Am listening to a new book now in the car: The Canon by Natalie Angier. I really enjoyed her last book: Woman: An Intimate Geography which is basically a detailed but immensely readable investigation of female physiology.

The Canon’s introduction talks at length about how science has what amounts to a PR problem in our society. It got me thinking of my love for science and all the various ways that has manifested in my life. And how honestly I come by it: I am the child of an MIT PhD who, while pursuing a career in business, has kept a looseleaf notebook full of mathematical proofs and musings. My paternal grandfather and grandmother were both scientists and engineers by training and passion (Pops, who was chief engineer at Grumman, and Gaga, who should have been a doctor but was bound by the constraints of the day).

Uncles, cousins, aunts – these populations in my life, among others, are rich with engineers and scientists. The love of my college life was a Physics major. I myself left London after 10th grade planning to take A-levels in Biology, Chemistry, Physics, and Double Maths. It only took me 6 years to ‘slide downhill’ and graduate from Princeton as an English major. I did take a lot of extra science at college – in particular I remember being in a Biology lab class with Quincy as juniors; we an oddity in the universe of freshman and sophomores fulfilling their lab requirements.

I have always been interested in this realm: I remember loving The Way Things Work as a child. I adored Legos. I did an intensive two-day career counseling/skills assessment while at BCG and was told, in the final discussion, that I should be an engineer or a surgeon. Well, you can see how obediently I heeded that advice.

Anyway, I am loving The Canon and look forward to listening to the rest of it. It’s reminding me that while I chose a career in business, I can find other ways to fulfill the part of me that is happiest in a lab with beakers. There is a clarity to science, a right answer, that is very seductive to me. I love certainty, cogent explanations, logic, and reason.

Just some thoughts as I realize how completely I am a science nerd.