The Sunshine Post #22: Of Blastocysts and the Beach

Hello dears!

Despite my vow never to do an experiment ever again, I find myself having to explain scientific concepts at work, which, surprisingly, I do like. Science is amazing! The logic of how these different parts just fall into place is just fantastic. This is even though being The Geek at Work entails you to be mercilessly teased for some of the terms you say.

Case in point: The lone contribution* I had to the past summer camp was the fact that, drum roll please, these kids now know the life cycle of the HIV virus. Ohmygod, you guys! They all know the Central Dogma of Molecular Biology! Whee! *takes a bow* I am so proud of my babies! And, ahem, they all know what a blastocyst is! (Although I kept getting ridiculed for that part. Dears, it’s BLAST-o-cyst, not blas-TOE-cyst! Please humor me.) You guys all know these, right? Right?

* (Well, it’s that plus the fact that I was placing acne medicine on everyone’s zits. Mario Badescu’s Buffering Lotion, yo! The best for those “headless” red bumps that are painful and inflamed. Badescu + Blastocyst on the Beach in Bicol = Annoying Alliterations I cannot Avoid)

But I digress. Sometimes I am frustrated by the unbalanced distribution of scientific knowledge in the world which I think is crucial for creating solutions and understanding life. On the one hand, you have all these academics who are too busy and are caught up in their careers to have time to make non-academics understand science, and on the other, you have those who have the best intentions and want to “save the world” but are unfamiliar with scientific concepts that they would really benefit from. Seriously, for the headlines that HIV/AIDS is currently making, I’m a little appalled that there are few/no ads that show what an HIV virus looks like, and so many of celebrities looking pretty. One can only take so many Gap ads in one lifetime. There must be some balance, you know.

I do think that science is sometimes explained in a really inaccessible way. I think it’s why I like talking about molecular biology to those with no scientific background: there must be more people with creative ways of presenting all these wonderful facts to the world in a manner that won’t kill their audience with boredom. I used to be able to explain neuronal polarity with kitchen utensils. To be fair, my friends all understood it (unless they were just trying to be supportive).

It takes a lot for me to admit this, but I hated what had to happen to me in grad school. I love science and I would still marvel over the accuracy of pipettes, and bounce up and down when I got a pellet for my DNA minipreps. I think that’s why I try to drown myself in work and in personal projects and try as hard as I can not to have idle time -- there is still a small part of me that wonders whether I was one of those who “didn’t make it” because she couldn’t hack it. I resented the feeling of being defeated by some insecure aging people who felt like the walls were closing in because of another grant deadline or that they were cheated because they didn’t have much to show despite their intelligence -- the egotistical nutjobs with nonexistent social and fashion skills whom I have never heard of and will likely never hear about ever again. I sound a little mad, I know, but argh! Woe to you and to your western blots, damn it.

There are times when I feel sick to my stomach when I think of how I told myself I would never do academia again. I lost two friends and an aunt to leukemia, and my grandfather to pancreatic cancer. I have a friend who got breast cancer at 25. These are some of the reasons I wanted to do cancer research in the first place – to reduce the suffering that I’ve seen it bring people and their families. Sometimes, I feel very ashamed of myself that I couldn’t just suck it up and do it anyway. I’ve been blessed to have lived this long, to have had countless beautiful relationships, and to have seen a lot of the world. If I must die tomorrow, then I can say that I’ve made the most of life. Why, then, couldn’t I have just devoted my work to something that should help people?

I think one thing that changed with me is how I see solutions. When you’ve grown up in a developing country, the way you solve problems is very reactionary – attend political rallies to go against corruption, incarcerate the criminals, cure the sick, feed the hungry. I think that when the slate isn’t blank to begin with, it limits the type of solutions you can think of. It’s like putting your finger through a hole in a dam that’s about to burst – it works for a few minutes, but it’s not sustainable. Perhaps if we instead create new innovative ways, whether they are geared to solving problems or not, then they will fill some void in our communities and we may even avoid encountering some problems to begin with. Now, I really do think that if we keep pushing ourselves beyond what we thought we could do and strive to be happy all the way, then we will be less angry with the things that befall us that are beyond our control because we will be better equipped to handle them.

I suppose that being just a wee bit angry or defiant is necessary for someone to extract the best of herself, especially since I do concede that I am way too happy for a normal person. Don’t (just) get mad, and don’t get even – instead, go beyond what anyone thought was possible. It will surprise everyone, including yourself. To the social/corporate/academic ladder-climbing, pretentious simpering toadies with no grain of originality whatsoever, especially those meanies who bully interns, assistants and graduate students, this means war, yo! War! Waaarrrr! Creative people are happier, funner, and we have more friends and job satisfaction. One day you will be asking me for money.


Lots of love,
Cathy