19 March 2024

Graduation Saga

It seems like every time I graduate from academia I go through some sort of saga.

I originally started this blog in 2014 in order to tell people my story and to explain why I was leaving the place that I called home for 13 years in order to seek a new life in the Old World. It was a volatile time full of drama, hopes and disappointments. But it was a time that shaped the way I am and where I am today.

After I graduated from my Master’s, I also went through a bit of a volatile time that turned out to be very formative.

These are the main stories that make up my own story.
It may or may not be special and it may or may not be terribly different from yours,
but I believe that we all have a story to tell about who we are.
This is how I choose to tell my story and these are the stories that I choose to focus on.
If you don’t like them…. well, I have others.

Part I: Struggle for the Dream Job

I’m about to tell you everything that’s happened since the day I graduated. But let me first point out something important for the purposes of this story: Although I’ve lived in the U.S. since July, 2001, I am legally an international student. I’m not a citizen and I am not a permanent resident.

Part II: Drama Unfolds

My Job After College After my starting date got delayed [twice], I began training at a fantastic company with the mutual understanding [for real this time] that we didn’t know if the necessary licenses would be approved by every state that I needed to get licensed in.

 

Part III: A New Hope

Finding My Way After losing my job I began volunteering almost immediately because I pretty much had to if I didn’t want to automatically become illegal. The international relations organization that I started with was pretty small and did not have a lot for me to do because I was so fresh into the whole…

 

Part IV: Worlds Collide

Ever since I wrote this post in May, I debated whether I should share it or not. A total of six people have read this because it’s one of the most personal stories that I have ever written, and they only read it because I needed their help or because I knew reading it would…

The stories above were either written or about my time after graduation from my Bachelor’s (i.e. 2013/2014). After this, I once again entered my preferred comfort world of academia. I did my Master’s in International Relations and I wrote a thesis about citizenship, which I believe to be the very crux of the individual “I” and the collective “we” (i.e. the closest I can get to sonderbodhi as a concrete concept). After that graduation, I began a new series of drama.The following post is what I would consider the intermission, since it was the middle post of a series of posts that preceded my next adventures. It isn’t written in the form of a story or bio, but it is still a crucial turning point and that’s why it belongs as an intermission.

Intermission: The Wall & The Citizen

My previous post vented a lot of anger and frustration. I’m not even going to try and deny that the tone was a bit over the edge at some points. But hopefully by now a lot of the negative fee…

And now, on to the next series of stories…

Part V: The Aftermath

It’s been a lifetime since the last post that I wrote on here. But one of my favorite things about this silly blog is that I can always go back and re-read my writings and my story. I can see…

Part VI: Taking the Initiative

There’s probably not a soul alive who has talked to me about the initiative and not said: “Hmm…. that’s a long one” … I can’t say that I’m used to hearing that. But seriously, I was trying to pack the whole idea into something brief and accurate ( i.e. “short and sweet”). The irony…

Part VII: Road Less Traveled

It’s currently 1:30am in Bolivia. I gotta admit: I’m a bit tired. I mean, my eyes are burning but my brain cells are firing, so I’m once again in the apparently eternal struggle of mine between “I need to sleep” and “I don’t really need sleep”.

Finally, the conclusion comes with these 3 articles after I applied for the foreign service and also went through a breakup.

Part VIII: Last Post of Its Kind[?]

Once again, it’s been a lifetime and a half since the last time that I wrote a post (seriously, almost a freaking year again?!?!). But as we all know, the fact that I’m coming here means there’s a new story or two. So let’s do this

Part IX: Becoming Mexican

Perhaps the #1 thing that most of my friends and acquaintances know about me is that I’m “Mexican but not really”. For the past decade, when I’ve introduced myself to people I’ve never really taken pride in being called Mexican.

Part X: Somebody That I Used to Know

I wasn’t sure what to call this post until I woke up with a strange burning need to listen to this popular song, so let’s just go with that title.You can get addicted to a certain kind of sadness, like resignation to the end, always the end.