etc.

One hour ago. I’m sitting in the food court eating my chicken salad sandwich and trying to read my book but at the table to my right a bunch of guys are talking about their weekend sexploits and at the table to my left one guy is moaning about having failed his Anthropology midterm, to which his buddy responds: “Dude, you should have just cheated off of Dave, we all did.” Meanwhile all I can think about is this documentary I saw last year about a writer who boarded a train from Sichuan to Xinjiang in China to interview the farmers who made the trip every year to find work in the province, and when he spoke to one 13 year old and asked him why he wasn’t in school he tearfully responded saying that he’d love to go to school, but he has to work to support his family in Sichuan and his biggest dream in life is to own an automobile. And now I am dismayed because all I want to do is shout over the rooftops and tell the kids I see everyday how lucky they are to be here, but really all I’m going to do is find somewhere else to eat my lunch. At first I thought this is what it’s like to think like an adult, but then I realised that I had many of the same advantages these kids have, I just never took them for granted.