Post by RangoA@live.com on Jul 19, 2008 11:24:42 GMT -5
I was finally getting closer to the goal of so many american college students and graduating with I associate's degree and taking care of my mother, when I finished my temporary job at Scudder, Stevens and Clark, Inc. in June 1995. I made friends with my co-workers there, too and we used to go out once in awhile to have lunch or have a cup of coffee on the East Side of Midtown, Manhattan. I was getting very worried about my mother because her health was deteriorating rapidly and she didn't want to go to the doctor, so I couldn't spend all of my time with her when I wasn't living with her at that point and had my own apartment in Greenwich Village. She was encouraging me to finish up my degree at BMCC and the job I had at Scudder, Stevens and Clark so I listened to her because she said it would make her proud of me and give her more strength to hang in there while she was grieving so much. I, on the other hand, was in my thirties and my health was getting better because I wasn't as old as she was and I wasn't taking care of my brother anymore. So, when she said she would be fine and not to worry about her, I studied and went out with my friends, too. I graduated with an A- average and made a few honor societies like Phi Theta Kappa, Who's Who of American Colleges, the Dean's List a few semesters I was a student there (BMCC had converted to semesters from quarters before I even started at BMCC in 1992.) I had lots of friends at BMCC who I went to class with and studied with on the campus, which was located in lower Manhattan, not too far from the World Trade Center in 1992 - 1995. It was much more organized, better teachers, more student activities, better mentors and tutors because at that time it had an actual campus where people could have fun while they were working towards their degrees or whatever they were studying there and so could the people who worked there, I liked going to college there much more than the first time in the I was a student at BMCC in the early eighties, because of these reasons. I miss my mother, brother, some of the people I worked with and went to college with, the BMCC campus lifestyle and NYC. I will never forget the lessons I learned about life during that period of time. I mean that's why I went back to NYC in the first place, most importantly it was to take care of my mother and brother, get an education, a good job and to live like so many hard-working New Yorkers and so many hard-working americans. I had been raised to believe in the american dream and I had it at that time and the nightmare that usually accompanies it when I have it, too. If it weren't for the tragic illness of my mother and brother at the time, I wouldn't have so much of the nightmare part and more of the american dream, however I had a deep responsibility to my family and it came with a price of me sacrificing more of the american dream and taking care of my family which are important values of american society including my families'' place in it, however that held back due to the seriousness of my problems my brother handed over to me and were given to me to try to help ameliorate by the medical society, which wasn't able to help him very much and the medical society wasn't able to help my mother very much, either, when she finally was convinced by me and her other family members and friends to start going to see doctors. That was like a one-two punch to me and I couldn't hold onto all the beautiful experiences I had and wasn't able to cultivate and develop them more into what our country so generously offered at the time. I wish circumstances were different but they weren't and I had to give up on the american dream, once again.