Skills

Occasionally, I think to myself about how it would be nice to have additional skills. Like maybe if I knew more about computers, or how to speak other languages. You know, things that might be useful in my day-to-day life, making work easier, or more productive or, just making life all-around more enjoyable.
And where would one go to acquire said skills? Well, depending on what the skill is, I suppose you could go to your local library, enroll yourself in some karate lessons, or quickly search the internet for a how-to video. Or in my case, you could have had a different major in college.

I mean, how often do I think to myself, "Matt, it would be really nice if you knew Spanish right now, so you could talk to these people without using the translator phone...", or, "If I knew more about computers, maybe I could sabotage the hospital's computer records system so they would decide that now's the time to get one that works, and also wasn't written in QuickBASIC."

But, as it is, I've just got my lowly degree in biology, which means I could probably tell you how to clone a gene, or calculate a mutation rate or maybe even tell you why moss grows on the north side of trees, but can't necessarily do "cold-call sales", "drive truck", negotiate a contract, or even properly operate an iron.

There is one major benefit to a working knowledge of biology in medicine, though. When a kid comes in, and I've got to look in their ears with my otoscope, I can tell them that they've got WAY cooler things in their ears than "a monkey" like my doctor told me as a kid. Like, orangutans, or bonobos. Well, on second thought, maybe not bonobos. Maybe fiddler crabs? Cacelians? Or trees with moss growing on the north side?