what am I doing at college?

Alright it's time for this blog to be put to some good use. I need help with my schoolwork already and it is only the second day of class. I am going to use this blog entry to work through an assignment of mine, so bear with me. The book is Even the Rat Was White, by Robert V. Guthrie. I already feel awkward just from the sound of the title so can you imagine how I am having difficulty? I can't get around the stupid title. It sounds like something that was just pulled out of a hat. I don't understand the logic. I understand what the point is but I don't understand the logic. By that I mean that I know very well what rats look like and I know there are different colored rats. There are all different colors of rats, so why is this book saying that rats are white? Sure, some of them are, but some of them aren't.

But I have to write up a journal entry about the first chapter of this book, and here is what I've got for you:

Why do people such as Gustav Fritsch, J.H. Shaxby, H.E. Bonnell and others mentioned in Chapter 1 always have to define the human exterior in order to accept its existence?  The defining of different skin colors, hair textures, hair colors and lip thicknesses seems meaningless to me.  It is offensive to be broken up into parts and this approach breaks up an individual's exterior and makes it into something to be studied and for conclusions to then be made based on what is found.  No one in their hearts wants for their lip size to be defined.  In addition, these scientists and philosophers gain recognition for coming up with tools to measure something as arbitrary and immeasurable as the human exterior.  You won't gain a thing by learning how to quickly categorize people by the size of their lips.  And you surely won't learn anything but social awkwardness if all you are doing is staring at their pores to determine if there's any makeup covering up the natural color.

In these days of makeup and plastic surgery, tools and techniques such as those mentioned in chapter 1 are useless.  For example the tintometer, color tops, color blocks, color standards, and photometer used to define what a person's true skin color is useless.  So many things affect skin color such as exposure to sunlight, acne, diseases such as Dermatillomania or compulsive skin picking, tanning beds, and all sorts of other ways people can change whatever it is that natural means these days.  What is important is not defining natural skin color but being able to look at other human beings without having to think about it.  There is so much more beyond what's on the outside of a person.