For a reason.

I wrote a long post awhile ago which will be quite similar to this one.

This last year or so, I felt like I grew up a lot. I screwed up a lot but I learnt a lot. And for the past year, whenever people asked me about what I was studying and what I planned to do once I graduated, I tried to be very vague and nonchalant about it. Usually I'd mumble something along the lines of "just seeing how it all goes." But after a little research, a few quick discussions and a point in the right direction, I feel like I've found balance and as I realised what this meant, I felt this calm wash over me. I tried to be cool and calm about the future, trying to show everyone that I was relaxed enough to just roll with the punches, but in all honesty, I was lying to myself and trying to hide the truth from everyone else: I didn't know what to do with my life and it scared the hell out of me.

I sat outside today, waiting for class to begin and I began to think about this new career path I found. I stumbled upon it a few months ago, but after discussing it with my parents, and a very derogative put down by my dad, I decided to let it go. But recently a found a new spark of interest for it and I started to look into it again and I really feel like its the right thing for me.

I think about my life after high school. And in high school, I knew who I was, what I was good at, what I was bad at. But then uni came along and I felt confused and I didn't know what I wanted to do or where I wanted to go. During year 11, I had went to a mini-psych lecture at USyd, and I loved it, but I knew it wasn't a practical subject so I never did it. I chose to do Medical Science at USyd instead, because it was more practical and fairly flexible for someone who had no clue about what she wanted to do. HSC marks were released and unfortunately I didn't score enough to get into MedSci and ended up doing Bachelor of Science at USyd. I then dedicated my first year of uni to studying hard to get into MedSci, but again I didn't score enough points. At this point, I abandoned that idea and settled into studying pharmacology for the remainder of my degree. For each semester, we're required to do a certain number of subjects to fill out the hours needed to graduate. In the second semester of my second year, I needed one more subject to fill and since I failed microbiology in first year, I was missing the pre-requisite for most subjects, so I decided to do first year psych to fill up my credits. I ended up loving it, and decided to do the entire 3 year psych course within my degree. Since I did second sem first, I had to go back the next year and do first sem, which I actually ended up hating. It was boring and drawn out. But I persisted, knowing that 3rd year psych would be worth it. This was the point where I was torn, I loved psych but I was not good enough to do honours, and without honours you can't have a real career in psych. I was still doing pharmacology, still for practical purposes, but I hated it. I continued with psych and now I'm doing a mixture of 3rd year and 2nd year psych subjects. In one of my 3rd year subjects, we had a lecturer who was a counsellor and was brought in to teach us a more practical application of the things we were learning in class. I loved his stories and I loved how he was able to help out this people simply by talking to them. (As a side note: I've always been the type of person who wanted a career in helping people, and naturally being a doctor was the way to go but again low grades and a low tolerance for blood and guts kept me from doing that). So basically, I went back to researching counselling degrees, post-grad studies all of that. I made a few calls, even talked to the lecturer about it and I feel like its the right thing for me. At least for now. I'm glad I have a goal again and something to work for and to look forward to.

And now, and today, when looking back at these three years, I wished I hadn't wasted them stuck in a degree I don't want in a uni I don't like. I wish I knew four years ago what I had wanted, I could've had my job by now. But then I look back and I didn't know what I wanted when I was 18. And I needed to go through those years here, to finally know that this is where I wanted to be. I needed to fail those subjects and back me into that corner of psych, the corner that I thought was dark and useless. I've found a door in that dark corner, and its slowly lead me here. I know if I did first year psych the other way around, I wouldn't have the passion for it that I have now. I wouldn't have continued on with it and I wouldn't have been sitting in that third year lecture with the ex-counsellor lecturer with his stories and knowledge, experience and his anecdotes. And even the things in my personal life, the problems and issues I have with myself and with my relationships all pushed me to study harder and pay more attention in class, and in a way I see myself counselling because I feel like I can't help the people in my life, and most of all, I can't counsel myself. So all these things, the timing, the experience, the knowledge, my personal life and this sudden urge I had to find something more in my life and allowed me to find and accept and want this.

I didn't write this to brag how great my life is. Because I didn't, and its not. I wrote it because its important. A reminder to myself that no matter how bad things get, there's a reason for it, and its good. Just be patient. Just keep pushing and fighting and persisting. And a way of showing (hopefully) everyone else that things get better. There is a reason for why bad things happen, why I never got into the Med Sci degree, why I failed those subjects, why I got stuck doing 2nd sem psych instead of the first... Its all for a reason.

<3 S