Well, Smokey Joe's Cafe is over. My last musical at Dana College is over and done. It hasn't quite hit me yet. I mean, yesterday I felt really depressed, but it didn't seem to be because of the end of the show. I dunno. Maybe it's just not that big of a deal? I'm sure my final show at Dana, regardless of venue, will hit me harder.
So, yeah, I auditioned for Measure for Measure tonight. All Doc had me read for was Angelo, which I have mixed feelings about. On the one hand, Angelo is the bad guy, and I'd love to actually play the bad guy again. Also, it seems to be a challenging role with Angelo's downfall and internal conflict. On the other hand, though, Angelo isn't one of the larger roles. The Duke is, by far, the largest male part, and is center stage in almost every scene. But then, when I think about it, the only reason I would want to be the Duke is because it's the largest part. As I was reading through the play, I found myself rather bored and annoyed that the Duke wouldn't shut up. That, and the Duke doesn't appear to have anywhere near the complexities that Angelo has. But maybe that's just my untrained Shakespeare analysis talking.
It would be really nice to have a leading role just once my final year at Dana. Like I've mentioned before, I feel really dumb going from major roles, to background roles in my college career. But, then again I have a one-man show to memorize. How can I actually get that done while memorizing a ridiculously long-winded Shakespeare part? Which would actually give me better experience in acting: The Duke, or Angelo?
I suppose its all out of my hands, and I should just take what comes my way. There are good aspects to both, and probably even more benefits to Angelo as I understand things right now. And then again, maybe Doc will throw my for a loop and cast me as something entirely different, or not at all? God, I can't stand the thought of the last option . . . And Angelo is one of the more memorable roles in the play . . .
I've also been thinking about/working on my bio research project. And, well, this monoclonal stuff is just getting ridiculously complicated. I mean, UNMC has said that they'd help me with everything in their labs, but I can't even find a simple antigen to immunize the mice with. It's so far over my head. I feel so inadequate, and stupid. Even just the immunization is really expensive, and I feel bad about letting the UNMC people pay so much and go to so much work on my account. I'm not even going into bio research for a living. What if the only reason they're so eager to help me is because they think that I'm actually going to work for them? I mean, they're ready to put up a LOT of money.
But, then, in a sudden flash of inspiration, another idea for a project came to me. A vastly simpler project, that is almost as interesting, and requires a fraction of the work . . .
Tonight in Evolution class, we were watching a video on the importance of sexual selection in evolution. One part of the program dealt specifically with people, and what it is that humans find sexually arousing, and possibly links to biology. Well, one of the studies it talked about was one in which a group of men wore the same shirt to bed as they slept for a period of time (and ohhhhhhhhh, what yummy footage was included of strapping young lads with rippling muscles, pulling t-shirts off their gorgeous bodies). Then a group of women smelled the various shirts and rated the sexual attractiveness of the shirts' owners, based merely on smell.
The study found that women tended to rate the sexual attraction of men who had different immune genes higher than men who had similar immune genes. Or, the women were more attracted to the scent of men who differed the most from themselves.
Well, this got me to thinking. If something like immune genes can be subconsciously sensed through scent, what else can be sensed? And then, it hit me: my idea!
I will have 4 groups: gay men, straight men, gay women, and straight women. Each individual will wear a t-shirt to bed every night while they sleep for a week. Then, the t-shirts will be sealed in plastic bags. Each individual will then smell each t-shirt in the study, and rate the degree of sexual attraction. Then, when all the data has been collected, I will see if there are any trends in the data.
The specific trends I'll be looking for have to do with sexuality. I'll see if gay men find the scent of straight men, or gay men more attractive, and even see how gay women and straight women compare. And then I'll do the same for each group. In doing so, I'll determine if sexual orientation is something that results in a physioligical difference that can somehow be detected by smell, and also the degree in which scent plays a role in sexual attraction.
With this, all I have to do is pay for around 40 t-shirts, and find people to participate. The details have yet to be worked out, but I'd imagine that I'd need 10 people in each group. Then each person would have to wear their t-shirt every night before they sleep, and only wear it while they sleep, so they won't be exercising and working up a sweat. So, the body scent shouldn't be too overpowering by the end. Then I'd have to collect the shirts, and have the people come up to Dana to do the smell rating thing. The only other aspects that I can think of that need covering are making sure the people know they will have to sleep alone so no-one else's scent gets on the shirt (thanks Alex), and I might have everyone in the study take a shower before bed, to insure that each shirt recieves the same degree of bodiness. Also, the people wouldn't be able to wear any colonge of perfume or anything scented, so I may have to look into supplying people with non-scented soap and shampoo.
If there's any other areas that might need to be covered, let me know. But this, at the moment, seems like a much easier project. We all know that the easier, and less time-consuming for me, the better. I'll talk about it with Dr. Murch-Shafer in the morning.
Eric 3/15/2005 12:40:00 AM
