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.

this is one of those i-have-so-much-shit-to-do-but-i-simply-must-write-this-down-before-i-forget-or-feel-disinclined-to posts. fyi i have no idea why i'm updating DW instead of LJ. this probably marks a new beginning or something. but anyway.

i was sitting on the shuttle today, on the way home, when had a sort of epiphany. i was thinking about china, and going back and visiting, and thinking about my grandparents in particular. this thinking gradually spread to thinking about life and death, and about how i still really miss grandmother (on my mom's side). it's been several years already, but i still remember the first time i visited her grave. i'm not sure why i remember this scene so clearly, as if from a movie, but i do. it was a beautiful, peaceful place. what struck me was the sheer amount of gravestones there, almost undermining the one the mattered (to me). there was such a lack of... humanity. i'm not sure how to describe it, but everything just felt the same, like my grandmother was just one of a million, instead of one in a million. when we reached my grandmother's grave, i scanned the words on the headstone briefly, fixated on her name, inscribed on the marble in chinese, then pulled my eyes away. while everyone paid their respects and stood silently in front of her grave, occasionally exchanging thoughts in soft voices, all i could do was stare at the giant ants on the ground, crawling in-between cracks and across ledges. china has gigantic ants, i thought.

on the way home, i couldn't stop the tears from coming and had to turn towards the car window so my mom wouldn't see. she was sitting in the back with me, and she had sunglasses on. i tried as inconspicuously as possible to wipe away my tears, and after that glanced at my mom. she smiled at me brightly as a waning sunlight reflected across her sunglasses. i could see tear trails on her cheeks, but she didn't acknowledge it, only reached across the seat to grasp my hand. "she wouldn't want you to be sad, you know." i knew, and nodded. but i also knew that was more to reassure herself than me.

this scene's replayed itself over and over inside my head for years now. usually, i don't think about it much since it doesn't do to dread on the past, but occasionally, i remember, and the scenes flash through my mind frame after frame, crystal clear as if it had just happened yesterday. sitting on the shuttle, watching the greek houses of arroyo vista pass by, i came to a conclusion about my future career hindrances. i know this sounds ridiculous, but hear me out.

what's stopping me from medical school isn't just the long years of hard work that i might not find satisfaction in. it's also the lack of humanity i might end up facing. like all those gravestones that succumb to a lack of meaning, maybe a doctor's patients have the same fate in his mind. being a physician almost feels like reducing someone to bits and pieces of science. there is no humanity left when faced with so many people who come and go, who may hang in the moment between life and death, who may touch you so personally and leave so suddenly. i don't think i could deal with all of that. people become faceless after awhile, and all that remains is the shell of a job. this is what's wrong with you and this is how we fix it. there is no discrimination in medical studies, no one cares about your background or your family or how you make a living. all we know of you is your medical record, printed on 8 by 11 paper in a plain yellow folder. you are nothing but statistics and symptoms, a present because of your past. what makes people human doesn't matter anymore now, because all we want to know is how your body, a biological machine, is working. or in this case, malfunctioning.

i can't get over this kind of thought. i know there are so many different aspects to medicine, and so many good things about it too. we're helping people lead better and healthier lives, but the only way to do it (in western med, at least) is to reduce people to machines and solve them through algorithms. this one phrase, this one idea is what's holding me back. i love the science, i'll study it and research it and find out as much as i can, as long as i don't have to face the people who are subject to our science. it's a terrible thing to say, and it sounds even more terrible reading it (i just reread that sentence. ugh.) but i think that's what i've felt all along, albeit unconsciously. i don't think i can go to med school, and quite frankly, i don't think i want to. maybe partly it's because i do believe (somewhat) in chinese medicine and that twigs and leaves and random dried fungi can fix you over time... but mostly, it's because i can't look at a person and see a machine. people are... people. there is something spiritual and soulful about people that i can't describe. i'm probably weird for thinking this way, but going to med school and potentially becoming a doctor TERRIFIES me. that idea that i'd have to face people and help them by "fixing" them without any personal attachments... i can't do that.

yeah. all this occurred to me on that 10 minute ride back from school, hahaha! and i'm probably one of the weird bio kids who think like this, but i truly... can't get my head around it. or my heart, for that matter. ew, that sounds so corny. last time i'm saying that. but anyway, the point is, i realize there are a lot of arguable points to what i just said, and yes, i do see them and have considered them. no, i don't hate science/doctors (in fact i think med students are amazing <3). i do, however, believe that i most likely won't make it through med school. not out of academic failure, but probably personal failure. hahaha that sounds so pathetic.

but yeah. i needed to get that out badly. and now that i have, i'm gonna go back to studying. fucking bio midterms on the same fucking day. again. fml.