Lost one today
Just got an email from a guy in my section--he withdrew from the law school today. Man, I really hate to see things like that. He came here from the Marine Corps, so I don't think he's someone disposed to throwing in the towel easily. It had to have been a tough call. Anyway--the Deadman wishes our friend the best.
It just reinforces, though, how much I've got to make this thing worth it. I was thinking this morning driving in that this time two years ago I was in Moscow, and that soon it'll have been two full years since I left Kazakhstan. All the days since then, and before, that I sold an hour at a time sitting at a desk, pecking on a ten-key, letting my Russian fade away like it was never even there--there's just no house or car or TV or any amount of hot showers worth that. Not when there's a whole world out there. I had to wait years for an opportunity like ABE to come back along--I just have to hope there's one like it at the end of this term. If there is, I'm not going to let anything take it away from me.
It just reinforces, though, how much I've got to make this thing worth it. I was thinking this morning driving in that this time two years ago I was in Moscow, and that soon it'll have been two full years since I left Kazakhstan. All the days since then, and before, that I sold an hour at a time sitting at a desk, pecking on a ten-key, letting my Russian fade away like it was never even there--there's just no house or car or TV or any amount of hot showers worth that. Not when there's a whole world out there. I had to wait years for an opportunity like ABE to come back along--I just have to hope there's one like it at the end of this term. If there is, I'm not going to let anything take it away from me.
posted by rattlerd | 9:50 AM
2 Comments:
You hear that everybody! Family, friends, and community in the USA be damned! This man has got his priorities, and if you are lucky you may be number two, three, or four. Take a number, folks. It sucks to be any of you!!
I bet your buddy is already packing his bags for the "promiseland." I am sure that since he couldn't make it through law school he is doing what every other "sane" person would do: go overseas to some god-foresaken place.
Oh wait, you say that he was in the marines? Then I guess he thought law school was perhaps a way to some other place. Perhaps two, three, or four (see above).
Why do you feel compelled to make a post about your friend dropping out of law school into another pity play?
Has it ever dawned on you that you may be the luckiest man alive! I wonder how many folks "over there" would gladly trade spots with you. Jesus Christ, show some gratitude for your blessed location and life!!! Knock off the maudlin crap!!!!
Nearly every man your age in Moscow or Kazkhstan would gladly trade spots with you in a heartbeat (assuming of course they would be guranteed to not have to go back OVER THERE)!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You've got to know where you want to go to get there, and you've got to make the most of your opportunities to do it. We're all here for a different reason--mine is to get back overseas, no different than the guy sitting next to me who wants to be a bankruptcy attorney. He wouldn't trade his goal for mine, and I wouldn't trade for his. Both of us can work as hard as we can, but there are factors on the other side that we can't control--we just have to hope the breaks are there for us when we get done. All of us wonder sometimes if it's all just a waste of time, and some of us decide that it is.
I've known alot of ex-pats in my time, and they all had family and friends and community. They also had unique, exciting careers--isn't that what everybody wants?
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