When opportunity comes-a-knockin', dallyin' ain't no option!

 With some wonderful friends from the last YHAI trek to Sar Pass, 2011.

"A man who misses his opportunity, and monkey who misses his branch, cannot be saved."

-Hindu Proverb

 

I finished my Graphic Design diploma course a couple of weeks back and had atleast a month's rest in mind. The Indian thinking cannot digest any education without a degree, plus its needed for postgrad abroad, so I had also enrolled for English honors from Delhi University last year as a study-from-home 'correspondence' course.

With so much time on my hands and almost nothing to do (my earlier plans of traveling for 'bhaarat darshan' had been pulverized by my companion's relative's shaadi), I decided to take my chances with a mountain biking expedition in Kullu organized by the youth hostel. Oh was I excited!! :) :)

As (bad)luck would have it, the first year annual exams commenced just two weeks after my final jury for GD. But I was least bothered. A couple of friends had told me I could give the exams in December too. I was more than happy to procrastinate for a while and go for it later this year....till another friend said he had never heard of this. I checked from the uni and sure enough nothing like this existed, not for the first years anyway. My head was reeling. The haloed degree was delayed a whole year now! If only I had confirmed earlier! :(

Thinking right about turn: if only I had confirmed earlier, I would've been trying to prepare in 14 days what my fellow students had time to do in months, since my GD course left almost no time for me to study for english. Most importantly, I would never have registered for the biking trip. In trying to acclimatize for it, I would never have rediscovered the joy of cycling. Never also would I have hoped to come near, let alone tick off a certain fitness goal I had set myself a year ago! :P

Really, life really isn't about giving exam after exam, getting degree after another and getting sturdier fattier paychecks than everyone else around. To me, it is about discovering and rediscovering things that bring me joy. My parents always urged me to take up something I loved doing, rather than what my friends or everyone else did, since that is what is going to sustain me and make brand Me in the end. My father said he wouldn't mind what I do for a living as long as I loved doing it, even if it was something as (conventionally) unpaying and whimsical as pottery or painting, after taking up science in school. What a sensible set of parents!

My trip starts the coming sunday on 21st. Shall come back full of stories to tell and pictures to show! Till then, ciao my friends! Burn green! :D