THOUGHTS...

THOUGHTS…

Today marks the fifth week of fall semester 2008. I love the fifth week of school: the fifth week is when you realize that the Biology class you were anticipating, now happens to be the most boring class on your schedule, the Literature class seemed like a fascinating idea when your academic advisor was taking you through the motions of what the class would entail, only thing is, she forgot to mention that, interesting as the class was, it also requires way too much reading and research, it feels like you have no time to do anything else; the Finite mathematics class was your first choice, but now it looks like the Greek alphabet spelt backwards and forwards in twists and turns in one big circle, maze and lateral confusion. It is in the fifth week of the new school year that you finally come to realize that you are stuck, doomed, helpless and powerless to do anything about the choices that you were so eager to make in a rush; you can not drop any of the classes that seemed like an amazing idea back in the summer when you were signing up for them. To drop a class will leave a nasty looking “F” on your grade report. This ugly letter will follow you wherever you go, it will sneak up on you unexpectedly in future and pinch you on your backside. You do not want to drop a class and have this burden to carry around for the rest of your life. You can not pick up a class either; any of the other classes, that did not look like fun but now look like the real deal, are now out of your reach. After four weeks of classes, every professor has become pretty comfortable with his little group of students and he would hate to have an outsider come in and ruin the uniformity of his nomenclature. Infact, try you may, to infiltrate his little group, you will pay for it dearly, you will be the one lost sheep dragging the rest of the class behind when they could be moving on with steady tempo. The professor will not forgive you, the students will not forgive you, even the intellectual gods will scorn you forever.

Today marks the fifth week of my Sophomore year 2008. And as I sit in my Biology class, I can hear the buzz of Dr. Watt’s voice, trying diligently to help me understand why I should know what Phylogenetics is and what role it plays in the Systematic Classification of Clades and Cladistics. I want to scream, to drown out the buzz, I want to run out of the class and never look back, I want to pinch myself real hard and ask, “What did I get myself into?” The Biology that I am studying right now is comparable to learning a new language, albeit a very confusing and frustrating language, if ever such exists. Pterophyta, Phylogeny, Protista, Eukarya…all of these words sound so foreign to me that I have to try very hard to concentrate, follow what is going on and stay awake.

I wonder if it is just me that is having this “foreign-language-can’t-comprehend” problem. Is it just me having learning difficulties? I look around me, scan the room and notice the other smart Saint Mary’s ladies with whom I share this great Biological moment every Monday-Wednesday and Friday. It is great to be a Saint Mary’s lady, it is a real privilege. Saint Mary's ladies are a renowned breed of feminine genius; known for their excellence in all areas Scientific and Academic. It is a real pleasure to be a Saint Mary’s girl, makes me feel important, counted, part of a whole. I suspect that the other ladies in my class do not have problems understanding Phenotypes, Bacteriophage and Chromosome Banding Patterns. Why should they have problems understanding any of these things? They come from families whose mothers, grandmothers, sisters and great aunts went to this same college, sat in these same seats and probably helped build, re-build and maintain this school. These ladies come from generation upon generation of Saint Mary’s College Vs Notre Dame University, the two fusing to give birth to genetically modified genius little girls and boys. On the other hand, where I come from is of very little significance in comparison to the brain heads around me: unless of course you consider the fact that I am their live specimen, having been infected, infested and diseased with all of the known bacteria and diseases known to Africa and the world. A major area of our study this year is diseases. I am the class’s best example of how life can survive in deteriorating sanitary conditions, mosquito infested land and high concentrations of bacteria; I am accorded a lot of respect for my survival.

When I decided that I wanted to be a nurse, I did not think for one second that I would have to sit in class everyday hour after hour cramming plant biology whose relation to human biology will forever confuse me. I thought that once I made up my mind to join the medical field, I would get out there and start helping people right away; after all, it is what I love to do. How naïve! Who cares about angiosperms, gametophytes, spores and ephedra; about sympatric speciation, choanflagelletes and kinetoplastids. All of these things I have to learn and cram and re-learn and learn some more. I can not spell or pronounce half of the terms in my textbook, and yet I have to know them and their role in this great compass of a life. I am not a Biologist, I will tell you that right now, I am a writer by birth. It is what I do, it is what I do best, it is what I live for. I write and I write and I write. I think I am good at writing, I hope I am good at writing; it is a God bestowed gift that I claim as my own everyday. But I decided to be a nurse. And it is already the fifth week of my sophomore year, no way out now. So help me God I will try to stick this out to the end. I may hate it, I may loathe it, I may even stamp on it; but this has to be done, if for no other reason but to prove to myself that for once in my life I can finish something that I set out to do, so help me God.