Similar questions. Same topic. Different interpretations. Different goals.
I packed all my most prized possessions in a suitcase, and skipped my home country legally for the opportunity to discover me. And life. I wanted to challenge myself.
14 April 2004 – I started my life for the next 10 years, exporting citrus fruit to various international destinations. From cultivation, until it ends up on your breakfast plate.
31 January 2014 – I resigned.
With the internal desire of wanting more; wanting to be challenged; wanting an education. By no means was this an easy decision to make. But I made it. I lived by the sword.
Disbelief, joy, tears, encouragement – the emotional rollercoaster I was riding on.
Yet, now I am in New York City. Living my life. Learning from others. And challenging myself.
The alarm strategically placed, at least a meter away, so that I have to get up and slice the enemy’s throat with my finger. Snooze, rather not.
I wish some, if not most, of my fellow commuters had mute buttons I could simply press whenever they board the train. From Netherwood to New York Penn, the noise just gets more and more deafening. Oh, and please note, I am traveling in the Quiet Car…
I am one of the unfortunate elite whom has to commute at least an hour each way every day to be a Bearcat. Fortunate to be a Bearcat, not so fortunate to commute. During this 65-minute rat race, I briefly get released from my not so Quiet Car to enter the stampede at Newark Penn Station to change trains. Just to board another train where only the even more elite is lucky enough to get a seat, and the train always gets stuck in the tunnel. This is the rush hour train into the concrete jungle.
Some days it seems as if I am married to Ms. Com Mute and we live at Platform 2, Netherwood Station. Our best friend is the conductor and our enemies are the ‘quiet’ commuters who discuss what is for dinner on the morning ride, and what is for breakfast on the afternoon ride with their spouses who is probably also sitting in a Quiet Car in a different train. And our hobbies include watching the gap between the train and the platform.
Once I have reached New York Penn Station, I go up the escalators and exit on the corner of West 31st Street and 7th Avenue. Behind me, Madison Square Garden, and for a brief moment I envisioned myself as the lead singer of the world’s most famous rock band, The Bearcats. In front me, an endless maze.
If it weren’t for Google Maps I would still be lost walking to Baruch College from New York Penn Station on my first day. Walking from west to east, crossing many yellow rivers may sound easy enough. But if you don’t know where north is, you really don’t know where to go. Luckily now I know my way through the maze.
55 Lexington Avenue at East 24th Street. Baruch College. Home to the Bearcat. Home to a diverse college culture, which I am proud to be part of.
By now you probably think that I am complaining. I am not! I made the choice to exchange my life in South Africa for the American Dream. Commuting is only one aspect that adds to the richness of my experience thus far. Challenging to adapt to this new lifestyle at first, but now I am leading the rat race and I know which way is north. I hope to embrace this opportunity at Baruch College and challenge myself.
Since I wrote this blog I have come to realize that I indeed am married to Ms. Com Mute, and the 65-minute train ride into the city leads me to my dreams. Just one of the many components that is part of being a Bearcat.
