Darwin was a dork

[aredblush]

My sister and I went to Galleria Nazionale today to see the Darwin exhibition. They set it up nicely. There were lots of prints and original letters and a part of the exhibition was completely dedicated to animal evolution. There were even live animals! We saw a hairy armadillo, a couple of turtles, a bunch of black and blue tiny frogs and a green iguana.
However, what made this little "field trip" of our worth it had nothing to do with the cute animals. I am that kind of person who has to read every info panel, and good thing I am! It's because of this annoying habit of mine that I now know that old Charlie was not, in fact, a boring scientist, but a totally adorkable boy!


I mean! He put a beatle in his mouth!!! He was a total dorky geek!!! Do you think I could find Darwin!fics? I really want to read about his faily attempts at catching animals and run-ins with tropical stinging plants and that time he stumbled into a big well full of bird-skeletons and he wanted to catalogue all of them and the captain of the ship was all "Absolutely not, Charlie! You can't bring all of them on board. No, I don't care if this is a breakthrough. They may be the great-great-great grandparents of today's chicken, but if I have to take any animals on board, I'd prefer something with flesh still attached to their bones. At least we could eat something other than fish."
And it wouldn't even be all failyness! There was angst, too! There was this letter he sent to his father (via his uncle Jos), who didn't want him to leave England to go look at pretty frogs, in which he wrote a bulletpoints list of his father's reasons and Charles's answers. Here, I copied it for you:

"My dear Father,
I am afraid I am going to make you again very uncomfortable.
I have given Uncle Jos, what I fervently trust is an accurate and full list of your objections...
1) Disreputable to my charcter as a Clergyman hereafter
2) A wild scheme
3) That they must have offered to many others before me, the place of Naturalist
4) And from its not being accepted there must be some serious objection to the vessel or expedition
5) That I should never settle down to a steady life hereafter
6) That my accomodations would be most uncomfortable
7) That you should consider it as again changing my profession
8) That it would be a useless undertaking"
here the info-panel said that Charles left the detailed rebuttals to his uncle, but politely noted
"The expense can not be serious, or the time I do not think anyhow would be more thrown away, than if I sat at home".
See? ANGST! TEENAGE REBELLION! CLASHING WITH HIS FATHER! SARCASM! I WANT FICS NOW!!!

On another note, I finally caved and got a twitter. You can find me here :)
(I'm trying to understand how this thing works... I did it pretty much because I wanted to take camera-phone pics at the fob show on the 15 and let you have a peek because concert-calling any of you would kill my phonebill. Tips are welcome :[ )