Azra
There are a lot of things I can tell you about myself. I can tell you my name, my birthday, where I was born, where I’m living now, and a bunch of other useless facts that won’t really tell you many things about who I am as a person. And I don’t like that. I don’t just want to tell you my name or my age or any of those things, because I feel like they don’t matter. Through these things you’ll just see me as a fact, so to say. Just another name with information about it on a paper (or in this case, screen). So join me in this story about who I am, and the story of me following my dreams. I promise I’ll do my best to tell you every important thing about the process I went through, the very essence of my being, and I promise to be brutally honest.
I was born in a small town. In a town where everyone knows each other and everyone knows everything. I guess that by living here, I learned to love the small town life, even though it felt suffocating at times. I loved the connection I had with the town, and the people in it, but I always longed for bigger things. I had ambitions that I just couldn’t reach in this tiny city, and ambitions that other people didn’t fully understand. I wanted to see the world, I wanted to do what I love, I wanted to expand my education, I wanted to learn about everything, I wanted to meet other people, I wanted to do things out of my comfort zone, I wanted to experience everything, I wanted to experience an eventful life that I could be proud of. I just wanted what I thought was best for me, but my ambitions were way too big for such a small city filled with people of conventional beliefs.
I guess I kind of did do just that. I was blessed enough to have the opportunity to travel, and not a single year has gone by since my birth that I have not had an active passport. And I loved it. It’s still nowhere near the travelling goals I had for myself, but I’m still young. I’ve seen bits and pieces of different countries and different cultures and different people. And even though I wasn’t fully satisfied, it was enough for me to move on to other things, but I will still gladly take any given opportunity to travel the world.
The next thing on my mind was my education. I believe I was about four years old when I first learned about this career that intrigued me, and by the time I was six years old I already began to tell other people of my future career. When I reached eight, the goal remained and people taught it was cute, until they started laughing about it when I turned ten. Then at twelve, I guess they started getting really concerned that this wasn’t a phase, and that I really had an intention of pursuing that career. So when I was twelve, they had already gotten to me. They told me it would be “too difficult” and I would never find a job, so when I was fourteen I freaked out and went with something that I never really intended to do. I enrolled in a linguistics gymnasium secondary school and I thought I’d study English later in university so I could become an English teacher.
But then I got sick of it. There wasn’t anything challenging enough for me in the terms of English, and I just kept repeating the same old definitions that I already learned by heart in primary school. I am bilingual, so it was basically like me just studying all of the things I already knew, and I realised that if I went for an English degree, it would completely kill off the love that I have for the language.
But there was one thing that I always knew no one could ever destroy for me, no matter what they told me, no matter what they tried to convince me, and no matter what they showed me.
My old ambitions were starting to surface again by the time I turned sixteen.
So when the time came, I took the first step. The university of my dreams opened its application process on June 17th, and I sent my application on June 21st. I was eighteen and so scared that the university (also the only one in the country) would not accept my application. I. Was. Petrified. Even my fellow authors at CelebMix knew the fear that I was facing. I’d talk online to anyone who would listen, since I didn’t have the courage to speak about this topic in real life. And I have to admit that the support and encouragement from the CelebMix staff and my other internet friends (the very few that I opened up to) was helping me cope with the fear.
I was absolutely and horrendously petrified. I knew it was out of my hands at that point, and I was so afraid that they wouldn’t accept me due to the mistake I made as a teen when I decided to go to a linguistics gymnasium, which couldn’t be farther from my original plans. I remember when I applied, I was the 77th person to do so, and the lady at the student affairs office told me that the results will most likely be on their website on July 8th. I kept checking their website since July 1st, just to be sure. And in the night between July 7th and July 8th, I kept checking the website every half an hour to an hour. There was just this nagging voice at the back of my mind that kept telling me it was perfectly reasonable for the university to post the results at four in the bloody morning.
I had been up the whole night waiting for the results. And it was around ten in the morning that I decided to take a fifteen minute shower, figuring that they would post the results at noon and that I really needed a shower. What were the odds of the results appearing during that fifteen minute shower? One hundred percent. I jumped out of the bathtub and put a robe on as soon as my sister called, claiming that the results were posted. After an awful long wait because of the bad internet connection (twenty seconds or so), I saw it.
Out of the 100 students that got accepted (60 regular students, 35 self-financing, and 5 foreign), my name was 37th on the regulars list. I just about died of joy right then and there.
That all happened about five months ago. I am now attending university and studying to become a veterinarian.
Everyone who knows me is familiar with my love for animals. So when four year old me found out that you could be a doctor for animals, my future had already been set. I distinctly remember being seven years old and telling a tourist guide how I wanted to be a veterinarian when I grew up, and I remember him saying that sometimes plans change, as he was planning on being a cop.
Look at me now, tourist guide!
Since I said I’d be brutally honest, I’m not getting a lot of support from the people around me, which is a bit of a bummer. It’s just so hard because I could use the motivation from my family, but none of them are really giving me anything to work with. Everyone had their own vision for me, but the actual vision that each of them had never really had anything to do with any of the things I loved or anything that I was passionate about. They’ve all asked me countless times whether I’m sure of my decision, and every time the answer was an absolute and firm “yes”. I still don’t think they fully believe in me, but with that they’ve given me new unlikely motivation.
I want to prove them all wrong. I want to show it to both them and myself that I can actually do this. I want to show the world that following your dreams pays off, that nothing in reality is as scary and as motivating as the fear of an uncertain future. But in the end, that’s all that it really is. Nothing more and nothing less than a fear.
As for me, more difficulties rise. I knew from the very beginning that this would be hard for me, especially since I had limited knowledge on chemistry, biology, and physics, since natural science subjects aren’t really the focus point in a linguistics based school.
But somehow I know that I’m going to be alright. I just have to work hard and study hard. It’s just one of the prices you have to pay for following your dreams. And between you and me, the price isn’t really that high when you’re studying something that you’re passionate about.
So, the small town girl is finally getting a taste of what it’s like when her ambitions come true. Now all that’s left for her is to dream even bigger, and work even harder than she ever did before.
And a special thanks goes to my dog Leni. You’re a major motivation to me now. I’m sorry that we couldn’t cure you, but I promise to do my best so that other dogs like you don’t have to live with the struggles you’ve faced each and every single day of your life. Thanks for motivating me to fight like you once did. I miss you, my little bright light.
