news on the omar front

We all tend to see the world through the lens of our own experience.

Take careers as an example. When I was 12, I decided I wanted to be a veterinarian because I wanted to own a circus. The logic was tenuous. But it was a perfectly good dream for a 12-year-old boy. 

My career path took a sharp right turn when I was a freshman in high school. Politics was now going to be my chosen field. To get there, I would be a lawyer. That dream at least had the advantage of some logic.

When I was at university, I was surprised at the number of my friends who had not yet made up their minds about a career and would change their majors more often than they would change their tie-died t-shirts. It was the 60s. Even in law school, a couple of my friends were not certain they wanted to be lawyers. And, even though they graduated with a law degree, they chose other fields.

Almost four years ago, I offered to assist Omar in his goal to become a dentist. And, even though I had stuck with my dream from 1964 (with the exception of the politics part that I exorcised from my life in 1988), I gave him the same advice my dad gave me when I graduated from high school. "Never do anything you do not want to do. Your work choice is one of the most important decisions you can make. Don't let anyone tell you what you have to be."

That did not seem to be a problem with Omar. He seemed to be focused on becoming a dentist to gain escape velocity to leave his village by the sea. But I did not want him to feel pressured to be a dentist simply because that is what he told me he wanted to be.

If you have been following his post-prepa-graduate progress on these pages, you already know he has taken two university admission tests for dental school. The first test score was not high enough. The second was invalidated because some other test-takers committed fraud.

But based on those two test results, the admissions office of the University of Guadalajara has admitted him at its campus in Autlán de Navarro. But not in a dentistry course. Instead, he has decided to become an accountant. As Max Bialystock would say (and did): You're in a noble profession. The word 'count' is part of your title."

I knew that his girlfriend Yoana was going to attend the university at Autlán to become an attorney. He told me last night that not only could they attend university together, but when they graduate, they could open an office together to offer their respective services.

The decision appeared to be rational. At least, it was more logical than my circus owner-veterinarian connection.

When I asked him when the courses begin, he told me "today."  

Until the virus is brought under some semblance of control here, university classes are being conducted virtually. That means the house with no name will now be an affiliate of the University of Guadalajara while Yoana and Omar poke their noses into their computers to start their professional educations.

I wonder if I can get one of those subsidies the Biden administration is handing out to schools?