Extraordinarily Average and Loving It

After Thanksgiving Break, I tried to meet with my conversation partner again.  As the semester comes to a close, schedules are becoming more crammed and it has become increasingly difficult to find a mutually convenient time to meet up.  She apologized that she would not be able to because she was heading to San Antonio for the entire week.  Well, not much I can do about that, I thought, so we agreed on a time to meet the following week.  (Little did I know that the week we agreed to meet was actually her finals week, so I felt really bad about taking her away from her studies.  But apparently some people don’t wait until the day before to start studying for finals.  Huh, I wonder what that’s like.)

            After exchanging the usual pleasantries, I asked her how her trip went.  I figured she had gone up there to visit with family or something, but turns out she was actually going to a medical conference.  Excuse me, she was presenting her work at a medical conference.  A medical conference with hundreds of attendees.  She talked about the work she’s done with stem cells.  (I should probably note here that she tried to tell me more about what her research entails but I’m an econ major so…)  From the way she was describing it, I got the impression that there were prizes given out for the best presenters.  I half-jokingly asked if she won anything. 

The answer was yes. 

First place. 

And five thousand dollars.

            Wait, what?  Why did she not lead with this information?  If I were her, when we first saw each other and asked how the other was doing, I would have been like, “Well I’m $5000 richer so I’m doing pretty dang well I would say.”  Her humility impressed me, but the fact that she just beasted this medical conference with her stem cell research was the most astounding part.  I never imagined that this soft-spoken, rather reserved individual was on the cutting edge of medical innovation, but apparently I was very wrong.  She also told me that she received several offers from people at other universities to come do research with them, which is an opportunity she will likely take advantage of at the end of next semester. 

            This whole conversation reminded me of something that my physics teacher pointed out in class recently.  He noted that Albert Einstein made important discoveries concerning the photoelectric effect, Brownian motion, the theory of relativity as well as the famous E = mc² formula all when he was just 25 years old.  That’s about the age Alejandra is right now.  And as scary as it is to think about, I’m going to be there before I know it.  The only difference is, I just don’t think I’m quite on the precipice of any sort of innovative scientific breakthroughs at the moment.  The thing taking up the most mental energy in my life right now is trying to decide what show to watch on Netflix after I finish the last season of The Office and calculating exactly how many days I can go without doing laundry while still having clean underwear.  The biggest discovery that’s happening in my life at the moment is finding a $5 bill in my coat pocket that I forgot I put in there a week ago.  And I just don’t foresee those circumstances changing much in the next five years. 

Maybe I’m wrong. 

But probably not.

And honestly, I’m okay with it.  Not everyone can make the history books.  And thank god for that, because we have enough people to memorize in history classes as it is.  Sure, if I really set my mind to it, I could probably go out there and cure cancer.  But at the moment, taking a nap sounds really nice.  I don’t have to be the one who makes it big.  It is enough for me to know that when Alejandra becomes the next really successful medical prodigy, I can point to her picture plastered on a billboard and say, “Hey, I went bowling with that girl once.”