So I’ve decided to go back into this blogging world after coming across a friend’s blog and I was intrigued. My friend has always been a great writer and has always been very insightful, very artistic. In fact, I was impressed at how she utilized her English degree and training to the max. I’ve realized that I don’t know if I could write a blog like hers where not only were they snapshots into her thought processes but they were also mini essays on life, love and religion. They were also poetic. I find that I’ve lacked lots of poetry as of the last four years and why is that? Because I decided to take the less artistic route and become a Biologist.
Before IU, I was everything artsy. I was a show choir nut, a violinist, a pianist, and an actress. I got out of all that when I left Pike High School because of one thing and one thing only: drama. I couldn’t stand the drama of those type of people because while I love the drama of plays, most people never wanted the drama to end so they carry it out into reality. And to what end? No one really gains anything and it’s interesting to look back and see how drama then felt like the end of the world when really there are worse things out there. Frankly. And when you get out into the real world and experience things you find that what you experienced in high school was nothing. But I digress, high school is another subject for another day.
Anyway, back to what I was talking about: once I started college I went for the degree that was farthest from what I spent the last four years doing: Biology. In my experience, science majors in general are either socially inept or lack the need engage in any more social interaction than a simple “hi” or “bye” simply because they study all of the time to get the grades to make it into med school. However, this was a drawback just as much as as a blessing. Because of their social ineptness/need for constant study I didn’t have that many friends from my major. Through my roommate, Kirsten, I managed to find friends that I’m still friends with today: from the theater department. Go figure. Of course, I have other equally awesome friends that I made through my dorm freshman year (Go Collins!).
Though while I managed to avoid some drama in my four years at IU, I did realize that I should have been aware something crucial before starting my Biology degree: I wasn’t very good at it. Biology, I mean.
Well, it’s not so much that I’m bad at Biology….I’m not good academically. I find that I’ve always been on a different wavelength from my professors for whatever reason and this hindered my ability to take tests and as a result, I perform poorly. It was never for lack of studying for Lord knows that I studied hard, but when it came down to the tests: I always over thought. This caused a serious amount of distress on my part and several phone calls to my mother at different times of the day/night in tears telling her that I hate Biology.
However, at the same time, I loved Biology. More specifically I loved zoology. I love looking at the bigger picture and that the picture is huge.
Evolution is like a story filled with intrigue and puzzles. Like reading a book that has pages missing but you’re still getting the general idea. I mean I could go on for hours on the evolution of oxygen. How exciting! Invertebrate Zoology caused me to rekindle my love affair with my major. Though my love affair ended with Fungus….imagine that. I ended up finishing my major simply because it was a challenge, and while I was technically losing, I was gonna beat it. I did. I graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in both Biology and Spanish and got a job as a Microbiologist in a pharmaceutical company.
Here’s the irony: I do well with macrobiology (Evolution, Zoology, the big picture) while I struggle with microbiology. So why am I a microbiologist? Besides the fact that it pays the bills and I work with fungus (more irony), it still requires skills that I already posses: the ability to look at the bigger picture when there’s a failure and my love for writing when I write investigations. At least that’s how I justify it in my mind when I come to work every morning. Though it also helps that most of my coworker are just as insane as I am which makes everyday an adventure. Also, surprisingly enough, I’m good at what I do.
I found that the world of science academia was very different than science in industry. Or better yet, science in the classroom vs. science in a lab. I can do the lab work, I can do it well. But sometimes you have to go through things you hate because you know it gets better in the end.
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