The blessing from a distance
I remember when my grandma passed away, we were gathering around her with an important mission in our mind. Led by the Buddhist monk, we kept reading the scripts loudly because our voice would guide my grandma to heaven, and when she became a Buddha there, she would watch us from the sky!
I have no idea about our after life, but sometimes I do feel my grandma has become my guarding angel, because my life has been full of bless since then!
I have been working hard to accomplish my grandma’s expectation for me, but when she passed away, I suddenly realized perhaps she did not really care much about my accomplishment but only wanted me to spend more time with her. We are all busy planning our future, but what we can truly reach is the moment we are living now, so if we cannot be happy at present, the future would just be meaningless for us.
After my grandma passed away, I have learned more about the life of my grandparents. We were surprised that my grandpa still remembers all the details of how they met each other 70 years ago! My grandpa is truly a role model for anyone who wants to be a good husband or father. He is able to live frugally to always have more than enough saving to support his family. However, he regrets that he could not give my grandma a better life because of trying to save more money.
I am thinking that I might also make the same mistake. I have spent most of my time in my dissertation research because I want to graduate as soon as possible so that I can start to work and make money. All the other important goals in my life have to postpone until I graduate, so I have been truly having no life at all. To make the matter worse, since I have isolated myself in the research lab for many years, I gradually lost my ability to social with people and express myself. While busy fighting for my future, I have overlooked what happens at present, such as the time spent with the people around me, including my grandma. I should live in the moment because somehow I feel that is what my grandma wants me to do!
Therefore, after I came back to Davis, I started a plan to change myself, and everything has been miraculously successful since then!
I was lucky to meet a terrific psychologist who I could consult with her about how to deal with my situation of working in a very isolated place and go back to the time when I could easily chat with anyone I met. She gave me many suggestions that worked very well! Besides, I got a very nice roommate, J, who helped me to organize a Halloween party so that I was able to have many new friends in a very short time!
With the good start, I further challenged myself in attending the academic conference for the first time. The goal is to use my recovered social skill to prepare for my career after my graduation. Although the professor did not support my ideas, and the location is far away in Philadelphia, I still managed to make many new friends! I also had a wonderful vacation in Baltimore and DC and met my previous roommate, Z, who was so nice to show me so many great places there!
My new friend in the conference suggested me to be a speaker myself, so right after I came back, I applied to be the speaker in another academic conference in San Francisco, and I was so lucky to have my admission accepted after two hours! After painstakingly practicing my speech, I successfully presented my research in front of many scholars!
As time went by, I have received even more good lucks! For example, I was able to be the teaching assistant for the math department that is not quite related to my major. In the spring, J and I held another party for Easter celebration and it was also a huge success!
My research progress was also better than before. My professor told me that he wanted me to graduate in September this year, so I didn’t need to worry about spending too much time in the school anymore! However, I still needed to plan for my life after my graduation, so I decided to go to another conference, UC Systemwide Bioengineering Symposium, at UC Berkeley. This conference was held by the BME departments from all the UC campuses, including my department, so the scale of this conference was much bigger than those I went before. I was very lucky to have the chance to do the poster presentation for my research projects. It was not an easy task because I needed to explain my research concisely in a few sentences, and everyone asked different questions. However, I managed to handle everything well! I also found many nice job opportunities here, including my first job interview for a postdoc position at UCSF!
I remember on the last day of the conference, the keynote speaker said that the ultimate purpose for any kind of technology advancement is to make the world a better place to live! I used to feel wrong about my choice in studying biomedical engineering, but at this moment, I knew it is truly the best decision of my life!
Making the world a better place to live and bring happiness to all people have been my goal since I was little. My grandma let me understand that I must live in the precious moment, letting myself and the people around me live happily so that I can understand the happiness that people want and then know how to bring it to them!
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