I always wanted to be an ologist...

Truth No. 1 is that I went to college to avoid going to work directly out of high school. It worked! I put off real employment and at the same time built up college debt. Win-win! Truth No. 2 is that studying and academic achievement was far more serious in college than I ever imagined. Thank goodness I didn't have a scholarship that required me to get good grades. Truth No. 3 is that I studied … let's make that, I took classes in … biology because I thought that the study of life, which is the basic definition of biology, seemed somewhat important. On the eve of my graduation, my one professor told me, "Well, Gary, just graduating is an achievement unto itself." Truth No. 4 is that I always wanted to be an "ologist," as in a biological field scientist who discovered really interesting and important things -- as in why hummingbirds hum or why giant pandas always seem to have Chinese names. You know, important stuff. I didn't know what type of "ologist" I wanted to become so I became an "ist." Which leads to Truth No. 5, I didn't know what a naturalist was until I became one. So, after all of these years, I am now finally looking into what kind of "ologist" I could have become. And since I still don't know what most of them are, which if you are keeping count, is Truth No. 6, I decided to look some of them up. Ecologist. They study the interconnectedness of life. I think they are the ones who ruined the concept of "food chain" by turning it into a "food web." I probably could have been one of these, except that they need to know stuff like math and chemistry. That's a deal breaker. Mycologist. They study fungus. I don't like mushrooms on my pizza, and for those mycologists who do, I'll bet you're a blast at a pizza party. It is probably not a coincidence that "spore" rhymes with "bore." Marine biologist. Aahhh, think Jacques Cousteau. And then think that everyone on his ship Calypso had to prove that they could hold their breath for two minutes under water. And no matter what any "ologist" says, sharks bite! Dendrologist. They study plants and how to tell them apart. A fellow naturalist told me once that I was lucky that I had coursework in dendrology. I told him that he was mistaken … and then I looked it up. Oops, I did. Trees are just too easy to sneak up on, and I'm allergic to poison ivy. Lichenologist. They study lichens. Need I say more? (I think that they are all secretive model railroaders.) Entomologist. For some reason I can't fathom, this one just bugs me! Zoologists. Now, if they just studied zoos, that would be cool. But no, they study all animals …like, all of them. My friend Wikipedia states that zoology is the scientific study of animals. Its studies include the structure, embryology, classification, habits and distribution of all animals, both living and extinct, and how they interact with their ecosystems. Zoologists must be stopped! Ichthyologist. They must handle slimy and stinky fish. Nope. (They probably eat them, too.) Herpetologist. They study both amphibians and reptiles, which are unrelated groups with many differences. Sounds pretty darn scientific to me. (OK, how many out there thought this was the study of herpes?) (Since herpes virus is also unrelated to reptiles and amphibians, I think we can put it in this "ology," too.) Paleobotanist. This is a person who needs to know lots of stuff about contemporary plants so that they can compare them to extinct plants -- which are plants that they have never seen -- and make assumptive proclamations about them. (Under employed paleobotanists probably become politicians,) Cell biologist. They study life on the cellular scale. They do so by looking things up on their cell phones. Truth be told, I was an important figure in the cell biology lab at college. That's because I was the one who carefully placed all of the colorful petri dishes into the autoclave. Yep, a few hours in there and the threat of an epidemic was melted into a solid and completely un-recyclable mass. Microbiologist. Wait, didn't we just … Taxonomist. See zoologist, and then take Latin. Ornithologist, This is the study of birds, which is not bird watching. I mean, it is, but it's all that other scientific stuff, too. Oh, and math and chemistry, too. (Well, it looked good at first.) Helminthologist. They study worms. None of them have a life, except for the one who invented gummy worms. They made a huge contribution to life on this planet. Meteorologist. These people study network TV and Nielsen ratings. Sometimes they talk about the weather. Nearly all of the time, we talk about them. During the evening national news, they are called upon to add expert commentary, "As you said David, these severe storms are severe." Sometimes they are stationed at the point of landfall of a hurricane to do live broadcasts. "Let's go to Sam on the scene. Sam, how's the weather? Sam? Sam? Well, it appears that Sam is having some unexpected technical difficulties." Exobiolgist.They study life in space -- as in, is there life in space -- and where we are most likely to find it. I think all of us might already qualify to be one of these. Anthropologist. This is the study of human societies and cultures and their development. OK, this one is not really a biology field, but it sure is going to be fun when one of them, way off in the future, comes upon this great piece of writing. Heck, I'll bet they will have to come up with a brand-new field of study to categorize this line of bull …