I am going to take a moment to breathe in my blog. It has been much too long. The Muses sang a delightful yet meaningful version of 'Wake Me Up When September Ends' all of last month, which was just as well, really. The kind of mood that they and I were in, we would only have written posts of torpitude and turpitude: "Ah, woe is me! Here are my thoughts on casual sex and lush Bollywoodian romances." Fuck that, if you'll pardon my French which, really, isn't French after all. It's annoying to oneself when one realises that all he can write/talk about is the heart and the other multifarious appendages it pumps blood to. Have I ever told any of you about the research I am hoping to do this semester? Have I ever talked about my neverending love (And here we are again!) for the biological sciences and how I cheat on them (Stop!) with literary studies?As you can probably tell, I cannot stray too far away from what has unwittingly become my dominion, so I shall speak again of romance, but a different one, an epistemological one. I have always been easy when it comes to tests. I never say, "No" and I always work hard to bring things to a successful culmination, sometimes I go on all night. The red 'A' that I usually receive for my trouble (Praise God) is one to be worn with pride, however, and not shame. I shall be the first on my list of detractors: I have little to no faith in my ability to do anything. I suppose this vitriol is a fuel for it makes sure that I bear down and make it seem effortless. As this vitriol is synthesised in the deep recesses of my brain, it gives off noxious by-products- most notably, the constant remonstrations of "flunking like a bitch"! Oh, good times! Imagine my utter surprise, then, as I show up to the biochemistry GRE utterly ill-prepared. The reasons for this are whingey and sound like excuses, though they are all very tangible and identifiable. But, justifications are for the weak. Also, I am fairly sure that, at some juncture in this post, I am going to contradict myself on that point.
Before we dive head-first into the drama, let me set-up the mis-en-scene. The testing centre was a different college: a compact campus with the sort of imposing architecture one would associate with a school of stature and tradition, or, perhaps a Midwestern version of 'Brideshead Revisited'. Dawn had just begun to break, but, if you didn't have a watch, you would be forgiven if you thought that it was dusking. The scenery was autumnal, as fragrant, variegated leaves with colours ranging from a pallid yellow to a wizened red flew about with delicacy. Amidst this stood I, clad in white, and looking down to Camelot! The bell in the bell-tower began to ring, and I knew it was time.
I was checked in by a kindly lady who found my pronouncements of doom and gloom most amusing; I think she would have laughed had I run around campus yelling, "Trojans! Fools! Listen! Can I persuade no-one of aught?!" Did I really want to? Oh, God yes! Such dramatic luxuries, however, are only afforded to one of one is taking the Literature-in-English GRE and not biochemistry. Ah, well. Now, where was I? Oh yes: having checked in, and assumed my seat in the hall, I broke the seal (this kind of drama, you don't create!) on my test and began reading. I wanted to burst into song. If there was ever a sunny Rodgers and Hammerstein moment in my life, it was this: I knew things. I hadn't prepared, but I knew things! The questions were all over the place: the expected (cell biology, classical biochemistry, molecular genetics), the unexpected (neuroscience, embryology), the elating (immunology, virology) and the seriously fucked up (molecular methods). That, however, is beside the point! I knew things, constant reader! No, I KNOW things! I am actually not a bad fit for my major. Why? Because I know things! And I know things because I know people who know things. That was crude, but what I am saying is that I owe all of this to that zany, eccentric, wicked clever, sagacious, quirky, erudite, devilish bunch known as my teachers! Do you know that vision you see when in a test you encounter a question and your mind's eye shows you that exact page in the textbook where the answer lies? Yeah, that didn't happen to me. What I saw was a harried Dr. O handing out Engaugements (clever to call them that, isn't she?) and charmingly elucidating the relationship between Arginine, the high-seas (look up the titration curve) and pirates; Dr. Transposon grinning puckishly as he disposed a nugget of viral (yep!) knowledge; IgTinaFey, pert and business-like, as she spoke of a scholarly article I may like and simply must check out; Dr. PowerBun mellisonantly guiding me along the trp operon; I heard a lilting Southern drawl sing to me rolling circle replications, a voice from high-school encouraging my explorations into embryology...God, God! I could feel a cry-fest bubble in my throat, but I ignored it in lieu of bubbling in answers.
The only snag was the questions about experimental methods in molecular biology, and, true to their nature, they helped prove something to me: I would have done the same thing had I studied like I usually do i.e. on hyperdrive, for this test. Those were ugly questions: some of the methods they asked about, I had only heard/read of in passing. Others made me exclaim, "This exists?!" I answered from my own basal level of knowledge and I took names, bitches. You guys! I know things! I actually, actually know things! Like most romances, it ended in tragedy, but that matters not at all. Of all my romances, dalliances, liaisons, this has probably been my most successful: my romance with a GossipGuy who knows things, and I think he's a keeper!
Until the next time,
GossipGuy!
