Belonging to a doctor-infested family, embarking upon a medicine-related career seemed like a natural and obvious choice. Confused and rather clueless about where my path would eventually take me, I got into Optometry School complete with scholarship and the works.
My grades constantly reinforced my belief that science and medicine was all that I was cut-out for. Just as I had begun to feel proud about my profession and education, and looked forward to a higher degree after graduation, something awful happened- internship; and that’s when trouble in wonderland begun. No Siree, this was not for me. I always wanted to be my own boss and I didn’t see myself facing flack for every little thing I did or did not do. Sub-servience was certainly not my piece of cake. After a year of brainless slogging, I felt my soul being sucked out of me. One day lead to another and another and another - I couldn’t quit midway because I needed a degree anyway. Every morning I found myself waiting for the day to end. This was not the kind of life I wanted for myself. I was just barely existing- sitting in a morning class even before I completely woke-up, working like a dog till evening, collecting peanuts for a salary and eating it off for dinner. There were many around me who got a weird kind of high after they made a correct diagnosis or tackled a tricky refractive error. What’s more, even their e-mail id’s read xyz_optom@abc.com ! and here I was, cringing at the worthlessness of my profession and preferring to call myself a “Science Graduate” instead on an “Optometrist”. After wallowing in self-pity and complaining for a little while, it was time to put on my adventure boots and look for a way out of this severe identity crisis. Don't know if it was a signal from heaven, I got a mail about a new youth magazine starting out who wanted a few people to write articles for them. Not that I saw any sense in that, it didn’t take any second thoughts to bunk work,take a cab and dash off to the magazine office. Before I could even tell those guys what I was there for, they put me into the “modeling” category and within a couple of days I was posing in front of an amateur photographer. It was only when they were short of writers and material to fill in the pages that I got a chance to tell them that I thought I could write too. I handed in an article and without a doubt from the editor’s end, it was published. Seeing my photograph and name in print for the first time gave me a kind of kick that is difficult to put in words. Soon I had friends and other magazine staff calling me up to deliver rave comments and compliments. That’s all it took for me to realize that I had finally found my door.
My grades constantly reinforced my belief that science and medicine was all that I was cut-out for. Just as I had begun to feel proud about my profession and education, and looked forward to a higher degree after graduation, something awful happened- internship; and that’s when trouble in wonderland begun. No Siree, this was not for me. I always wanted to be my own boss and I didn’t see myself facing flack for every little thing I did or did not do. Sub-servience was certainly not my piece of cake. After a year of brainless slogging, I felt my soul being sucked out of me. One day lead to another and another and another - I couldn’t quit midway because I needed a degree anyway. Every morning I found myself waiting for the day to end. This was not the kind of life I wanted for myself. I was just barely existing- sitting in a morning class even before I completely woke-up, working like a dog till evening, collecting peanuts for a salary and eating it off for dinner. There were many around me who got a weird kind of high after they made a correct diagnosis or tackled a tricky refractive error. What’s more, even their e-mail id’s read xyz_optom@abc.com ! and here I was, cringing at the worthlessness of my profession and preferring to call myself a “Science Graduate” instead on an “Optometrist”. After wallowing in self-pity and complaining for a little while, it was time to put on my adventure boots and look for a way out of this severe identity crisis. Don't know if it was a signal from heaven, I got a mail about a new youth magazine starting out who wanted a few people to write articles for them. Not that I saw any sense in that, it didn’t take any second thoughts to bunk work,take a cab and dash off to the magazine office. Before I could even tell those guys what I was there for, they put me into the “modeling” category and within a couple of days I was posing in front of an amateur photographer. It was only when they were short of writers and material to fill in the pages that I got a chance to tell them that I thought I could write too. I handed in an article and without a doubt from the editor’s end, it was published. Seeing my photograph and name in print for the first time gave me a kind of kick that is difficult to put in words. Soon I had friends and other magazine staff calling me up to deliver rave comments and compliments. That’s all it took for me to realize that I had finally found my door.
Hiiiiii Shuchi,,,,,,
ReplyDeleteNice Story, quite interesting. I am amateur writer, got your link through your website and was really interested to know how you carved out your name in the Writers' Bureau's writers' list.
Great work.
Kindly advice me in choosing the type of course from the institution and I would really appreciate if you could share your personal experience.
My id: anurag.forever@yahoo.com
hii....kinda the same thing has happened to me...only it was CA articleship....i desperately want to be a writer..am pretty dexterous with words...but have no idea as to how to go bout it.....
ReplyDeleteEarning peanuts for salary and eating them for dinner...thats an Al Pacino kinda line. Loved it :):).
ReplyDeleteYour blog has helped a lot. Trying to make more sense of my thoughts and outburst through writting. Wish me luck :).
Indeed cool. Here is my experience into writing world
ReplyDeletehttp://technicalwritingsingapore.blogspot.com/
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