New Year-ish Musings

There was a time when I wanted to be a doctor—a surgeon, to be exact. I wanted to cut people open and fix their insides—not from any altruistic standpoint; I just wanted to figure out the inner workings of the human body for curiosity's sake, which was a far cry from most of my fellow biology pre-med classmates. When I asked why they wanted to become doctors, they said, "Because I want to help people" or "Because no one in my family graduated from college, and I want to do something really smart."

I fretted over what I would say in my med school interviews because I knew my answer was different from everyone else's. After several years of changing my major and deciding not to become a doctor, I finally have an answer for my reason for becoming one. Here is what I would have said:

"I want to be a doctor because I love anatomy and physiology, and I have an excellent understanding of both. I love to learn about cells, tissues, organs, and systems and how each system works together to function properly. I'm not afraid to cut into people and discover why their systems aren't working. I can stay awake longer than anyone I know, and I am fully functional on an average of 6 hours of sleep a night."

I think that last sentence alone would've gotten me in.


It's interesting how our lives change—how the decisions we make have far-reaching consequences. Why did I decide, for example, after 3 years of biology courses, to pursue English instead? Why did I choose Web editing versus print publishing? Why did I not take the first professional job offered to me after college? And why am I about to fly on a plane back to Texas to study usability?

I can't quite put my finger on the reasons for my decisions. Some of them are clear; some of them are not. What interests me is that in 8 years, I went from wanting to be a surgeon to wanting to be a user experience researcher/designer. I went from wanting to attend Columbia University to wanting to secure an internship at Google.

What decisions will I make in 2012, I wonder. What will my life look like this time next year? Part of me feels like it will be different. Different from all the other years in a big way. I don't know why . . . Perhaps I am wrong. I hope not. Feel free to stick around for another year to see what happens. :)


Thing I'm thankful for: playing Apples to Apples by the fire with two silly little girls