If a Body Catch a Body

A few days ago, I found myself in the disturbing position of relating to Holden Caulfield.

Oh hey there.
Been a while, non?
I apologize for my sudden demise from the blogosphere.
Sorry y'all.

However, for the past few days I've caught myself thinking somewhat deep thoughts instead of paying attention in biology, and it seemed a shame not to share them somehow. After all, if it's not on the Internet, how do we know that it happened? (Incidentally, did anyone hear that tree that just fell in a forest? No one was there to hear it, but I'd bet it made a noise.)

Incidentally, this post is almost entirely self-serving. However, for anyone who may be curious as to the "inside scoop" of my life as a pre-med soon-to-be econ major, read on!

This past semester has been a whirlwind of new ideas, like Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle; new experiences, like lighting a Bunsen burner for the first (and second, and third, but not last) time; and generally learning to think with areas of my brain that I'd long given up on, like the entire left hemisphere. (Read: I'm trying to do math.) This may sound exhilarating, and in some ways it has been. There's something exciting about learning things I never imagined I'd learn, and doing it to pursue a dream that I truly do want to achieve.

More often though, it's been surreal and vaguely terrifying. The truth is, I've made a pretty large bet on myself this year: I'm betting that I can hold my own in an infamously competitive track, learning on the fly skills that some of my fellows have known for years, to ultimately succeed in an infamously exclusive application process, so that I can then hold my own in an infamously grueling course of study...so that I can spend the rest of my life devoting myself to improving the quality of others' lives.

In other words, I'm betting that I am pretty much the most bull-headed college sophomore ever to grace the planet.

And how is that working out so far?
Like I said, exhilarating and vaguely terrifying. Which brings me to the real theme of this post:

A few days ago, I found myself in the disturbing position of relating to Holden Caulfield.
This was disturbing for a few reasons, namely:
-I hated The Catcher in the Rye
-I hated it mostly because Holden is such an irritating, self-centered, entitled, and generally loathsome character.
I don't usually think of myself as particularly loathsome, or lazy. But a few days ago, as I struggled to understand the "review" statistics material that my econometrics teacher was whizzing through, I was distracted by irritation at my own inability to comprehend the math. Why, after completing the mind-numbing calculus and statistics pre-requisites, could I still not understand this material? The other students seemed to be getting it. I'd reviewed the material before class. Why was I still a step behind?

In the past, I'd always felt better after reminding myself that math has never been my strong point, but that rationale only made me feel more frustrated. Natural ability is a great thing to have, but I've always liked to believe that you can overcome most things by working through them.

What happens when everything you can be is nothing more than what you are?

And suddenly, I found myself (now on my way to economics, econometrics having ended) thinking of our dear friend Holden.
My parents' generation saw Holden as an empowering rebel; mine tends to see him as a spoiled bum. I have always been inclined to the latter, and by extension dismissed the book as an ode to an over-privileged and confused generation that begot an even more confused generation. But now, I found myself feeling for the guy.

What if Holden knows he's loathsome? Holden has been given every advantage in life, and thrown it all away. He allows his emotions to keep him from achieving anything. He can't make friends. He can't grow up.
And he knows it.

Let's back up.
I do not feel for one second that going pre-med is "throwing away" the advantages I've been given. I would not have been able to do so if I didn't believe (perhaps foolishly) that I do have the ability to succeed at it. And I even have a few friends.
But once in a while (or rather, once every two days or so), something akin to my daunting statistics class happens and forces me to ask if I really know what on earth I'm doing.

And I hate to admit that the answer might be no.
And I hate to contemplate that, if indeed I fail, I will have wasted an awful lot of my college education taking math/science classes when I might have been happier taking politics.
And I find myself sympathizing with someone who's woken up to find themselves less than they thought they were.
And I can relate to wanting to "catch" children, and allow them to spend a little longer in that place where everything is still possible.


Luckily, unlike Holden Caulfield, I am the most bull-headed college college sophomore ever to grace the planet, and I know that I'm doing the right thing.

Or so I hope.