Reality check

The other day at my little brother's high school senior awards ceremony, I said hi to one of my favorite teachers. Mr. H asked what I was doing now. I said I graduated last year, and am currently applying to medical school and working as a medical assistant.


He arched his eyebrows and said, "What? You didn't go to Cal to become a medical assistant!" I shook my head a little bit more dejectedly than I meant to, and agreed, no.


Although Mr. H may be out of touch with the realities of 1) the current college grad job market and 2) premed experience competition fierceness (i.e., "I'll work for free! Let me wash glassware! Stock cabinets! Anything!"), this actually gave me a lot of perspective.


I didn't go to Cal to become most anything that I did in those four years--not a research assistant, not a small group leader, not a baker. Yet those things were so necessary in piecing together and unearthing who I am today. I don't regret a thing.


Mr. H is from my previous life in which dreams hadn't yet been articulated, pursued, cemented in trials and failure. He's from my naive teenage days in which I thought I could do anything I wanted....without knowing which steps to take.


And yet, today, one year after I'd already graduated, I'm realizing that there is still so much that I don't yet know about life and myself. But I'd like to think that I'm closer to the person that I want to be. I'm a work in progress.