Confusion

FROM ISSUE # 139 (July 2007) | IN THIS ISSUE
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I finished grade 11 in 2003, but then had to take two years off due to personal problems. As a result, I finished grade 12 just last year. Now I want to study medicine but I haven't appeared for the IOM and KUMET exams, and so can't apply to medical colleges in Nepal. I don't want to lose another year. They won't admit me in Bangladesh because of the missed years. Medical schools in India are more expensive than in Nepal. China seems to be my only option now. But rumour has it, that Chinese MBBS degrees are either not recognised in our country or they are seen as second-rate. Is any of this true?
Onir

Onir,
Part of your problem are the years you skipped, about which you can't do much. The other part is deadlines—for the next academic year, most have already gone by. Your academic record and personal problems, about which we don't know anything, could also be a factor. As for the status of Chinese degrees, there are many opinions. While I have heard what you have, I also know of cases where graduates from China came back and worked here. Remember, though, that if people want to prevent those who have studied in China from practising here, they have ways of doing so—it used to be the same with Russian degrees. Yet many of these people can now practise in Nepal. The main thing is to figure out why medicine is so important to you. If it truly is, take the steps to pursue medical studies. You will have to qualify, apply, be accepted, and then go—if that is what you really want. On being accepted here after that, you will only know when you finish up and return. The only other option would be to wait another year and try here—again. The thing to remember is that though our lives are in our own hands and are what we make of them, sometimes our decisions are influenced by forces outside ourselves—deadlines, conditions, gaps, qualifications. 

I am a 21-year-old high school graduate. I am a frank guy who talks to girls without any hesitation. I have a good female friend now in grade eight who I met online. We got close in just a few days and now, some months later, we are crazy about each other. But we have not yet met or shared photographs. I have also told her that I am in class 11 and am 19. We talk on the phone frequently and I really want to meet her. Though we live in the same city, she refuses. What do I make of all this?
Need to know
                         
Dear Need-to-know,
The internet age has put an interesting spin on the old saying, 'love at first sight'—more and more people say they are 'falling in love' with someone they have never met! Of course, it is usually attraction with often no commitment, passion but not much intimacy. Even if you have not been up-front about the truth, eventually it will have to come out. There is fear on both sides. For her, because she does not know what you are really like and for you because you want her to think that you are younger than you are. Once the truth is out, if you still want to meet, just to see who is who, without any commitment necessary, then maybe something can be arranged. This is not the time for commitment, but for self-revelation and intimacy (self-revealing, not the physical type).  The girl owes it to herself to be cautious, especially if she only knows you from chat.  This will take time and some more truth-telling.

Send in your problems at letters[at]wavemag.com.np. L.V. Brokes, SJ has decades of experience in counselling and has served as the guidance counsellor of St. Xavier's college