Crossroads

I have a job offer for next semester. It's the job I wanted for next year - I would essentially be a floor supervisor in exchange for free room and board. That's a lot of money. And the position would look great on my resume. Next year, I would also be able to teach a small freshman class, which would look even better and help me get my first bit of teaching experience.

But they want me for next semester, and that changes everything. It feels fundamentally wrong, to start with. I'm a Freshman, after all! Freshman aren't supposed to supervise other Freshman. I'm not going to say I've been dodging the rulemakers this semester, but my friends have, and I've turned the other direction without a second thought. To hold that status for a single semester, only to swiftly switch sides and supervise my own classmates - it's strange. Which is why they don't offer the position to Freshmen except in cases of dire need.

But here I am. Most of the advantages of having the job next year would remain. Additionally, taking the position for next semester would almost guarantee that I would get it for next year, although it will be a more competitive selection process then. It's a lot of money. And there's a chance that I'll be put into the Journalism community, in which I've been wanting to meet some people. But change always has a price. In this case, I would have to leave.

I would have to leave Mayumi, my dear roommate. I would have to leave Pangaea, which by all accounts has the best community feeling anywhere on campus. I would have to leave all of this which has been expected and is loved, and go into complete uncertainty. Could I still come hang out here in Laws? Well, of course I could. Except for the fact that I'll be taking 18 credit hours, holding a pretty difficult job (especially for a Freshman), and, with any luck, be making some new friends.

I'll probably keep my relationships with the Laura's and with Tabitha, and even with Tom and Peter and Clint, such as they are. But other things will never be the same, and there's no use pretending that they will be. When I'm in Laws, I'll be a good half mile from my 'home'. I'll never feel that same camaraderie when we all go down to Dobbs in our resigned sort of way. I'll never do my laundry here again. I may cook here... once. Or twice. It won't be the same.

And Mayumi... I'll never again help her with an English assignment. We'll never again make up our weekly lists of vocabulary for her to learn. My Japanese education, so soft and dear, the chattering of Japanese girls at all hours of day and night here in our room, my life in little Japan - it will end quite definitively. She'll have a new roommate, who I will see move into my room and take over where I left off. Either that, or she won't, she'll be horrid, and then I'll feel worse yet.

There are two counterarguments to these fears. The first is that I've already experienced all of these things, and a move would be a chance to experience more things. It's the argument I use for myself as I try to decide whether I want to spend a whole year abroad in a single place, or two semesters in different places. The second is that this would happen at the end of the year, just as it might happen now. But in each case, I would have gone in already knowing, and my heart would tie up loose strings. This just feels so abrupt.

I have some time to decide. I won't find out whether I even got the job until partway into January. And once I know, I can decide whether or not to accept the position. It may be partially determined by the community they want to put me in. If they want to put me in the Journalism community, for example, that would tip the scales towards taking the job. If they want to put me in engineering or education, on the other, that might tip the scales away from it.

Life's so full of difficult choices! :(