in a curve-hugging military jumpsuit, complete with accessible pockets for her vials of poison gas, hollow point needles, shuriken, and kunai. He even included an accessory backpack to conceal her katana and wakisashi. Blue smiled in amusement when one of the troops tripped on his own foot and fell into the man in front of him. Toshi was right. She did look cute!

Blue snapped her gum, and gave one of her disarming, patented bright smiles when Ryan walked towards her; the other officers snapped into a V formation from behind. Before anyone could speak, Blue flung herself into Ryan's arms and delivered a kiss that would make DiCaprio from the Titanic jealous. "Be careful," she said softly, patting his chest and steadying the lieutenant on his feet.

Bliksem cleared his throat, and said, "Miss Blue, are you okay with this? Remember that once you-"

"…get on the ship, press the beacon." Blue finished, patting the top of her right breast where her embroidered name spelled out, "Lady Blue." It was also the place where Toshi had put the button for the beacon. "Gotcha." Blue winked and then stood on her tip toes to kiss the Colonel's cheek. "I'll be fine. Just make sure you can extract Santa before things get bloody!"

Understanding the urgency of the situation, Bliksem nodded, and signaled for everyone to step back. Ryan climbed into his airplane. Ensign Pike, Ryan's wingman, gave him the thumbs up in the jet next to him. Blue's acute hearing caught her telling him, "Don't worry sir. I'll be right there when you need me." Good. At least Ryan would be okay.

In unison, Masa, Toshi and Seiji, Blue's Crew, spoke into her ear, "We'll be with you every step of the way Blue!" Once everyone was in place, Blue closed her eyes, concentrated, and stepped into Bliksem's shadow. Comforting darkness surrounded her as she quickly located Santa. He was a hard one to miss!

Blue peered, looking up from the ground where Santa's shadow lay. She could see that he was tied to a chair with his hands behind him, manacles on his ankles. Three pirates stood guard. Something was very odd about them. Blue tilted her head, studying them curiously. Real pirates…were a lot smaller than she imagined!

As Blue emerged, she pressed her homing beacon, then threw three hollow point needles into the necks of Santa's guards. They silently sank to the floor in a permanent sleep. With half her torso still in shadow, Blue cut Santa's wrists and bindings free. She picked the locks on Santa's ankles as he ruffled her hair playfully, giving her a wink with his twinkling eye. He whispered to her, "Blue, look at the pirates carefully."

Once she ensured that Santa was unharmed, Blue knelt beside one of the still breathing pirates, and moved the familiar tri-cornered hat off his head. She saw…pointy ears!

"Elves!" Blue whispered in surprise. "Elves?!" She looked up at Santa, confused. "But…WHY?"

A Very Ninja Christmas - Part I

((This is part 1 in a three part series.  Please enjoy!!!))



"You've got mail!"

Lady Blue's violet eyes traveled from the terrified mugger, who had the cold steel edge of her poisoned dagger resting against his neck, to the phone dangling from her sash that once again repeated, "You've got mail!"

"..'scuse me." she said, and turned suddenly to answer the phone. Her would-be-assailant-now-turned-victim froze in place when she added, "Don't move" without looking at him. Opening the screen to the text messages,

Seiji's comment flitted across the screen, accompanied by a jpg file: "Blue, I thought you should look at this. Don't freak out too much okay? Your Blue Crew boys are on it. Just drop by the shop before you go ninja on their asses."



Blue shook in rage and narrowed her eyes, muttering, "Over my dead body!"

Turning on her mugger, Blue said, "Change of plan."

From goodness knows where, the small ninja produced a roll of duct tape and proceeded to firmly attach the man to the wall. After a phone call to the local police, she could concentrate on the REAL emergency. Patting the man's cheek, she said, "I'll come for you later." and winked.

"mMMMMMRRRR!" he mumbled, his eyes buggy as wriggled helplessly against the grimy brick in his metallic coccoon.

She needed backup! It was one thing to go raiding a pirate enclave with a take no prisoners and leave nothing alive attitude. Explosives were great for that. To keep old Santa alive however, needed tact.

RYAN!!!

In her "I dream of genie" pose that Ryan found entirely irresistible, Blue folded her arms in front of her, nodded her head, and stepped into the shadows.

She used the shadow gate to locate her sweet little lieutenant, and found Lt. Ryan Wolf hiding in a closet, hunched over some sort of object as Blue appeared behind him.

"….Ryan-kun?" She regarded the man for a moment before tapping his shoulder and scaring the sweet Christmas crap out of him. The lieutenant spun around, his face smeared in jellied donut. He coughed out white powdered sugar as he beheld the petite kunoichi.

"…Blue?" he said, looking rather bewildered and surprised. Ryan took a hard gulp of donut; its box with the familiar Krispy Kreme logo the object of which he had coveted so carefully. It was his weakness. How a man could eat so many donuts and stay so lean and muscular was beyond her.

"Ryan-kun! No time to explain. We need to go!" she yelled, yanking him by the uniformed necktie and dragging him behind her. The bewildered lieutenant barely had a chance to grab his donut box before she burst out of the closet into the bright light.

"…BLUE! Be careful when you-" Too late. The alarm sounded. Blue stopped in her tracks. Ryan grabbed her shoulder as several soldiers pointed their assault weapons at her.

"…open doors like that." Ryan finished, deflating. The soldiers had an amused look on their faces, seeing Ryan with his box. They were not so amused seeing the small lady with the short kimono looking rather out of place in the middle of the military facility.

Holding Ryan in the corner of her eye, the rest of her attention on the men, Blue restrained from pulling out her katana and taking the lot of them out. "Where am I, Ryan-kun?" she asked ever so sweetly, her hand resting by her slender thigh.

Ryan's face went white. He had heard that all too familiar poison in her honeyed voice. It was the same tone she used when coaxing the baddies to give up and surrender; right before she gutted them with the shuriken conveniently strapped to the garter on her thigh. "Blue…" Ryan said as calmly as possible. "We're at the NSA. Please be good." he pleaded. "Please, please be good." Ryan added a little silent prayer as the men came forward. "Just go with the little men. I'll be behind you, okay?"

"What's the NSA?"

Stay tuned tonight....

Tonight I'll post up the first of a three part story on "A Very Ninja Christmas." My buddy Charles, author of "Hell Knight" gave me the title idea!

In the meantime, please enjoy a pic from the I Has a Hotdog site. One of my favs! ^.^



Next blog will be up tonight!

One Hour

I had one afternoon hour to myself. One hour to spend not working, not speaking, cooking, planning, talking or worrying about other commitments. Although people can take it for granted, one hour is a precious amount of time to me.

I have an internal clock that can track time in five minute increments. I have the super ability to keep a conversation down to three minutes or drag it out to fifty. At work, I have a reputation for the five minute interview. It's an art.

So… what do I do with this one FREE hour that was completely mine? Write? Call family? Grab a to go order at a favorite restaurant? Wash the dog? Coffee? Blog? Myspace?

Absolutely not.

I went to Victoria's Secret.

It was a very, very good decision. ^.^

If I Were A Squirrel, My Nuts Would Be Frozen

To quote my boss, "It's colder than a witch's tit out there!" Struggling to survive yet another butt-arsed cold Maryland winter using a fire, blankets and hot cocoa (I'm not allowed to have coffee after what I did Thursday night… >.<), this tropical Californian transplant looks outside to see our resident squirrel boinging his furry little body on the bungie, stealing more dried corn and sunflower from the feeder.

WHOA. I thought squirrels hibernated!

Not so. After a brief internet research expedition on Squirrel Facts, it turns out that in winter, tree squirrels stay active while most ground squirrels hibernate. To survive, tree squirrels rely on nut reserves that they buried in the dirt and stored in trees during summer and fall. They also supplement their winter fare with the occasional foraged juicy bug, dried corn, peanut or eggroll.

According to Wiki, there's differing degrees of hibernation depending on the species. Hibernation means that the animal goes into a deep 'sleep.' Breathing and metabolism slow down to an almost undetectable crawl and the body temperature drops. A "true" hibernator, like frogs, are unresponsive throughout the winter. They cannot be roused in any way unless you raise the temperature.

Other types of hibernators sleep for intermittent periods of time, waking up occasionally to forage for food and water. I've got a few Biotech students like this. Fortunately, the vending machines are one floor away, so they can quickly find sustenance before returning to their winter slumber in class.

You're probably wondering, "What do frogs and turtles do during the winter?". Fear not dear reader, for I have the answer! Frogwatch says that aquatic frogs and turtles bury themselves in the leaf litter and dirt at the pond bottom. During this time, frogs become inactive and "mushy"; looking rather dead and brown. As long as the pond doesn't freeze over, and as long as the frog isn't moldy, decomposing, or upside-down, they're fine!

If you have an overwintering pet turtle, keep him in a box of dry straw in a cool place. Again, as long as he doesn't start to smell bad, Raphael will be back weilding his sai when things warm up in spring.

Remember the differing degrees of hibernation? Enchanted Learning's Hibernating Animal page, and the Environmental Education for Kids page can help you tell the difference! Bats, woodchucks and ground squirrels are true hibernators. Hibernating skunks and bears are not, and can be easily roused from their winter beauty sleep.

My advice? Think twice about kicking that sleeping bear. Otherwise, you'll become its Christmas dinner! Incidentally, it's okay to disturb a hibernating student. They may actually learn something from the experience.

Here's another cute book in case you're interested: Children's Book on Wintering Animals

Stay warm and cozy everyone!

Writer's Block Laxative

((Thanks Danny for giving me this idea! With a few embellishments of my own, I took your advice and…it worked!))

Recipe for breaking through writer's block:

3 cans of Starbuck's Doubleshot Expresso and Cream
2 bars of Starbucks dark chocolate + coffee
5 fish sticks
1 large carton of curly fries
1 box of apple juice
½ gallon water
Box o' Almond Roca
1 pair of noise cancelling headphones
iPod downloaded with garage grunge, metallica, and anything upbeat. Make sure you've got LOTS of music. You may be skipping songs to stay in a particular mood

Allow yourself at least two hours for things to take effect. Start with 1 coffee and 1 bar of chocolate. Eat the fish sticks to stabilize your stomach before taking the second coffee. Next, add the carton of curly fries and apple juice. Finish with the last can of coffee and bar of chocolate.

Place headphones over ears and turn iPod to eardrum rupturing level (this is one decibel below acquiring a subgaleal hematoma). Begin writing while liberally eating the almond roca and drinking the water. If you write with a 2B mechanical pencil, like I do, have extra lead. You end up breaking the tip quite often!

**I do not suggest doing this every night, by any means. However, it DID kick start my brain in strange, bizarre ways. I am now feverishly writing things down that should never be seen by human eyes.

For my dear friends out there who have read my previous blogs:
YES, I know my boss will hate me Friday morning. And YES, this is far more caffeine and sugar than the normal cup of coffee I normally drink. YES, I thought my experimental days with unusual substances like fish sticks and caffeine were over too. BUT, desperate times require desperate measures, and I am willing to sacrifice the next three nights of sleep so that I may continue to rave like a madwoman about a scantily clad killer ninja with severe cat allergies that hates all things Martha Stewart.

With that said, I'm going to go decapitate a few adorable kittens now…. ROCK ON!

"Excuse me, but are you the Bio teacher that shot me in the pants when I was a sophomore?" - This One's For You, Mr. Johnson

Mr. Johnson, my zany, humorous high school Bio teacher had a bumper sticker tacked onto his bulletin board that said, “Bald and Beautiful.” As he bent over the microscope to fix and focus it on a drop of pond water, my lab partner and I would fall out of our seats laughing hysterically to tears because we wanted so badly to rub the peach fuzz on his head. –I was a goofy 15 year old back then.

One day, Mr. Johnson told us to take our lab stools and go outside. He had the entire class sit in the middle of a bunch of rushes on the grass near Elkhorn Slough, an ecological preserve with neat things like hemlock and fairy shrimp. We all thought he was nuts. He told us to sit down and look around at everything. He gave us a speech about all the little details: photosynthesis, respiration, chemotaxis, camouflage, predator-prey interactions… etc. Then he said, “Look at the big picture.” Whenever you're bogged down in the little details, take a deep breath, and look at the big picture of where everything fits in. Look at the sky, the plants, the animals... and where you are. Learn to look at things from a different perspective.

I do this almost every day. Whenever I have that one little student who comes in angry, or complaining...and I've just about had it, I look at the finger painting my little ninja made for me hanging in my office. I then look at my dying plant that I desperately try to keep alive that my other little ninja gave me. Then I watch my pet goldfish, ELISA, give me the "feed me" look because she has a 3 minute memory and I just fed her a half an hour ago. I get perspective.

I take a deep breath, smile in remembrance of the squeaky toy left on the stairs that almost killed me this morning, and put myself into the big picture again. It helps me go on. By the time I've generated the paperwork, signed and placed the student on probation, I can do it with a smile. THEY have to think about the big picture too! ...and as their director, I get to teach that to them.

Over my sophomore year, Mr. Johnson taught us the important things in life such as mitosis, transcription, bacteriology and osmotic eggs. On the last day of school, he had a pair of high powered, 60 cc syringes filled with ice cold water targeted at any student that had the gall to shoot him with a squirt gun. I did. -And paid for it with a pair of soaked pants. He also had very good aim. The following year, I became his teacher aid.

In hindsight, I realize now that he was often very frustrated. I think he felt that his students didn’t care. He was burned out. I remember because he would rub his balding head, sigh, then tell us to do things all over again. He was a perfectionist, and wanted us to be just as enamored and passionate about biology like he was.

At the beginning of my senior year, I walked into the science department that I so loved, and discovered that Mr. Johnson had quit. Mr. Carroll, my chemistry teacher, said that he had moved on to a career in Biotechnology. I guess not having people care really got to him. Although I boldly marched through my Physics class with the rest of them, the science department was never the same for me. It was no longer my home.

Fast forward my life a few years, when it's now ME in front of the class talking Biology. Mr. Johnson is one of the angels that sit on my shoulder. He is the reason I became the teacher I am today. Mr. Johnson was so passionate about what he taught. He LOVED Biology, and he passed his love for it onto me. And now, I get to torture my students with it!

I dream that one day, I will run into Mr. Johnson again, and just spew my guts to him about how he’s been a huge influence in my life. It would start with: I went into Biology…THEN I became a teacher….THEN I became a director…and THEN I became (of all things)…a teacher TRAINER… and THEN……

What would he say when I tell him I use his egg lab? -Or that I teach streaking in the same way he did? (BACTERIAL streaking, not the nakie streaking!) …or that I teach my students about the big picture. In the big picture of things, I was his shadow. In the big picture, he is my idol. When I went through that horrible, bloody rite of passage called Student Teaching, I dreamed of becoming like him.

Unfortunately, trying to find him in this sea of human bodies called America has been darned near impossible. How does one sift through the multiple "David Johnson's" on a listing? "Excuse me, but are you the Bio teacher that shot me in the pants when I was a sophomore?"

Yes, there were students that didn’t listen or care in your class, Mr. Johnson.

-But let me tell you about the life of someone who did.

Thank you. Thank You For Everything.

Coffee

My boss is trying to get me to go decaff. He says I'm too perky in the morning.

Ironically, I only drink one cup a day. Albeit, that cup could have been laced with 1-3 shots of expresso, but it's still just one cup. Woe unto those who dare suggest that I give up my one cup! It's like brushing my teeth in the morning. If I don't have my cup of coffee, the world just doesn't feel right for the rest of the day. In fact, it feels wrong.

I tell my boss that in college, I was much, MUCH worse. Not only did I drink triple shot mochas on a daily basis, but they would be coupled with a cinnamon sugared donut, or bag of peanut M & Ms, or BOTH! (Had to have my healthy protein!)

I even used to experiment with such dangerous substances like chocolate covered expresso beans, Super dew (Mountain dew mixed with Kool Aid), and Jolt cola. When one of the first energy drinks came out, I had half a can of Xtazy in order to make a 3 hour drive at 2 in the morning with my friends. Needless to say, the resulting 2-3 days of insomnia kept me from ever any of those toxically caffeinated things again!

My favorite cup of coffee comes from Starbucks. You can visit their Beverage Lineup here. The BEST Starbucks? It's a little drive through in Puyallup, Washington. As soon as you take your cup from the barista and sip, you're hit with the realization of, "DAYUMN, this is GOOD!" followed by, "Holy Heck! I didn't burn my tongue!" and lastly, "OMG! And it's just perfectly heated!!!" Now THAT is a great cup of coffee!

IT Stands for Information Technology

...not to be mistaken for BIOtechnology. But because our nearest IT guy is 45 minutes away and incredibly SWAMPED with questions, I am sadly, the next best thing. People think that because I can separate DNA, I can fix their computer. Strange...I know.
They even have a motto: Yen can do it!

Yeech.... >.< The scary thing is that usually, I can do it! -Which surprises ME!

At least my job has the “tech” in it somewhere.…just don’t ask me to program the remote!

Wanna know my secret? I follow the three steps below. It solves 75% of the IT issues that I get!

1. Turn on the computer.
a. Check that the power is turned on the power strip.
b. Check to make sure all cords are present and they are connected to the correct piece of equipment you are using
c. Find the "on" switch. Usually looks like this:
or this
...sometimes, both switches need to be on in order to get power!

2. Restart the computer.
a. Go to the green “start” and hit “shut down” then shut it down.
b. Hold the little “on” button for a while until the computer shuts off.

3. Log onto the computer
a. Check that your password is typed in correctly, including all capitals, lower cases and numbers. If this doesn’t work than:

• Make sure the caps lock is off
• I’s (eyes), 1’s (ones) and l’s (elles) all look alike when they are written on a piece of toilet paper. Try retyping the passy with these different combinations.

I feel your pain, my brother. I feel your pain!!!

You can find more here: http://clipmarks.com/clipmark/253C5556-54EB-4933-A355-0BFDC37671BA/

Fast Facts for Monday!

Being an educator in Biology, I've accrued some of the most interesting biology facts over the years. Here's a fast five!

1. Earthworms 69. Why? Because they are hermaphroditic, meaning they make both eggs AND sperm. Since the boy end is on one part of the worm and the girl end is on a different part, 69-ing is well.... the only way you can get the parts together. ...sorta. I've always wondered about earthworm orgies, but one has learned not to wonder too too much on that sort of thing. BTW, earthworms are FAR more flexible than we humans will every be....they don't have bones!

1. Before the biotechnological convenience of pregnancy tests, Egyptian doctors would use female Xenopus frogs. When these frogs were incubated overnight in a woman's urine, they would lay eggs if she was pregnant...and not lay eggs if she wasn't.
2. Most male mammals have a baculum, or a penis bone. Walruses have the largest baculum on the planet. In case you are wondering, humans do not.
   
3. Ever wonder why when you find aphids, you also find ants? Ants "farm" the aphids and eat the "dew" that they produce. What's the dew, you ask? Aphid pee.
4. According to the National Geographic, Genghis Khan has over 16 million descendants all over the world! How do we know this? Unlike your other chromosomes, the Y chromosome is passed on identically from father to son along the paternal line. You can actually track Genghis Khan's migration across Mongolia by the number of Y chromosomes he happened to "leave" along the way. -VERY interesting article, by the way!

Happy Monday everyone!

Goodbye My Genji

Writer's note: In case you are wondering, yes...it's true. I've still got writer's block. After following Danny's advice from my Writer's Block blog, I listened to some music to unblock myself. But, with all these Christmas songs in my head, all I can think of is that Santa is a Ninja, and what kind of cookies he'd want by the fireplace this year. More on that later. Here's my cop out - I'm going to post a short story that I've written about Lady Blue. Enjoy!!!

-----------------------------------

Goodbye My Genji
copyright 2007 by Yen Verhoeven

Genji sat straight up on his cot, unable to sleep. His ears straining for a sound, a noise… something in the dark… hoping…hoping…

……for her.

“Are you there?” He whispered into the shadows, and waited…

Moments later, his nose caught the heady scent of sandalwood on the breeze, and he smiled. He licked his dry, parched lips, and sighed.

“Lady Blue, you have come again to visit me. I get so lonely when you do not visit, my Lady. Tonight… “ His shaky withered hand reaches over to grab pen and paper, bringing it to rest on the floor between his bony bare feet.

“They gave me rice paper! Rice paper…for….for you!” The white sightless eyes beamed in pride from his old, wrinkled face. He waited… wondering, like he did so many times before, whether this was only a dream… or a nightmare.

“Genji…” a soft lilting voice that reminded him of a lover’s sigh. Genji felt cool, delicate fingers caress his face, and he heard the familiar rustle of fine gowns as she settled herself in front of him. Her warm breath tickles his ear and neck. The whisper of her seductive voice fills him with anticipation.

“I have another story for you, Genji-chan. One for my pillow-book. You will write this for me, yes?”

Genji nods enthusiastically. “I am ready, my Lady.” He hears the rustle of silk and the tinkling of ornamental bells as his Lady Blue bows to him, signaling that she was about to begin. She tells him of another adventure from lands far away, and in provinces close by. Genji writes. He does not know how he does this…but his words are captured in his mind’s eye, and they appear on the paper, pausing only occasionally to ask her questions to clarify, or slow down her narration so that he can write the details.

Tonight, Lady Blue tells him about a minor battle between two lords, and how she had turned the tides. It was a short piece. Normally, stories took most of the evening. But in this case, it took less than two hours to write down. When she had finished speaking, Genji looks up from his papers.

“Is that all, my Lady?” Genji’s eyebrows creased as he looked up to her with his milky, unfocused eyes. He was afraid she would go. He didn’t want her to go. Otherwise, he would be alone again….with his mind.

“No. I have one more thing, Genji.” He heard her stand up… the whisper of a gown as it slid off the curves of an impossibly perfect body, and onto the floor. His ears strain to hear more, and he jumps when he feels her delicate fingers on his lips.

“Genji-chan, tonight is the last night I will visit you.”

The words are a cold shock to his body. He has had regular visits from Lady Blue. Between the solitude in his cell, memories of her voice...the sounds of her…the smell of her… were the only things that gave him a reprieve. And now that too, would be taken away from him. A strangled sob catches in his throat.

“Nooo….!” He cries out. His hand, without thinking, reaches out in protest…and touches incredibly soft skin. “Please…do not leave me here! Please?” He begs as she grabs his hand and brings it to her face.

“No, Genji…I cannot.” She turns her head to softly kiss the palm of his hand, bringing his fingers up to touch her forehead…her shapely eyebrows… closing her eyes as his fingers explore her face, skimming her features. Genji speaks in hushed awe.

“…My Lady… you are so…beautiful!” Tears pour down his face as she allows him to touch. He burns every detail of her into his mind, vowing never to forget; and yet….

She leans in to whisper to him again. “Genji, my love…. Paint me a picture. Please? A picture…of me?” Her kiss catches him by surprise as cool lips brush against his mouth…the taste of her reminding him of orchids and morning dew…of freedom. He takes in a deep breath… a shaken sigh as she wraps her slender arms around him and consumes him in a blur of distorted thoughts and memories….

Genji stirs from his cot…still feeling the echo of her warm body imprinted on his skin. Her scent is everywhere. It penetrates every pore of his body, and brings him peace. He lays still, listening to the sound of her putting on her clothes.

“Remember, Genji. Remember what you must do when you finish.” She touches his lips once more, kissing him lightly. “Goodbye, my Genji…” And she was gone.

The morning guard opened Genji’s cell to give him his breakfast…and dropped his plate. The scent of blood and bile made him fall to his knees, gagging and retching before he gathered the strength to run and get the others. As soldiers filled the room, they looked in shocked horror and pity. Poor crazy Genji….they thought. The walls were covered from ceiling to floor with drawings, kanji, strange symbols and markings done in blood and feces. Many of these were old. They had tried to keep him from hurting himself by giving him brushes and paper. It hadn’t worked. At night, they even bound him in rope. But for some reason, he always managed to free himself by dawn.

Fresh markings covered the walls, punctuated with tatters of skin, bits of nail and hair where he had bitten and flayed himself. What was left of him was hanging from the ceiling by the sash of his kimono.

Several hours later, when they removed the body and cleaned the cell, a maid found the book. It was tucked lovingly and carefully into the cotton of his pillow and wrapped with scraps of cloth…. Save for the smears of blood, it was written in perfect calligraphy…a reminder of when Genji was the emperor’s personal scribe. On the cover, painted in blood and water, was his last work.

Writer's Block

Picture me: Munching on a peanut-buttered bagel while occasionally grabbing a sip of coffee as I stuff papers into my portfolio, hoping that somewhere among the pile are the directions to my conference. Once I've got the portfolio in reasonable order, I stuff it into my messenger bag along with the journal that I have gotten into the habit of carrying. It says, "V's Lab Notebook" but inside, I've now got pages of scribbled ideas on the happenings and events of my alter ego. It goes with me almost everywhere now, because for some reason, the ideas are always getting in my head.

Except today. So, until I can think of something to write, here's a word from someone else's sponsor:

Oh I wish I were an Oscar Meyer Weiner!
That is what I really want to be.
Cause if I were an Oscar Meyer Weiner
Than everyone would be in love with me!

Okay, time to balance coffee, bagel, banana, keys and umbrella as I head out to the car! Have a good weinier day today!

A Well Placed Word

Why be limited to a handful of curse word vocabulary when you can colorfully express yourself in explicit detail in other ways?

For example, instead of saying, "That f*$#ing dog just s!*t all over my f#@!ing carpet again!" One could say, "The furry bag of evil just unleashed her foul, odoriferous revenge on my maggot-ridden carpet again." or something like that. (Bear with me, I'm writing without a cup of coffee.)

Inspire yourself to move beyond the limits of just f*&$ing procreation and dull s%$#. Why not exercise the right to say "poop" and "fecal matter" and "fermented bits of rotten manure" when referring to someone's term paper that they copied out of wiki? It's far more expressive, don't you think?

The Ninja v Pirate

And now for a brief discussion on a subject near and dear to my heart: NINJAS!

For those of you that don't know me yet, my alter ego is one spunky, sassy little ninja named Lady Blue. For those of you that DO know me, just...roll your eyes and humor me, okay? For once I think I can go into a brief history on the pirate ninja saga without bursting a blood vessel.

When I can find the site again, I will link it to this blog. But since I can't find it this early in the morning, I shall give you a brief synopsis.

Essentially, when a ninja encounters a pirate, the ninja kills the pirate. Enough said. That's it. End of story.

Why is this, you may ask? Well, for some reason, engrained in the very essence of a Ninja, deep down in their DNA....although some ninja don't have DNA... is the "I hate pirate" gene. -If you can call it a gene. Some ninja are not biologically based, you see. But hating pirates is a part of a ninja's makeup. Being a ninja means that you MUST hate pirates. Down to your very core and being.

Dear Reader: "But aren't you being a little harsh, Yen?"

My answer? "ABSOLUTELY NOT." There's just no compromise here. If you are a ninja, you hate pirate. If you don't hate pirates, than you've now lowered yourself to the realm of being ninja-like, as classified by our designated ninja spokesperson, Ask a Ninja.

Moving on, I'm sure many of you wonder why there is such an extreme case for the dislike of all piratedom and all things pirate. Well, it started (as all things do) with a love story:

Once upon a time, when fictional characters such as ninjas and pirates came into existence, a foolish, foolish ninja fell in love with a pirate wench. Pirate wench mommy and daddy did not approve of the affair and was not able to give the girl their blessing anyways because her ninja boyfriend lopped off their heads.

I'm sorry to say that this little mishap kind of ticked off the pirate wench, and she became annoyed, to which case, ninja boyfriend ended the arguement. Permanently.

You would think that after silencing the parents and the source of conflict, things would be resolved, right? Wrong. Being the very slow, unintelligent beings that they were, pirates did not catch on and decided that they would (HAH) avenge their family members and fellow pirate buddies.

The result? Complete and total annihilation of all things pirate. ALL things pirate. Why? Because ninja are just so damn good at what they do.

"But then why is there still a Ninja Pirate conflict?"

There isn't. Pirates have been extinct for centuries now. Everything pirate that you see is simply pirate-like. However, true, honest to goodness shiver-me-timbers pirates have have been completely eliminated thanks to the awesome efficiency of my ninja kindred. Allowing the concept of the pirate to still exist is a deliberate ploy by the Ninja Counsel to give us an excuse to flip out on occasion and kill people just for fun.

Biotech Beer

It's a curse and a blessing in many ways to work in the field called Biotechnology. A blessing because when you say "biotechnology" people widen their eyes and go "OOoOOHH!!!"

A curse because then they think we're one of those people, whatever that means. For the general public, biotech has been attached to such concepts as cloning, stem cells, frankenfoods and CSI. I can follow someone's train of thought because that look of "Oh wow, she must be pretty smart!" transforms into horror as they think, "Oh wow, she's cloning Hitler in her basement! Quick Millie, run! She'll yank out your DNA and take over the world!!!"

The classic definition of Biology: The study of life. Biotechnology is simply the study and manipulation of life and it's parts. Yeech...that still sounds horrible, doesn't it? When we talk about "manipulation" of life, think food. Food, at one point, was alive (unless it's a twinkie).

Beer is biotechnology. We grow yeast on hops, let the yeast poison itself to death in it's own alcoholic waist, filter out the dead yeasty bodies and voila! Coors, Miller, Heineken or any variety of poisonous substance you prefer to drink. Incidentally, this was the only way I could get my boss to understand biotechnology. He said, "BEER?! Oh yeah, I understand that. You're making that upstairs?!"

Well, no. Not exactly. The technology is the same! Whether you want to make beer, wine, cheese, insulin, cancer drugs, proteins or any variety of much needed biological products, we use the same technology to grow the microbe (bacteria, yeast, mammalian cells), harvest what it produces (insulin, Herceptin, etc), and purify it out.

Obviously, it's a lot more complicated than that, but at least it got him away from thinking that my students were growing rabid mutant chihuahuas in beakers.

OOH Baby! It's Snow Outside!

On March 1, 2007, my samurai and I officially uprooted ourselves from the native Californian sun and moved to...Maryland.

Fundamental difference:
March in Northern California means 60-70 degrees Fahrenheit, with bits of green just ready to herald the beginning of spring.

March in Maryland means 20-40 degrees Fahrenheit (for that year) and small bleak piles of snow, with not a single green thing in sight.

About a week into living in our new state, I remember walking out and encountering this...stuff, falling from the sky. Holding my hand out in naive fascination, the mental convo that went on in my head was something like, "Ye GODS! What is this?!" as I was trying to figure it out, tasting...touching....rubbing this odd white stuff between my fingers. "Not snow. This stuff is too wet for snow. Snow is dry! Not rain. Definitely not rain. And...." adding as I almost biffed it on the sidewalk, "slippery. Slushy."

Adjectives were flying through my head as my brain struggled to comprehend this snow-not snow-slush-rain hybrid. It wasn't until I was sliding, literally sliding at 20 mph on an on ramp when I discovered two more things:
1. This stuff is what they called...SLEET!
and
2. Holy CRAP! I'm driving too fast!

Yes. It was an interesting spring in 2007. The 2007 winter later that year was even more "educational" as I slogged and shivered my way through such vocabulary as "wintery mix," "flurries," and "frozen rain." Frozen rain has special meaning to me since the day I walked out to my car from work at 5 pm, and found it encased in ICE. As I chipped my way to opening the door, the naive former Californian that I was turned on the windshield wipers, hit the wiper fluid, and waited for almost 10 uneventful minutes in my frozen tomb before one of my co-workers noticed my plight. If it hadn't been for him, I think I would've been there all night until the sun maybe had thawed me out in the morning!

Needless to say, between my first winter experience and Weather.com, I've learned that you should keep a bag of salt or kitty litter in your trunk along with a shovel and ice scraper (preferrably heated). These things are also handy in case you ever encounter a wild pack of mutant sabre tooth tigers with a bad case of diarrhea and dingleberries.

When your car is a frozen ice cube, use the ice scraper while on high defrost. Scrape, scrape, scrape as the hot blast of air warms up your windshield. You can even buy stuff that has a salt component in it that you sprinkle onto your windshield to thaw it out somewhat.

When driving:
1. Don't drive in bad weather. Of course, if you've been at work for 12 hours or so... this may be something you will probably have to do for fear of going postal. Sleeping in cubicles is not fun.

If you MUST drive in bad weather (like a lot of us do), and in ice/sleet/frozen rain:
2. Drive SLOWLY. -sometimes this means 2 mph in Maryland and will take you 2 hours to get home instead of 30 minutes.

3. Leave at LEAST 3 times the more space than usual between you and the car in front of you.

4. Don't pass the snow plow or salt trucks! The conditions in front of THEM are worse than whats behind them.

5. Brake slowly.... VERY slowly - especially on bridges, since the likelyhood of ice is even higher. You can skid very easily on the ice.

6. This one's a no brainer hopefully, but I've encountered people with no brains so: Turn on your lights!

7. Lastly, when you park, put your wipers up so that they don't stick and freeze to the windshield.

Then heaven forbid, but if you get stuck, the trusty people at Weather.com say:

1. Do not spin your wheels. This will only dig you in deeper.
2. Turn your wheels from side to side a few times to push snow out of the way.
3. Use a light touch on the gas, to ease your car out.
4. Use a shovel to clear snow away from the wheels and the underside of the car.
5. Pour sand, kitty litter, gravel or salt in the path of the wheels, to help get traction.
6. Try rocking the vehicle. (Check your owner's manual first — it can damage the transmission on some vehicles.) Shift from forward to reverse, and back again. Each time you're in gear, give a light touch on the gas until the vehicle gets going.
7. MORE TIPS

When encountering diarrheal wildcats? Sorry, your on your own. I have no advice for you except...don't give them a ride!

Plight (or Blessing) of the Vertically Challenged

I'm five feet* and proud of it. That's right. Five feet. Exactly.

For six years, I was the shortest and smallest faculty member at my campus. Now at my new campus, I'm almost the shortest, although I haven't exactly sized myself up with our financial aid officer to really tell. However, by visual comparison we are very, very close in height.

The average height for a woman in America is five feet, five inches according to Wiki. Incidentally, the average female height for a woman of Vietnamese descent (which I am) is exactly five feet! This means is that in America (where I live), anyone who's below five feet, five inches is immediately looked down upon. Well, in a physical way. Height also affects peoples' first impressions of me...until I open my mouth.

Take for example, the most common reply I got when I taught teenagers: "YOU teach high school?!" Followed by, "Don't they run all over you? Do you like it?" Or better yet, "You must get eaten alive!" Then they'd look at me sympathetically for being the small, fragile little teacher that's been released into a cage of savage, wild giant high school students.

Needless to say, my reply would be something like, "Yes, I teach high school." and "Yes, I LOVE it" and "What do you mean, eaten alive? I make football players cry!" ...not as a hobby, mind you. But when it came between a football game and not doing your assignment therefor failing the class (and thus, your academic future), you better believe I'd make 'em cry!

Bottom line is: Don't underestimate people shorter than you. As a colleague of mine used to say about me, "It's not about height. It's about the fact that you're one atomic giant when it came to getting things done. Woe to those that stand in your way!" I may be short, but that means I can take better aim at your ankles and knees.

My hapkido sensei used to say, "If someone shorter is about to attack you, run away! There's something very wrong with that picture."

Living at five feet does have it's...accommodations though. For example, I have a harder time finding things that are stored above my line of vision (above my head). Also, I live my life in the lab permanently attached to a ladder or a chair...or a plastic box that I pray won't capsize when I stand on top of it. I'm also hard to find when I'm stealthily hidden in a classroom with people who are taller than me. In come cases, I've been mistaken for a speed bump. The good thing is that I'm usually not the one that slows down! Muhuhahahaaa!

Advantages to being height challenged? People automatically underestimate you. -This is definitely a good thing because it means you can take them by surprise! As a woman, this means you NEVER have to worry about dating someone who's shorter than you. ...not that this is a concern for me anymore for me. :P Also, we eat less. So, if there's ever a food shortage, guess what? The short will survive to inherit the earth!

My conclusion? Burn your heels and walk proud, my vertically challenged brethren! The world is there for our taking!


*I write out the measurements AND units because, like most science-oriented people, I think in meters, millimeters and micrometers. (Another topic for a different time.)

Spitting off the Peak of Mount Wannahockaloogie

Warning: The following blog contains grossly explicit details of an organic nature. Read at your own risk!

The cold and flu season is now upon us, and I, like millions of other Homo sapiens on the planet have fallen victim to its deadly lysogenic cycle. (Egads! Lysogenic isn't even accepted on the spell checker!)

As I wetly squelch, cough and blow my way through a box of lotioned kleenex, I contemplate the etiquette and art of hocking a loogie. It was a much needed skill that my father taught me along side the proud art of making farting noises with my armpit. Even my dear beloved samurai can't spit one like I can.

Etiquette. Of hocking a loogie. At some point in our miserable disease-ridden state, any and ALL of us feel the desire to hack one up, don't we? Yet in our society of being prim and proper, it's better to drown in our own pathogenic juices and gag on our giant green balls of mucus than to just cough, hock and spit. We can't even do it in public bathrooms because of the echo!

What's more... when men spit one in public, it's socially frowned upon, but no one dwells on it. Yeah, it's a disgusting habit, but what else can you expect, right? Yet when a woman hocks the big one, she might as well release a loud atomic methane fart to go along with it since it wouldn't be any less shocking or...unnatural. *gasp* People don't EXPECT grossly biological noises from the supposedly more gentile sex, right? But... don't we have respiratory and digestive systems, too???

Needless to say, even my samurai feels a bit intimidated when I go into the bathroom in the morning and "do my thing," to the chagrin of the entire household since I can be so loud. But hey...when you've gotta hock a loogie, you've gotta hock a loogie! Might as well get it done and over with before...heaven forbid.... others find out about your phlegm!

Here's some interesting factioids on phlegm. I wikied this because I was morbidly curious as to why doctors are so interested in the color of your sputum. The next time you stare at that goopy, protein and pathogen laden lump of saliva-coated gel congealed at the bottom of your sink, think:

Clear or white = healthy unless you are in the early initial stages of sickness. In which case, your phlegm baby is not only clear, but infectious as well!

Yellow = tends to indicate a bacterial infection. Although this isn't always be the case.

Green = sign of infection

Green with red spots or rust red phlegm = signs of infection and possibly pneumonia! It's "rusty" means that you might be bleeding deep in there.

Bloody = first off, go to your doctor! You could have cancer, tuberculosis or something as "minor" as bronchitis. We aren't certified sputologists here, so it's important to get other tests done to make sure!

Brown and brownish grey = STOP SMOKING! That's only a sample of the crap that your body's trying to clear up from those cancer sticks your sucking on. Can we say, ewwwww?


The caption from wikipedia says: Phlegm with a Canadian quarter for scale.
No, this is NOT a picture my own personal phlegm. Mine's green right now if you really wanted to know...

This Crazy Little Thing Called Blogging

Hopefully this will be the start of more blogs to come!

Throughout my life and my career, I've written many, many things; including stories, excerpts, personal reflections, and curriculum. Yes, I DID say curriculum. -As in terribly boring instructions on what to teach, how to teach and when to teach it. Without going into too much detail, I will say that I AM a sort of stodgy educator-type person who's written enough lesson plans to choke a starving beaver. I'm not proud of the fact that entire rain forests have died to my cause, but hey...you've gotta eat!

As to WHY I've started to blog? Several reasons really.
1. I've got lots to say. Not really sure who wants to hear it, but at this point, I don't care. Mentally speaking, I've got so much nervous energy in me that it's the equivalent of a neurotic dog chasing its tail. One day, I'll catch it. -And between you and me? I don't really want to. So....welcome to my outlet!

2. I've lived on myspace for almost four years now. -NOT as Yen, mind you... but as my alter ego. I'll introduce her later. But I feel it's time to stop hiding behind her shadow and "come out" into the open, so to speak. I need room to grow, meet new people and a gather a following.

3. I want fans! ...not the kind that you use to cool off. I want the kind that inspire, challenge and fire you into the realm of pure mental satisfaction! (Please...get your mind out of the gutter.... ;P) I want the fans that love my writing and just starve/crave for more! As my alter ego, I've had a small... (when I mean small, I mean...minuscule) following, and I liked it. Is it wrong to be so power hungry? ...is writing for the masses really called power hungry? Meh, so be it. I'll be a tyrant if I can get fans.

4. There are voices in my head. Stories...plotlines....goofy anecdotes...movie scenes and just random pieces of thoughts that scream and keep me awake at night, begging to be immortalized on this temporary electronic "diary" of sorts. Time to give them a voice. Maybe then, I'll be able to sleep at night without pacing around restlessly while battle scenes play out in my psyche.

5. Lastly, it's because I'm a forgetful person. One day, I'll forget little things, like whether or not I brushed my teeth or combed my hair. -Or even what I did last night or last week! Heaven forbid, but this blog could be my last hope for remembering to feed the dog in the morning... or putting coffee grounds in the coffee maker before turning the thing on. ...and yes, I know that there are all sorts of organizers for this, but you can never find enough places to put records of your thoughts and ideas when one day, it'll be all you have.

Okay...one last reason. I got this advice from reading Duane Swierczynski's interview on Newsarama. You see... one day, I want to aspire to be like that...in my own way. He said that you have to make a writing goal every day. Well, here it is: Blogging 101. Writing goal for the day: COMPLETE!

So that would put me at... a couple more thousand to go! WOOT!