It would seem, practically no one! Specifically no one that I've met; and I've met quite a few awesome rocket scientists in my time. I've yet to meet one that actually admits to really truly passionately being in love with chemistry. Not a one. Not my awesome bio-chem TA, not the Chemistry PhD fella I lived with, not my Org Chem professors, not even my first Chemistry professor who more or less admitted she used the chemistry textbook as a foot rest... So why do they bother majoring in and teaching chemistry on a professional level? I think for one, the tell tale signs are in the publically referenced pay scales for the Chemistry department. You see, as an example, English professors eat ramen noodles. Chemistry professors get to eat the real thing, in JAPAN, on vacation, while traveling business class. Pay scales, people. Pay scales. Who knew money talked. So much? Ha!
And the second reason... is there one? I mean, speak up! I would LOVE to meet you!
Anyway, this is a post about chemistry. This is a post about how challenging and unattractive it is. This is a post about what is mundane in my life. This post is about the boring. This is not a post about beauty in my life or current goose bump inducing exciting events. This is not a post about trips I am to take or a post about exotic places I've already been to. No. This post will remain gleelessly mundane and completely replete with sentences ending with prepositions.
Because you see, life is really like this, most times; it is boring, mundane, and filled with things one has to tackle and overcome. It is filled with times where one has no say or choice in the matter, and one has to do, simply because one just has to do. End of story. Of course, ultimately, yes, there is always choice, but we'll not get all metaphsyical here because, you know, I aim to keep it common, and absolutely and plaintively mundane. Nothing esoteric or hard to pronounce to see here. Shall we continue? Okay. Great!
And... guess what? All of this is just fine by me!
This is definitely a post about yet another milestone in my life. I am good with normal. I am good with boring. I am good with routine. I am good with now. I am good with should's must's and have to's. I am good with being forced to take and succeed in Chemistry. I am, as they say, allll goooooood.
I don't feel like running anymore. I don't feel any angst. I am not melancholy. I feel razed, I feel ready to tackle anything. I feel powerful, like a warrior, yet mundanely so. It's such a new feeling, it is exquisite. And boring. I am roaring my passionate lioness roar, but in khakis and keds.
There is a sense in me that I might be growing up. Praise the heavens. Have I arrived? (Ah, not to worry or fret if you are so inclined, for there is way too much starry eyed I'm a dolphin talk in my heart for my life to ever be completely mundane and boring, /wink). But for now, I am where I am at, and I am completely at peace with it. (Can you stand any more sentences ending with prepositions??)
And... speaking of chemistry, (which I actually do like, by the way, although to use the word love would be stretching it quite a bit, even by my standards, because you know, I effusively love EVERYTHING), here is an excerpt from an old book called *"Doctor's Legacy". The book was a nice read, there were many anecdotes and stories and letters from real doctors in wartime and peacetime about their work and experiences. I am referencing a letter from a doctor written to another doctor about the importance of a well rounded education in medicine that includes more philosophy and LESS of chemistry. Yes, you read correctly, he has written, LESS of Chemistry. He is, of course, absolutely speaking my language. Mundane and plain English as it might be right now...
"Saul Jarcho (born 1906)
To William Bennett Bean, M.D.
August 24, 1953
"Your splendid and stimulating essay Caritas Medici has just arrived. The physicians of this country are deeply indebted to you for your efforts on behalf of important fundamentals, especially for your attempt to civilize American medicine.
After twenty years of fighting for these ideas- at times actively, more often passively- I feel that we are in a small minority and a dwindling one. And now in 1953 when the radio, which blares forth gibberish from its vacuous vacuum tubes, is yielding to television, which flashes forth darkness disguised as light, is there any positive course of remedial action which can be taken? Or must we be content to see the degree of M.D. bestowed on streamlined technical men and on carpenters of single viscera?
One major lesion lies in premedical education. It is in the undergraduate years that many young men experience that permanent narrowing of the mental field which is so characteristic of today's physician. It is in the undergraduate period that the student begins his lifelong imprisonment by the natural sciences, especially chemistry. Most men ultimately forget the chemistry and so are left in total intellectual impoverishment. They attempt to solace their declining years with golf, bridge, opera, and blindfold trips to Europe.
I propose the following remedy. The American College of Physicians and the American Board of Internal Medicine, with the aid of any other societies disposed to cooperate, should insist that the medical schools
(a) reduce the entrance requirement in chemistry
(b) accept a course in anthropology in partial fulfilment of entrance requirements
(c) demand evidence of study and attainment in the field of humane letters as partial prerequisite
(d) insist upon proof of competence in the use of written English, both as entrance requirement and as requirement for promotion and graduation.
These alterations in entrance requirements would compel the undergraduate schools to give us a better product that that which now comes off the assembly line. Doubtless the surviving humanists in the undergraduate schools would be glad of the proposed reform."
YES!! This humanist peanut would definitely be glad! But I also love science, a lot. VIVA les HUMANISTS!!! VIVA Les Sciences! Awesome.
So well, that is it from me for today. I have to go do my mountainous monstrous Chemistry homework now. Not much has changed it seems, from 1953... lol
*Doctors Legacy, edited by Laurence Farmer, M.D. 1955 1st Edition
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