little steps to conquer joker

Passenger seatbelt unbuckled. Passenger seatbelt unbuckled.

As I backed out of my driveway yesterday, the little words were flashing in red.  I glanced over to the empty seat in puzzlement, which quickly turned into irritation. Staring up at me was the culprit: my organic chemistry textbook.

In college, the material covered by this dense hardcover had been the bane of my existence. One semester of organic chemistry I, another semester of II, and then the weekly five-hour lab that took up three credits for yet one more semester.

And like so many pre-med hopefuls before me, it broke my spirit.

At some point in your life, you feel like you aren’t good enough. For me, orgo was that slap in the face. I gave it everything I had, but my efforts were always in vain. Have you ever tried so hard to achieve something, over and over and over, until you realize that maybe it’s just not “your thing”? Well, somewhere between organic chemistry and biochemistry, my jaded undergrad self decided that maybe medical school wasn’t “my thing.”

You might be wondering why then, three years after the class gobbled up my spirit and spit out something cynical, I am in arm’s length of the textbook. (Where in the world could she be going with it? Special orgo text book bonfire?).

I am tutoring – yes, as in teaching – organic chemistry.

Turns out, I actually did learn something in that class. I may not have been able to ace the exams in a time crunch, but I understood the concepts. And that’s the basis of teaching any science. Although organic chemistry at Hopkins was grueling, it forced me to learn the reasons behind the reaction processes. Maybe I can’t figure out the most complicated synthesis on a timed exam, but I sure can explain to you why it happens that way.

So yesterday, after I lifted my textbook off the passenger seat (stop the blinking! It’s not a person!), I drove to my fifth tutoring session – to help mend another spirit broken by our common enemy.

It’s like I’ve made peace with my arch nemesis. I have to say, it’s a good feeling.