Circular Dreams and Square Holes
by Daimen Sagastume
I have known I’m gay for years. In retrospect, my childhood and adolescent years were speckled with puppy love and romantic feelings towards the same sex. Gayness frolicked through the meadows of my mind; acceptance cowered behind the trees. It wasn’t until sophomore year of high school that I, Am, and Gay left the sheltered twigs and branches of my mind; this was the first time I came out. These words lingered inside for years and left the nest without the intention or ability to return, greeted with a mixture of blatant surprise and unenthused apathy. My deepest, darkest secret — tattooed on my forehead for everyone to see. I knew that everything would change. I would lose friends and people would look at me different as I walked down the street. But friends remained friends and looks were no different. Life continued, unchanged.
The second time I came out, Taylor and I sat on the grass and stared up at the Milky Way, watching countless shooting stars and contemplating the endless expanse of space above us. The sky was cloudless, but a storm brewed in my mind. My heart sat in my mouth as I began to speak. Word by word, the storm howled out of my mind as thoughts and worries flew like leaves into the world as I talked and heard the words I was saying. “Just make a decision,” she told me. “If it’s not the right one, you’ll wake up tomorrow morning and feel it.” I glanced at Taylor whose face glowed dimly under the moonlight, and I could see her eyes smiling. I took a deep breath, and let the words roll off my tongue: “I don’t want to be premed.”
We were fifty kilometers from the beach, but I felt the waves of euphoria rush over me like high tide. Six binding words with unbearable weight, vanquished by acceptance as I rediscovered my passion right before her eyes. I would not let premed requirements define my undergraduate years, and I would not play the premed game. I would change my life path, not because becoming a doctor was too hard, but because passion is like love — irrational, hard to find, and terrifying all at once. In a world where you can be anything, be yourself. And I would be myself. I would lead a fulfilling life, pursuing a career that makes me happy. I would not be a doctor or lawyer or engineer or politician because just like I’m gay, my heart told me otherwise. I would be a teacher.
A story begins on the shore of a rushing river where you stand with a friend. The turbulent waves spray jets of mist into the air, coating your exposed skin with a light drizzle. You hear a scream. Your eyes widen and you glance at your friend. She is not concerned. You turn back to the river. Maybe I’m just hearing things. But then you hear it again, closer this time. Chills course through your spine as you look to your friend whose face has turned pale as ice. Worried eyes meet yours; gurgled cries fill the air. You both turn to the rushing waves and see a child in the water, gasping for breath, struggling to stay afloat. And within seconds, frigid water pierces through your skin. You fight against the strong current and force your way to the struggling child. As you get closer, the river screams and the current become stronger. Fatigue shrieks at you from onshore, threatening to close in, but you grab hold of the child’s shirt and lug him to shore.
Your friend helps you pull the child onto the muddy bank. Wet clothes cling to your skin like icy tattoos; the wind lashes at you like hounds. The child’s screaming echoes in your skull as the feeling of disturbed surprise settles over you. But then you realize that the screams are not just in your mind — another child is coming down the river. The numbing cold seeps into your bones as you fight against the current once more. Fatigue treads at your heels, grasping your ankles and refusing to let go, but you fight and pull the child back to shore. Icy air fills your lungs with each heaving breath you take, attempting to appease the lethargy that clings to your muscles. And before you can collapse onto the sandy bank in exhaustion, you spot another drowning child. And another. And another after that.
I heard this story for the first time in a class centered around prevention medicine, the idea that proactive health intervention at the community level can stop diseases and disabilities before they even develop. Instead of struggling to save children in the river, we should be moving upstream, turning our attention to the source of the problem and eliminating it at the root. Sure, we will always need doctors to treat the inevitable occurrence of diseases, but why not teach students how diabetes and obesity and other chronic illnesses happen in the first place? Why not help students understand their bodies and work with their families to create healthy communities? I wish these questions were rhetorical, but their answers chip away at the confidence in my happy decision to become a teacher. I want to teach because I truly believe that teachers are the individuals who can shape their students’ lives. They are the catalysts of societal change, the movers and shakers of this unhinged world, but they are also teachers — a profession without societal respect, an unrealistic career to consider after receiving an Ivy League education.
At Stanford, we do not become teachers. We sometimes minor in education and put it on our transcripts for only medical schools to see. We occasionally volunteer in the underserved community of East Palo Alto, helping students learn to read. We even consider taking a class on education, if only to learn about the lack of qualified teachers in our country and the growing number of underserved students who will one day run our country. If we teach at all, we Teach for America, spending only the first two years after we graduate teaching in low-income, high-need schools. We do these things because we live in a society where it is acceptable to place young adults with minimal training into classrooms full of students who deserve teachers with the highest training possible, a society where it is unacceptable to let prospective doctors practice medicine directly after they graduate. We live in a society where we would never dare to place the lives of patients in the hands of such underprepared, young adults. But the lives of students?
What about them?
The first real conversation I had with my parents was months after my conversation with Taylor under the Milky Way when I returned home from my study abroad program in Australia. While I don’t remember the exact words we exchanged, some remain engrained in my brain to this day: you’re just getting lazy, they said. Did you go smoke some weed under the stars with your friends? This is probably just a phase. I thought back to the night I told my mom I was gay, bathing in her support that had utterly vanished upon hearing about my decision to teach. At first, anger was the only thing I felt. My parents — the people who had raised me, who knew me more than anyone, who were my unwavering pillars of support — were crumbling before me. During the prior two months, my peers in Australia had reaffirmed my decision with love and unwavering confidence. Yet here I was, sitting in my own dining room with my own parents, attempting to explain why I wanted to be a teacher. We want the best for you, they said. And I listened, looking into their eyes as a half smile struggled to form at the corner of my lips. The best — what does that even mean?
My parents didn’t go to college. As their eldest child, going to college — let alone Stanford — was nothing short of a miracle and my decision to pursue a career in medicine was the cherry on top, their son’s choice to not only attend a prestigious university, but to also choose a prestigious, lucrative career. So when I told them I wanted to be a teacher, I acknowledged their shock and their worries, and I was aware of their good intentions…but only to a certain extent. My own parents, much like the rest of America, failed to see the importance of the teaching profession. My own parents could not comprehend why their son, a soon-to-be Stanford graduate, could be so excited and happy settling into a job that anyone off the street could do. And maybe they are right, all those people like my parents who advise against my decision to teach. You could do some much more, they say. This may not be the best decision for someone of your potential. The adults who I look up to most, some of which taught for many years, telling me not to follow my dreams.
So as I sit chin in hand, staring out at the night as I try to write, I know that many of you will not need to write this essay. You will continue in school, becoming the doctors and lawyers you’ve always wanted to be. Or, you will accept your lucrative offers at Google and Facebook, a suitable choice for your Silicon Valley education. But you will not need to write this essay. You will not worry about making a living or supporting your family. You will not have a long, painful talk with your parents in which you explain your career choices. You will not dread the moment when your uncle — mouth full of mashed potatoes and turkey — asks what you are doing after college over thanksgiving dinner. You will not receive patronizing remarks when talking with someone about your future aspirations. And you will not lay awake at night, smothered by a sweaty tangle of sheets, staring at the ceiling as you try to even begin to fathom the deprecation your future profession faces.
No, you will not write this essay.
We go to Stanford with nothing but the highest expectations for our future. We will be the charismatic leaders, the movers and shakers of this unhinged world. College is a time for discovery where we will “explore our interests” and “find our passions” but we abide by an unspoken code, following our peers like sheep, accepting only the best jobs that will put our degrees to “good use”. We are forced to fit our circular dreams into the square holes that society approves of. For me, being a doctor was like becoming an “unconventional teacher.” It was my attempt to garnish my passion with a title that no one would question. And no one did. We will be the doctors, the professors, the engineers and the politicians because this is what we are told to be. Not explicitly, but with surreptitious coercion brought about by our parents, our mentors, our society. We want the best for you, they say. And you listen, looking into their eyes as a half smile struggles to form at the corner of your lips. The best — what does that even mean? How would you even know?
My best for the first two years of college meant becoming a doctor. It never really was my decision, though; I never gave it a second thought, and who would dare to question my quasi-choice to be premed, my decision for guaranteed success? And so majoring in biology and working in a lab and volunteering in a clinic that serves marginalized communities and taking the MCAT and attending medical school it would be. I enrolled in physics and another “hard science” class that a non-science junior would later tell me was the class that had made them switch majors.
“Good luck in that one. I dropped that class after the first midterm and said farewell to my premed career,” she scoffed. I heard myself ask another question as arrogant thoughts crowded into my mind. Ha. I will not be like you. I’m sure I’ll do fine in that class. I’m not going to switch to an easy major because a class is too hard.
But when the scores of my first chemistry midterm came out, I stared at the red 82/200 scribbled in a box and sobbed in my friend’s room, listening to her consoling words, reflecting on my complete and utter failure, thinking back to my conversation with the non-science junior. When the going gets tough, the tough get going…and the weak switch majors.
Quarter after quarter, test after test, I watched my friends drop like the flies they researched in their labs. For some, it was organic chemistry. For others, it was linear algebra. And because they did, they failed where I would succeed. I was a sophomore, and I would be a doctor. I would not change, or be more flexible, or explore other majors, or diverge from the premed grind. And most of all, I would not listen to the plaintive, bleating voice in the back of my mind telling me, all along, that what I needed more than anything was to take a step back and consider who I really was, and who I wanted to be.