Which is a really weird thing to say. I guess this is what meaningful employment feels like. I know that I am lucky, and I am trying to be more appreciative of what I have. I'm pretty openly selfish, which I don't consider to be a wholly bad or unusual thing, but I at least want to balance it out.
In the class I am an aide for, every continent is represented except Australia. We have students from Korea, Thailand, Taiwan, Malaysia, Cambodia, Vietnam, Costa Rica, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Romania, Sweden, Italy, Turkey, and Iran. I tutor 3 Koreans, 3 Japanese, 1 Chinese, 1 Venezuelan, 1 Turkish, 1 Sudanese, and 1 Vietnamese. My highest level is a medical doctor in his home country here to take master's level classes. My lowest level is a refugee who is illiterate in her native language, can have a conversation in English, but whose only writing consists of putting letters together to make the simplest of words. They're all pretty amazing people, I think. There are more, of course; those are just the people I am in contact with on a weekly basis. It makes me feel privileged to know English.
Also, meaningful employment, in my case, means I get paid not a wage or salary but a "living allowance." It's basically a stipend, meant to be enough for me to survive. And that's all it is. Rather, it should be more than enough for me to survive, but I am still adjusting to the notion that I cannot simply purchase anything I want any moment that I want it. I am starting to notice a few of the absurd American privileges I usually take for granted. It's too early to tell, but I think this is going to be really good for me.
um it says you posted this on saturday the 25
ReplyDeletehello amanda from the future! how is it there? will there be snow?
I fixed it. Funny story: I started writing this post several days ago. When I posted it today, it posted it under a date from several days ago. So I changed the post date so it would be today. Except that I have no concept of time, and on my calendar 23 looked like 25.
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