Sucker

Every so often the question comes up and is asked of me: How come you didn't leave Guam for college? The answer is a bit more complex than "Because it would've been cheaper here than anywhere else I would've liked to study."

When I talked to people back in high school and the conversation turned to what the plans for college were. Almost invariably they were to move away somewhere else to study. When I asked why, the replies were varied, but they were along the lines of:

• UOG might not stay accredited.
• There are too many problems here.
• I'm sick of being on this rock.
  
• I wanted to experience life without my parents for a while.

My opinion only, of course, but I suspect that reason #4 could be a hidden agenda backing up the other three.

But I turned my attention to Reason #2: there are too many problems on Guam. I was fortunate enough to have already have some rudimentary understanding of how the world worked by the time our family moved here, and I realized that the problems were indeed numerous. The schools are crowded and the children are being left behind, the local government seems more inclined to keep paying their employees than actually fixing the problems, crime is not addressed correctly, and almost every attempted "solution" to any of these problems has been a band-aid fix instead of a systemic realignment of priorities that would have been much better.

In my opinion, however, the last thing to do would be to leave. Each person who leaves is one less problem-solver or complainer that would be left here. In fact, the very reasons we would like to leave are the very reasons we shouldn't. I felt that I could have a hand in the solution of some of these problems we are facing, and that's why I ended up staying.

So here we are, almost 8 years later, and it's true that I have slacked off quite considerably from my once lofty goal. But the goal still stands. Once I graduate I will become the math teacher my high school teachers and college professors all blame for the lack of mathematics aptitude in Guam school children. And in some unseen small part, I will make a difference.

Song in my head: Nickelback, "Far Away".