Mexico and France

"I'm depressed now. I want to go back," was the sentiment that registered most clearly in my head in the months passing after I came back from living in Mexico for a summer. I remember feeling so at peace when living there, even if life was really hard and several times I wanted to call it quits and come home. That was nothing like this is - this is a walk in the park, a breeze, compared to what I endured in Mexico, but I have grown, slowly to love this place and call it home, and just when I have learned to call it home, I am leaving again. Woe is me.

I'm trying to cope with the idea that I spent five months not really liking it here only to grow to be fighting the desire to leave and question why I am going back in the first place. I have no idea what I want to do when I get back, and though I've applied for several jobs back home, I haven't heard any word back from employers - it's graduation all over again. I've worked on my resume, gotten feedback, reapplied, but still nothing. Since I was young, I had always had dreams of becoming a teacher, and I got my first taste of it last year during French class, when my teacher would be absent, I would ask people to stay so that I could teach class in her stead, and everyone would tell me that I was really good at it, and that they finally understood things they had not understood before. And now, that is happening again. Four of my teachers, at different times, have told me here "ce que tu as fait avant, il faut arrêter et devenir prof," whatever you did before, you need to stop and become a teacher, because, who knows, maybe it runs in my blood if the evidence of my father and aunts and uncles and cousins are any indication of who I am. I'm stuggling, because my last job before come here was so unfulfilling. I had so much potential and so many things I wanted to do in my work environment, but oh, young was I, and experienced were the lips I was speaking from, so though the employees listened to me and told me I was a great leader and had great ideas, they never rose up to the mountains of the managers, because - well, I don't really know why, because they were stupid I guess, but that job is my only experience of the software world, of "the real world," and it was not a very pleasant one, so compared to this job, which I absolutely love coming to, I question what I should do when I get home.

Should I go back to school and get my masters? Should I get a teaching credential? I don't know, I've always felt I wanted to spend a few years proving myself in the business world, just to show I could do it, that I could apply my intelligence to something and win, because that's what I do, I win at things, and afterwards, later in life maybe, become a teacher. Maybe I'll still do that, maybe I won't, but I need something to prove myself in first, and no one is calling. I spent a good amount of time talking to Rebecca about this last night, about when I come home, were I to want to get a master's degree, what subject would I choose? Economics? Psychology? Communications? Should I go for a law degree, or become a doctor? Maybe I could get it in French, but that's only really useful if I want to do something in French maybe. What about trying to become President? Go into politics, affect change that way. I've thought of it all, and I want to do it all.

And I keep coming back to the part of me that wrote the second to last entry here, about looking around and seeing people who seem content, much more so than where I come from. I went to buy some rice last night at the store, but it was closed, yet I remembered that about a mile away there was a little asian restaurant, and maybe I could score a hit of rice off of them, so I walked down there and the woman who ran the store was closing up, so I asked her if I could buy some rice, and about an hour later I left the store, after having a wonderful conversation with her about anything and everything - and this is commonplace here. Everyone has time to talk, everyone is nice. On the contrary, I remember going in and buying cigarettes in San Diego and I'd always try to say things to the person working there, "wow it's a beautiful day today, isn't it?" or "so how's business going?" and most of the time I would just get blank stares, or "$3.58," I mean, that's not how I want to live - those aren't the types of people I want to spend the rest of my life around....

I duno... the bell just rang, I have class.