silva rerum

So various, so beautiful, so new

I have hitherto dis­cussed, at some length, the paths I have pre­vi­ously con­sidered and how I have arrived at my cur­rent pos­i­tion along the jour­ney of life. Now, I am delighted to feel, for the first time in my under­gradu­ate career, that I am on the right road.

Robert Frost once lamen­ted about how he left a road untaken. As for me, I have the joy­ous priv­ilege to walk both roads at once! That I have a deep and lifelong pas­sion for English lit­er­at­ure should be self-​evident; but now I am find­ing that I feel more and more at home within the bio­lo­gical sciences.

Surely you don’t know that yet, Justin. You’re only but a third-​year, hardly in a pos­i­tion to pro­claim your place in aca­demia! Oh but I am! I am. I do so adore study­ing bio­logy, indeed, it’s the only sci­ence that makes sense to me. I can touch it – I can feel it – I can smell it – I can see it. I fear to taste it but I’m sure that’s also an option. What cloaks of doubt that had pre­vi­ously haunted me as I walked the vaunted hall­ways of sci­ence have now been cast off, I feel that I belong.

But surely you belong in English! And I can­not see any reason why I can­not belong to both! It is my firm belief that I have found my niche within aca­demia, that is, at the cross­roads of the human­it­ies and the nat­ural sciences.

For the first time since enter­ing UBC, I feel so emboldened and enlivened by my stud­ies. Marcel Proust once wrote that, “The real voy­age of dis­cov­ery con­sists not in seek­ing new lands, but in see­ing with new eyes.” I’ve just received a second wind to my voy­age of dis­cov­ery. I can­not not waste this momentum – I’ve got to make this year count!