Namo-phobia: A Confession From My Microbiology Days

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Revisited · originally written in 2016 (originally written in find here

Lost my love. Feeling lonely, feeling uninteresting  I started hating you. Is it me? Is it myself who hates you?
I loved you for months. I'd hug you tight before sleep, thinking about how great our days together were. But now, I hate you. And it's entirely because of me.

Wondering what happened to my love? 
Don't worry  I'm not talking about a boy and a girl. I'm talking about the love between microbiology and me. (Seriously, I still love the subject that much.)

“Favorite. Lovely. Interesting.” These were the words I used every time I solved a previous year's microbio paper. Now? “Boring. Uninteresting.” It used to be such a joy to read about plasmids, transposons, and microbial metabolism. But then came transformation, Hfr transfer, conjugation — cycle after cycle of genes, each with its own function, orientation, and mobilization machinery. Giant, tangled, almost ugly structures of information.

Honestly, I think even the infinite list of castes in India would be easier to memorize than this.

Give me a paper full of concepts, mechanisms, and procedures, and I'll read it happily. But once my professor started teaching transformation and mobilization just to “complete the syllabus,” I lost the thread. Hatash. Genuinely defeated. The gene names involved in tra transposition and transposable elements refuse to stick. A quick glance the night before an exam won't cut it this time — I actually have to study daily. And I'm losing interest exactly when I need to be most focused.

I don't even like the version of myself that shows up in class lately, chatting instead of listening, even though microbiology is my favorite subject and I'm usually the keen one taking it all in. (Not that chatting in class is some grave sin. But it stung a little, coming from me.)

All is well. I just need to refocus and get back the spirit of learning. But memorizing genuinely one of the hardest jobs in the world.

And then there's my other weakness: I forget names. Not conversations — I remember those in detail, sometimes years later. Just names. It's caused more friendship trouble than I'd like to admit. I'll run into someone after a gap and have to ask, “Sorry, what's your name again?” I know exactly how bad that sounds.

I've tried fixing it:

Repeating a new name two or three times right after hearing it.
Apologizing in advance “Sorry, I might have to ask your name again someday, I have this problem.”
Neither worked. The long conversation stays with me. The name alone slips away.

I think I'll just call it Namo-phobia.

That's all fine, though. 😂

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