The Tagline

If this blog were a Gothic novel, this chapter would be titled "Life, love, Cleveland, and anything else worth talking about: Living up to expectations."

Life

What do I know about life these days? I barely have one--but that all will end as of no later than 11:30 am tomorrow morning. The GRE will be over, and I once more will be able to take up permanent residence at Algebra, the rock wall, and wherever else is my home for the moment.

This is the thing about my life right now: it is cyclic. I go down, I go up. I'm just along for the ride right now. I'm figuring out plans for the future that don't hinge on some stupid-ass test and that will keep me writing, happy, and able to afford the occasional pair of pineapple-emblazoned flip-flops. At some point, I should shoot an email to the editor of the Observer and pitch an idea, and also not drop the ball on my summer research, about which I am pumped.

I am sure that I will get bored with the summer research (cardiac tissue, an actual relevant problem, which is also my senior project) just as I have gotten bored with everything else I've ever done. The one single constant in my life (besides falling in love with people who are spectacularly wrong/right/wrong for me) is writing. I've been writing since I could hold a pencil, but I've always had to. There has always been an external force motivating me--a class. The single semester of college I haven't had to read and write I nearly died in all my math and science.

I am well aware of my failings as a writer. I'm not a particularly good poet, and I have no attention span at all for anything else, and I can never, ever, end anything nicely. (which, oddly enough, applies to the falling in love bit too) But I am glib and I am clear and I am good with punctuation most of the time. So what am I going to do with my $120,000 education? I'm going to get my masters. And probably a Ph.D. Work for a while. And pitch a popular science column to any newspaper that will listen to me.

I can't write stories. I will probably never write a novel. I HATE writing research proposals. But science, I can do. I love to do it. And it's what I will do. Probably on the side for a good long time. It's enough to keep food on my table and my soul alive, and it's what I love.

Who could ask for more?