Hitting the jackpot!!!

That would be like my dream comes true. The first thing I will do is save some money so I can pay my tuition fee in college and my husband can go for his PhD degree. The second thing I will do is open bank account for my two daughters and save some money for their college. Then with the rest of the money, I will pack my bags and hit the road to see the Seven Wonders of the World. I will take as much time as I need to satisfy my thirst of knowledge and enjoy the creation of human being. I will buy a house from where I can see the beach. I want to wake up by the sound of birds chirping and smell of the beach water. I will donate some money to my village so that a hospital can be build. My grandmother died of cancer because of lack of treatment. I will donate some money so that poor people in my village can get treatment.

A Memorable Teacher

The schooling system and the student-teacher relationship in Bangladesh are very different than in New York. We were afraid of the teachers and never asked for help because asking questions was considered rude, but it never stopped me from learning by myself. The school I attended from first through 12^th grade was St. Francis Xavier School. We had separate schools for girls and boys. We had to stand up when the teacher entered the classroom and when participating in the class. We had to memorize poems, and almost the whole textbook for each course. The teacher would call on students. If the student failed to recite the answer word for word from the book, she had to spend the rest of the class standing, or she had to stand outside of the class so that other students and teachers would see her. Sometimes teachers would beat us with a ruler on the knuckle. Sometimes we had to write “I will never come to school unprepared” 100 times, or we had to hold our ear lobes and keep standing for the rest of the class.

When I was in Bangladesh, I never loved math. I hated trigonometry. I hated proving the sides of an Isosceles Triangle, or finding the area of a rhombus or parallelogram, and I especially hated the Pythagorean theorem. I could not get the idea of proving a²+b² = c², especially when I had to memorize the whole proof from the textbook. I was in seventh grade at that time. My math teacher, Mrs. Lokhkhi Rani called on me to come to the board and prove the Pythagorean theorem. Mrs. Rani was in her 40’s. She would enter the classroom like a tornado and start saying, “Children, open page number 50 and start doing problems 1 through 15.” She would walk around and see what the students were doing. If she saw any students stuck with one problem, she would slap the student on the cheek or back.

When I went to the board to prove the Pythagorean theorem, my brain and body froze. I tried to remember the first step of proving the theorem. I could not remember anything because I did not understand the method; I had just memorized it. When Mrs. Rani stood next to me, my whole body started shaking. I was ready for the slap, but she surprised me and ordered me to go back to my seat. I was surprised and could not believe that she did not humiliate me. After that incident, I started going for tutoring and tried to understand the methods of proving trigonometric functions instead of trying to memorize them. Even though I did not receive 90’s, I passed with a good grade. Mrs. Rani taught me to think “outside of the box.” I will never forget Mrs. Lokhkhi Rani and that day.

Choosing a career path was not easy for me. When I was in high school, I focused on taking more science classes, but I did not know what I want to do in the future. When I started college, I was still confused about declaring my major. I chose computer science as my major because my husband told me so. I was never happy about choosing that major. Then I took a general chemistry class during my second semester. I enjoyed the class so much that I changed my major to biochemistry. I continued my undergrad as biochemistry major for 3 semesters. Then I got pregnant and took a semester off from college because I had a very complicated pregnancy.

This pregnancy changed my vision of life. I started to look at life differently. Because of my complicated pregnancy, I had to follow a very strict and specific diet. I had to see a dietitian on a regular basis during the entire pregnancy. Before I met my dietitian, I was not sure about what a dietitian actually does. I realized how important a dietitian’s role is to help people live a healthy life. I gave birth to a healthy baby girl with the help of my dietitian.

Finally, I knew what I want to do and which profession I want to choose. When I went back to school after giving birth, I decided to chance my major again. I wanted to become a dietitian from the bottom of my heart. I choose dietetic major because I was passionate about becoming a dietitian. I never looked back after that. My dedication helped me to complete my bachelor degree in dietetic and currently I am doing my masters in nutrition. I am glad that I chose this profession because I can build a healthy eating habit for my family and the community that I will work with in future, and live a healthy life.

A book i would love to write

A Book I would Love to Write

A book I would love to write is about my maternal grandmother, who died of uterine cancer in 1997. Among seven daughters, my mom is the youngest child and was the apple of my grandparents’ eye. After my grandfather passed away, my grandmother broke apart, but she never showed her emotion. She was a strong woman, who barely got sick. Since she never wanted to go to doctors, by the time the doctors declared that she has uterine cancer was too late to do any treatment. The cancer cells had invaded the bladder, intestine, and other parts of the body. She used to live in a village and when we heard the news, we rushed there to see her. By the time we got there she could not speak anymore. She laid flat on the bed starring at people. The bed was wet with blood and flies were all over the place. The scene was so horrible and heart breaking that I could never erase that from my memory.  All my grandmother wanted was to see my mother for the last time and say some last words. Unfortunately, it was too late for anything. The disease had crawled like an earthworm and eaten her body like a vulture eats a dead cow. The pain she went through cannot be described in words. It was hard for us to see her fighting with a monster that was unbeatable. She passed away the day after we left for the city. The love she gave us cannot be measured by anything. I miss those nights when she used to read spooky stories to me. I miss those days when she used to make pitha, a type of cake or bread. She is missed every day and will be in our hearts forever.

My passion

My passion is singing. I started singing before I even learned to write all the Bengali alphabets. My mom used to sing to me every night before I went to bed. They were not just lullabies, but different kind of Bengali songs. My passion for music started growing as I grew. I was thrilled when my mom admitted me to a music school. At the age of 5, I started performing on stage and on television. I also attended lot of singing competition and won medals. By the age of 6, I started learning playing harmonium (a musical instrument similar to piano) and within a year I could play any tune in harmonium. It takes lot of passion and hard work to be able to play any tune in harmonium without even looking at the notes. Educating my ears was not as easy as I thought. However, my dedication to learning helped me discovering my talent. Singing helps me to express my emotion and relief stress. As I continued performing on stage and on television, I gained recognition too. Many people complimented my hard work, which was a big accomplishment for me.

When I was in 7^th grade, my mom decided to sign up for the national singing competition named “Notun Kuri.” Thousands of singers from 64 districts came to compete in the competition and it was a dream came true for me. I was overjoyed thinking that I would be performing on national television where thousands of viewers will be watching me performing. I still remembered that day. It was raining cats and dogs as my mom and I was trying to the television center by rickshaw. All of a sudden I realized that I was not on the seat of the rickshaw. I fell on the street and one of the wheels of the rickshaw was on my leg. A truck hit our rickshaw from behind and threw us on the street. I became unconscious as soon as my head hit the street. My mom was crying for help to get my leg out from underneath the rickshaw. When I woke up, I saw the doctor standing in front of me. Since the competition lasted for over 10 hours, I had enough time to be prepared. My mom helped me to learn and memorize the lyrics all over again. The judges were kind enough to make the entire process easier for me. I sang with bruises on my checks, band aided on my body, but I tried my best. I did not win any medals, but I knew I won many peoples heart. Singing at that competition after what I went through was not easy for me but I was glad that I was alive and I was able to perform with pain in my body and with a broken voice.

That incident changed my life forever. I still sing, but not on television or on stage. I sing for myself and for my family. I sing to my two beautiful daughters. I do not see myself as a failure that I did not win at that competition. I see myself as a winner because I sang no matter what I went through and followed my dream.