1. Aug. 16 | Marseille
2. Sept. 15 | Subway Station
3. Nov. 4 | Cubicle
In the second half of 2008, three events took my breath away (literally!). As in, the shock value of these particular events rank very high on my shock scale-so high that I unconsciously stopped breathing. (For more information on my shock scale, please visit “2008 Shock Scale” page.)
Saturday, August 16 | 8pm | Marseille
There I stood, marveling at the sight of freshly cooked bouillabaisse behind the glass window and awaiting the arrival of my successor. Back in college, I revamped a tutoring program where we made a dramatic impact by helping kids identified as “at risk” in math do well in the subject and eventually get into honors math programs. After two years of being the program head, I stepped down and appointed two former tutors as my successors. One of them, now a junior, bounded down the cold New York street to greet me. During dinner, we chatted about the classes he was taking, exchanged stories of former tutors we knew and talked about our future careers. Then, the “breath-taking” moment came. He said to me: “You are a legend in our program. All I have to say is your name and people give me a free pass to whatever. You’re totally my inspiration…” Yes, I was quite flattered. However, that wasn’t what made me stop breathing. It was the fact that I had officially become an adult! No longer could I hide behind that recent-college-grad-naivety. Prior to this epiphany, I had no intention of claiming to be an adult. Financial stability, taxes, job security and on-time payments? No thanks! But, now?! Those younger than me looked up to me. Me! There was no denying it. At that moment, I released a sigh and finally accepted the truth.
Monday, September 15 | 8am | Subway Station
Panting, I scuffled out of the subway station. It was early Monday morning. As soon as I walked up the steps, I received a text from my friend, the one that worked at Lehman. I held my breath as I opened the message. It read: “Guys, you probably have all heard by now, Lehman has filed for bankruptcy this morning and I am in need of a job. Please let me know if anything is available. Much appreciated. Thanks.” I couldn’t believe my eyes. The oldest standalone investment bank had collapsed. Gone. Zilch. Nicht. Technically, the firm is in bankruptcy, but in that moment, it might as well have disappeared into thin air. Granted the financial system had been rocked by the announcement of a Bear Sterns collapse months prior, but Lehman was one of the top banks and for it to fail meant only calamity for the rest of Wall Street. Before I knew how to soothe my friend with a typical “I’m so sorry to hear that…” response, problems all over Wall Street surfaced. Banks tumbled one after another. No one was safe…
Tuesday, November 4 | 7pm | Cubicle
It was Tuesday night at 7pm, and in front of my cubicle I remained. I was nervous. Not because of the work I had in store for me, but because of what could happen to history in a few short hours. I could barely concentrate on the task at hand: finalizing a presentation by reformatting every single slide (ugh!). I stared intently at my monitor, refreshing every 5 minutes. 7:05pm. Some blue, some red. 7:10pm. More blue. Within an hour, blue had overtaken the red on the screen. I didn’t realize until then that I had been holding my breath every time I refreshed the New York Times site. Can it really be true? Are we really going to change history forever? Were we going to have the first African-American president…? By the time I left the office, it had become widely accepted (though some ballots were still left to be counted) that our 44th president was going to be Barack Obama. And today, the new President took his oath of office, etching his name forever in history.
I will never forget these three moments in time, for they have changed history and my role in history forever.
dang girl, this blog is getting good =D