Three months of winter & wealth.

Fortune is a funny thing. The last fortune I received came on New Year's Eve, from a Chinese fortune cookie: "All the preparation you've done will finally be paying off!"

It's been about 3 months since then, give or take a few days; and each month, without fail, my fortune cookie fortune has come true.

Around the middle of January, I received the phone call that announced my acceptance to graduate school for next year; near the end of this month, I found out I was accepted to the study abroad program in Paris, France for the upcoming summer. Although, I'm not sure if an occurrence of equally fortuitous nature will present itself sometime in March.

So, I guess my fortune cookie fortune was right, but was it really fortune if I created all the outcomes myself? Everything that happened was a result of "all the preparation [I'd] done" and the hard work I've put in over the past few years. It seems as though we actually have the ability to alter our destinies - but, why, then, can't we always get things to turn out the way we want them to?

Jean-Dominique Bauby, a French journalist and previous editor-in-chief of French Elle, once wrote that it seemed as though his "whole life was nothing but a string of those small near misses: a race whose result we know beforehand but in which we fail to bet on the winner." Sometimes, the hand we're dealt is just that - near misses, but also serendipitously-seized opportunities.

The life of Bauby was, however, anything but completely fortuitous. After suffering a massive stroke at the age of 43, Bauby was "paralyzed from head to toe... his mind intact... imprisoned in his own body, unable to speak or move" (Bauby 4). Only by blinking his left eyelid could he communicate with others; this is how he dictated his entire memoir, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.

Interestingly enough, Bauby's memoir was originally dictated and written in French, so it has cultural and linguistic significance for me, especially now that I'll be going to Paris this upcoming summer. The book has since been translated into a number of other languages - most notably into English, by Jeremy Leggatt - and its French film adaption was nominated for 4 Oscars in 2007. Bauby's writing not only allows readers to gain insight into the inner-workings of a patient with "Locked-In Syndrome", but also offers a significant amount of background on the French healthcare system and the layout of Paris. Perfect literary material to prepare me for my neuroscience classes, my Parisian trip, and whatever else fortune might have in store for me.


*Quotes from The Diving Bell and the Butterfly by Jean-Dominque Bauby; image is original artwork by yours truly.

Maybe it's written.

Tonight, I watched Slumdog Millionaire.*

I won't give away the ending or release any spoilers, but if you read any generic review about the movie, you'll soon learn that many critics have pegged it as "the best movie of 2008," a story that "lives up to its premise even at its most far-fetched, creating a beautifully realized and edited film" (Roeper, Ransom, Rotten Tomatoes). It's been nominated for 10 Oscars and 29 other awards, and it's won almost 50 other awards (IMDB). To top it off, Dev Patel, the actor who plays the lead character in the film, is only 18 years old - and he was starring in his first-ever movie role. His stellar acting skills even earned him a (playful) slap from Sharon Stone.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow once said, "Fame comes only when deserved, and then is as inevitable as destiny, for it is destiny." But if there's one thing that the writers and actors of Slumdog Millionaire have proved, it's that destiny isn't simply the result of inevitable, uncontrolled events. It's in your own hands, if you're willing to take the necessary risks and fight for it, against all odds.

I wonder if Dev Patel ever realized the caliber of recognition and fame that was in store for him, if he recognized that he'd already begun to build his destiny the moment he was cast in the role of Jamal in Slumdog Millionaire. M. Night Shyamalan has already picked him up for his next movie, Avatar: The Last Airbender, set to be released on July 2, 2010. Vikas Swarup, the author of Q&A (the novel that Slumdog Millionaire is loosely based upon), probably didn't expect his story to be adapted into a film and become an international sensation, either.

I'm not sure I would ever be able to survive in an area with a lifestyle as surreal and hardening as the ones that Indians have learned to endure and embrace, every day in the slums of cities like Kolkata and Mumbai. But, whatever I end up doing, I'd hope that my future work at least creates some semblance of an impact on a wider audience, however pale its scope may be in comparison to a Hollywood-Bollywood blockbuster. And, who knows, maybe my fame will come in the process, if deserved. Maybe it's written.


Or maybe I should just stop blogging and finish my readings for class.


*Kelli and Alec: So sorry for watching it without you; I promise I'll still see it again with both of you on Friday!

February, found free.

The backstory

This past weekend, on January 31st, I took the dreaded MCAT. The night before the test, I tried to go to sleep early, but it was nearly impossible to do so while visions of electrical circuits and resistors floated annoyingly through my head. I'd take sugarplums over physics any day.

When I went out to my car the next morning, all my windows were iced over, and, even with my defrost setting and heat on full-blast, I had to wait for what seemed like an interminable amount of time to be able to see through my windshield. Luckily, I arrived at the testing center safely, albeit slightly sleep-deprived and cold, and made it through the entire exam without any major content-related issues or technical glitches.

After months of investing time, energy, and emotion, my long-term relationship with the MCAT finally ended at 12:34 p.m. I'll find out whether or not the tumultuous commitment was worth it when my scores come out on March 4th. I celebrated the sweet end of the MCAT era fittingly, in the sweet company of close friends and the even sweeter comfort of peanut butter mousse-layered chocolate cake from Cafe Intermezzo. Then, I did the one thing I hadn't been able to do for the longest time - I slept peacefully, sans physics, chemistry, or anything remotely academic cluttering the corners of my mind.
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The punchline

I don't remember what things were like before the MCAT was a part of my day-to-day schedule. Now that I'm free to not study, I've found myself filling every available "free" time slot with an event or meeting or errand, because the thought of unchartered territory, of having nothing at all to do, is worse than having to follow the most meticulously-planned schedule in existence.

It would be interesting to see how many of us constantly complain about having copious amounts of academic or professional work because we find those responsibilities socially restricting; but then, when we're finally given freedom to do whatever we want, precisely what we coveted, we end up running away from it rather than embracing it.

It's February, and, although it wasn't easy, I've finally found freedom - freedom from the MCAT and from the stress of once not knowing what I would be doing after graduation. But it might take awhile longer before I can learn how to really be free.