Freewrite #2B - Three Significant Events

When I was about 11 or so, I was fascinated with Lepidoptera – basically, caterpillars and their adult stages: moths and butterflies. This was all because of a trip to the libarary where I found a small paperback book filled with every variety of butterfly and moth and their caterpillars, pupae and cocoons. Every detail was fascinating to me – where in the US ther could be found, what plants they fed on, etc. I went on walks in the neighborhood specifically looking for particular plants so I might find the caterpillars feeding on them. Of all the varieties of moths and butterflies, the holy grail of my quest was the Monarch. It’s caterpillar fed on the leaves of the Milkweed plant, a plant which whencracked opne has inside its stem and leaves a milky white substance that is so toxic to birds that they know to leave the Monarch butterflies alone. The caterpillars look nothing like the adult butterfly, and are striped in shades of white black and orange. The day I was casually walking home from a neighborhood grocery store and spotted the plants along the side of the road, I could hardly believe my luck. I reached down, lifted one of the leaves, and there were two beautiful Monarch caterpillars on the underside of the leaf. I brought them home and as any good scientist would, prepared them for their metamorphosis. I was not disappointed, as I watched them eat, form a chrysalis and some time later, emerge as beautiful butterflies, which I then realeased into the world from my bedroom window.

Another time I remember as being a significant influence on how I feel about science had to do with a less pleasant experience. When I was fifteen, it rained for three days straight that summer. School was already out at that point, and I was looking forward to a long relaxing summerbefore beginningmy junior year of high school. Unfortunately, nature decided it had other plans. On the third day of ran, I started to feel uneasy. That night, as I listened to the radio reports of the storm, which was actually the tail end of a hurricane that was passing through, I felt a sudden sense of urgency to tellmy mother that we were going to have a flood. Of course, she didn’t take me seriously, even though we did live three blocks from the river. She assured me there had not been a flood in my hometown since the 1930’s. Nevertheless, I stayed up until 3:00 a.m. listening, whenfinhallyword came that we had to evacuate by noon that day. Nature had its way, took our house and changed my life completely. I never take nature for granted – or life, for that matter, thanks to that fateful day. I did, however, postpone college until much later than I would have, had it not been for the fact that my family lost everything and I chose to get married right after high school instead of pursuing a college degree.
One of the reasons I became so interested in Biology and Science in general, aside from the caterpillars and flood was a job I ended up in pretty much by accident. I was in Los Angeles, pursuing a career in acting, and temping at a law firm, when I was offered a job working for an attorney who was handling Biotech cases, mostly patent infringement cases. Not only did I have to become well familiarized with the language of science, but I learned to prepare computerized DNA sequences for submission to the patent office. Many of the attorneys I would work with had degrees in the sciences as well as law degrees. I became the assistant to the head of our biotech department, but secretly wished I was doing something more than prepare patent applications . I guess I’ve always had both a scientific mind and a creative side, so I had a hard time settling into one occupation. Until now, that is the closest I came to working in the field of science, except for a short off-off Broadway stint as an O.R. doctor!