lostchildein

[lostchildein]

AUTISM QUEST

A Tiny Tiny Quip-filled Campaign about Einhander’s Life in Montreal

  Prelude:

        Back in May 2017, I was anticipating the end of my pre-university student life. The people who I’ve spent the majority of my time with in those days suggested for us all to play a session of Dungeons and Dragons. At first, I wished to play with my friends in a campaign. The only person who wanted to be a Dungeon Master was, unfortunately, someone who was not well-liked by my community. Because of that, I switched my interests towards becoming a Dungeon Master myself. The Dungeons and Dragons party was not set in place yet, but I still wanted to get some practice in writing a game scenario.

        When I thought what my campaign should be about, I concentrated on fun scenarios and choices for the players to pick. I drew inspiration from the setting that I found myself in at the moment of writing it. I tried my best to emulate the college we all attended as if it were a huge barracks in a medieval setting. Rather than come up with something new, I just re-imagined my surroundings and took into account the convenient locations of shops, bridges, the lakes, and of course the college itself.

        Unfortunately, the Dungeons and Dragons Campaign Party with my college community never occurred. That did not stop me from having written enough scenarios for me to keep around when I did become a Dungeon Master. It was fun to write these scenarios, so I wasn’t too disheartened about the whole cancellation.

        In one of my classes, I was required to write eight journal entries that revolved around me observing the nature of my nearby environment. I looked deeply into these journal entries and realized that they were all viable as RPG-like events and areas. At this point, I realized how much I’ve experienced and learned as a person. I reflected on my life, and more importantly on Montreal, through the same lens I use to play video games. Doing this made me feel incredibly happy. As I looked at life, I had been doing my best to weed out the bad and discover the fun and interesting.

        These moments where I write down these ideas are happy. For the first time in a long time, I wasn’t writing an assignment or to vent frustration. The latter was something I had done many times. This time, it’s fun. And I’m going to keep at it until it no longer is.

  What are you writing about, Ein?:

        In my first written scenarios, I rewrote past events that occurred in my college so that my friends could find the scenarios relatable and fun to revisit in a different context.

        Currently, I am attempting to turn the world I inhabit into a world for players to explore. The world in question is Montreal, Quebec, Canada. I’m a bit biased when I say that I believe that Montreal is an incredibly unique world with its issues and history. This bias comes from the fact that I’ve lived here my whole life. However, I hope that I can show you in my scenario section just how interesting Montreal truly is.

        Of course, I can’t really call the world I’m building “Montreal”. Instead, I’m going to name that world “Reasborough”, set in the Kingdom of “Anon”. Reasborough is an island of cities that encompasses a combination of Montreal’s history and settings, as well as my experiences, thoughts, fears, and ideals.

  Ein’s History as a Montreal Citizen:

        If you thought your Province/State has complicated history, then I hope I can persuade you otherwise. Quebec’s first known citizens were the Aboriginals, or the First Nations of Quebec. Like most of North America, European settlers appeared. It was in Quebec that had the French settlers occupying territory. They would continue to expand, eventually naming their territory New-France. Unfortunately, the British would claim these lands for themselves.

At this point, you would be asking where these French settlers would go. I’m not too familiar with the history at this point, but the French settlers were not moved anywhere. The British probably didn’t want to deport millions of French settlers out of their newly acquired territory. The French would mostly mingle around present-day Quebec, while the British settlers would expand all the way West-ward, creating modern-day Canada.

        That’s the gist of Quebec’s past history. It is a territory shuffled around by three major nations; the First Nations, the French, and the British. Quebec would become a predominantly French province within a majority English country.

        Modern history of Montreal is a little tough to pinpoint, so I’ll just explain what living in it is like.

        Despite Quebec’s high taxes, its living costs are exceptionally low compared to everywhere else in Canada. I guess that was why my family lived here and not anywhere else. I was born from a family of immigrants, and I was raised in a neighborhood that shared my nationality. Before I became teenager, I lived under the belief that Caucasian races were the minority in Montreal. Obviously, I was wrong. It just so happen that Montreal is a popular immigration spot for prospective Canadians.

        Quebec’s official language is French, unlike Canada who officially recognizes itself as bilingual. I, on the other hand, live as an Anglophone in Montreal. Technically, I am bilingual. However, it’s tough for me to speak proper French. I have no issues living in Montreal as an Anglophone. In fact, I sometimes speak in “franglais/frenglish”

         The island of Montreal is dense in population. Despite that, the provincial government is very much in favor of French speakers. Quebec’s law dictates that the French language must come first, and so many bills have been introduced that seek to hinder Anglophones as much as possible. Unfortunately, it would be difficult to list all of them. If I had to give one proper example, however, it would be the following.

        French schools in Quebec don’t have “History” class. They have “Quebec History” Class. They also decreased the number of English Second Language classes in their curriculum in favor of increasing “Quebec History” Class.

        Furthermore, a Quebec citizen can only attend an English school in Quebec if and only if their parents had English education themselves. This goes up until high school, afterwards the students are allowed to choose which language their post-high school college will be.

        Through these facts, I hope I can show how protective the French community is of their language and culture. In the game world that I am writing, I hope to convey the feeling of being sandwiched by so many different cultures and those who wish to uphold them. But most of all, I want to be able to write about the people whose identities rely on those cultures as well.

              Ein’s Reasborough:

        Reasborough is a reflection of my life within the context of Montreal. It borrows heavily on its culture, issues, history, technology, and how it all contextualizes into an imperfect world worth living in.

·       Much like how Montreal is one of Canada’s oldest cities, I’ve decided to make Reasborough as lore-rich as possible.

·       In the time of the game’s current setting, Reasborough is a part of the Kingdom of Anon.

·       In its past, Reasborough was the original Kingdom of Anon.

·       The Kingdom of Anon would expand larger, requiring its ruler to change its base of operation. The Kingdom’s capital would change, leaving behind the little island it once inhabited.

·       Reasborough would be handled and taken care of by those who stayed.

·       The little island would be later annexed into the Kingdom proper, but with those who stayed being granted de-facto leadership and influence among the populace.

·       The population of Reasborough will be a mixture of something similar found in Montreal:

o  Anon Citizens

o  Rean Citizens

o  The “Originals” (I’ll explain later)

o  Immigrants

[This is only some of what I’ve written down, I will be adding more and more.]

Scenarios:

[Here is the section where I drop examples of events that I’ve written for the game]

Example #1: The Oka Crisis, Revisiting History

        Idea: One of the most cliché scenario to be found in many role-playing games is that of a bridge being blocked or broken. It’s meant to be a roadblock for the player, trapping them in the local area until a certain plot-point is resolved by the play. In this scenario, a bridge is also a

        History: The Mayor of the City of Oka, Quebec wanted to expand one of its popular golf courses. Unfortunately, the area chosen for construction was considered a reserved land by the local Mohawk Aboriginals. Despite protests, the Mayor pushed onward. This resulted in the Mohawks creating a blockade to keep construction workers out. This would result in a shootout between the Mohawk’s Warriors and Quebec’s Provincial Police. Only a single casualty was reported, that of an officer.

Later within this crisis, a nearby Canadian Forces regiment was called to monitor and ensure that the Mohawks do not cause any more violence. The Royal 22nd Regiment’s job was to ensure that the Mohawks would be contained within the blockade they had set up.

Elsewhere, Mohawks showed signs of solidarity by blockading the Mercier Bridge, keeping Quebec citizens stranded from their homes and jobs. This move caused the image of Mohawks to sour for those who are need of the bridge.

        Rough concept: The player enters town, hoping to talk to the Mayor. The mood of the town is that of bitterness and anger. Pubs are occupied in huge numbers and people are complaining about being in town at all.

        The player’s meeting with the Mayor goes as planned as they complete the player’s wishes due to the current crisis. However, the player soon finds out that they are actually stranded. In the mayor’s words, the “Originals” have taken hold of a prominent bridge that connects this town to the next one the player needs to reach. The only alternative way through is by taking the dangerous path of the forest. However, the Originals are based there.

        The player’s goal in the game is to resolve the bridge situation. They must go through the forest and confront the chief of the Originals.

        Of course, the Originals will give the player a reasonable explanation for their actions. Though, the player can tell them of how the bridge blockade is effectively the same as a temper tantrum.

Through investigations, the player can find out that the Mayor lied about the Originals “starting” the fight. In the end, the Mayor and the Chief reach an agreement.

The ones in charge of blocking the bridge, however, are unable to accept the agreement so easily. The player must engage against the Originals at the bridge to end the scenario, ending the blockade.

  [More Scenarios to be added, I just wanted to add at least one for now]

  Setting and Story:

        Rough Plot: Princess Rea has come of age, and she has been instructed by her father, the King, to begin her journey of leadership training. The King gives full jurisdiction and ruling power of Reasborough to her daughter. Reasborough, however, has been unofficially ruled by the local Noblemen. The sudden shift in power comes as a shock to the Rean nobles. To prepare the city of the Princess’ arrival, Nobleman Shepard is sent over early to ensure that Reasborough is ready to accept the Princess as their new young ruler.

[lostchildein]

Stranded in the sea.

Monday

Getting through the lines of people was hellish. Made even worse by my sister constantly disappearing because she wanted a smoke. Eventually, we got through the check up and customs to get inside the ship. It's pretty massive with a small water park at the top of the ship. The ship has a buffet for passengers on the 15th floor Deck. I had a lot of ice cream. I probably regained all the weight I lost during my last school semester. Many of the ship's employees all come from third world countries. A bigger portion of them were Filipino. It was nice to see my family conversing with them. I felt out of place because so many people who were of the same origins as me were working on the ship whereas I was only a passenger. What can I say though, I didn't really expect a whole lot of minority passengers on something so expensive as a cruise ship. The dominant minority was Chinese people. After exploring the ship, I found a library and an adjacent board game room. It was empty of people so I rested there for a while. Other people found the room as well much to my dismay. Every single one of them thought I was the librarian and kept asking me questions. I found out that the whole "free wifi" that came included in my ticket was not all truthful. The room that I was staying in and all of its cabin mates were only given 1gb of Internet. I had to buy some for my own but only 100mb. The price for unlimited internet for the whole trip was 300 dollars. I don't have that kind of money. Sleeping was difficult. My bed was fine, but I never had to deal with people snoring within my vicinity until this trip happened. I slept alone on the top of a bunk bed. The people below me were snoring. This kept happening every single night. I never had a good night's sleep. Tuesday

Started to regret exploring the entirety of the ship on my first day because I realized that there was really nothing much to do in the ship except for adult-oriented activities such as the casino, the spa, sunbathing and spending money at the gift shop. My package deal for the trip had given me and my family free access to activities and restaurants. Though, they had to be reserved. I watched a 1-hour dance routine and then afterwards ate at a fancy restaurant. Both were enjoyable, but the wait was goddawful. The dance show was in the afternoon and my family forced me awake as early as 9am. They would not let me leave to catch up on some sleep because they wanted pictures. I took little pictures of my trip because I cared little about it. I only took stuff that looked cool when I wanna look back. I actually constantly look the same on every photo. I have this big wide smile on my face, but the eyes are empty. I played a bit on the Video Arcade near the top deck of the ship. It's the kind of arcade where you win tickets to cash in for prizes. I was awful at them and I'd usually just leave the small amounts of tickets I won on top of the game machines. Wednesday

The plan for today was to wake up at 5am in the fucking morning so that we could reach an itinerary. There was supposed to be smaller ships that would bring people to the shore of Florida if they wanted to. The cruise ship itself would port in Florida later in the day. Sadly, my mother misheard the whole thing up and the itinerary was actually yesterday. My whole family woke up early for nothing. The plan after getting to Florida early is to rent a car and drive off the Universal Studios. The original planned exploration time for the theme park was 6 hours. Due to the miscommunication mentioned above, my family would only be able to explore the place for 2. Some of my family called it pointless, but my sister insisted we go anyway. I went to Diagon Alley. It was really great to see and interact with. Wish my sister didn't waste precious time smoking. We had to get back to the boat at 8pm. Our trip in the theme park ended at 6pm. The trip back to the ship takes 1 hour. Or so we thought. Traffic exists and it delayed the driving back to the ship. Making matters even worse, the car we rented had to be returned. My uncle dropped my other family members off at the port and then drove off to return the car where he rented it. His plan was to immediately call a taxi so that he could be driven back to the port. He forgot his phone and my family had to find a taxi driver to send my aunt to the car rental place. The time that the ship leaves was 8:30pm. We got back on together at 8:20pm. At least I got to be in Diagon Alley for barely an hour. The day was so stressful that we all decided to cancel our pre-planned fancy dinner (it was gonna be French cuisine which I hate). Thursday

The company that does the cruise stuff also owns a private island in the Bahamas. In little boats, passgengers were sent there to enjoy time at an island and experience decent beach time and activities such as snorkeling, air gliding, water skiing, sunbathing, etc. My trip was very painful. The water floors were full of rocks and it was painful trying to get to deeper waters. Being in the water meant I had to ditch my glasses. I was blinded by: default, the sun, salt-water in my eyes, or a combination of the three. My family all had fun, but they all felt muscle aches from swimming and some of them left really early. One had back pains that came back during swimming, the other felt...itchy. After arriving back at the cruise ship, there wasn't much to do. My sister convinced me to play at the casino with her. I lost all my money. My family decided to eat at a fancy restaurant. I walked in with black pants and a striped thin white sweater that looked nothing fancy. To my dismay, it was french cuisine. Heading into my bed during the night time, I decided to turn on the television much to the shock of my family who did not realize that the television had channels. I watched Minions, Fast and Furious 6, etc. Friday

The cruise ship docked at Nassau, Bahamas. Rather than exploring the tourist traps, we were given shuttle bus rides to a resort. It had a beach, lagoon, bars, aquariums, etc.

The beach was great to look at. The tides were too strong and so people were not permitted to swim on that day. Still great to see. My family separated for a bit because some people wanted to swim in the man-made pools. I wanted to see the sharks in the aquarium. I think I enjoyed this day the most because I got to explore a new place all by myself. Why all by myself? My sister got tourist trapped into getting her hair braided for 120 dollars. The whole thing took her an hour. In the meantime, I discovered more shark tank aquariums. I found a coconut stand where the guy serves pina colada in a coconut. I tipped him a dollar cuz I didn't want him to search for a dollar in change. He was friendly.

Bought a daisy flower necklace from the people who did the hair braiding. They wondered if I had a girlfriend back in my home.

I found a kitten at the nearby outdoor bar in the resort. I then found an adult cat at the opposite side near the lagoons. I wondered to myself if the cat was looking for the kitten. Both of them walked casually among the many people around. My family returned to the ship separately because my sister and I had to wait for my mother who bought way too many souvenirs. The car-trip back to the ship was delayed because the driver wanted to give us a tour of the city outside of the resort. It was very nice to hear about the area. Watched a musical on the boat. It was Rock of Ages. Story was absolutely uninteresting to me. Musical performances were nice. My family had a reservation at a japanese restaurant joint where the food is prepared in front of you by a chef. He was quite the joker. It was very entertaining to see him joke around and perform the cooking. The chef that served my family was handing out the appetizers. When he handed it to someone, he called them by a certain name sometimes. He called my uncle "the boyfriend", called my aunt "my ex", called my sister "my future wife". What did he call me? "The Boy Next Door". Saturday Morning and Afternoon I played at the casino again because there is literally nothing left to do on the boat. I played a coin-drop game and won champagne. The champagne was awful.

I bought alcohol at the gift shop. For some reason, the alcohol will only be delivered on the final night in the cruise. Saturday Night

Ate at a brazilian restaurant. Despite all the meat, my favorite meal was the salad bar. My family drank alcohol in celebration of the new year. It was boring. New Year I walked away from my family so that I didn't have to hear the loud people, I celebrated the new year on my own. The ship employees were handing out the same shitty champagne I had won for free. Sunday

Sat in my room playing Pokemon Moon. Went up and down constantly for tea and ice cream. Nothing special happened, my family went to the spa. The Ice cream itself is a chocolate swirl freshly made and soft-served. Sometimes I'd eat strawberry when available though that one isn't as fresh. Monday, again

Finally got off the boat and right into US Customs. It was an awful experience. I nearly dropped a bag and had to compose myself, but I got yelled at for stopping in my tracks. Also got yelled at for nothing finishing a form that was handed to me when I was in a line that was constantly moving. I hate Customs.

[lostchildein]

Ein thinks about giving thanks

Today is Canadian Thanksgivings. To avoid all the invites from families, I decided to spend my Thanksgiving doing my homework. I still have to thank the stuff I’ve been given though.

I’m thankful for my clubroom. No matter how much shit I give it, it still gives me a place to sit around with my friends. It also introduced me to new friends. Of course, the level of friendship I have with anyone who I met through my college is always up for debate. The fact of the matter is that the clubroom, despite its gayness, is what keeps my college days actually gay/happy.

I’m thankful for human interaction. Nothing ever compares to unique human experiences and bearing witness to or being told about one’s past, life, hobbies, likes and dislikes, and goals. It makes me just appreciate the world a little better when I can get to know more people.

I’m thankful for my Sony MDR V6s. My longest lasting pair of headphones. The earpads are busted, but buying better replacements would cost me a fortune from a Canadian dollar perspective. The quality of sound out of these are great. They didn’t seem remarkable at first until a comparison was made. Since then, I can always count on them for a nice stroll outside while listening to a new album I found.

I’m thankful for my PS3. Had I never owned it, I would never be the dumbshit I am today.

I’m thankful for you, just because I am and this day traditionally makes people conscious about it. I’m unable to pinpoint what makes you so good to me, because you’ve just been way too good for so long. I really suck at telling people compliments that are meaningful, so bear with me here. The best way I could describe the impact you have on my life is that out of the million thoughts I have every day, you will always be a part of them.

My teacher once told me that these thoughts of ours are separated into certain categories: the ones we quickly forget, the ones we learn and try to keep, and the ones that are already stored inside of us. Can you guess where you are? It’s not even a question, isn’t it? It’s impossible for me to not think about you. No matter our distance, you will always be a part of the life of some Filipino kid living in the French province of an English-speaking country.

American Thanksgivings is in the future, I am awaiting a response until then. :3

[lostchildein]

Ein attempts to come to terms with stuff and fails.

(Note: this post will tell true stories of people I know, I will try my best to keep them anonymous. Any opinions or observations are mine alone. )

If there was ever an elephant in the room between my clubroom and myself, it's the fact that I don’t actually hang out with them outside the college. It's not because I hate them, in fact I spend as much time as I can in the room if I have some of my friends in there, I can’t really say what the core reason is.

The same can be said about my Computer Science classmates. In a way, they’re like coworkers where I only care about them as much as I care about my assignments.

There are exception, of course. I do have a couple friends in the clubroom that I hang out with outside of the room. However, I befriended them outside of the college and we only use the room to see each other.

So why in the hell did two people admit their romantic feelings for me?

One was someone from my clubroom, the other from Computer Science. They both had much closer friends compared to the friendship they had with me. They still admitted their feelings to me. I did my best to keep these people at a distance, so the confessions were a shock to me. My initial reactions were 1) what makes me so special despite keeping them at a distance? and 2) what should I have done to avoid this? ….I guess this is going to become a character study on myself. I currently do not know what I am looking to do as I write this down, but I'm hoping to find something as I keep writing.

Subject A is the first one to confess. They come from my clubroom and have been a member as long as I have. From what I could remember, they were an art student. (Note: a majority of the students in my clubroom are arts students) My true feelings toward Subject A are that of acquaintances. I cannot truly pinpoint a time between us that I could call a pivotal moment in the basis of our relationship as fellow club members. The two of us shared a common idea of the clubroom being an area of safety/comfort. We both complained that the clubroom had evolved to have some unbearable days to be in. In their own words, I am one of the only people keeping the clubroom comfortable for them.

Going a little further on that, my clubroom had grown to have many people inside it all at once. Conversations would happen one after another and even occur at the same time as others. I did not enjoy it at all, but I saw it as the natural progression of an evolving club with new members. The club that once had an open door policy had now been forced to close it. Despite being one of the older members of the club, the newer members still identify me as the silent one. A little embarrassing for a senpai.

Maybe, for Subject A I was the ideal person that represented the safe space they no longer find in the clubroom. However, I still do not know why they had wanted to be with someone they knew almost nothing about outside the context of the college. In the club, I am a silent, ambivalent boy who keeps to himself unless asked. In my eyes, the person I am according to the group was fabricated by my desire to be as respectful to everyone as possible. I do my best to be as inoffensive as I can. In a way, it’s a façade I keep up. Though, it could easily be just me rejecting the one good trait I have.

From the way they worded their confession, I would not be surprised if I was not the first. I definitely feel awful for making them feel the way they might have over this event. In turn, it permanently feels awkward being near them, knowing they have unrequited feelings for me. Perhaps this was inevitable. I truly did my best to keep them at a distance, and they must have wanted to know me more. But the harsh truth is this: I definitely wouldn’t remember really them, thus making the rejection a little less taxing on me.

Subject K is from my Computer Science program. My relationship with him is a little bit better, but it remains within the college. He and I share multiple common interests with me, and I have had few conversations with him outside of college. We suffered together in Computer Science, and we have similar tastes in our games and anime. In hindsight, I underestimated how much details about ourselves we talked about. He’s actually shared some pretty neat near-lewd photos of himself with me. His appearance in my comp/sci classes definitely helped me enjoy them some more. The pinnacle of our relationship was our slightly-loud sexual talk on a public bus. (We also won 3rd place on a college scavenger hunt.)

His confession occurred on Valentine’s Day morning. I refused his advances. It remains so strange of him to ask me this when I’ve never interacted with him outside of school. I’ve never really had really insightful conversations with him, only the kind of conversations that were done to amuse us both. He had his own clique that I actually failed to try to get into. I can’t really say much about this rejection other than that I did not see him as anything but a friend, a partner-in-crime.

I feel that this confession could have been avoided if I had been interacted with him less intimately. He did say that he believed I had some feelings for him. Unlike Subject A, I truly think of Subject K as a friend. He’s someone I wish I could interact with outside of school, but as friends. I got way to close for comfort with him, and this is what happened…

Contrary these two confessions, I’m open to being in a… “serious” relationship(?). I am definitely looking for the…. “Right one.” If there’s anything I’m grateful for from these confessions, it’s that I’m good enough for some people to wish that I was more than their friend. I don’t know if I found what I wanted writing this down, but it was fun

[lostchildein]

I don’t know where I was going with this anymore.

Not sure if you follow international news, I surely don’t. Facebook added this trend thing on the side of the feed page and I keep seeing stuff about the Philippino President Duterte. The first time I’ve ever heard of him was through everyone’s favorite year-spammer John Oliver and his show. The coverage was very much on the negative side of Duterte. He showcased a lot of insensitive things he had done during his campaign for presidency, mainly how his rape joke being in poor taste. What got him to win, from what I could understand, was because of his very violent stance against corruption in politics and on drugs. I’m uncertain of what his stance against drugs was going to be, but it got him to the top of the Philippino office. This guy is the top dog.

I would love to be able to tell more about the corruption in the political side of the Philippines, but all I know is people have paraded against one ex-president Gloria Arroyo. I was never sure if she’s Thatcher-lite, but I never heard anything positive from my family about her.

As for Duterte, he repeatedly shows up on Facebook’s trending list. That means he’s hot shit, doesn’t it? That campaign about anti-drug stuff? It got 2,400 reportedly killed. I can’t tell you who were the ones killed. Was it innocents killed or criminals? Who were the ones doing the killing? No matter the reports, the news and Facebook posters love spamming that big number to justify Duterte as a horrible leader, person, everything. We all judge him, because we can. As someone who is from Philippino descent, a part of me wants to defend my “motherland”. I want to be someone who can point at the little island south of Japan as a decent place. Unfortunately, Duterte is making that part harder on me. A man with harsh feelings on crime is suddenly getting all this attention from the world and he tells them all to fuck off. If this were the movies, wouldn’t this character be the coolest politician ever?

In John Oliver’s segment with Duterte, he said that he had earned the nickname “Trump of the East”. The only problem is, Trump has yet to win the presidency. I wish I could not care about the US elections, but the US is too much of a power on this planet. It seems to me that the world just wants whoever entertains them the most as their leader. If the majority of Americans really want Trump, then I hope they’ll be ready for all the ridicule and hate…. oh what the fuck am I saying, they are already being ridiculed. They can take it.

[lostchildein]

Oops, my hand slipped.

The worst thought I've been having for a while now is the idea of my place in the world. I am 21 years of age, giving me the power to vote politicians into power. I, among millions of people, have to give another person power over me. My vote is the proof that I am a part of a big collective. I don’t always vote with my brain, sometimes I vote with intentions that are selfish. It scares me that my vote could show what kind of person I am. Do I vote with the intent of personal gain, or do I vote for the betterment of this big group I’ve been apart of my whole life? Am I a selfish person for putting the world on a path full of problems, or do I sacrifice myself for those who deserve more? This thought came to me as I began evaluating my situation as it is in the present. I am a part of a small community that has had history, friendships, personal drama, and even violence. I can’t plug myself into the main conversations of people. I don’t have the power to be useful to the small community I am a part of. This greatly affects my future dream of becoming a teacher. In my mind, a teacher needs to be strong mentally and strong verbally. They need to be ready to help those who struggle, and nurture the ambitious. The biggest challenge I see for myself when I pursue this career is becoming the center of attention. I can not reach 2 or more people in a room of 10. How could I even hope of attracting a class of 30? The pursuit of a teaching career highlights my desire to be a person who helps the undeveloped towards achieving goals. I never wanted to work for money, nor to challenge myself. The one true goal I have about work, it would have to be to secure a job with good co-workers. Yet, I am unsure of how this choice paints me as a human among a million others. Am I appealing my selfless side? Is this the kind of person I am? Am I lacking self-worth so much that I would rather hand the reins of the world to students who will have to do so in the future? I would love the thought of having taught to a future businessman, president, scientist. On the flip side, I would hate being a teacher to a future killer, or even fail to get someone to pass my class. Associate with success, disassociate with the failures. That is a selfish act. Teachers have big responsibilities, but where does the interaction between teacher and student end? Not everyone can be saved from circumstances, not everyone can have the life they dream of. Why do I want to be an influence in other people's life when I now I am not perfect? Because it's my addiction, I must be near other people or I would crumble on my own.