2. Chemistry C- “Low test scores, many missing assignments…”
When I was little I absolutely LOVED to play scientist. Whenever my parents looked the other way I would sneak off to my bathroom and mix together whatever liquids I could find ( I too am surprised that I didn’t die). I could literally spend hours standing in front of my sink mixing, stirring, shaking, pouring, you name it, and I always had a dream of being a biochemist when I grew up. It wasn’t something that I had fully realized but more of an idea that was always in the back of my mind. Unlike math, I had a great relationship with science throughout elementary and middle school and as I was going into high school I couldn’t wait to finally take real Biology and Chemistry classes.
Unfortunately, the bubble of excitement popped pretty quickly. Freshman Biology wasn’t terrible because I could mostly get through the small bits of basic math involved, but Sophomore Chemistry was a nightmare. The periodic table drove me insane and there was no way in hell that I could memorize all of the chemical formulas the teacher was throwing at us and I started drowning almost immediately. Not only was it confusing on a conceptual level, but the math involved drove me off the cliff. It was like all the gaps that had been missing in my mathematics education were being called out in chemistry class and it was so painful. I had been excited for that class for so many years and to have it all come crumbling down on top of me was devastating. I held on for as long as I could, but everything made me feel like I was just in another humiliating, impossible math class. Eventually I thought, “why am I going to try my best and work my ass off when my best has never been good enough before? When I am just not good enough”.
This is a sentiment and inner monologue that I've held onto for a long time, and a recurring theme throughout this “story”. But it does get better! At the time I knew that my bad grades in high school science classes would make it impossible for me to pursue any kind of medical degree at university and I felt pretty hopeless about it. However, now that I’ve taken time to reconnect with my desire for knowledge I have begun to hope again that if I really want something I have the means to pursue it.
Which leads me to a confession: I am seriously, wholeheartedly, fascinated, and obsessed with Ebola. Yeah, I know it's a nutty statement but it's true! When I was starting my Junior year of high school we had a summer reading project and I had gone to the library to look for a nonfiction book that we would study and perform rhetorical analysis on. I discovered a book that truly changed my life, entitled “Spillover” by David Quammen. Spillover is a book that's as wide as my forearm, and unfortunately during that pre-Junior year summer, I didn’t quite have the stamina to work through it for an assignment.
However, over winter break my parents took my phone away for two weeks and I was stuck at home doing nothing. Except, now I had time to work on this book! I downloaded the audiobook and listened to it for hours a day as I just paced around my room absorbing every detail and storyline woven into this fascinating tale about zoonotic diseases (disease and viruses passed from animals to humans) and the impact of the Ebola epidemic and future pandemics to come. Spillover gave me the intellectual nutrients I had been deprived of and craving for years; it was the first book that I had read for pleasure in a veeeery long time and it reawakened hope within me. I was hopeful for a future that I had thought was lost, I was hopeful for something that I could feel passionate about again, I was hopeful for the chance to feel like myself again. I truly love this book with a passion because it combines data and research with creative storytelling; it's like a crazy mystery novel that you have a possibility of being apart of. As an audiobook, it's about a twenty-hour read and you can bet that I spent more than that amount of time listening, re-listening, and researching about this book because I was so enraptured with it. This is the book that gave me a glimpse of the scientist within that I had thought was shriveled up and dead, but no! She was just waiting to be fed and nourished again!
Because of the experience I’ve had falling in love with Spillover and Quammen’s work I was given an opportunity to find validation in something outside of music and school again, and it is ultimately the piece of media that has influenced my journey the most. By rediscovering this passion I have given myself space to explore this topic and express my love for Ebola research through papers and presentations that I've done for school. This book means so much to me because it has given me an avenue to incorporate something I love into my education and schooling, ultimately allowing me to view my relationship with education through a more evolved and mature lens. Spillover helped me begin my journey in finding who I want to be and has furthered it by presenting me with options and hope that I had long lost.
