Sunday, August 28, 2011

WHEN I GROW UP...

I want to be a chemical engineer.

Actually, it was never like that. At all. Growing up, I had a long list of things I wanted to do. Believe it or not, being a drummer for a band in a pub was among one of them, although I never told anyone about it at that time. At the same time I also wanted to be a policewoman. However, for some reason, a career in the medical field took over the list and I thought that that was what I wanted to do, until 1996, when my sister met with an accident when we were on our way home from school one day and we spent a good time in the hospital emergency room, seeing people being wheeled around in wheelchairs in various degrees of injuries, the doctors who couldn't care less, missing several wounds and glass shrapnel which were scattered all over my sister's wounds. The whole atmosphere was so depressing that I knew there and then, that it was the end of an almost lifelong ambition.

What's really interesting (and somewhat disappointing as well) is that doctors are held very highly in the ethnic community I belong in. So highly held, that it is said that every family must have a doctor. So when the time came, and I took the fork in the road, leading to a path as far as possible from the medical field, my grandmother was a bit sad and there was a bit of drama between a certain aunt and uncle of mine who were angry with my parents for 'allowing' me to make such a terrible mistake in life!. A little later, another cousin was on her way there, but she decided that she preferred being a pharmacist.

Finally, after so many years, one cousin seemed to be on the right track. She was interested in medicine, and above all, did incredibly well in her A-levels. She let out a bombshell the other day though. Suddenly, for reasons of her own, she decided that maybe she didn't want to do medicine after all. Instead she's been thinking about going into chemical engineering - the field I'm currently in. Wow. The weirdest thing about this? It was her parents that had a falling out with mine about 13 years ago when I decided to take up the offer to do chemical engineering. Her father actually tried discouraging me from doing so by telling me that I'd have to climb tanks in my daily job. Certainly better than seeing blood and pus on a daily basis for sure. The closest thing I ever did to that was to climb up a steep ladder and take pictures of the rust in the tank, that was all. My aunt said it's up to her. Ha! I wonder what her dad says though...

5 comments:

  1. Medicine is a calling. You've either got or you ain't. damn hard job and I wouldn't want it.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Agreed... it's definitely not for everyone!

    ReplyDelete
  3. There was a time in life I wanted to be a priest! Don't even ask me why though cos I have no idea myself ... hahaha!

    ReplyDelete
  4. LOL. OK, I won't ask, but that doesn't mean I'm not curious!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Ugh. It's like every Indian family's philosophy "We must have a doctor in the family" *roll eyes*

    My younger sister was in the same boat as you but she opted for law after A-levels :)

    ReplyDelete

IT's THAT TIME OF YEAR AGAIN

Time for the Annual Appraisal again.  It's a cloudy Sunday afternoon, and I had just finished giving scores to my subordinates on their ...