One small step for me, one giant leap for my self-righteousness!
37 years ago the world stood still, watching one of the biggest dreams of mankind come true, we as small peasants in the universe had flown through space and landed on a round ball of cheese.
When Neil Armstrong took those first steps onto the mold surface, his first sentence reached immortality. "One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind".
The milestone finally was reached, successfully a living breathing human of flesh and blood was walking on a surface other than our home planet. What an exhilarating feeling of freedom, a sure rush of blood to the head, screams of joy and simultaneously outbursts of WOW! echoing all over the world. This is the feeling I got today, when I walked into the place I will be living in - alone for the first time in my life.
As of today I have finally reached one of the biggest goals in the early years of human western civilized life, to obtain a place of your own, outside of the home you grew up in, where you have full control of yourself, no matter how free you were at your previous home. This is pure freedom, no one telling you when to do this, and when to do that. No one watching over your moves, and complaining when things are not done properly, its all up to you - if you want to live in a mess, do it. If you want to wake up in a pool of shit - do it. But at the same time, no one's gonna clean up after your mistakes or make dinner. And thats the beauty of it - now its all up to you, and no one can say you get anything for free, or look down on you for allegedly taking the easy way out.
Truth to be told for me personally, this is equally of symbolic value as of physical value, I have long been living my own life at home, helping out with bills and not riding any easy way out, this makes the transition economically not visible, which is all the more positive, since I only have things to gain, and no downsides. A few of my friends have had a hard time doing this, just because of the financial side of it, and ending up making their parents help them out, either by paying rent or providing other means of "survival", like digital satellite and an Internet connection.
In my opinion these kinds of helping hands only make it worse for their grown up child, not letting them go, the way they should. After you've reached a certain age as I have, its pivotal to be able to care for yourself alone, there may be situations like unemployment and such forcing you to go back to your parents home for a while, but that shouldn't be a part of the plan. That should only function as a backup, so that you know you need to be able to handle all sides of life on your own to the full extent. And most importantly, knowing how to spend money - and not rely on help from relatives after you've spent all your rent money on parties and games.
Atleast thats my point of view on the subject, seems like this post went a little out of subject, but I had to get it off my mind. Anyways I will be moving to my new home in about two weeks, its not that big and I have to share kitchen and bathroom/shower with 4 other students, but its very cheap, especially since electricity and a fast Internet connection from the school is included in the rent.
Lucky for me the room comes with furniture, making it easy for me to move, basically if it hadn't been, I'm not sure I would have been able to move, atleast not so fast. I've been broke for a whole month now, and having to buy a new bed, office chair, closet etc.. in addition to books and other necessities to study, would seem impossible. It might have worked out with a lot of private loans and troublesome deals, but this way I don't even have to think about it, and I appreciate that fact very much.
Even though I'll eventually have to solve that problem, its much easier to be able to postpone that until I've got a decent job and not relying all my fundings on student loans, which is relatively small for anything other than rent and food.
Now, all I need to do is become friends with the students I'm sharing facilities with, and I'm all set to go for an exciting year of studying!
P.S
Hopefully, I don't end up naked and drunk in far away places too often - according to student stories, that is bound to happen at one time or another.
-Øyvind
When Neil Armstrong took those first steps onto the mold surface, his first sentence reached immortality. "One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind".
The milestone finally was reached, successfully a living breathing human of flesh and blood was walking on a surface other than our home planet. What an exhilarating feeling of freedom, a sure rush of blood to the head, screams of joy and simultaneously outbursts of WOW! echoing all over the world. This is the feeling I got today, when I walked into the place I will be living in - alone for the first time in my life.
As of today I have finally reached one of the biggest goals in the early years of human western civilized life, to obtain a place of your own, outside of the home you grew up in, where you have full control of yourself, no matter how free you were at your previous home. This is pure freedom, no one telling you when to do this, and when to do that. No one watching over your moves, and complaining when things are not done properly, its all up to you - if you want to live in a mess, do it. If you want to wake up in a pool of shit - do it. But at the same time, no one's gonna clean up after your mistakes or make dinner. And thats the beauty of it - now its all up to you, and no one can say you get anything for free, or look down on you for allegedly taking the easy way out.
Truth to be told for me personally, this is equally of symbolic value as of physical value, I have long been living my own life at home, helping out with bills and not riding any easy way out, this makes the transition economically not visible, which is all the more positive, since I only have things to gain, and no downsides. A few of my friends have had a hard time doing this, just because of the financial side of it, and ending up making their parents help them out, either by paying rent or providing other means of "survival", like digital satellite and an Internet connection.
In my opinion these kinds of helping hands only make it worse for their grown up child, not letting them go, the way they should. After you've reached a certain age as I have, its pivotal to be able to care for yourself alone, there may be situations like unemployment and such forcing you to go back to your parents home for a while, but that shouldn't be a part of the plan. That should only function as a backup, so that you know you need to be able to handle all sides of life on your own to the full extent. And most importantly, knowing how to spend money - and not rely on help from relatives after you've spent all your rent money on parties and games.
Atleast thats my point of view on the subject, seems like this post went a little out of subject, but I had to get it off my mind. Anyways I will be moving to my new home in about two weeks, its not that big and I have to share kitchen and bathroom/shower with 4 other students, but its very cheap, especially since electricity and a fast Internet connection from the school is included in the rent.
Lucky for me the room comes with furniture, making it easy for me to move, basically if it hadn't been, I'm not sure I would have been able to move, atleast not so fast. I've been broke for a whole month now, and having to buy a new bed, office chair, closet etc.. in addition to books and other necessities to study, would seem impossible. It might have worked out with a lot of private loans and troublesome deals, but this way I don't even have to think about it, and I appreciate that fact very much.
Even though I'll eventually have to solve that problem, its much easier to be able to postpone that until I've got a decent job and not relying all my fundings on student loans, which is relatively small for anything other than rent and food.
Now, all I need to do is become friends with the students I'm sharing facilities with, and I'm all set to go for an exciting year of studying!
P.S
Hopefully, I don't end up naked and drunk in far away places too often - according to student stories, that is bound to happen at one time or another.
-Øyvind
posted by Øyvind at 02:02
4 comments
