"Paper" reading response

It is immensely frustrating to me that the author of this book is writing in the first person and I have no idea why.

There is way more history of paper than I thought there would be, but it’s pretty interesting so I’m ok with it. It kind of surprises me how important paper was to people back then when it’s so ubiquitous and under appreciated now.

There are a lot of words and phrases in here that have little meaning to me other than I know they are specific technique in alternate printing. Hopefully we go over some of these in class. I also have a feeling it will make a lot more sense once I start getting my hands dirty (hopefully not literally) and using some of these techniques.

I know what Jell-O is! Even if we aren't supposed to use it, I know what it is!

I think I’m now more confused after reading about sizing than I was when I started this. I need to be shown what this person is trying to tell me, because I’m not getting a clear visualization of the process form what this author is saying.

Wow I think everything we will be using is deadly in some way. Every stage of this process is prefixed with “and this toxic, deadly death chemical will kill you dead.”

So now he explains what some of the terms actually are, like Formalin. Also I totally know what formaldehyde is and I have no idea how I so butchered the pronunciation in my head that I couldn't even recognize it.

Are we going to be doing this part of the process, with the dual respirators and needing to be outside with Formalin? It doesn't seem like we are (mainly due to the lack of dual respirators) but if we are I just want to go on the record as saying this is a little crazy.

“Think about it, what type of cookie is the first one an infant gets to gnaw on with its gums? That’s right -- arrowroot cookies.” …What? *edit: Just looked up what arrowroot cookies are. I did not know that they made a specific brand of cookie for babies and that these cookies would be in any way related to photography. The more you know.