Phase Three : Break Free

It's been almost a year that I wrote my last post.
A really long time, I know.
Somehow, a blog entry after a year feels like a big thing - not as much as new years or your birthday-but big enough to look back on the year spent and plan for life ahead.

To call last year an academic disaster would be an understatement. My liver and lungs were pitched against my father's will to send money to put them to test. Socially, I was reduced to the level of the company I kept, and eventually that started influencing the way I thought and lived.

But I feel this year has taught me a lot of lessons- about handling people, managing time, what to do and more importantly-what not to. For one, I found out who my real friends were. I do not wish to write more of the year ill-spent as I am already over it and I'm spending my time in a fruitful manner, or so to speak.

Now that I'm entering the final year of my professional course and 'placements' are around the corner, its high time I think of what I want out of life.
I dont want to be an engineer in the core sector. No. All the machinery and the dust make me sick. I wouldn't want to work in an IT company. The air-conditioned offices and tight schedules have almost the same aforementioned effect on me. I am good at numbers but I wouldn't want to spend my life looking up at boards, speculating.
All the above traditional career options for a fresh engineer are thus ruled out.

Should I study further, and if yes, what?

Write GATE and study at IISc? No. I can get a university in the US ten times better for ten times lesser effort. Masters abroad seems to be the right option given my research experience. but then again, the question boils down to 'do I really wanna do it?' and I don't seem to have any definite answer.
I'm too far behind in the CAT race or the rat race or whatever they call it, and moreover, not interested too.

Given my current fitness condition and past record, sports seem to be out of the question. Other exotic career options like Wildlife Photography and Film-Making seem difficult to start.

I feel a large number of us, if not all, at some point in our lives, stand at crossroads like this and ask ourself, as I now do ....

"What do I really want to do?"