Inside and Outside

I awoke to the parakeets chirping wildly and harshly as they do, their sounds filling the house with noisy chatter. Long ago, purchasing a parakeet or two seemed like a great idea when we were not able to have other pets. That was before I discovered how messy and loud they are. I'm sure I'd miss them if they were gone. One of them keeps laying eggs. She has a certain chirp she makes when she's getting ready to lay eggs. This is a new thing. It's a softer, quicker chirp that has one tone, a lower tone than the usual high pitch. Do we want baby parakeets? Do we really want baby parakeets? Some here in the house really, really want them. I don't. The female and the male reside in separate cages. The female seemed to have butchered the last male she shared a cage with. We're not really sure why he died, but I'm pretty sure she had something to do with it. She's the aggressive one. Apparently, male parakeets are nicer than the females. He doesn't bite (well, at least, not too hard and not too often), and he jumps on your finger or shoulder sometimes. The female will reach out and bite you, hard, and keep as far away from you as possible.
Last night I read about some super-achievers from my small hometown. One is a professor for MIT, teaching classes along the lines of a combination of architecture and engineering, and has studied all over the world about maintaining the integrity of historical monuments, bridges, cathedrals, and other structural relics from the past; I also read an article about how he and his "team" created the plans for the building of a structure (in Spain, I think) that is supposed to last 5oo years or more. He has degrees from Cornell, Princeton and the University of Cambridge in the UK. I ask myself, how does one, who doesn't come from a wealthy or even upper-middle-class background, do that from our little, rural, removed town? It makes me believe anything is possible. He has five other siblings, each of whom is doing amazing things.