“You should keep the book. Maybe you can learn something about your heritage and inclinations”

“You want to know something my heritage has taught me? If you’re a cactus, you’d better hang on to your spines”. Pg 178

“ What was it? A sense, as keen as the primary five, but  more abstract. A feeling flowed through his body, tickling his genitals and quickening his pulse. It ran from him like a dormant taproot, newly awakened, starved and probing deep. He opened his beer and lingered in the Garden, and then it hit him. It wasn’t lust. It was nostalgia.”  Pg 185

Page 57:
"The reason you clone rather than plant from seed is because potatoes, like human chilren, are wildly heterozygous. Lloyd taught me that word when I was eight. It simply means that if you try to propagate a domesticated potato using seed, sexually, chances are it will not grow true to type. Instead it will regress, displaying a haphazard variety of characteristics, reminiscent of its uncultivated potato progenitors- it may prove superior to the parent plant or may be wildlty inferior. At eight, gazing up at my father's face, I didn't know which was worse."

""Kids, did you know that more than half of the soybeas planted in America are genetically engineered? And a third of the corn, too." 

"So?" Pheonix asked.

"So? That's over sixty million acres! Nature's own varieties are slowly dying out. Soon all we'll have are genetically modified mutants."" -Page 173

In this first quote, the idea of what is an "appropriate" mutant is influenced by the perceptio of the individual. The children think that any mutant is to be celebrated, while Geek believes that the only mutated plants that should be grown are those derived from nature. This is a fallacy, given that almost all food crops are mutations of their wild cousins.

“It starts with the earth. How can it not? Imagine the planet like a spirit peach, whose pit forms the core, whose flesh its mantle, and whose fuzzy skin its crust- no, that doesn’t do justice to the crust, which is, after all, where all of like takes place. The earth’s crust must be more like the rind of the orange, thicker and more durable, quite unlike the thin skin of a bruisable peach. Or is it? Funny, how you never think to wonder.”

This paragraph implies that fragility of the earth using the example of peach. People tend to associate the earth as strong orange which would be never affected by human’s action, however, it is, she suggests. The image of peach impacted me.

"He blamed Momoko's peach tree for attracting those aphids. Wanted to chop it down, but Lloyd wouldn't let him. Momo means 'peach' in Japanese." p. 18

"She picked up the turquoise cafeteria tray as though she were about to head off down a buffet line, but instead she flung it above her head. The air around her filled with a cloud of black seeds. He could feel them, raining down on top of him, like a tickling wind. He watched them bouncing crazily off the tabletops and skittering across the floor.

"'My goodness!' the nurse said. 'All these seeds!' She started brushing them from the folds of his bathrobe, then dabbing with her finger at the ones on his head...

I found Thomas London Room by accident. When I search the place for the ESEM class, I saw an interesting article posted on a blog called 10 Best Study Spaces That Aren’t Your Room in Bryn Mawr. I was attracted by the description about London Room there: “Good luck finding it, but when you do, It makes you feel like you’re an elegant princess studying for her princess exams.” I think it would be interesting to have the class in such an elegant place and to experience the feelings of studying like a princess or prince, possibly. So I pick this place. When I saw this room, I was not disappointed. The room’s wall is gorgeous with many fine porcelain plates and old London-themed books. Surrounded by so much historical things, I have a wonderful feeling which is more than words to describe.

pg. 224: "The river itself was shruken and disappointing. They walked around the edges of the mud flats, then climbed back up and sat on the boulders, looking down the valley. She took a pint of whiskey from the pocket of her jacket and drank from it, then passed it to him. She lit a cigarette and exhaled. 

'Tell me about your father,' she said."

--------

pg. 104

“For your mother. If I can’t take care of her, they’ll put her away. She won’t have her garden. Her seeds. They’re all she remembers, Yumi.”

pg. 124

“All Over Creation” by Ruth Ozeki

Relationship Between Identity and the Environment 

“That’s what it felt like when I was growing up, like I was a random fruit in a field of genetically identical potatoes.” [pg. 4]

“’No offense. I mean, I like all the stuff you were saying about the peas and the software. And the part about corporations and total domination and stuff totally sucks. But you gotta understand, it’s the protesting that really turns me on. Doing the actions. And I like you guys, so if you say something’s worth fighting, I’ll go along with it. But for me, I don’t really care what I eat, you know? Like, these fries taste great, and I figure I’m just going to die anyway. Sooner or later.’” [pg.125-126]

"Double-click and the child is yours. Double-click and the baby is aborted. But it wasn't so easy. For Yummy, perhaps, but not for Cass. It wasn't easy and it wasn't fair. She was sick of watching the the haphazard way Yummy parented her children, hauling them around, the way she talked to them and the language she used. It was so clear they were unhappy" (204).