Out of Limbo? Career, Education, Ambition & Vegan Activism.
29 June 2017 [link youtube]
Youtube Automatic Transcription
I thought what you said was pretty
interesting that the most unhappy you've been in your life was when there were these transition periods where you were pursuing something you really were ambitious about and then something happened so that you could no longer pursue those ambitions and you were trying to figure out what's next yeah so to me I can relate well I graduated in 2014 a degree in English and since then I've just been trying to figure out what I want to do with that degree and so I can relate to that unhappiness being an ambitious person and not knowing where to go next it's very painful basically because you feel like you have you have this potential and it's being wasted so in the last video we just recorded I mentioned in passing that I felt the most unhappy in my own life the greatest misery I experienced tended to be in times when I was separated from having a clear sense of ambition and purpose in my life so Melissa was just responding to that by saying that that's something she stole what four years now about how many years basically since you finished your BA or during your BA right during the VA - mmm yeah because the VA is in English right yeah original goal right right and then you know look I mean it's no joke but Amino soso already once you would switch your major to English then you were in this trap of saying well what career can I have and how can I make a positive difference in the world and what's my future going to be what's the meaning of life given that I'm an English major and you basically right question now jumping ahead right now ironically you've ended up in one of the very few career paths that does value your English degree and where you are valued as a scarce form of labour being an English teacher in Asia teaching English to Chinese people but just as ironically you're completely aware that this isn't your career this is this is just my transition yeah and this is a time that a lot of people that I talk to they say it'll be a great experience for me hmm but it it's also a little bit strange feeling like you're in limbo nothing like this is not really going yeah yeah even though it is a good experience even though I'm happy well look I mean financially and otherwise I think the only justification for being here doing this is one's own education so I mean you have already picked up quite a few words of Chinese without generally studying Chinese he said formerly instead of formally without formally said it's both are true though she is neither formally normally study Chinese but you know you are you are adding Chinese words your vocabulary week and for me also I'm just practicing coping and communicating in Chinese day in and day out but I think there is absolutely no other justification I even felt that when I was in Taiwan it was like basically if you're not here as a student you shouldn't be here as a teacher to put it in a nutshell right well I agree like teaching ESL for you at least it's not a career I'm not going to say for is like it's not a career for anybody there's somebody on planet earth firma really as their career but you know one of these is inviting her to come over I said you many times it look you don't have to choose say Chinese it's a choice I just think you should learn enough so that you understand the choice you're making you know if you close the door in Chinese and say not for me fine I totally respect that decision but yet then no one else to understand you know what the what the advantages and disadvantages are what what decisions make what you have to understand the opportunity you're missing the opportunity of passing out right but what so look but let's see Lola really you said there's a feeling of being cut off from something from a real ambition or real direction right but right now back in the States you're not you're not cut off or something no you didn't have a career but yeah sorry it's just it's not only she quit you know being a heart surgeon of the hospital or something you didn't write and if you if you quit your job now we're trying to move back to States there's really nothing there in terms of career or education they also speed up the GUP right yeah no offense yeah none taken since I graduated I was taking classes for speech-language pathology that is something that I've been interested in so I could pick up on that and apply for graduate school but that is something that I've been ambivalent about and not willing to commit I could have committed a year after I graduated well I didn't fundamentally decided that yeah yeah sure of the world yeah well he loves us so did this feel and being cut off was like I can talk about exactly what I feel cut off from and I said this to another professor day I was sorry another professor on the bus on the way back from work on my back from University I just said to him straight up I feel cut off from politics that in Canada I can participate in politics including vegan politics especially interested in though anything Human Rights politics war politics City Hall politics you know the politics over whether or not the mayor is going to build a new bridge like we have you know this small politics of that as well as global politics and I said to him which is not lying I said here in China you know I respect that this is your country I don't pretend to be involved in Chinese politics you know I keep my distance which is both wise and appropriate you know if you're a foreigner living in China it's it's not your it's not your fight it's not your you know it's not your quarrel but sure I feel like here just just today I got an email from one of my students so one of my students at university who just started watching my youtube channel and I sent her the link to one of my videos that is indeed about veganism I mean unlike that video I didn't send her a video but something else and she was a gay I'm enjoying your channel that as far as I go you know like I tell people verbally I'm vegan here but there's no there's absolutely no prospect for activism but in terms of career I mean is that the feeling of being cut off I mean is that what is your open end I don't know because the political side of it or even even ecological just talk about ecology right everywhere else in China is an ecological disaster except like dil Hong and Hainan Island we're in one of the wall cave is also breath we're one of the only places where the air isn't so polluted that you want to hang yourself I was today one of my students said that she goes jogging every day this is in the in class you know speaking English and she wants to in the future continue doing this I said yeah but after you go back to your hometown what if you go back to any major city in China whichever major cities once you leave this special place the home you can't go jogging psychologically impossible but you know the air is not breathable right same in Beijing same in so many places right the ecology is issues issue in Canada I can be involved with ecological issues here on campus here I can just stand mute notice that's something to be cut off but in terms of career in terms of career or education or both what is it you think you're cut off from like for six months in China the Western world yeah speaking English yeah you actual community like I said being involved your politics in the next in one location sure like I am I hope that we do move to Canada I don't think that's generally the plan but I I hope too so that there's a home base you know okay I guess I guess we have we've had very different life experiences like you know you haven't had a lot of anchors you've been you've been traveling around for a long time well let's see what's interesting is just before she said that she started terrible Canada I was thinking the exact opposite because you were you were talking about being built being cut off from Western civilization cetera and then you said over again when you're saying that it's like you know what I think it's because Canada is so bleak that I don't feel that way because in Canada the quality of education is so low my experience of education is just terrible the economy is so bleak but I don't feel like I'm cut off from opportunities because in Canada in my experience there's just no opportunity and I completely concede like the accent is the same but if I lived in California that wouldn't be my perception at all right like in a lot of ways California is more dangerous than but there's also real opportunity there are elite educational institutions like somebody's getting a great education in California Stanford or some crap you know I know you know there are at least a few universities that are great at a few different things right and in Kant my experience in Canada is none of that so like whether it's now in China or before in Cambodia or something I can't say I feel like I'm cut off from any kind of opportunity there because I know and I'm burdened with the knowledge this last time going to Canada I really felt morally obliged partly at a curiosity or partly up of a moral obligation to open every door and look under every rock for every opportunity so I actually went to the job fairs I actually went to the door key like apply for an internship events and I went through all the paperwork and to give an example I went through the whole list of every single scholarship you could apply for us there's a scholarship in sense of an award or bursaries and went into all these offices you know like the guidance counselor offices that people never go into and there's a separate guidance counselor office for international opportunities and that like there's all this crap I actually went there and did that stuff and I came away from it like mind blown like wow my crappy ignorant prejudice has been a hundred percent confirmed as right there's nothing there are no open doors there's nothing under that rock I'm missing nothing here this is just a country and in Victoria BC visit this is just a country dominated by a small class of aging millionaires you know retired wealthy people and you know there's a younger generation here for whom the only opportunities in life are real estate or dealing cocaine which is why rap music is impart oh and there's there's nothing else going on you there's nothing there's nothing that I'm gonna miss it so I mean you went you went to an elite University in the US right you went to U of M I mean it says a review as a worldwide is you know they get ranks on the top ten list on the top 100 list it's considered a great university and it's of course it's expensive Canadian universities are cheap and pretty crappy in general you know uh and in America right now unemployment is less than four percent in Canada it's about seven percent you know same period of time and everything there are all these different in Canada the only economy we've got is gold and oil and diamonds you're just reading about this you know raw resource extraction and we really do have an aging population we really are dominated by elderly retirement retired people you know because because of my degree I feel like I have to get some further education sure that's why I feel like at this point being cut off from the Western world is it's a great opportunity I'm very grateful I love living here with you she's wonderful yes but sure it feels like sure a six-month window before we sure get to the real issue look at that burns at me every day that absolutely does that absolutely does and I felt that way you know but I'm a very ambitious person again I was talking with out with a professor today I tell you that all the time so no and you know okay but for me there were other ambitions and coming here that I've been cut off wrong so real real quick when I first moved here for one thing I assumed I'd be able to buy property I thought I'd be able to open a business so I thought I could open a vegan restaurant here right or some other business right I thought I could open a hotel here some of you guys you know me personally know that like if you're talking to me like a year ago starting my opening Hotel in China or elsewhere in Southeast Asia so I there's there straight-up business ambitions that seem possible here and now find out that's that's impossible that's actually not possible to pursue here but in terms of language work humanitarian work and research I originally signed up to come here for like five years we thought we'd do a three-year contract to kick it off and then I wasn't just going to be studying Chinese I was saying Chinese and Burmese and northern Thai languages like the Hong die or tiny these languages that very very few white men have ever studied or ever spoken and languages that are in aged in civil wars on the Burmese border possibly jing pole gin pole aka catch in these are languages very very few white men have studied and that are really politically interesting cultural interesting in storage so for me there was in terms of my ambition when I made the decision to move here when I made the decision to buy this iPhone which is very unlike me right I thought I was here for a five-year bid with at least three languages involved you know as just mentioned and a lot of politics and a lot of history a lot of potential to humanitarian work and potential for business and someone and then only after I was committed after I got here and I thought about not signing the contract I thought about walking out it was basically like the day I signed an event no it's like a 10 month gig and then you go back to Canada and that's it that basically none of that was possible now I think I think I actually made the right choice taking the middle path on this staying for 10 months you know for less than a full year I think I did make the right choice for a bunch of reasons including the situation my parents were in the situation my daughter is in like for me there are other factors sure but I mean I remember when I had only done this job for three weeks it was just burning at me it was like you know like after three weeks it was like this isn't you know mentally demanding enough you know what I've got I've got to start studying Mohawk in my spare time you know I've gotta start studying Iroquois or something you know what I mean it was just for it wasn't it was enough for me in terms of my humanitarian ambitions research research ambitions and so on because I was here just doing journeys but the truth is as you've seen Chinese is an incredibly difficult language just to be convergent in because I'm not talking about mastering Chinese I never never in speak fluent speaker but you do need to be forced to take a year and just drill you know even even when I'm teaching using the same words again again and teaching Chinese and so on it's absolutely it's absolutely what interested what was good for me in terms of my my language development and future in those ways and it's as I said other factors like my parents and my daughter and stuff I think it was it was a good decision in other ways too but no it's not this is not the decision I would have made if I had known them and yeah I say that all the time here are used Chinese word a Yi shin and yishun doesn't really mean ambitious it means I'm ambitious to a fault I'm like self-destructive like ambitious and I think that's that's true of me although my ambitions of nothing doing money but look I mean it's great it's great to hear your optimism but when you save that stuff before that back in Canada you can be part of a community even for a political movement or some kind of future in terms of education and career and kind of some to me like you know that's that's what I don't I don't feel there's anything like that I left by on Canada and when you're looking at the map you look at Victoria BC right across the water is Seattle you can take a boat you can take a ferry there they're very very close together Seattle impotency and you got an American passport you got the right to work in the States I think anyone with a shred of ambition would be in Seattle instead right what you know what it inches therenow week nor it all the advantages Canada is not ruled by Donald Trump Canada is not bombing Syria and Yemen and there are differences servant in in Canada University tuition is about five thousand dollars not fifty thousand dollars there are differences there absolutely are there are advantages Kent has but in terms of just exactly what you said now you said it having a community or being involved in politics or any of those things when I go when I go that candidate the chill of Canada not just the temperature but the hollowness of that culture and just just what a dead end it is for anyone with ambitions that's what I'm going to feel and I don't know maybe maybe oh maybe you'll see the bright side maybe you'll change my mind the annals yeah or I can move across the border to see you know but yeah babe I mean you know I wasn't saying that in reference I've only lived in one state like one yeah generally the same place you know within an hour drive so I was just saying I'm looking forward to actually having like something normal sure okay sure normal to me sure but I mean I you know you universities they're not it's the ultimate joke that they're really just not set up to help someone in your situation in my situation even though it's such a common situation it's not that bizarre it's not that odd you know and like I you know it's not like a blame-the-victim kind of thing but in the past I could at least say well I'm studying something obscure I'm studying lotion I'm studying poly I'm studying curry or a jib way so I can recognize the one I'm doing is marginal but now it's Chinese and the University of Canada are just as bad the juice is incapable now that I'm in a mainstream subject but you know they have professors foreign scholarships for that they're supposed to be set to handle and everything is just at that but if you want one brief example from the States you know you are you notice I got one offer to go study at Stanford California I once got in touch with University of Hawaii University of ye is a very famous University in some categories U of H right not not if not especially for team sports I think not especially for basketball but they are really famous at some including including linguistics you know and University of Hawaii I said I'm serious love this is my background these are my credentials if I sign up to do and it may in PhD with you guys what education you're not provide me with and they wrote back did the honest to write back and say nothing you know you'll get a library card and you'll do your own research and you'll teach yourself a language and you know you'll end up with a PhD and it's going to cost you like one hundred and fifty thousand dollars like I don't even but like you know you can look it up like when you add up I know I know but that's how it is in a lot of fields of study you're really just paying for the opportunity to go to the library and educate yourself and then that is it you know there's there's nothing else so that's what I say you look behind these doors you look up for me and looking at every opportunity a possibility and a lot of time is there's nothing behind that door the conventional path of Education and career has nothing to offer you and that's what people you mean melissa is mature for age you were looking at all these really technically driven disciplines you were looking at science-based disciplines hands-on disciplines and careers with you know verifiable skills I was - you know it was partly out of a sense of disgust at what you know the arts and humanities the more creative fields it was sense of disgust of what they could and couldn't offer me yeah how dare you refer to Hong as limbo
interesting that the most unhappy you've been in your life was when there were these transition periods where you were pursuing something you really were ambitious about and then something happened so that you could no longer pursue those ambitions and you were trying to figure out what's next yeah so to me I can relate well I graduated in 2014 a degree in English and since then I've just been trying to figure out what I want to do with that degree and so I can relate to that unhappiness being an ambitious person and not knowing where to go next it's very painful basically because you feel like you have you have this potential and it's being wasted so in the last video we just recorded I mentioned in passing that I felt the most unhappy in my own life the greatest misery I experienced tended to be in times when I was separated from having a clear sense of ambition and purpose in my life so Melissa was just responding to that by saying that that's something she stole what four years now about how many years basically since you finished your BA or during your BA right during the VA - mmm yeah because the VA is in English right yeah original goal right right and then you know look I mean it's no joke but Amino soso already once you would switch your major to English then you were in this trap of saying well what career can I have and how can I make a positive difference in the world and what's my future going to be what's the meaning of life given that I'm an English major and you basically right question now jumping ahead right now ironically you've ended up in one of the very few career paths that does value your English degree and where you are valued as a scarce form of labour being an English teacher in Asia teaching English to Chinese people but just as ironically you're completely aware that this isn't your career this is this is just my transition yeah and this is a time that a lot of people that I talk to they say it'll be a great experience for me hmm but it it's also a little bit strange feeling like you're in limbo nothing like this is not really going yeah yeah even though it is a good experience even though I'm happy well look I mean financially and otherwise I think the only justification for being here doing this is one's own education so I mean you have already picked up quite a few words of Chinese without generally studying Chinese he said formerly instead of formally without formally said it's both are true though she is neither formally normally study Chinese but you know you are you are adding Chinese words your vocabulary week and for me also I'm just practicing coping and communicating in Chinese day in and day out but I think there is absolutely no other justification I even felt that when I was in Taiwan it was like basically if you're not here as a student you shouldn't be here as a teacher to put it in a nutshell right well I agree like teaching ESL for you at least it's not a career I'm not going to say for is like it's not a career for anybody there's somebody on planet earth firma really as their career but you know one of these is inviting her to come over I said you many times it look you don't have to choose say Chinese it's a choice I just think you should learn enough so that you understand the choice you're making you know if you close the door in Chinese and say not for me fine I totally respect that decision but yet then no one else to understand you know what the what the advantages and disadvantages are what what decisions make what you have to understand the opportunity you're missing the opportunity of passing out right but what so look but let's see Lola really you said there's a feeling of being cut off from something from a real ambition or real direction right but right now back in the States you're not you're not cut off or something no you didn't have a career but yeah sorry it's just it's not only she quit you know being a heart surgeon of the hospital or something you didn't write and if you if you quit your job now we're trying to move back to States there's really nothing there in terms of career or education they also speed up the GUP right yeah no offense yeah none taken since I graduated I was taking classes for speech-language pathology that is something that I've been interested in so I could pick up on that and apply for graduate school but that is something that I've been ambivalent about and not willing to commit I could have committed a year after I graduated well I didn't fundamentally decided that yeah yeah sure of the world yeah well he loves us so did this feel and being cut off was like I can talk about exactly what I feel cut off from and I said this to another professor day I was sorry another professor on the bus on the way back from work on my back from University I just said to him straight up I feel cut off from politics that in Canada I can participate in politics including vegan politics especially interested in though anything Human Rights politics war politics City Hall politics you know the politics over whether or not the mayor is going to build a new bridge like we have you know this small politics of that as well as global politics and I said to him which is not lying I said here in China you know I respect that this is your country I don't pretend to be involved in Chinese politics you know I keep my distance which is both wise and appropriate you know if you're a foreigner living in China it's it's not your it's not your fight it's not your you know it's not your quarrel but sure I feel like here just just today I got an email from one of my students so one of my students at university who just started watching my youtube channel and I sent her the link to one of my videos that is indeed about veganism I mean unlike that video I didn't send her a video but something else and she was a gay I'm enjoying your channel that as far as I go you know like I tell people verbally I'm vegan here but there's no there's absolutely no prospect for activism but in terms of career I mean is that the feeling of being cut off I mean is that what is your open end I don't know because the political side of it or even even ecological just talk about ecology right everywhere else in China is an ecological disaster except like dil Hong and Hainan Island we're in one of the wall cave is also breath we're one of the only places where the air isn't so polluted that you want to hang yourself I was today one of my students said that she goes jogging every day this is in the in class you know speaking English and she wants to in the future continue doing this I said yeah but after you go back to your hometown what if you go back to any major city in China whichever major cities once you leave this special place the home you can't go jogging psychologically impossible but you know the air is not breathable right same in Beijing same in so many places right the ecology is issues issue in Canada I can be involved with ecological issues here on campus here I can just stand mute notice that's something to be cut off but in terms of career in terms of career or education or both what is it you think you're cut off from like for six months in China the Western world yeah speaking English yeah you actual community like I said being involved your politics in the next in one location sure like I am I hope that we do move to Canada I don't think that's generally the plan but I I hope too so that there's a home base you know okay I guess I guess we have we've had very different life experiences like you know you haven't had a lot of anchors you've been you've been traveling around for a long time well let's see what's interesting is just before she said that she started terrible Canada I was thinking the exact opposite because you were you were talking about being built being cut off from Western civilization cetera and then you said over again when you're saying that it's like you know what I think it's because Canada is so bleak that I don't feel that way because in Canada the quality of education is so low my experience of education is just terrible the economy is so bleak but I don't feel like I'm cut off from opportunities because in Canada in my experience there's just no opportunity and I completely concede like the accent is the same but if I lived in California that wouldn't be my perception at all right like in a lot of ways California is more dangerous than but there's also real opportunity there are elite educational institutions like somebody's getting a great education in California Stanford or some crap you know I know you know there are at least a few universities that are great at a few different things right and in Kant my experience in Canada is none of that so like whether it's now in China or before in Cambodia or something I can't say I feel like I'm cut off from any kind of opportunity there because I know and I'm burdened with the knowledge this last time going to Canada I really felt morally obliged partly at a curiosity or partly up of a moral obligation to open every door and look under every rock for every opportunity so I actually went to the job fairs I actually went to the door key like apply for an internship events and I went through all the paperwork and to give an example I went through the whole list of every single scholarship you could apply for us there's a scholarship in sense of an award or bursaries and went into all these offices you know like the guidance counselor offices that people never go into and there's a separate guidance counselor office for international opportunities and that like there's all this crap I actually went there and did that stuff and I came away from it like mind blown like wow my crappy ignorant prejudice has been a hundred percent confirmed as right there's nothing there are no open doors there's nothing under that rock I'm missing nothing here this is just a country and in Victoria BC visit this is just a country dominated by a small class of aging millionaires you know retired wealthy people and you know there's a younger generation here for whom the only opportunities in life are real estate or dealing cocaine which is why rap music is impart oh and there's there's nothing else going on you there's nothing there's nothing that I'm gonna miss it so I mean you went you went to an elite University in the US right you went to U of M I mean it says a review as a worldwide is you know they get ranks on the top ten list on the top 100 list it's considered a great university and it's of course it's expensive Canadian universities are cheap and pretty crappy in general you know uh and in America right now unemployment is less than four percent in Canada it's about seven percent you know same period of time and everything there are all these different in Canada the only economy we've got is gold and oil and diamonds you're just reading about this you know raw resource extraction and we really do have an aging population we really are dominated by elderly retirement retired people you know because because of my degree I feel like I have to get some further education sure that's why I feel like at this point being cut off from the Western world is it's a great opportunity I'm very grateful I love living here with you she's wonderful yes but sure it feels like sure a six-month window before we sure get to the real issue look at that burns at me every day that absolutely does that absolutely does and I felt that way you know but I'm a very ambitious person again I was talking with out with a professor today I tell you that all the time so no and you know okay but for me there were other ambitions and coming here that I've been cut off wrong so real real quick when I first moved here for one thing I assumed I'd be able to buy property I thought I'd be able to open a business so I thought I could open a vegan restaurant here right or some other business right I thought I could open a hotel here some of you guys you know me personally know that like if you're talking to me like a year ago starting my opening Hotel in China or elsewhere in Southeast Asia so I there's there straight-up business ambitions that seem possible here and now find out that's that's impossible that's actually not possible to pursue here but in terms of language work humanitarian work and research I originally signed up to come here for like five years we thought we'd do a three-year contract to kick it off and then I wasn't just going to be studying Chinese I was saying Chinese and Burmese and northern Thai languages like the Hong die or tiny these languages that very very few white men have ever studied or ever spoken and languages that are in aged in civil wars on the Burmese border possibly jing pole gin pole aka catch in these are languages very very few white men have studied and that are really politically interesting cultural interesting in storage so for me there was in terms of my ambition when I made the decision to move here when I made the decision to buy this iPhone which is very unlike me right I thought I was here for a five-year bid with at least three languages involved you know as just mentioned and a lot of politics and a lot of history a lot of potential to humanitarian work and potential for business and someone and then only after I was committed after I got here and I thought about not signing the contract I thought about walking out it was basically like the day I signed an event no it's like a 10 month gig and then you go back to Canada and that's it that basically none of that was possible now I think I think I actually made the right choice taking the middle path on this staying for 10 months you know for less than a full year I think I did make the right choice for a bunch of reasons including the situation my parents were in the situation my daughter is in like for me there are other factors sure but I mean I remember when I had only done this job for three weeks it was just burning at me it was like you know like after three weeks it was like this isn't you know mentally demanding enough you know what I've got I've got to start studying Mohawk in my spare time you know I've gotta start studying Iroquois or something you know what I mean it was just for it wasn't it was enough for me in terms of my humanitarian ambitions research research ambitions and so on because I was here just doing journeys but the truth is as you've seen Chinese is an incredibly difficult language just to be convergent in because I'm not talking about mastering Chinese I never never in speak fluent speaker but you do need to be forced to take a year and just drill you know even even when I'm teaching using the same words again again and teaching Chinese and so on it's absolutely it's absolutely what interested what was good for me in terms of my my language development and future in those ways and it's as I said other factors like my parents and my daughter and stuff I think it was it was a good decision in other ways too but no it's not this is not the decision I would have made if I had known them and yeah I say that all the time here are used Chinese word a Yi shin and yishun doesn't really mean ambitious it means I'm ambitious to a fault I'm like self-destructive like ambitious and I think that's that's true of me although my ambitions of nothing doing money but look I mean it's great it's great to hear your optimism but when you save that stuff before that back in Canada you can be part of a community even for a political movement or some kind of future in terms of education and career and kind of some to me like you know that's that's what I don't I don't feel there's anything like that I left by on Canada and when you're looking at the map you look at Victoria BC right across the water is Seattle you can take a boat you can take a ferry there they're very very close together Seattle impotency and you got an American passport you got the right to work in the States I think anyone with a shred of ambition would be in Seattle instead right what you know what it inches therenow week nor it all the advantages Canada is not ruled by Donald Trump Canada is not bombing Syria and Yemen and there are differences servant in in Canada University tuition is about five thousand dollars not fifty thousand dollars there are differences there absolutely are there are advantages Kent has but in terms of just exactly what you said now you said it having a community or being involved in politics or any of those things when I go when I go that candidate the chill of Canada not just the temperature but the hollowness of that culture and just just what a dead end it is for anyone with ambitions that's what I'm going to feel and I don't know maybe maybe oh maybe you'll see the bright side maybe you'll change my mind the annals yeah or I can move across the border to see you know but yeah babe I mean you know I wasn't saying that in reference I've only lived in one state like one yeah generally the same place you know within an hour drive so I was just saying I'm looking forward to actually having like something normal sure okay sure normal to me sure but I mean I you know you universities they're not it's the ultimate joke that they're really just not set up to help someone in your situation in my situation even though it's such a common situation it's not that bizarre it's not that odd you know and like I you know it's not like a blame-the-victim kind of thing but in the past I could at least say well I'm studying something obscure I'm studying lotion I'm studying poly I'm studying curry or a jib way so I can recognize the one I'm doing is marginal but now it's Chinese and the University of Canada are just as bad the juice is incapable now that I'm in a mainstream subject but you know they have professors foreign scholarships for that they're supposed to be set to handle and everything is just at that but if you want one brief example from the States you know you are you notice I got one offer to go study at Stanford California I once got in touch with University of Hawaii University of ye is a very famous University in some categories U of H right not not if not especially for team sports I think not especially for basketball but they are really famous at some including including linguistics you know and University of Hawaii I said I'm serious love this is my background these are my credentials if I sign up to do and it may in PhD with you guys what education you're not provide me with and they wrote back did the honest to write back and say nothing you know you'll get a library card and you'll do your own research and you'll teach yourself a language and you know you'll end up with a PhD and it's going to cost you like one hundred and fifty thousand dollars like I don't even but like you know you can look it up like when you add up I know I know but that's how it is in a lot of fields of study you're really just paying for the opportunity to go to the library and educate yourself and then that is it you know there's there's nothing else so that's what I say you look behind these doors you look up for me and looking at every opportunity a possibility and a lot of time is there's nothing behind that door the conventional path of Education and career has nothing to offer you and that's what people you mean melissa is mature for age you were looking at all these really technically driven disciplines you were looking at science-based disciplines hands-on disciplines and careers with you know verifiable skills I was - you know it was partly out of a sense of disgust at what you know the arts and humanities the more creative fields it was sense of disgust of what they could and couldn't offer me yeah how dare you refer to Hong as limbo