before you read this, know that i am not against any field related to biology. know that i am on the path to becoming a graduate student, and then a research scientist. therefore, my opinions are strong and biased. i have great admiration for doctors, but know that i am not, and will never be one.

now.

i am on a constant quest for continual intellectual stimulation. having to re-learn something drives me nuts. i am only excellent at learning material i have a strong interest in. and by strong interest, i mean when i am obsessed with the topic and end up with 20 wiki tabs on my web browser. i even go as far as reading abstracts on pubmed. that is how interested i need to be. i cannot find this type of intellectual stimulation from lower division courses. even most upper division courses aren't good enough, except for the select few.

as a biology major, i didn't get too much out of the first two years. basic biology is this incessant, reiterated drilling of information into the brain. i've memorized the structures of nucleotide bases that make up DNA. someone tell me when i am ever going to need to know that, unless i go into biochemistry? and even then, let me remind you, most people memorize not by hard drilling, but simply because they've seen it too many times that it is ingrained in their brains. and that is the natural order of things.

in the core biology courses, premeds are not distinguished from bio majors with other interests or learning needs. we're just all lumped into the general category of "biology majors", with the stereotype that we only know how to memorize. and sadly, that is true. those who don't pass the memorization test drop out after one or two years to become econ majors (no offense intended, it seems to be the majority). those who do pass are 70% premed. no surprise there.

looking back after four years, i'm not quite sure how i made it. i can only explain by saying that i have a strong self-discipline. this is not meant to sound egoistic--i really do. i can convince myself that this is what i need to do to get to the next step, and it's "not that bad, i'll be done in _______ weeks". i do this well. i do this without cynicism and get good results. i want to know, though, how other would-be phds do this.

i think i have an inherent need for new and interesting information. this is not what is presented in biology textbooks, the worst of them being human anatomy. oh, how many times i have memorized the structure of the heart, lungs, brain. oh, how useless such information is for non-premeds! for those of us concerned with happenings on a molecular and cell level, whole organ systems fail to interest. as fascinating as the human body is, it is getting old.

i remember coming into college as a freshman and signing up for general chemistry. a young and naive me sat in class the first day, thinking i would be learning some in-depth material (finally!) on general chemistry that high school had not taught me (took honors chem and ap chem in high school and did not learn anything different). little did i know, a whole year of college chemistry was just about the same as high school. it was the worst learning experience of my life. the only new thing i learned was cubic structures, and that took a whole one lecture. let it be known that i do poorly in classes dedicated to repeated material.

so i spent many months struggling with what to do with a biology degree. i was unwillingly premed at first too, thinking that professional schools are the only thing i could do with my life. as the time approached for taking mcats, the bleaker my future became (to me). i finally came to terms that i wanted more than the routine doctorly schedule. i didn't want to be the one handing out prescriptions, i wanted to be the one discovering them.

proof that i like being one step ahead of the world: taking a bunch of ap classes in high school, skipping intro college courses because of those good ap scores, taking physics my second year instead of my third, getting a bio phd... i joke on the last one. sort of.

i don't have the passion or determination to become a specialized md. therefore, i will end up in a common hospital doing doctor rounds. my life will be scheduled from morning to night, handing out common prescriptions, diagnosing common diseases, because think about it--how often do you meet a patient with a rare disease? they're rare for a reason. unless i specialize in something specific, i will feel very unfulfilled. but i can't. i'm not determined or focused enough to do that. i'm not good enough of a person to want to help people my whole life, and i really am sorry for that.

it's terrible, because in my mind, the complex world of an md has been simplified down to one paragraph of the above. i recognize the oversimplicity, but there is just so much more going for me in the research field than the medical field that i am willingly blinded by the possibilities. i can't settle for treating others. i want to come up with the cures.

so i'll settle with gene therapy. i'll be in the background and change lives indirectly. i can't bear having the potential burden of someone's life in my hands so palpably. so i'll dig out my roots and work my way up from there.

research is slow. it's excruciating at times, but the moments of discovery are the most exciting. i don't mind failure, because it reminds me to try harder. i don't like to think traditionally, because without change the world will crumble. research isn't as dull and lifeless as its stereotype makes it sound. there are always new things being discovered, no matter how small, and every discovery is mind-blowing on some atomic level. this is the kind of stimulation i need to keep going. it's not enough to read about discoveries in textbooks. people learn biology as facts, but nobody thinks about the years of work it took to compile that knowledge into a book. the textbooks tell us that DNA is double-stranded. people accept that, but never wonder just how they managed to come up with such a specific, obscure model. there is so little we know even in the 21st century...

i don't dream about the nobel prize. i don't want huge recognition for my work. as nice as it is to be received by society positively, i want more just to satisfy my curiosity. it's an itch that won't really go away. i'm trying different paths to see what happens. don't listen to me, because i don't know what's going to happen 10 years from now. maybe i'll be a grad school dropout--who knows? but i'd rather not follow the crowd and condemn myself to a fate i was never really interested in.

to all the would-be doctors out there, you are amazing.

with that said, i'll end here and go back to studying for physio lab final. i'm memorizing the heart for the 5th time, and that is really what started all this. now that i'm all written out and feel better, i will devote what little time i have left to my studies. good luck to the science majors of the world, WE ARE THE FUTURE.

just kidding. now go study.

there are some days where she's
more helpless than others, and all the
leaves on their tree has dried with age.
she leans on fragile branches and grasps rotting bark,
where one wrong move is ten feet down.

in her dreams, she builds treehouses
at dawn and sleeps through sunsets, and
holds on to their unspoken promises so that she's
not left dangling with one foot in the air--

and today she just can't catch her breath,
can't even see her hands stretched out in front of her through this fog...
today is a little more
suffocating
than most days,
and all she can do is recite a
mantra of clichés and
hope for the closest miracle.

every year on september first, the leaves outside
her apartment turn rich with color.
these are new promises hanging on each vein, and
old regrets trailing along the branches, but most of the time
they don't notice the less obvious.

on certain days later in autumn,they'll raise a toast
to the years of memories leading up to today. afterwards,
they'll light their fireplace and sprawl out on the rug,
talking about anything and nothing and everything--

there are too many happy endings in most stories,
but she isn't asking for much this year, maybe just her
peace of mind for the future.

"there are different kinds of love, you know. there are those that appear out of thin air and turn your world upside down, and those that sneak around the corner when you least expect it. there are the ones that are compromises between two people who mutually benefit from such a relationship, and the ones where neither is willing to let go despite knowing it will never work, just because change is so, so hard.

"there are those where one of you is just too scared to say or think otherwise, because you haven't had such attention since you can remember. there are those that are revengeful, where you just want to get back at your past, because losing sucks and falling hurts. there are those that crash into you with an intensity inexplicable and blow up in your face not a week later. there are those that float quietly in the air and never really touch anything, because you don't want that time-consuming love, and just want the assurance of a stable future.

"and then there's the one that grows with you, that takes away the worst of you and gives back the best, the one that doesn't necessarily come with the fireworks and celebration. just quiet passion, dedication, trust. it wraps around you in the winter and flows with you in the summer breeze, cries with you and laughs for you, tickles you in bed and buries you in pillows. it isn't afraid to be silly with you in public, and is strong enough to share secrets in private.

"maybe it won't hold an umbrella for you in the pouring rain, but it might hold your hand and run with you, soaking wet and full of laughter. maybe it won't be there with you every waking moment, but it will be there when you most need it. maybe it won't guarantee a wonderful future, but it gives you a present beautiful enough for you to look forward to tomorrow. maybe it won't be a complete fairytale, but on some days you'd think you're happier than any princess ever was. maybe it won't be everything you've ever expected, but it will be just enough for you, regardless of what everyone else tells you. you know it's there even if you never say it out loud. that's the kind i want, i think."

--d.c.

today, i can't read between the lines
of these words. i can't hide behind the language
of these thoughts. i just--
can't.

sometimes sometimes the world just
melts together in a whirlwind of
color, and i can't find
lines or edges or defining features of
anything.

i don't have the best or the worst,
but being caught in between is
sometimes just as bad.

all i can think of is happiness ten years
from now, but
that excuse just isn't good enough
anymore.

i can't live in the past
but i'm trying so hard to live in that
imaginary future.
but i can't, i can't.

please help. please.

sometimes our lives are
more than just that,
and saturday afternoon funerals are
not closure enough.
we'd wait on the porch one cloudy november,
not thinking not moving just wondering why
that stinging nostalgia so blatantly missing was
just--
that

they tell us, baby doll, you wouldn't
want your last memory to be such a memory,
but they don't know what our last memories
were. we wake up in the mornings to dark rooms and drawn curtains,
the only things we see are rows of grave markers
in stark contrast to our pasts
and they think (they know) they've
given us closure.

today (tomorrow) is just another 24hours of our lives.

twenty minutes till midnight and we're
keeping it turning, like little wheels
of clockwork intelligence behind the scenes.
she's gone through literary prose, stanzas and
syllables, climbed brick walls and
broken dams.

baby, this is where we are
today,
breathing, drinking, living poetry,
sprawled on the backseat of a ford sedan,
fingers crossed and toes curled to
wish upon a falling star--
but all that's left are bright city lights,
beautiful only from
above.

tomorrow, i'll have that post-it note
pressed against my dashboard,
broken confessions from a hazy night,
for a boy i can't remember.

there is less smoke in the city
this time around, and less opportunities
to tell our stories.
we have truth in the alleyways and
honesty in the palm of our hands,
because that's the only way to protect
virtue from the
city
smog.

at night, we dream in monotone and
cry for the things we've lost.
all i have left are secrets like broken glass,
swept into dusty metal pans and thrown out back
right into the dumpster.
we live in cities of hopes and dreams,
where reality no longer exists, and this
is the only
way i know how to
make amends.

she's leaning against the dumpster in
the back alley of his street, thirteen feet below
his grimy bathroom window.
they're like romeo&
juliet in this urban city,
trapped in dreams of love
and tragedy.

just yesterday, she scuffed the gum off her
converses, smiled through
his latest off-key rendition of
the backstreet boys, wishing for
a fairytale ending in her
metallic, overdue city.

it is love, she tells herself,
when he walks past her and they
touch shoulders. he gives her a stranger's
apology and smiles kindly.

hey, have we met before?
(maybe in a different lifetime.)

but such classics are engraved forever.

i'll tie your bones up pretty
in a pink lace ribbon, she whispers,
trails a finger down his chest and pushes against his heart,
tears of mascara running down her cheeks.

i love you
so.
much.

i just can't let you go.

a/n. testing the waters of a new genre. to anyone who may have concerns, i swear this has nothing to do with my life.