Acupuncture Becoming a Reality!

Last New Years I wrote myself a letter summarizing my feelings on the past year, where I was at and my expectations for the future. Mostly I talked about the kids. Nalini had just been born and Kaio had just started to talk , saying "as" for "bus," "ug" for "hug," and "no" for everything. I also touched on politics, Obama had just been elected and Israel was bombing Palestine. HOPE was in season.

My only goal for the year was "Hopefully by the end of the year I will be on track to be proud of my career."

Well I am. I have changed to a new and better job where I work with fun people and I get to use my brain to solve problems and I feel appreciated. I also work by a window, overlooking a playground, which is so much better than the cave where I used to work. However, even in this new job, I'm not proud of my career. I am proud of my ability to provide for my kids, but not proud of the career path. I even had a nightmare a week ago about being 40 years old, and still working in IT, my life passed by as I spent 8 hours a day in front of a desk. That is not where i want to be or where I ever intended to go. I want to be hands on, tangibly helping people improve and enjoy their lives, and integrating art and creativity into my work. So my dream is to study acupuncture.

I applied and got accepted to Tai Sophia, an acupuncture school in Maryland last September. But ended up not going because of lots of reasons: it was way to far away from my house, and with classes all day long, I would have been away from the baby for 12 hours; it was also too expensive and I would have had to take out a mega-loan to pay for it; the curriculum was also not very science driven, more new age-y according to the alumnas I spoke with. So my plan then was to take my new job, and move to a city with a school that is a better fit for me in two years.

I went out drinking with some coworkers last week and stayed late with our director. She started telling me about how promising my career was on track to become and how I was positioned to really make a difference in the company. As much as I was enjoying the night, I still had this voice in the back of my head saying, "Seriously, this is my life?  You know that you don't care about this at all."

Then I found out, from my chiropractor, that an acupuncture school in California opened a branch campus in Northern Virginia!


On New Years Eve, Kaio didn't want to go to daycare, but I begged him to go so that I could have a little 'me time.'  After he left I was feeling really selfish and rotten for asking for the me time.  But everything cleared up when I called the acupuncture school and they were open for me to visit.

It is in a dinky office building and the staff and students I saw all looked Korean and were speaking in Korean.  They have classes in both English and Korean.  Self proclaimed, "the Harvard of Acupuncture schools,"  I'll have to look into that claim.  It sure did not seem too selective because the admissions director told me that I would be accepted.

It went really well!  He said that they will be offering night classes in the Spring and that I can take all my classes at the Virginia campus, including the clinical hours.  That means I can start as soon as April.  The cost is much cheaper than Tai Sophia, and it is close to my house.  The fact that it is more internationally prestigious is even better.   They said that it is the largest Acupuncture school in the country; South Baylo University.

There is something magical that happens when I start talking about acupuncture.  People really engage.  I was even offered a job as an administrator for the Virginia campus (I think they are looking for someone who is a native English speaker :)).  The campus has only been open for one semester and they have a wait list already.  So they are planning on growing in 2010.  This could potentially be really good for me if I could work there and get free tuition.  I doubt I would make as much as I make in IT, but we'll see if it would pay the bills.  Maybe once Kaio is in school and we have less daycare bills or if we can refinance our little home.

What a good note to end the year on!  My one goal accomplished!  This seems absolutely perfect.  I can keep my day job, and start working towards my Masters of Acupuncture.  It is near my house, they have night classes, and since it is a California school, the curriculum meets the California Board exam requirements, which include herbology.  So as the year turns, I hope that this opportunity flourishes into a new chapter in my life of realizing my good dreams.