This too shall pass

Thursday is usually the worst day of my week this fall semester. My TA duty starts at 8 am and goes on for 6 hrs straight. I then rush to my lab to do a couple of hours of work before heading to my own class in the evening. And so, not surprisingly, I am completely drained out by the time I get home and turn in early. In fact the only way I can get through my day is with the help of an energy drink that apparently gives people wings. 

Thursday this week was no different. I had successfully survived TA duty and lab work and I was waiting to catch a bus that would take me home. Now, I am not averse to social interactions, but towards the end of such a long day the only thing I want to do is get home. So I usually cringe if I see an acquaintance walking towards me because that would mean having to make small talk which feels like a daunting task ( my friends know better than to bother :P ). And this was my exact reaction when I saw an ex-student of mine walking towards the same bus stop!

I tried very hard to recall her name but I still cannot, so I will call her Jane. Jane took a course offered by my department during the fall semester last year and I happened to be her TA for the lab portion of this course. The only reason I remember her is because she was very different from the other 39 students in that section. Jane is a middle aged married woman with kids, the eldest being 17 yrs of age.  She has already had a major thoracic surgery and deals with metabolic issues. This combination has obviously impacted her health and in the one semester I interacted with her, I received multiple notes from the doctor to explain her absence in class. However, all of this did not dissuade her from enrolling in college to get a second bachelor’s degree almost 20 years after she completed her first one. She was one of the most enthusiastic students in class with innumerable questions about the subject matter. This attitude was in huge contrast to the other “usual” undergrads who seemed extremely bored of their education in just the second year of their first degrees. Jane is focused, determined and she has a goal, she wants to get the relevant degree to help others like her. This is part of our conversation at the bus stop-

Me- Hey, how are you? How is it going?

Jane- I have been better. How are you?

Me- I am good. Long day?

Jane- Yeah. I found out a few days back that I have th***** cancer.

Me (trying very hard to keep a straight face)- I am so sorry….

Jane- No its alright, it’s the good kind of cancer to have. They just have to remove it and I will be fine. No chemo. The surgery is scheduled a few weeks from now and I am trying to get ahead of everything since I will miss one week of school.

Me- So what courses are you taking….

And so on. We chatted for a few more minutes. It was mostly Jane talking proudly of all the A grades she made over the past year and more excitedly about all her courses from this semester.

Our chat ended when my bus arrived and we said goodbye. It hit me a few minutes after I got on the bus. Jane was telling me about her cancer and she was still smiling! She told me about the silver lining! She was going on with her life as if everything was normal. I couldn’t help but smile at the epiphany!

As grad students, we tend to have a lot of workload. Most of my conversations with my friends or my parents usually revolve around how busy my days are and how much work still needs to be done. At times we have “cribbing sessions” to vent out our frustrations with our fellow grad students. A lot of us have put our lives on hold. We all have an ever increasing bucket list of “Things I will do after I get my PhD”. Not to mention the ever increasing pressure of generating “positive data” to publish papers or taking up leadership roles in “extra-curricular activities” so that we can have a strong resume to secure jobs which apparently are non-existent. It is almost a holy chant for all of us grad students “I have so much to do, I am so stressed out”. And we have plenty of good reasons for it too.

When we are so focused on solving a really specialized question, we fail to look at the bright side of things. We rarely count our blessings. In fact I think most of us believe that we are cursed. But then having 99% of your experiments failing for one or the other reason can make a person cynical.  My conversation with Jane reminded me of all of this. But it also made me realize that once in a while, I need to count my blessings. It will actually make me feel better.  That if I look hard enough, there is always a silver lining.  And as a wise man once said- “This too shall pass”.