glycolysis

glycolysis
Originally uploaded by jlovegren.

"elle dit que non et elle crie, mais tu force" our neighbor scolded my sister for forcing her affection upon some random baby, after she saw it and snatched it up on the walk home from church, the baby protesting all the way. it's not easy to get the babies to sleep, and you gotta go ruin it. two thirds of my math students failed the class. i am guessing this is because their parents enrolled them in the anglophone section so that they would learn english better, then of course they don't undestand half of what i explain. i figured it out when i started off on some polemic one morning about students not taking notes, and i start talking about the young boy in the green shirt, who must know everything since he didn't have a pen or paper out, "isn't that right sir?" he stares at me blankly. i tell him to take out his notebook and pen and get the same response. "sorts ton cahier!" then i gave everyone a lot of homework. the season for bananas, cocoyams, and peanuts is underway. but for now i am preparing for my presentation which is to be in french, "at least 30 minutes." they will let us go so long as we fill that time with anything, though formally it is about cameroonian culture. i am preparing an extensive presentation of varied information of questionable relevance to the topic of "alcool dans la societe camerounaise." it promises to be half an hour of discussion of the processes involved in fermentation and distillation, vapor liquid equillibrium curves, converstion of glucose to pyruvate via glycolysis, the reaction behind those breathalyzers that turn green, then a 30 minute rant against the neocolonialist menace, loosely supported by the arguments of the french agronomist rene dumont's 1965 classic "l'Afrique Noir est Mal Partie," and my experiences watching oliver stone's documentary about fidel castro some two years ago, and finally another 30 minutes or so of my theory on the normalization of alcoholism in cameroun, based on advertisements i have seen and comments made by jean pierre the bartender.