My Fortune

Every once in a while I am hit with the realization of how fortunate I am. The first time it happened, back in high school, I was working in a deli in a tiny grocery store where business was so slow that I was reading Oliver Twist, by Charles Dickens. I was so into that book about a little kid who walks miles and miles and begs for food and water door to door just so that he can keep walking and sleeps in the street or in an alley every night that when I looked up and realized that I had piles of food right in front of me and I was going home to a house full of food and a bed that was mine I was actually shocked.

It hit me today on my walk home. As I checked my cell phone for messages and changed the song on my iPod, I was thinking about all the things I'd done that day and I realized that it felt like practically nothing.

I was going home to a kitchen full of food that I bought with my dad's money and an apartment with air conditioning and free cable and high speed internet and a shower that never ran out of hot water. This alone would have been wonderful, but add to it that it was all paid for by the $10,000 check that the government gives me every year to go to college (and my dad ^_^). I am being paid to study whatever I want to study. Anything I want. I prove that by studying English literature.

I can do anything I want. I could drop any class right now, or completely rearrange my schedule next semester so that I'm taking nothing but business and Spanish. I could drop my English major and go into Medicine or Law or Modern Dance. In ten years, I could be a scientist or a teacher. I could quit school altogether and get a job, and, even making minimum wage, still be able to pay my rent. I could start my own business, or start selling stuff on eBay and spend all of my time writing. I could sell a few of my possessions, back up the rest of them, and fly to Ireland. I could take off on my bike and ride across the United States.

Next year, the government and my school are going to pay for me to fly to Tokyo and study Japanese and East Asian culture. I want to make it clear that I have given no one any guarentee of my actually utilizing anything I learn in Japan, or for that matter, anything I've learned and will learn in college. I never signed anything stating that I wasn't wasting thousands of dollars doing whatever I wanted to do. Why the hell would they give me so much money every year? Why is the government so intent on letting me do whatever the hell I want to do?

It really amazes me. I came home today between classes. I made myself some chimichangas, played on the internet, probably watched three hours of Top Chef, and fell asleep on the couch for an hour. Then I walked to French class, spoke French for a while, listened to some French music, listened to the teacher talk, and walked back home. I feel like I put the bare minimum effort into my day. But I've got a 3.5 GPA, and I was just invited to join the English Honors Society. I'm getting A's in all of my classes. I don't have a job, and I have very few friends in the area, so I spend my time reading and dicking around. Thinking about it just makes my life sound so ridiculously easy.

I guess the thing that freaks me out the most is the fact that I can do whatever I want. That means that each and every mistake and wrong turn I make is completely my fault. I'm drifting through college studying English literature (which, despite the fact that it feels a little repetative by now, still fascinates me); what if I should be doing something more productive?

Nope, don't care. I can do whatever I want. I'm studying what I want, when I want to study it. I'm going to come home to a cool apartment every day and eat a nice dinner and do thirty minutes of homework and spend the rest of the time wondering what it will be like in Tokyo next year.