Lions!

Oh wow, shall I recap how my Tuesday went?

3:30 am - I went to sleep. (I did take a nap from 6-9 pm, but I had 3 hours of sleep the night before.)

7:46 am - I woke up. Yes, I set my alarm at weird times.

that until 11:15 - Showered, ate, read for philosophy, took care of my cat, hopped on the bus, got distracted by my iPod touch for about half an hour, and then walked to cognitive psych.

11:15 to 2:00 pm - class

after class till 5:00 pm - got on the buses to Sheridan (my school site for Y-Scholars) with Caitlin, got there super early, stayed there for about an hour, hopped back on the buses (we had to transfer, hence the plural).

5:00 to 5:45 pm - planned on breathing a little, but then I checked my email and my tutoring schedule for the next few weeks pretty much shot me in the head. But I got back up because bullets don't hurt me :)

5:45 pm - bought a fruit cup and juice (what a redundant "meal") and walked over to the Y to chill and talk to anyone who happened to be early for seminar

6:30 to 7:30 pm - Y-Scholars seminar

7:30 to 8:15 pm - sat down and checked my email and Facebook, and planned my philosophy paper at Bordertown Coffee. What a cozy place.

8:30 to 10:00 pm - tutored at the MAC. It was an amazing session because 1) it was physics and I usually don't like physics, 2) I didn't even remember learning the stuff I "taught" today but, 3) I figured things out really quickly just by looking at the book for a few minutes, and 4) my student-athlete was so sweet. She was so motivated to learn and understood things easily. I'm so proud. Not sure more of her or of myself, but whatever. I'm proud.

Got home being extremely glad I finished my biology lab report early. I would have not wanted to work on that after such a long day.

So now I decided to relax a little.

It was a great day, by the way, if you couldn't tell. I still stand by what I told Keion today at the Y-Scholars seminar: classes are going great, and I know I'm probably not getting a 4.0 this semester, but I'm glad I put my time into all the stuff I got involved in (Y-Scholars, tutoring, etc.) rather than study so hard just to get perfect grades. It's worth it.

I've been thinking a lot about what Dr. Masino told our Biol 3700 class(Gateway to Research seminar) a few weeks ago. I was half asleep throughout the class, but I remember this one thing he said, that he chose neuroscience but it could have anything else in biology; any class he took was what he wanted to do for the rest of his life.

Spoken like a true academic, which is exactly what I want to become.

I've come to realize that just because I choose neuroscience and philosophy, it doesn't mean I can't pursue my interest in everything else. I've come to realize that it's never in my intention to ever to devote myself to one thing in life. I want to learn so much at such a high level, but I can never walk away from those that still at the beginning of the journey that is education--I love tutoring and mentoring people who just need to make it. There are those that get tutors because they want guaranteed perfection, but there are some that just need to make it because physics or chemistry or whatever is really not their thing. There are those that make it their goal in life to get into the most prestigious colleges, but there are more that don't even know if they can go to college. In either case, I think a little time put into helping the latter type can make so much difference. That's why I think it's worth it. I aspire to be a great academic (as a scientist and a philosopher), but I don't want to lock myself up in a lab or in a room full of intellectuals and be blind to the world out there.

I don't even know what I want to "do with my life," but my wish for myself and the world is an open-mind through education. I don't think everything that's happening right now in the name of education is true education. I didn't know what biology, or science, for that matter, really is until a few months ago. I didn't know the discovery of DNA was such a beautiful story--so beautiful it hurts.

I've rambled on quite a bit, and I'm really tired so I don't know how much of that made sense. It wasn't a waste of time though, since I decided to relax a bit during what's left of tonight. I'm not going to regret this.

While writing this, I was listening to Lights' "The Listening" album. The song that never caught my attention much suddenly stood out to me. It was, as the post title suggests, "Lions!"

Now, I read that it's about World of Warcraft, which I'd say is some weird game I'd never care to play, but I still this line is amazing:

You don't have to feel safe to feel unafraid.