Weekword-Lacuna by Me :)

Good morning and happy Monday to you all!

It's that weird half week here at work where we are all supposed to be here, but no one is actually planning on doing much work, especially the students. With our Thanksgiving break so late in the year, it's a strange but often true reality that even though we have two weeks left of school when we return from turkey tryptophan heaven, we really might as well be done-grades aren't likely to go up from here :) So here I am, floating along thinking I really should take this time to be orderly and schedule when to do all the little cleaning and side-project frip-frap junk that gets pushed to the side during the regular semester, but I'm just not ready to be that industrious yet today. Instead, I'm sinking into my comfort zone of paperwork and student wrangling.

I requested from Maria last week, (and can I say how is it that everyone has been so orderly and on time as to pick someone to pass the weekword onto before the week is up?!?) to host for this week, to which she happily agreed to, namely because I really needed a mental break from feeling sad and stressed about some recent family health issues. Actually Cathy C agreed to letting me cut in line ahead of her, (thanks doll!), so as unlike me as it is to be on time and super prepared, do check with Cathy next week as the happy hostess for Weekword :)

So in keeping with the big gap in the semester that we are dangling on the very edge of, I'd like to enjoy one of my favorite words this week, lacuna. I first was exposed to it in cellular plant physiology class and subsequently got to hear it, and it's plural lacunae, quite often in histology courses and even in entomology class. Lacuna simply refers to a hole, a break, a gap, and when you're looking at living organisms on a cellular level there are a LOT of holes that need naming!

http://botit.botany.wisc.edu/

Acanthocephala family (Rhadinorhynchus)-a parasitic worm in humans and swine 

My absolute favorite experience of this word, however, was during my first adventure to Belize when I had the pleasure of working on bat studies and explored several cenotes or sinkholes on my trip. Sinkholes in Belize are most often limestone fissures in the jungle floor. They may be filled with water, or sometimes house old growth cloud forests at their bottom, and usually can only be reached by rappelling into. There are also cenotes that are on the ocean floor that create specialized habitats for rare marine life that might not be found anywhere else on earth!

http://tiny.cc/5p72t

Often times, cenotes were used as refuse piles by the Mayans or at times as sites of ritual sacrifice. They are of great ritualized significance to local Mayan villages, and are the subject of quite a few legends and stories I was able to hear first hand, as well as research before and after my trip. I'm going to do my best to find pictures from my first trip to share here, but for now I'll just snag a few Google pics to give you some ideas and try to link appropriately.

http://tiny.cc/16edz

http://gogreglol.blogspot.com/2007/10/cenotes.html

Now for the rules...


For those of you who haven't played before or just like a little refresher on the basic rules, here it goes:
All you have to do for Weekword is to share in any creative outlet you would like-painting, writing, poetry, lyrics, music, photos, collage, mixed media, drawing, anything really-your interpretation of that week's word on your blog. Let the host (this week is me) know you'd like to play in their comments, the host will post everyone's links on Friday (sometimes Saturday for us really not good with deadline folks) and voila, you're in!


I sincerely look forward to seeing everyone's take on the word this week and would love it if we picked up some new players-it's so much fun to just give yourself permission to creatively unravel your mind around a common subject and watch everyone else's interpretations. Leave me a comment to let me know you want to play and have a wonderful Thanksgiving for all of you in the U.S. and a happy end of November to everyone else!