From: Mie-Yun

Winston Churchill was the cigar-chomping, balding son of an English aristocrat and American socialite and one of the greatest wartime leaders the modern world has seen. I am none of the above. I’m also not much of a war history buff, but I was surprisingly moved by his story when visiting the truly fascinating Cabinet War Rooms recently.

“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”

Sure, we remember Churchill for his incredible achievements as a World War II leader but it’s worth noting he also made poor decisions both during WWI and WWII. The Dardanelles campaign during World War I is a particularly poignant example as Churchill strongly advocated this naval maneuver that tragically resulted in more than two hundred thousand lives being lost.

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How I looked when trying to figure out what I’d do for the rest of my life. Different outfit though.

One of the scariest questions I faced during my senior year of college was: “What do you want to be when you grow up?”

That’s because I had no idea.

It was senior year, after three years of trudging up Science Hill to dutifully attend classes to fulfill pre-med requirements, when I finally admitted to myself and my parents that I really didn’t want to be a doctor. Didn’t love the science classes, didn’t love the idea of treating patients, didn’t love the idea of being in a lab doing research. Not exactly a great fit for the 4 plus how many ever additional years of training and money I’d need to spend to stick an MD after my name.

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What a herniated disc looks like Not mine. 3mm to the left and my doc said I wouldn’t have even been able to tell. Lucky me.

I’m a doer and an idea person.

For the last two weeks, I’ve had to put a lot of the doing on hold as I herniated a disc in my back. Sadly, it wasn’t due to bungee jumping — I just  stood up after a phone call at work. Not quite sure how I’m going to avoid that activity in the future.

So I’ve spent the last 14 days at home, working by email and phone but not seeing anyone except my family. As I’ve gotten better and emerged from the excruciating pain that had been dulled by a haze of Percocets and muscle relaxants, I finally started to really use Facebook to make up for the lack of people interactions for the first time ever. And I enjoyed it, especially when I realized social media is more of a conversation where you can add your voice to a stream rather than a medium where you need to prepare perfectly worded declarations.

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