I was sitting in my Biology Writing class today (it sounds as boring as it seems) staring absent mindedly at a blank sheet of paper. My assignment for the day was to write a personal statement that would highlight my long term commitments. I was supposed to outline my future according to my current major—Biology.
So, rather than completing the task at hand, I grabbed a pen and doodled along the sides. I made a paper accordion out of the scraps from perforated edges. I even considered crafting a paper airplane out of this blank sheet.
That is when I realized that I had already approached this assignment with an apathetic attitude. I was very familiar with writing personal statements and mock application essays with the same, ambiguous topic. What is your goal in life? Why do you want to do what you want to do? Why did you pick this major? What is your inspiration for that major? I can almost quote the responses I have given for each question. But, out of all of them I had never written a paper about biology.
I was purposely stalling because I did not want to write about why I loved biology. Frankly, I do not love biology. I do love its challenge but I do not love the content or its context. I could not meticulously point out the things I loved that involved science. Unless, that is, I could comically write a fanfictional script to “The Big Bang Theory.” Maybe I should point out that my favorite scientist is Sheldon. How about that, biology?
So rather writing about science, I began to write about literature and English, journalism and creative writing. I wrote about the first novel I read when I was four. I wrote about the first poem I had published in the school paper when I was in the second grade. I wrote about being the only freshmen to compete in UIL ready writing. And I wrote about this—save your scissors.
This should have been the point in time when I realized that maybe I shouldn’t be studying biology. This should be the turning point. But is it? Am I the type of girl who is bold enough to take risks and draw outside the lines?
Sometimes I want to believe that my life is one gigantic book. It has its own table of contents. Yet somehow I feel as if I am only flipping back and forth to the index. I am only looking for what I need to see and what I need to hear and I am not enjoying the full novel. I feel like if I were to continue on that way, then I’ll only have the spark notes version of a life and not the full text.
Whoever reads this, I truly hope you are braver than me. I hope you follow your heart. As Mark Schwahn would say, “you simply cannot measure a dream.”
--save your scissors.
