Star Date 3: Biological Perspective Overview.

Lately I have been seeing the world in an entirely different way.
Through my previous years of schooling, I always took the time to focus on the things I already had a solid knowledge of. This kept the world behind my window while granting me the type of bliss that is found only in ignorance. I have understood the words on the pages for years now, but that knowledge never changes the information on the signs in the world around me.
As many know, a few months ago I resigned my post as a journalist with Lee Enterprises to return to school and venture into the field of bio-chemistry.
Previously, I had never been much of a science person. I managed to get through high school physics with the help of a particular Derek Schipul and his ever present worksheets full of answers. I always tuned out during lectures and PowerPoint presentations designed to teach me the differences in endoplasmic reticulum structures because I was narrow minded enough to assume that the knowledge would never apply to me.
I was going to go out, grab the world by the boot straps, and pull it all up with me on my way to the top. I don't know where the sense of entitlement I used to posses went to, but now, most days, I am happy that it's gone. Over the years I have come to the conclusion that ignorance often times leads to arrogance, and that you rarely find one without the other.
Throughout the course of my studies, my math and science skills have been severely weakened due to a lack of motivation and diligence. The simple truth that the natural sciences have been neglected and disadvantaged in my education is what drew me to them as a life path.
I have no idea if it was an intelligent move to sit down and decide: "I'm going to figure out what I am the worst at, apply myself whole-heatedly, and see if I come out the other side successful."
Some days I wake up and consider that the decision to focus on improving my weaknesses may have not been the most intelligent. There is the possibility that the seasoned veteran would have continued to stick to things he hated but excelled in. I was no longer willing to do that.
Once the decision was made, the bricks were not hard to put in place, and the benefits were not slow to follow. From the first day I arrived back on campus, enrolled in a daunting slate of science focused classes, I began to learn. The learning that began has continued and been unlike any that I have done before.
In the past, the education process consisted of my sliding by on my natural intellect and as little actual work as possible. As I have moved into courses designed for individuals who have been driven to study biology or chemistry for years I have been forced to play perpetual catch-up. The knowledge that is taken for granted by many of the individuals in my classes is still foreign to me. It is as though my peers and instructors correspond with one another in a language I don't understand and am only just now beginning to learn.
I have become the American tourist standing on a corner in Merida speaking broken Spanish to all who pass in hopes that someone can point me towards my hotel: Clean and ready with a smile, but still lost none the less.
The lack of familiarity has set my efforts on fire, providing me with the motivation to get out of bed and better myself each and every day. I have begun to learn information that was never previously in my head before. Never did I contemplate molecular structure of foods or the present global crisis of fresh water shortages.
I was always somewhere from mildly to excessively political, mainly hoping to appear different and somehow more enlightened than my peers. This affinity for beginning arguments with people who could easily refute my points and make me look unintelligent was my only experience with environmental issues. I had never heard of the nitrogen cycle, or the phosphorus cycle, let alone how to construct the chemical equation for sulfuric acid. I was uneducated, but unaware of my deficiency.
As I have continued my uphill battle to better myself I have found knowledge espousing from my head several times a day. A few days ago I was sitting at a family dinner with my parents and began contemplating the differences in molecular structure in varying types of butter and margarine substitutes, and where exactly the Country Crock on my dining room table would fall in the range from spray margarine (which is the most healthy due to the hydrogen bonding) to hard stick butter.
I have also been cutting my consumption of meat and animal byproducts due to my increased awareness of how the world around us is always working. I will posting a full reasoning behind this at a later date, but it involves the conservation of resources, not a love of animals (but I do have that as well).
This burdening passion for science continues to change my life each and every day. Yesterday, on the first day of expected snow, I began to contract cabin fever. I have a storied history of seasonal depression, and already I am longing for the outdoors with my heart and soul. I fled my home in hopes that I could shake the demons that had taken up residence on my shoulders.
I ended up rendezvousing with a particular lady friend I am quite fond of (Marissa), and we began to pace the continually browning countryside.
My thoughts wandered and circled, turning from subject to subject as we watched the freshly harvested fields slip past the dirty windows. Simply driving the stretches of concrete was not going to be enough to cure my restlessness, I needed to go outside.
Finally, as we cut north of Mason City and began to head west, I remembered a lecture I had been present for several weeks ago where my instructor highlighted several of the local attractions that were must sees for all biology students. Among the activities she listed and described was the possibility of a trip to the Lime Creek Nature Center.
Marissa and I had very little in the way of afternoon plans, excepting the possibility of a nap, so after I asked her permission, we were on our way.
The Lime Creek Nature Center is not somewhere new to me, in fact, I have been there a handful of times. The only real hindrance to me being an expert on the facility and its services is the simple fact that I had not been through those heavy doors since I was just over five years old.
We arrived at the Center and parked in the gravel parking lot across the blacktop road, fighting the crisp air as we scuttled to the front doors in the hopes that they would be unlocked.
They were, and we went inside to discover and discuss many wonders of our natural world. I would suggest you go to the preserve just north of Mason City on Highway 65 and explore the Center for yourself someday, so I will not bore you with what was personally interesting to either of us.
Without an education in biology, I would never have thought to go there, I would not even have been interested. Now, it was an excellent way to spend a quiet Sunday afternoon with the girl I love.
Biology and the rest of the natural sciences have impacted me greatly as of late. I am planning on starting a series of sorts on the impact that particular things I have learned throughout my studies that relates how particular facts and figures have led me to making personal changes in the hopes of bettering the world around me. Stay tuned.