The past...(part 1 of I really don't know)

Sometimes I wonder why I didn't just choose to become an engineer, or something that didn't require at least 12 yrs of training. You know, graduate, start making my cash like most of y'all are doing and have a choice as to whether or not to go to grad school. But I knew if I did that, I will be cheating myself. How can I be an engineer when I pretty much drooled on every word my professor uttered in anatomy class? Thank GOD for policies, after two semesters of Anatomy, I thought I was a doctor already because I could finally understand a word or two from ER. Unfortunately life isn't that easy.

If it was, I really would have been a doctor by now. Afterall, I was already in med school back home and all my mates are currently in their final year about to start their internships. But nooooo, I couldn't pass up a chance to pursue the "American Dream". So I proceeded to up root my whole life in 2001 and come up to a very small town in Michigan aka "The Ends of the Earth". For some reason, my wise self decided to major in computer science, you know, I wanted to have a back up plan in case med school didn't work out. A classic case of a good idea executed badly. At least thank GOD I realized this before my GPA became completely non-existent. So I changed majors. To Bioinformatics. Less coding, more biology. Priceless.

In between all this jumping around , I missed a visit or two with my advisor and ended up wasting two summers finding new ways to sit on a couch at different locations around the country. What could I have done you might wonder? Well there was no money for classes, I didn't have the heart to ask my dad to pay tuition three times in one year. I could have volunteered at the hospital or something, but honestly, at this point, I had no clue that I had to volunteer or do anything outside school to get into med school. It was hard keeping tabs with my bioinformatics requirements and my premed ones. It was not until I started talking to some of my other premed friends that I found out most of what I had to do. Research...Doctor Shadowing...Volunteering, etc. There was a problem though. All these either paid nothing at all or almost nothing compared to what I needed. The answer laid in corporate America. This again was a problem. My resume was looking rather empty, all I had done till this point was wash dishes in the cafeteria and tutor. Well let's repharase that. I was a vital part of a cafeteria team ensuring that all parties were served in optimal hygiene conditions. But I still needed a job whose description I didn't have to rephrase.

So come October 2003, in the middle of "The Ends of the Earth's" first snow fall, I attempted to put together my best corporate outfit (I had nothing close to a suit in my wardrobe at this point in my college career) and walk up the humongous hill to the sports center for our annual career fair. Every step I took, I kept asking myself why? Why was I bothering myself? Why was I out in the freaking cold, doing my first cardio workout in ages in uncomfortable clothes? I had been up at the career fair twice before. You see my school is an engineering school so we only get about two companies, out of 200 or so, who are interested in non-engineering majors. Of these two companies, zero of them hire internationals. I was already half way up by now and what else could I be doing? Confusing myself more in my data structures class? Never! Anyways I knew I would keep asking myself "what if?" if I didn't go up there and try. So I did. I joined the parry and tried to explain to the recruiters what exactly my major was while thinking to myself how good all the guys looked cleaned up.

A friend of mine had earlier told me that one of the top technology companies (let's call it Miu Corp) had a life sciences dept that might be interested in someone who knew a little bit about computers and biology. So I went up to talk to them, knowing fully well they had kicked me out the last two times immediately they heard my "weird" name. But this time, I started differently. I told them about their life sciences dept and how my major was just the right combination they needed. The guy was nodding. That was the first truthful nod I had gotten from any of the recruiters. Good sign! Then he asked the dreaded question "Are you legally authorized to work in the US without sponsorship?" Of course I said yes! It wasn't a lie, heck I was working in the cafeteria and they weren't sponsoring me (whatever that meant).

Long story short, I got the job. A premed major working in a tech company testing some developers code. Apart from saving up for my tuition and getting a much needed wardrobe upgrade, I began to discover who I really was...

(...to be continued)