Ever since we got our second car, which is for the past couple weeks, I couldn't stop wondering about how much life can change for better or for worse.
Last September I went to Madison. Re-visiting campus for recruiting. That was when I actually began this thought process. Not less than three years ago, I was desperate, for a job, for a light at the end of the tunnel, for a break! I remember how we used to stand in line at the career fair booths hoping to get that most needed break. Now here I am, doing exactly the opposite. Handing out jobs!
When I went to Madison this time, I was determined to do everything student-style. I didn't hire a car. I took the Van Galder from O'Hare (Chicago) to Madison. Within the city I used the good old, very lovable, Madison Metro to move around. I took time and went and visited my ex-colleagues @ GE in Madison where I was an intern. It used to be a good 30-45 mins ride by bus (compared to a mere 10 mins by car), but I did it and was happy that I did. It helped re-live memories and places and situations a lot more reality-like than if I would have taken a car.
Those were dark days. Literally and figuratively. Dark @ 4 pm (damn those WI winters, yuck!), an empty home to go back to, bleak life, no life rather, always a hanging worry about the future..gaaaaaaaaa!! Student life was full of worries about funding. My BIG TEN Univ cost a grand 12K a semester, if I didn't find funding, I had no idea where that money would come from. I still remember how I used to stand at the grocery store aisle and pore over everything in there to look for the least-expensive stuff. Spending 20 bucks on groceries was painful. 20 bucks on anything was painful. At the end of three semesters, I did manage a 1-year internship @ GE but then there was the impending graduation and the worry about what-next. It was hopeless. I was looking and looking and not finding anything. I was determined to stick to my area, which made it all the more difficult. I got a break in early 2004, but that was short-lived. I found out that what was offered as a full-time position "informally" had to be taken back. And then the real struggle began. Hunt and hunt and hunt for jobs. At one point it got to a stage where I had almost a nil on all my finances, and was semi-prepared to head back home to India.
Then I got the real break. Somehow my erstwhile manager, managed (its a play on words) to pull me in with a contracting position and I began a fresh lease on this luck. But the 8 months that this lasted, it was a case of "Here today, maybe will be gone tomorrow", everyday worry about if I will have my job or not the next day. At one point, I was ready to abandon everything, my area, my interests, anything, so long as I found a job that I could fall-back on, so I didn't have to worry about money...
It was partly timing, mainly ill-luck maybe. Industry was slow, jobs were few, graduates were many, demand-supply equations were all overturned in imbalance.
Then the H1-B melodrama. I was on my OPT and my H1-B had to be processed. The company that was contracting me was not willing to get it done so I had to seek out someone who was willing to and then let them contract me to this other contracting company and then they would contract to the main employer. Yeah whatever. It was one hell of a time. Hitting an all-time low on self-esteem I managed to chug along those nightmarish 12 months of my life. Finally in true drama-style, my H1-B arrived, just on the eve of my OPT expiration! My god!
And then started my ride upwards. H1-B arrived today, OPT expired tomorrow, I had an interview lined up day-after. And I have never looked back since then. Even today, it gives me the shudders to think of those days, bleak and dark and hopeless. (And I thank god for sunny California!) And every time I have a tryst with anything that relates to those days, I think, and thank and feel grateful. Above all else, for that one real-good friend, who saw me through all this and stood tall as my tower of strength, never lost faith in me, never let me give-up, and never gave-up on me. The biggest break I ever got in my life is that, he is today, the best half of me:)
So, when I think back (which somehow, I am doing a lot these days), I feel, WOW!
I never want to remember those times, but I hope I never forget those days. They truly taught me to cherish what I have today:) To value what I have and not worry about what I don't/can't. I never want to see those places again, but whenever I do go back, I am happy, happy that its over, at least for now. Happy that I lived through it to survive it.
Mixed feelings....indeed..
Last September I went to Madison. Re-visiting campus for recruiting. That was when I actually began this thought process. Not less than three years ago, I was desperate, for a job, for a light at the end of the tunnel, for a break! I remember how we used to stand in line at the career fair booths hoping to get that most needed break. Now here I am, doing exactly the opposite. Handing out jobs!
When I went to Madison this time, I was determined to do everything student-style. I didn't hire a car. I took the Van Galder from O'Hare (Chicago) to Madison. Within the city I used the good old, very lovable, Madison Metro to move around. I took time and went and visited my ex-colleagues @ GE in Madison where I was an intern. It used to be a good 30-45 mins ride by bus (compared to a mere 10 mins by car), but I did it and was happy that I did. It helped re-live memories and places and situations a lot more reality-like than if I would have taken a car.
Those were dark days. Literally and figuratively. Dark @ 4 pm (damn those WI winters, yuck!), an empty home to go back to, bleak life, no life rather, always a hanging worry about the future..gaaaaaaaaa!! Student life was full of worries about funding. My BIG TEN Univ cost a grand 12K a semester, if I didn't find funding, I had no idea where that money would come from. I still remember how I used to stand at the grocery store aisle and pore over everything in there to look for the least-expensive stuff. Spending 20 bucks on groceries was painful. 20 bucks on anything was painful. At the end of three semesters, I did manage a 1-year internship @ GE but then there was the impending graduation and the worry about what-next. It was hopeless. I was looking and looking and not finding anything. I was determined to stick to my area, which made it all the more difficult. I got a break in early 2004, but that was short-lived. I found out that what was offered as a full-time position "informally" had to be taken back. And then the real struggle began. Hunt and hunt and hunt for jobs. At one point it got to a stage where I had almost a nil on all my finances, and was semi-prepared to head back home to India.
Then I got the real break. Somehow my erstwhile manager, managed (its a play on words) to pull me in with a contracting position and I began a fresh lease on this luck. But the 8 months that this lasted, it was a case of "Here today, maybe will be gone tomorrow", everyday worry about if I will have my job or not the next day. At one point, I was ready to abandon everything, my area, my interests, anything, so long as I found a job that I could fall-back on, so I didn't have to worry about money...
It was partly timing, mainly ill-luck maybe. Industry was slow, jobs were few, graduates were many, demand-supply equations were all overturned in imbalance.
Then the H1-B melodrama. I was on my OPT and my H1-B had to be processed. The company that was contracting me was not willing to get it done so I had to seek out someone who was willing to and then let them contract me to this other contracting company and then they would contract to the main employer. Yeah whatever. It was one hell of a time. Hitting an all-time low on self-esteem I managed to chug along those nightmarish 12 months of my life. Finally in true drama-style, my H1-B arrived, just on the eve of my OPT expiration! My god!
And then started my ride upwards. H1-B arrived today, OPT expired tomorrow, I had an interview lined up day-after. And I have never looked back since then. Even today, it gives me the shudders to think of those days, bleak and dark and hopeless. (And I thank god for sunny California!) And every time I have a tryst with anything that relates to those days, I think, and thank and feel grateful. Above all else, for that one real-good friend, who saw me through all this and stood tall as my tower of strength, never lost faith in me, never let me give-up, and never gave-up on me. The biggest break I ever got in my life is that, he is today, the best half of me:)
So, when I think back (which somehow, I am doing a lot these days), I feel, WOW!
I never want to remember those times, but I hope I never forget those days. They truly taught me to cherish what I have today:) To value what I have and not worry about what I don't/can't. I never want to see those places again, but whenever I do go back, I am happy, happy that its over, at least for now. Happy that I lived through it to survive it.
Mixed feelings....indeed..
