I just had my last day of school today (the thirtieth of June), and I can feel myself suddenly growing taller from the immense weight that has just been alleviated from my shoulders. I am of course exaggerating, but I must admit that it is a truly magnificent feeling to look back and realize that I have been going to school six days a week, from eight in the morning until nearly five in the afternoon, for the past year. I am using the sheer size of the task accomplished in order to keep myself from dwelling on the thoughts of the upcoming challenges. I do not mean the climb up Mt. Fuji or the trip to Tokyo, both coming up in a little over a week, but rather I mean the thoughts of having to deal with the inevitable changes that have occurred to everyone in my hometown. As much as I know I have changed and transformed (hopefully into a better man), I also know that I am not alone in this inevitable outcome. I know that other have changed back home. Even if I have not seen them, I know that when I return I will be expecting Jekyll, but I will instead find myself face to face with a certain Mr. Hyde. I only use such a powerful contrast due to the fact that change is relative, so the fact that I consider my memories of those I knew, the “right” and hence my Jekyll; hence any change is a veer from my “right” and that makes it obviously wrong. I end up with a Hyde. This is of course just a possibility of what is to happen on the fifteenth of August, on the day I arrive. I will be bold enough to say that it is a very sound theory, and regardless of the actual outcome I cannot affect how people change when I am not present due to the fact that I had nothing to do with their decisions. Then again, I find myself falling into the cliché question of “What if my not being there is the reason for someone changes?” I realize that regardless of the truth behind that I understand and accept that there is nothing I can do about that, but there is something I have control over, my reaction and my point of view. If I choose to see it as gray and black as my Jekyll and Hyde metaphor, then I am letting myself be engulfed and overwhelmed by emotions and fears. I understand that the only thing that can save me from becoming another “lost and forgotten margin “ is keeping an open mind and an accepting view. I must understand that change is inevitable, and we either accept it and move on, becoming stronger and better people in the process, or we let it eat away at us as we fester in the ruins of a future long since destroyed by dwelling on the images of a lost past. This is something that, as is the case with most things, is easier said than done. We want to hold on to those fading memories and past glories, we don’t want to leave the security of a world we have gotten to know so well. Is the old soldier spending time reminiscing over his past glories because of pride for the past, or for his fear of the future? My father was a soldier, and I watched him recollect memories of his victories and his triumphs, but I also saw him put aside the past in order to face the future. He knew not what the future had in store, nor if he would ever be able to match the heroics he once accomplished in his past life. He faced a great change in a different country and struggled through many trials, including many different jobs supporting his family in order to become what he is today, a man. He had nothing besides his wife and two very young children, but he pushed himself, and he never let himself fall, rather, he never let us fall. Throughout everything he had the constant reminder of what he was before, but he put his pride aside for my younger sister and my future. I saw him accomplish so much, but if he ever has any doubt of his accomplishments he can take comfort in the fact that he has become my hero and my greatest inspiration.   Though my trial will be nowhere near as grand as his was, I take his example so I never lose my head and I can continue growing and learning. If there is one my father truly taught me, is that one never stops learning and growing, unless you let yourself. I have another six weeks or so before I return to Miami and face my fate, but instead of fear I feel a calmness, as if to say that I am in no hurry and that if I rush I will miss my moment. I remain here taking every last minute to learn and experience, and, this is something that I plan to continue even when I return.  “When you cannot find the answers outside, look inside yourself, and there you will find your solution” Humbly and sincerely, Chronos Rolando Carlos Reyes