a tribute to my great-grandfather

just when waiting any longer at the hospital seemed intolerable, i got a phone call from my mother with a worse news. my maternal great-grandfather has passed away at the age of 104.

it came as a sudden news for me, because i thought he was very healthy for someone his age and he could do most things by himself. apparantly he was in the hospital and his condition was bad.

though its doubtful if he ever remembered me at all, as my last visit, i was left with the impression that he did not recognize who i was (but he recognized my mother immediately) he left a really deep impression and was a source of many inspiration, just because i was related to him by blood. he was a very well known scholar in Bangladesh and probably beyond, a person who can speak 8 languages, and someone who went beyond what was requested of him.

104 years of blessed life. 1901 to 2005.

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i went back to the hospital, and as i had expected, i was told to go somewhere else to get a hospital card for payment purposes. it took them some time to figure out that i was a non-resident and that i was not eligible for any subsidies. and then i went back, wait for a little while longer, had a brief conversation with the attendent who was telling me about her experiences with post-graduate studies and general questions about graduate management programs at georgia tech and such. soon, i was taken in and the doctor started cleaning the clots in my ear, and she got another doctor to see my ear with microscopes, as they could not see the actual problem with my ear. after careful observation and some clearance of dust particles, they concluded that a part of the ear was scratched and damaged, which caused the bleeding. nothing with bacteria infection whatever. they think it could have happened when i was cleaning my ear with cotton buds earlier in the week and the accumulated dust could have been pushed in, and while being cleaned, it could have scratched the membrane. it all seemed odd to me, as i never stick cotton buds deep into my ear, as it makes me cough pretty bad. i was pissed enough from the fact that i was initially misdiagnosed, prescribed an antibiotic that cost $32 bucks and rendered useless, and after 11 hours of waiting, i finally had a concrete answer.

through the waiting and travelling, i have observed the general public, and i can now say i have truly seen atlanta. homeless people, unemployed people, poor people, crazy people, and people who are trying so hard just to make a decent living. now i know i am living in this city.

i took my first cup of coffee this morning in the longest time i can remember, as i was prepared to spend a lot of time studying economics for the test tomorrow. as of right now, i have finally managed to finish reading the text, and i will proceed to the numerous practice questions that i usually do the day before the test. progress isnt as bad as i thought. if anything is required, i can always go back for more coffee, with two cups of french vanilla and three packets of sugar.

on the other hand, there is one good news to outweigh all the bad thing that took place over the weekend. i have been offered the rubbernetworks.com position that i had the on-site interview on friday. i'll hold on for the rest of the week to see if there will be any other companies contacting me, which might be useless, since they'll most probably want me to go down to their site and by the time they make an official offer, it will be like a week or two from now and i will need to reply to this offer by the end of the week, so its very likely that i will end up accepting this offer.

this is probably the best, as i can live on campus, keep the housing staff job, and commuting isnt a big problem, it takes about 20-30 minutes and it pays well enough to save good money. its all fitting into place. i really think this job is for me, since i would be familiar with three of the four office that it has around the world. my familiarity of singapore, being able to converse in japanese and my location in the atlanta headquarters will come in very handy. i think working in a startup company would be more beneficial in terms of work experience in the long run too.

alright, gotta get my dinner and back to studying economics.