father to daughter

salam dear reader. now, i don't really feel like writing but here i go, pouring my heart out. well, not really. what the hell am i saying? must be the meds kicking in.

it's been almost two months now and i still feel like i am getting homesick all over again, despite the fact that i am still at home, with my family. ain't it funny how much we dread  going back to our other life, being a student, constantly bent over our backs, up to our necks with assignments and stuff, away from mama and abah. oops, did i just say mama and abah? i meant mom and dad.

you know, i'm not much a whiner but if there's anything to complain about being a pharmacy student it's the fact that i am constantly surrounded by a bunch of kiasu folks. a bucketload of kiasuness, i'm telling you. they're nuts! out of their minds. bonkers. uuurgh, they make me sick to my stomach.

forget about what i just said. irrelevant. 

do you guys know how your mom and dad ware like when they were our age? did they struggle as much as we do? were they as emotionally unstable as i am we are? i for one, have always had the impression that mom and dad went through college just fine. easy breezy fine.

boy was i wrong.

i was sitting in my backyard, with mom. i am not much of a storyteller but mom, she loves telling us stories, not just any stories, but stories of her and my dad's lives. how they came to intertwine.

"your abah was kind of angry with your grandma.."

"why's that?"

"he was an excellent student. once, in his lce (equivalent to our spm), he scored fantastic results and wanted to get himself into this royal military college."

i was dumbstruck. dad? an army?

" military??" 

"it wasnt just any military school, it was a top notch college. everybody coveted whoever gained entry into that college, and your father wanted to be one of them, but grandma wouldn't allow him."

a sense of pity mixed with awe overcame me. i was discovering my dad's skeletons. ones he's

never told me and i never knew existed.

"why wouldnt she?"

"because your grandparents wanted him to study medicine, you know, become a doctor"

oh come on. this is getting all too cliche for us all. really? medicine? 

why does it always have to be medicine? i mean, just because we get outstanding results, that doesn't mean that medicine is our only choice. 

sure, doctors have a superhuge advantage. good salaries, coveted title and that i-dont-know-what's-so-awesome-about-it white labcoat. but if every brilliant student were to become doctors, then who's going to build bridges? design drugs? discover new technologies?

i am not here telling you not to go through with whatever you've planned to do in your future undertakings, but all i'm saying is and hear me out, medicine is not everything. 

as i was growing up, i was indoctrinated with the idea that if you get beyond outstanding results, then there's only one thing you're cut out to do; medicine. medic.medic.medic. i'd heard this word enough times that i felt like it was the only thing that people were expecting of me. i got great results, thank God for that. alas, those great results catapulted me centrestage, where all eyes were riveted to me. a bright light shining down on me. i was instantly put under a microscope, scrutinised. i'd never felt so insecure in my life. it was like i was at the edge of a cliff. one gentle push and i was gone. plummeted down into the cold ocean water.

but that's history. as much as i hate reliving every bit of that memory, i think the more i ponder upon it, the more i realise how darn lucky i am. i got to choose. most people dont. but i did. 

once a friend told me. 

"it takes a genius to study medicine"

i beg to differ.

most medical students arent. if they were, they should experience no difficulties in passing those medical exams but the reality is quite the opposite.

isnt it high time you changed your mind set?

do what makes you HAPPY.

PUT THE PUZZLE TOGETHER AND YOU'LL SEE THE BIGGER PICTURE