Goodbye Amerikkka

After two years of struggling to find well paid work commensurate with my education, experience and ambitions, I finally found the perfect job: in Kuwait. My goal all along has been to get away from teaching and do something else with my life, but in the end I gave up on that dream and decided that my best bet for my financial future and mental health was to go back to the career path and lifestyle I’d already established: international education.

When I moved to the US two years ago, I was actually optimistic. Biden had recently been elected. I had two excellent jobs, several well paid side hustles, and plenty of potential income. Sure, my savings were blown in the move back to the US and the rent for the house I’d found was a bit steep, but I could afford it. I calculated that within six months I’d be back to a comfortable position with my savings and ready to make bigger moves, like buying a car and traveling around the country on the comedy festival circuit. I was looking forward to celebrating my 40th birthday in Fiji after two long years of Covid lockdowns and eager to start planning trips to see my family and friends in the US and reconnect with the people I hadn’t spent time with in so long. Long term I gave myself a timeline of about five years to make the permanent move to Canada and eventually become a Canadian citizen.

Instead, I was hit with a double whammy. I lost one of my jobs in October due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. What does that have to do with me, you ask? Well, the company I worked for was the Russian branch of a multinational firm that hired me to teach English to its employees. My country’s decision to handle Russia’s aggression by using severe and ultimately useless sanctions instead of actually committing to a policy that would stop the violence prevented the company from being able to pay me, so they fired me instead. The students wished to continue working with me on their own, but there was literally no way for them to get money out of Russia and to me. Only the students who fled the country could keep up their classes, and sadly that didn’t last long. Then in November, the day before I was supposed to leave for Fiji, I lost the other job as well. The company never gave me an explanation. It cast a dark cloud over what was supposed to be a fun birthday celebration — a celebration I could suddenly no longer justify or afford, but which was far too late to cancel.

I never dreamed back in November 2022 that my employment situation would continue just like that for two long years. In that time, I attempted to find work any and everywhere. At first I got a lot of interviews but never managed to make it past round two or three to actually getting the job. I had fourteen different interviews at Cornell University, but even the school I attended would not hire me, which is something I’m incredibly angry and bitter about to this day. Cornell will never, ever get a dime out of me again as long as I live. Zero alumni donations, not even a reunion fee. I tried working for the local school district and got a job as a fourth grade teacher, but that ended in disaster. I only lasted seven days, and the full story of exactly why is an essay all its own that I’ll happily write if anyone cares to read it. I finally wound up working for a local nonprofit, but that job devolved into retail hell and it didn’t pay nearly enough to meet my needs. Even with my other side jobs, I wasn’t earning enough to pay rent on my house and had to move. I went into debt with friends and family who were kind enough to help, but which only increased my feelings of shame and humiliation. My attempts to get help from the government or local charities were thwarted for various reasons. Either I wasn’t destitute enough or I didn’t qualify for some other reason. 

Things were bleaker than anyone realized. My financial struggles pushed me to consider things I’d never considered before and my failure to get hired anywhere — even grocery stores and greasy spoon diners rejected me — made me doubt myself and feel completely worthless. To make matters worse, my retail job actually required me to scrub toilets. I was literally a janitor. I don't think there's anything wrong with being a janitor if that's what you want to do with your life, but that's never what I envisioned for mine. It ate away at me and made each workday a literally painful experience. Then the lowest moment came when both comedy agents who’d invited me to apply to their agencies rejected me. The faint glimmer of hope that I might be able to escape my current life abruptly winked out. At that point, I actually began googling “most effective suicide methods.” But even Google let me down. All it did was redirect me to mental health links like therapy and hotlines. Too late, Google! We’re already past that point! You should have offered up those options back when I was searching for “New York State prostitution laws.”

Finally, with even suicide planning off the table, I decided to go ahead and look for international teaching jobs again. I had only just finished unpacking the last box at my new place so I wasn't in a huge hurry to pack up again. I searched for openings that would start in January at the earliest, or even next fall. Instead I received an interview offer within thirty minutes of submitting my first application for an immediate start position, and eight days later I’d quit my retail job and started the process of making the fastest international move I’ve ever made in my life.

Now that I’m definitely leaving, I have to say that I’m now thoroughly disgusted by this country. I left because I disliked it, but now my feelings of antipathy towards the US go much, MUCH deeper and darker than mere dislike. I’ve always been a liberal supporter of the Democratic party, but they let me down completely. My inability to find any type of appropriate work during the Biden administration, my initial job loss thanks to his mishandling of the Ukraine invasion and my sheer fury at the current mishandling of the Israel/Hamas conflict have utterly destroyed my faith in Biden’s ability to lead both domestically and abroad. I don’t have any more faith in Harris’s ability either, but I voted for her yesterday simply because I don’t think either the US or the world is strong enough to withstand another Trump term right now. I’m not even sure we’re strong enough to handle a Trump loss. However, I no longer care the way I used to. During his last term, I sat in front of my computer wishing I could be in the streets protesting alongside my fellow liberals. Now I don’t feel I have a dog in the fight anymore. (Terrible metaphor, by the way.) There’s nothing left for me here, and while I hope that things improve for the sake of my friends and family who still live here, I no longer feel compelled to put myself on the line to ensure it.

I am furious about how things worked out these past two years. I spent nearly that entire time alone and lonely because I couldn’t afford to see either my friends or my family as I’d planned. All of that isolation and anger fundamentally changed me, and I am a very different person now than I was when I moved back here. I am not sure what the next few years will bring. I am not sure if finally making good money again, finally repaying my friends and family who helped me in my time of need and finally getting back to my international jet-setting lifestyle will change me back to who I was, but I am eager to find out. My biggest regrets in life to date are that I ever went to Cornell University, and that I ever thought moving back to this country was a good idea. I was unhappy with my life in Vietnam at the time I chose to relocate to the US, but that wasn’t the right

solution, and it never will be again. Not only will I never live here again, I will seize the first possible opportunity to get rid of my American citizenship and pledge my allegiance to a more deserving flag. I want nothing to do with this country, ever again.