New book, new ideas

So I have finished reading the Poisonwood Bible. It was a struggle for me because it is a slow book that boils and develops over hundreds of pages. But since when have I been scared off by prodigious texts that tempt their readers to loose themselves in the countless words that are fixed on crisp, soft pages?

I struggled to find common ground with the many characters, to learn about a country that I knew absolutely nothing about (starting with the fact that the Congo and Zaire are not two different countries). And of course today there is the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Republic of the Congo. Like the character Leah in Kingsolver's book, I re-learn the simple fact that the political maps on walls and inside books have arbitrary lines that shift with the will of the people that reside within those physical places. Simple, I know, but it's illustrated very artfully, if not in an epic manner, meandering way in the novel. The tale spans the 1960-late 80's.

And though I am learning and engaging my mind in ways besides my chosen scientific profession I realize that I am driven to distraction, putting off the incredibly intimidating task of readying myself for the next step in life: grad school/med school.

I realize this tonight because within this tale there is a girl who is an outcast that overcomes her demons to become a doctor/researcher of tropical viruses, Adah. I have never been "disabled" like her but everyone is an outsider to a certain extent for some period in their lives. It's tied to our unique fingerprints, our DNA that controls our personalities (to some degree).

She is a part of the team that contributes to the field of Public Health. The very school of Harvard that signs my paychecks, so to speak. Africa has not been on my radar ever, even now having completed this saga of a family undone while living in the "Dark continent" but public health seems appealing to me now.

But we come back again to the heart of the matter which is my dreams. It is safer to be on this side looking down at the potential energy rather than taking the plunge converting it into useful kinetic energy. Ha ha. I made a pun much like my dear boyfriend.

In all seriousness though, in order to reach anywhere near "public health" or "medicine" or "researecher" I need to conquer this one, huge weakness of mine. This standardized test that I can't even book. My type A personality is dying to organize this endeavor but my will continues to fight it.

I sound self-indulgent, unlike my suck it up and deal self (when it comes to academic matters anyway) but I have to reflect right now in order to move forward.

I choose now to read aboutt Zaire/Dem. Rep. of the Congo who was basically ransacked by America and it's CIA operatives that raped and pilaged this nation for its wealth. Things that the natives themselves did not appreciate, did not reap the benefits of. I choose to think about atrocities against human kind, disease, family dynamics within these fictional characters' lives; themes in the book that circle around Biblical imagery, botanical imagery, the idea of the Patriarch failing to burgeon within a savage land where only the women thrive, the inability of man to tame nature and how the African bush reclaims whatever people try to take from her, how the fury of floods wipe out villages, crops, people's hopes, the insignificance of one family in the backdrop of turmoil, the use to languages to unify and divide groups of people, definition of morals, justice, rights and wrongs; people's attitudes towards the unknown, mother daughter relationships, father daughter relationship, interracial relationships, wealth, what it means to be a white minority ruling over a black majority; the true evil between Communism and Capitalism, choosing between hunger or political views.

A book so rich in themes that I failed to appreciate until the very end. And it still drives me to further distraction because there is a helpful bibliography that will tell me more about the injustices committed by white men in stuffy offices against poor starving people in Africa. Like with Howard Zinn I am trying to learn a little more about an area of human nature I've either dutifully ignored, or was forced to ignore because I had no more white or gray matter left to devote to anything other than surviving Simmons Biochemistry (though I did dip my little brown fingers in various departments around the CAS).

I will give into this distraction, for now. But I will have to take the plunge soon.

When, I cannot say because like before my life is still in transition. And I do not think this will cease until I'm well into my 30s. Realistically. So since I'm so bad at transitions I need to learn to deal. Because this type A is not gonna get her cake and eat it too on her road to becoming "whatever".

When I was young I thought myself too dumb to become a physician. I would hate to not become one on account of being a coward and afraid of a small room with a computer screen, a woman out there that reads my finger print every time I finish a section of a test that will determine my future, and bunch of passages that bust my metaphorical balls.

Perhaps later I will write more about the book itself. But tonight I was a little overwhelmed with these ideas rushing to my head.