This happened during open campus in my university several
weeks ago. Like any other open campuses, there were lots of high school
students and their parents came visiting us. I always like this kind of
atmosphere: young people full of dreams trying to decide what they want to do
with their future (hmm, I start to sound like I'm old now :-) ). Perhaps it’s
because I always feel their dreams and energy are contagious and lift me up
that I like being in this kind of atmosphere.
Anyway, I didn’t expect any of them to visit our lab,
because our building didn’t open for public this year. That’s why, I was a bit
surprised to see two high school students standing in the corridor leading to
our lab. I was thinking that they were lost (and given that our building was in
the far south corner of the campus, they must’ve been completely lost to be
there :-) ), so I approached them and asked whether I could be of a help. They told
me that they just wanted to know what kind of research being performed in this
building.
“On what grade are you now?” I asked.
“We’re in our junior year.”
It meant that they still had another one and half year to
decide what they would like to do after high school. I continued, “Have you
decide on what are you going to do in the future?”
“We’re thinking about studying chemistry.”
“Well, our laboratory
is doing chemical engineering and applied chemistry. I can tell you some of the
things that we’re doing here if you want.”
They said that they would like to, so I gave them a bit
background about our laboratory. Since I had to prepare for other thing that
day, I couldn’t explain long, and I told them to read the posters hanging on
the corridor wall if they wanted to know more. I left them there for my
preparation, and when I returned several minutes later, they were still there.
One of the students saw me, came, and asked, “By the way, do
you know Chou Kai Ha?”
I have some Chinese friends named Chou, but I didn’t
familiar with the name Chou Kai Ha. But came to think of it, I usually remember
my Chinese friend’s full name with their Chinese pronunciation, while Chou Kai
Ha was definitely a Japanese pronunciation. If the sound ‘Kai’ is represented
by the kanji for ‘sea’, and the sound ‘Ha’ is represented by the kanji for
‘wave’, then the reading in Chinese will be Zhang Hai Bo, my batch mate during master
course, who worked at DuPont after graduation.
I asked the student to make sure, “Do you meant Chou-san who
works at DuPont?”
“Yes.”
“Of course I know him. We finished our master course together.”
“Actually, he is my father.”
What he just said struck me just like Dart Vader struck the
audiences with his ‘I am your father’ line :-). My friend’s son is in high
school now? Oh my goodness, am I that old? :-) (yeah, I can hear some of you
say: “yes you are” :-) ).
Actually, after knowing that I was planning to go back to
Indonesia to become lecturer there one day, some of my friends, both during school
days and working days, told me - half joking of course - that they would send
their kids to me to learn one day. “You know, like the thing that you often
read in stories, the parents send the hero-will-be kid to be trained by their
trusted friend...” (Training a hero-will-be? Who do they think I am? Obiwan
Kenobi? :-) ). Anyway, of course that wouldn’t happen anytime soon, but in
several years, it wouldn’t be a far fetch story. I could imagine that one day a
student came to me revealing my 'old school days sins' such as, "my father
told me that you and him once played fireworks in fire restricted area",
or "my mother said that both of you triggered burglar alarm in chemical
engineering building." (by the way, both of the ‘sins’ above are based on
facts :-), however, the two of my friends who were involved in those incidents
still don’t have any offspring now, so I think I’m still spared for at least another
18 years if that were meant to happen :-) ).
Well, that made me realized that the dreams that my friends
and I had years ago, however crazy and far-fetched it seemed during those days,
were one by one come into reality (of course not all, for example, no matter how
hard I wish it to come true, I’m still not batman now :-) ). That’s why I often encourage people who
are on the crossroad to their future - like those two high school students - to
dream any dream that they want. There’s no dream too big, and of course there’s
no dream too small, as long as they really wanted it. Anyways, the limit of what
we can achieve is determined by the scope of our dream - if we are too afraid
to dream (either because we think it is too big or too small) - then chances
are we would never get what we want.
And now that I’m often in the position to give advice to people
on the ‘crossroad’, it’s still fresh in my mind the days when I myself was on
my own ‘crossroad’ - that finally led me to where I am now: the day when I talked
to Mr. K when I was going to resigned from ‘the Firm’. That day he asked me
about what I wanted to do next.
“Actually I still don’t know what kind of work that I want
to do, but I think first I want to take master course”, I replied.
“Why is that?”
“Because after comparing these past several years, the days
that I enjoyed the most were the days during my 4th year in the campus, when
all I did was doing research, and sometimes teaching my juniors. I really
love those days.”
Mr. K laughed. “You should continue until doctor then. If you
really enjoyed those days, I think you will enjoy working as a lecturer. You even
can try to return here when you finish.”
And even though I didn’t talk too much about it with my
friends, some of them were able to see through me and knew that I wanted to be
a lecturer. During days leading to my departure to Japan (I forgot the details,
but I think it was either when I stayed at Ari’s house and played labyrinth with him or
it was in his car when we went to airport), Ari said “don’t forget to return to GP soon.”
“Huh?”
“You’re going to be a lecturer right? Anyway, it will be much easier
for us to drop by the campus from time to time if you are there.”
Well, I’m not sure whether GP will receive me when I return
to Indonesia one day anyways, but hey, we all have the right to dream. Maybe
I’m still not where I hope I would be, but I believe that I am where I am
supposed to be right now. Perhaps it will take lots of detouring and getting lost
on my way there, but I think I’ll just take Little My advice from Moomins, ‘what
you need to do now is get lost the best that you can’ :-).
And back to the ‘training a hero’ stuff, if I really meant
to be the one who's going to train the hero, I think I need to brush up some
rusty techniques. Now, where did I keep my light-saber? Hope I haven't sold it
to second hand market... :-)
