The Assignment

My Creative Writing class at the university had a homework assignment to write a persuasive essay last week. I gave them some innocuous topics to choose from, such as "why people should stop smoking," or "why people should visit our city," but some students decided to get creative on their own. The essay that follows is a product of this assignment. I have decided to leave it unedited in its original form:

Why people should leave Ukraine
We live in Ukraine, and this country doesn't worth of saying much about. I think in future there will left not many people in Ukraine. They will leave to foreign countries to have better life.

At first, her is no oportunities for good life and making money. Now there is a tendency that having ties is much more important then to have higher education. I mean, those who have ties will be rich and won't be worry about their future, and people who are well educated and ready to work have to sweep the streets.

Secondly, the government doesn't care anybody. It can't provide graduates job places. Retired people have to work to earn money for bread. Women are afraid to born children, they afraid not to have money to feed them and bring them up worthy people.

And the last, it's simply not pleasant to live in disrespectful conditions and it's scary to walk on the streets, espesially at night. People don't know what will happen to them the very next day and that's why live the single day.

So, making a conclusion, I want to say: people, espesially youth, think twice weather you want to live in the country where hardly be good future.
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I have mixed feelings about the essay personally, as I think that someo f her arguments are exaggerations, but the overall idea of it left me saddened, offended, and understanding all at the same time.

Saddened because when I think about my native county, none of these are reasons I'd ever think about leaving. America has it's problems, and yes even some of her arguments would carry weight in America, yet it's certainly not the same sort of hopelessness that pervades this essay, and it only is exacerbated by the numerous grammatical errors. This student is in her fourth of five years studying to become a translator and intrepretor. All my students in this year write better and more coherently than they speak.

I was offended by this article because I see Ukraine as something different, something hopefuly, something awakening. She has been in a sleep, and has not been as successful in her transformation to democracy as her Northern Baltic cousins. Her future has the potential to be bright, certainly brighter than other FSU countries. Ukraine is a country rich in history and culture if not in its average GDP. If you are considered family, they will do anything for you. They are much more giving of themselves and material belongings than Americans. Ukraine has great potential. I believe that.

Despite this, I understand her frustrations. I too am scared to walk home at night. I specifically asked for an apartment within a quick walk from a bus or marshrutka stop. With unemployment high, it is not uncommon to see many young and old men intoxicated at any hour of the day or to walk over hyperdermic needles disguarded on the sidewalks all around the city. While I feel for their economic situation, I feel more for my own safety. I understand why someone young, someone who is educated, would seek a different life somewhere else. Somewhere where they could potentialy make more money even send some home and get a job based on merit, not because so-and-so worked with your parents. While these things also happen in the U.S. I don't think that it evokes the same sense of helplessness that one can experience here.

Chalk it up to communism. Think of it as being a product of the centuries its people have been under rule and oppressed by different outside forces.

Whatever it is, it dose remind me how strnog the American spirit of hope actually is and how we tend to beleive more strongly in the powers of tomorrow and have a more prevailing sense of idealism. That idea of the "American Dream" still exists today even if it factually can be hard to locate. I understand that other cultures do not have this same tradition or understanding, but I do not really know what do do with that or really even how to respond, other than with a combination of sympathy and disbelief. I want others to be proud of their country and want to make it a place worth living in. I want them to see the patriotism involved in being a dissenter, that it takes soemone who wants their home to be better to make it so.