Moving home
Tim Coates
Issue date: 2/21/07 Section: Op-Ed
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The Greyhound station in Bangor, Maine should be included in the top 100 places to visit before you die. Non-descript from the outside, its dingy windows haven't seen soap in decades. A drab yellow blankets everything, even the mock-wood paneling, making re-runs of Taxi look hi-definition. For the bargain price of 25 cents, you can watch the latest episode of MASH from a yellow plastic bucket chair with an attached personal TV.
One might think that the highway north descends into vast unexplored territory. Hundreds of miles of pine trees and the occasional single-pump gas station are all that protect drivers from the unknowns awaiting courageous travelers.
But there's another country up there. A country where its legal for teenagers to drink and men to marry men, and marijuana is grown - and sold - by the government. It's also where I'm moving after graduation.
No, not Toronto, Montreal or Vancouver. I'm moving home to Fredericton, New Brunswick. Population 65,000. An hour from the Maine border, it's less populous, a little poorer and more rugged than its American neighbor.
It's a decision that leaves me both excited and anxious. First, the excitement. When I return, I'll be the first executive director of a non-profit I helped found the summer before arriving at KSG. We're called 21inc. We seek to create the conditions for social and political change in New Brunswick by catalyzing networks, relationships, ideas and dialogue.
While I never thought there would be opportunities back home, given its poor and rural nature, being able to build and mold an organization from its birth, and possibly have a real impact, is an exciting opportunity.
The trade off with choosing opportunity is place. This is where anxiety kicks in. In conversations with graduating friends, most are understandably vague on the type of job they want. But when it comes to place, they definitively proclaim where they want to be: large, cosmopolitan cities.
One might think that the highway north descends into vast unexplored territory. Hundreds of miles of pine trees and the occasional single-pump gas station are all that protect drivers from the unknowns awaiting courageous travelers.
But there's another country up there. A country where its legal for teenagers to drink and men to marry men, and marijuana is grown - and sold - by the government. It's also where I'm moving after graduation.
No, not Toronto, Montreal or Vancouver. I'm moving home to Fredericton, New Brunswick. Population 65,000. An hour from the Maine border, it's less populous, a little poorer and more rugged than its American neighbor.
It's a decision that leaves me both excited and anxious. First, the excitement. When I return, I'll be the first executive director of a non-profit I helped found the summer before arriving at KSG. We're called 21inc. We seek to create the conditions for social and political change in New Brunswick by catalyzing networks, relationships, ideas and dialogue.
While I never thought there would be opportunities back home, given its poor and rural nature, being able to build and mold an organization from its birth, and possibly have a real impact, is an exciting opportunity.
The trade off with choosing opportunity is place. This is where anxiety kicks in. In conversations with graduating friends, most are understandably vague on the type of job they want. But when it comes to place, they definitively proclaim where they want to be: large, cosmopolitan cities.
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