Believe me; A picture changed my life

 Believe me; A picture changed my life

There it happened...

It was just three weeks to graduate… 

After very busy and venturesome four years it was just three weeks to go. All of a sudden, everything went upside down. Data analysis, thesis submissions, final presentations, symposium, were not the hot topics anymore. Everybody was rushing back to their loved ones knowing that the home is the safest place on earth. 

I came home thinking everything will be okay in a couple of weeks and thanking who ever the decision maker decided to give me a break. To be honest, for me it was indeed a drizzle over a parched terrain, I was bombarded with work, deadlines were coming, haven’t seen my parents for months, yet I was presenting myself as normal as ever but was struggling inside. 

For the given break I had a master plan in my mind to execute. But, at the end of the first week I realized that it was deadlines kept me running. So, I decided not to push me that hard and let the things happen in the way it is. I worked when I felt like. I slept when I was sleepy, ate when hungry. This time I was giving my biological clock a chance. Evening, three days ago I was cleaning my drawer and found my university entrance letter, it took me eight years back to my final years at the school. 

Almost everybody in my class was in a dream to enter medical faculty, to be a medical doctor. There I was, idiotic me as others said, with a dream to enter science faculty, particularly Faculty of Science, University of Peradeniya. Including my teachers everybody was insisting me on changing my dream but I knew deep down in my mind I am not meant to be a doctor. I kept silent about my unchanged dream, not wanting to hurt the feelings of my parents and teachers.  When results came I was way above the cutoff score for any of the science faculties, putting me in a worst position. 

I had to choose…

Options shortlisted to two, Faculty of Science or Agriculture, as I was a UOP maniac ever since my brother entered UOP and I was opting out anything related to medical sciences. 

Agriculture or Science….

Clock ticked… 

Days went…. 

Finally, one powerful picture ended the dilemma.  

A picture, I saw on the internet when searched for Agriculture technology and Management, a girl wearing a hat and riding a bicycle on a road which lies across a lush paddy field.  One and half years later, I found myself riding my bicycle in that very road to Mahailluppallama junction on a field visit. 

Believe me; I entered Faculty of Agriculture with the sole intention of wandering in a bicycle around Mahilluppallama, nothing more. But after venturous four years I gained much more than the biking experience, amazing friends of all ethnicities, inspirational teachers who helped to bring out the best in me, once in life time experiences and the list goes on…

Above all, the ultimate survival secret of these four years to me was “Sharing and Caring”. At university we shared almost everything, feelings, knowledge, experience, wisdom of life and food and clothes of course. We cared about each other like siblings and the bonds made through are for lifetime. Even at the most difficult times, at the most embarrassing situations we never let down another. It made me realize about the struggles people went through even under their prettiest smiles and ones hardships that I could have never survived through. 

I am in a huge debt for the person who took the picture that changed my life. It let me to have the most beautiful years of my life. Knowledge; I would have gathered by any source but Wisdom; neah! 

Corona reminded me of the greatest lessons I’ve learned in my university life.

Care for others lives, stay home…

Share whatever not contagious …

Thamali Kariyawasam

Faculty of Agriculture (14/15)