Life Lessons Learned In Boston

I know that I just wrote recently, but I'm at an impasse that has provoked considerable thought during the last few days. I'm definitely soul searching as I wander the streets of this magnificent city trying to figure out what to do. Planning a course of action is made harder by the fact that I don't get off work until 3pm, and most things close at either 4 our 5pm, making it nearly impossible to get things done in an orderly fashion. It's disconcerting to know that there is the possibility that my education at UMass Boston will be over before it has had a chance to get off the ground. I need a place. That is priority one. But UMass Boston requires $1500 from me in about 8 days. If I didn't eat for two weeks and saved every penny that I had in an effort to meet this goal, I still wouldn't make it. I attempted to go to the Burser's Office today in an effort to find out what can be done about the fee and how I can pay it without getting charged. That proved a waste of energy as they closed at 4, the same time I got off the bust in front of the school. As I sat out in the lawn reflecting on this frustrating occurrence I realized that it was reasons such as this that had me fleeing so quickly from Humboldt County in the first place. Though not financial issues, the problems I had in Humboldt County had more to do with the individuals in charge. I was misinformed. I was made to run around in circles to try and find someone who knew something. Many times I was met with polite faces, but ignorant people. It was their  fault for not knowing how to do their jobs, and I was just a victim, but it was human error, and as humans, we all err.

You can't run away from your problems. The same problems will take on new shapes and follow you wherever you go. Running doesn't do any good. You have to take a stand, and face them head on, preferably on familiar ground. I realize now that I ran from Humboldt because I was tired, and I needed to see something new. I just had to get out for a while. I needed a vacation for vacation's sake. No band trips, no school. Just a trip for me. If I had known that, I would have asked for some friends to come along. But I didn't know that. Instead, I thought that my problems with school were because of the mistakes I made in California. I believed, honestly, but falsely, as it turns out, that those problems would stay in California when I came to Boston.

I have come to learn that those problems are at every school in every State in this Union. It doesn't matter if I'm going to school in Boston, Massachusetts or Arcata, California, I will meet with the same brand of incompetence, rudeness, erroneous administrating at both institutions. The difference is that I will pay twice as much to do it out of state. Boston is amazing. I will say it in every blog that I write because it needs to be known that I love this city more than anywhere I've ever been. But the people make the place. And Bostonians are some of the rudest people I've met. The most polite and helpful person I've met in the administration is from California. I had to see this place, and live here and work here and be more than a tourist here to truly understand all of this. I needed this experience because the school system is not designed to help students succeed as most schools would have you believe. And it is not confined to the States themselves, as some would think. It is a nationwide issue that takes educated people to figure out a way to fix it. People who have been through it. Who have seen it. Who have experienced the injustice of it. I've had people tell me that there's no future in academia, that there's no money to it. Bullshit. We can be the change we want to see in the world. By getting our degrees, and going into the administration, where the money is going, and donating portions of our too big to use ourselves paychecks, we can make a change. I will make that change. I will be that change.

I'm coming home guys. I don't know when. It could be in five days, five weeks, or five months. But I'm coming home to finish what I started and show the State of California that it's not going to chase me off because of it's bullshit. Then someday I'm coming back to Massachusetts and showing it that it's not going to fuck me over anymore. I will get my degree, and I will figure out how to fix our lopsided education, one state at a time.



Ahem. 

I realize now that I should wait until I calm down and proofread before publishing future blogs. After reading this one, I realize that it takes away and blemishes the image that I was running toward a dream and replaces it with one where I'm running from problems. That wasn't entirely my intent. Boston is my dream. I love this city, and I want to live near it someday. But it's expensive. I can't afford to go to school here, or live here right now. By getting an education, I'll be able to go to grad school, get a better paying job and will be able to afford to live in Boston without worrying about where I'm going to get $1500 in eight days. I am not giving up on this dream. Far from it. In my desperation and depression, I prattled on about running away. My point was more along the lines of problems being everywhere and the only way to get away from them is to deal with them. I do believe our education needs fixing. And all these problems I'm facing are preparing me for the challenges ahead. That last part of what I wrote before this addendum is true and from the heart. But I wasn't running from problems. I was running to a dream. A dream that I know I am unable to sustain financially. Unless something changes soon, I will be returning in January to take Math and stop trying to be the individual and be part of the mass so I can be individual when it matters. I hope now everything is clear. I'm not giving up my dream, I just can't afford it right now. I will be able to afford it by going back to California and paying 1/3 of the tuition I'd pay here, worrying only about poor advising and financial aid not giving me enough, but not turning me upside down and shaking out my pockets, either.