Adventure and its Curious Friends

Maybe the most beautiful thing about a sunset is that each evening, when it falls on the crest of the horizon, it explodes into a new and spectacular array of fiery amber and soft violet? Wonder and curiosity drives people to do great things. Sir Isaac Newton, as the tale goes, proposed a theory of gravity after wondering about a simple apple that struck his head as he dozed underneath an apple tree.  Truly if one has gazed into a microscope at the millions of tiny compartments called cells, which compose the symphony of microorganisms called your body, they will be filled with awe at the complexity and beauty of it. Now, to some that might seem a bit gross or dull, after all, not everyone loves studying biology, physics, or maybe even the thought of science or mathematics makes you cringe.  I think this is also what makes the human race quite wonderful.  Wrongs and evils aside, mankind is a kind of beautiful conglomeration of different tastes and culture...

Try and think of your reaction if someone were to come and tell you "lets go on an adventure." Do you pause? Do you already have your bags packed? Is your idea of an adventure going to Walmart at 4am? Do you rescind their request at the awful thought of leaving your house like Bilbo at the beginning of The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien? Do you want to go climb a mountain (I do!)? Something about facing the unknown drives each person into a different state of mind. People are different. This is my final year of undergraduate college and I am unsure of where I will be living in the coming months. I have no job prospects as of yet, no savings, and no experience beyond the textbooks in which I have spent countless hours enveloped. Needless to say, on top of all of my course load, this doesn't help my stress level.  Yet, something inside me still wants to hop up and go explore the mountains for a couple weeks. Adventures can be little things which help give us some perspec...

Maybe the words in the title remind you of a famous opera Le Miserables ?  Well if you have spent any time looking in the foot-ward direction, you most likely were in trouble, or in an awkward situation, or maybe trying to avoid that one individuals eye contact. Well, looking down is way underrated these days. I'm talking about the small things.  Yes the bugs, the dirt, the crunching leaves beneath your feet as you stroll down a sidewalk on a brisk autumn morning.  Something about those small things we miss.  As you can probably tell from my previous posts, I'm a nerdy biologist; and I wouldn't have it any other way.  What I like to see is the beauty.  Finding some simple rock, and being ignited with awe at the dazzling display of crystals gleaming in the piercing morning sunlight.  The various metals and clusters of minerals in a simple chunk of granite make even a piece by Manet look drab.  (OK, maybe that was too far. I apologize to the A...

Anyone ever tried rock climbing? Summiting a rock wall may look easy when you watch people do it.  Yet unbeknownst to you, the person climbing has been climbing for years upon years and moves with such grace and fluidity one would think that he was barely trying as he reaches up and grabs a rock, using only his two fingers and lifts his entire body weight up the wall.  But the truth is those two fingers have been through a lot. Coming into college my dream was to be a doctor.  I could taste it.  Not only that, but I was side by side with people who viewed their future the same way.  Since my entrance into college I have seen other people who are on the "other side" of the divide I wished to cross.  It seems all to easy for us to go ahead and skip the thousands and thousand of hours of hard work and years of dedication it takes to get there and be there in spirit.  But our spirits are molded through this  Throughout my recent and sh...

Maybe the most beautiful thing about a sunset is that each evening, when it falls on the crest of the horizon, it explodes into a new and spectacular array of fiery amber and soft violet? Wonder and curiosity drives people to do great things. Sir Isaac Newton, as the tale goes, proposed a theory of gravity after wondering about a simple apple that struck his head as he dozed underneath an apple tree.  Truly if one has gazed into a microscope at the millions of tiny compartments called cells, which compose the symphony of microorganisms called your body, they will be filled with awe at the complexity and beauty of it. Now, to some that might seem a bit gross or dull, after all, not everyone loves studying biology, physics, or maybe even the thought of science or mathematics makes you cringe.  I think this is also what makes the human race quite wonderful.  Wrongs and evils aside, mankind is a kind of beautiful conglomeration of different tastes and cultures.  What ...