America the land of opportunities is only a dream for many unfortunate ones. You can see thouands of these unfortunate people vying for the coveted DV visas which represents the pandora's box of opportunities. Everytime I go back to Nepal, I meet with many a forlorn individuals regretful of not being able to go to the US. They make it sound like they would be millionaires as soon as they land in the US. 'Ke garne yestai ho yaha. Amrika ma bhako bhaye ahiley samma ke ke gari sakthey hola..' They usually lament over the fortunes of some neighbors cousins son who's in the US, who sends a thousand dollar home every month, who came back last year and bought a nice house for his parents. 'Ghanta ko 100 dollars kamaucha rey. Afno ta karmai chaina. Little do they know the opportunities present in the US. Yes there are a lot of opportunies for one to work their ass off, for a normal living. Ever since I landed in this land of opportunity, I've had plenty of opportunity to work. Work is mostly the opportunity that I have seen here. Right after I go to my college, I was thrust the papers of the work study plan. 20 hours a week stuffing envelopes. Great! that's not even enough money to pay for one class. Now I am granted the opportunity to find extra time out of my limited 24 hours a day to find work so that I can pay for my tuition, room and board. In doing simple calculations, it was brought to my attention that no I cannot enjoy those dorm life which I had seen in the movies and which attracted me to the US in the first place. Instead, learning lessons in compromise, I settled in with 5 other guys mostly foreigners from Japan, Paki, and some Afrikan country. Thankfully they had some contact with others out of campus to land in some low paying menial jobs which I embraces as opportunity and churned hours in and hours out to be able to pay for college. However much opportunity there is in the US, mostly it's enough to survive. To do a little more than survive, you have to be extremely good or extremely lucky. I am neither of those so I am enjoying the opportunity to survive, to have a meager lifestyle. Sometimes I feel bad for the unfortunate ones back in Nepal. How they are missing out in the opportunity to work thier ass off for a meager lifestyle. How their relaxed lifestyle where they have support of family and society must suck compared to my fast paced workaholic style lifestyle taking full advantage of the opportunities provided to me now that I have graduated. How unfortunate are those back home who don't get the opportunity to work like a dog. How unfortunate are those who have to constantly be among friends and family. How unfortunate are those who don't get to be a slave of the capitalistic system where you are constantly on your toes trying to pay your bills, living paycheck to paycheck. How unfortunate are those of us living in the land of opportunities. No matter how much we whine about things. In the back of our heads we know we are here to stay. Let me add - if we can. There is something about America that makes us want to stay here. Call it brain drain or whatever. Maybe it's the desire to someday build a house for family back home and to send that thousand dollars to them every month. I woulda wrote more but it's time for that evening shift. Gotta love the opportunity of working all possible odd hours, unlike that boring 10 to 5 shifts full of breaks for every known things known and unknown to mankind.