Some kids live and breathe for animals, and that was always me.
My first word was “bullet ant,” or so the story goes. By the time I sussed I was a human being and not some weird sea lion, I was four. At zoos I actually asked my mom to read the information panels and sat there, thumb in mouth, while she sounded out tongue-twisters like “chances lupus.”
I had my collection of stuffed animals, my copy of Amphibians of the Americas, and my career goals. I was going to be a vet, James Elliot-style. Maybe a small animal vet, maybe a field vet, but definitely a vet. Then I read Song of the Dodo.
Silly as it sounds, I had never realized biologists were a thing. I knew there were doctors—cool—and veterinarians—cooler— but this book described people …show more content…
These scientist-types were the luckiest people in the world. For a minute I was honest-to-God dumbfounded. If it were a film, that right there was my eureka moment. As I ran downstairs I think I actually did a little jig.
Of course, Song of the Dodo was aimed at your average layperson, and came with the requisite embellishment, and warnings. Half the struggle was getting study checks, warned the author. Prepare yourself for mountains of paperwork and the possibility of ending up a government lab rat. These warnings had roughly the effect of a Disney-world ride warning, or the choking hazard sign on the back of a pack of M&Ms. As far as I was concerned, a job whose description read like an average day at the zoo was a job worth mountains of paper-work.
Then, like one of those people who go to one health talk and afterwards are overcome with the compulsion to extol the virtues of the thing to everyone in the vicinity, I couldn’t stop talking about biology. My mom would do laundry and I would stand behind her, talking her head off. “Some species of lizards can shoot blood out their eyes,” I’d say, as if the fact were sacred gospel. “Porcupines and hedgehogs bare spines through convergent evolution.” I’m not convinced I actually understood a word I said, but neither did the adults, so it all worked
My first word was “bullet ant,” or so the story goes. By the time I sussed I was a human being and not some weird sea lion, I was four. At zoos I actually asked my mom to read the information panels and sat there, thumb in mouth, while she sounded out tongue-twisters like “chances lupus.”
I had my collection of stuffed animals, my copy of Amphibians of the Americas, and my career goals. I was going to be a vet, James Elliot-style. Maybe a small animal vet, maybe a field vet, but definitely a vet. Then I read Song of the Dodo.
Silly as it sounds, I had never realized biologists were a thing. I knew there were doctors—cool—and veterinarians—cooler— but this book described people …show more content…
These scientist-types were the luckiest people in the world. For a minute I was honest-to-God dumbfounded. If it were a film, that right there was my eureka moment. As I ran downstairs I think I actually did a little jig.
Of course, Song of the Dodo was aimed at your average layperson, and came with the requisite embellishment, and warnings. Half the struggle was getting study checks, warned the author. Prepare yourself for mountains of paperwork and the possibility of ending up a government lab rat. These warnings had roughly the effect of a Disney-world ride warning, or the choking hazard sign on the back of a pack of M&Ms. As far as I was concerned, a job whose description read like an average day at the zoo was a job worth mountains of paper-work.
Then, like one of those people who go to one health talk and afterwards are overcome with the compulsion to extol the virtues of the thing to everyone in the vicinity, I couldn’t stop talking about biology. My mom would do laundry and I would stand behind her, talking her head off. “Some species of lizards can shoot blood out their eyes,” I’d say, as if the fact were sacred gospel. “Porcupines and hedgehogs bare spines through convergent evolution.” I’m not convinced I actually understood a word I said, but neither did the adults, so it all worked