What would you say?

  I was thinking tonight, while I was cooking dinner; If I were to go back in time ten years and tell my thirteen year old self that, "In ten years you'll be living in Russia working as an English teacher." What would I have responded with? Well the answer is easy, If when I was 13 my 23 year old self came and talked to me, the ESL teacher in Russia thing wouldn't phase me....I'd be too @&#^#^$ freaked out to care what I was telling myself, and if you think differently, you're wrong. Of course I'd get over the shock, and eventually be able to have a conversation with myself....maybe. Really the happenings of this hypothetical conversation aren't what's important, what is important, is taking a minute to sit back and think, "If ten years ago, I knew this is where I would end up, would I be okay with it? Or would I change something to end up somewhere else?" 

 So, I'm 23 living in Russia and working as an English teacher....glorious huh? What else could I have been doing?

• If I had worked harder in school, maybe I'd have my degree. 
• If I had my degree what would I be doing? I might be working as an Ed Tech III, or if I was lucky I'd be a long term sub.
• Would I be happy if I was working either one of those jobs? Probably, because I wouldn't know any better. Besides, what's the point of being miserable?
• If I had my degree and was working full time, I'd probably have an apartment, a car, bills, and I'd be a grown up. 

Luckily for me, when it came to budgeting time at UMM, academics weren't my first priority. Sure, my GPA is eh, I'll have lots loans - but not more than every one else, I wasted money on classes I did poorly in. and again - my GPA sucks. So what? It's just a number. I still have time to go back, finish my degree and be an adult. The important thing, is that instead of taking the 4 years of college then getting a job...I moved to Russia. Russia isn't perfect, but no place is. I'm happy, I love teaching, but I'm still figuring things out...and the last place I want to be is in the real world struggling to make ends meet. So going back to the beginning of this, frankly I don't care what my thirteen year old self would say, or for that fact anyone else. In my short time on this planet, I've already figured this much out; If you aren't happy with yourself, you won't be happy at all. So, moral of the story, be happy with your choices, and don't waste time thinking about what would've happened if you'd done one thing instead of another... I'll leave you with this poem that I live by:

Robert Frost (1874–1963).  Mountain Interval.  1920.

1. The Road Not Taken

TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;	5
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,	10
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.	15
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.	20