Life has never been, and will not be, fair.
Because it is meant to be that way.(We have actually already got a pretty large increase in our allowance this year! :P)
Yesterday was A*STAR day - the directors were here and we went down to somewhere near BWI to eat fantastic crabcakes (they loved it - luckily...). I went to speak to Prof. Bernard Tan and Prof. Miranda Yap privately about my Duke/NUS plans; I got a lot of valuable points to think about from both of them. It definitely wasn't a waste of time.
I didn't get to talk about the money issue (because it was running late...), but I got to tell Cheryl about it pretty thoroughly. I think she understands why we are so upset about it now...
Hopkins builds character! Surviving here itself is a test of faith. The competition is extreme, yet still we have to worry about money and safety, in addition to the ubiquitous problems like travelling 6 miles everyday to lab, experiments not working, managing with household chores... We have the same amount of responsibility towards A*STAR compared to others who might not even have 50% of the problems we have. I didn't even include things like missing home and relationship issues...
And to bring in the materialistic side of it, it is not as if I can include 'cleaning house almost every week and cooking almost everyday' into my CV? When I am doing all these, others who do not have to (having enough money helps) can spend their time doing things that can be.
But those people who know me will know - I chose everything myself. I could have stayed in the Homewood for my research; I chose A*STAR + Hopkins over Cambridge and NUS med; I chose to have a car. No one forced me to do anything; everything just happened. I don't even remember why I applied to Hopkins. It is as if - I am supposed to go through all these.
If two years from now I will really choose the route that I am the most passionate about, it would be almost confirmed that my whole life will be something like that. When I am training as a doctor I will still have to stay current with research (~surviving between lab + double major); I will have to juggle between family and work (~housework and work now); when my peers who are pure MDs are getting their third bungalow I might still only live in HDB (~comparing with people who get automatic raises every year); when my peers who are pure PhDs are professors I might still only be an assistant professor (~comparing with people who don't have to be distracted by various other issues except relevant work)...
Everything seems to echo thoughts that I ever had about my life over the three years here, albeit at a much larger scale.
Numerous events accumulated to channel me here... If A*STAR didn't stop the MBBS/PhD scheme in 2004, if I had decided to go with the crowd to seek the most prestigious to become LKY's alumni, all the way back to if I hadn't had Mr. Yue as my VP when I was in Sec. 3 - I wouldn't have come to Hopkins at all, I wouldn't have gained all these experience, life skills and realisations.
I actually didn't plan to write this - and I didn't realise the match that you have just read as well when I began writing this...!
Labels: Life, Studies and Career
