... you mean we AREN'T the center of the universe?

I'm reminded of the ages-old Steve Martin routine about going to France. "These people, they don't have the COURTESY to speak English!"

Truth hurts. Learning to speak a foreign language is hard, time-consuming, painstaking, and in the process the learner gains some understanding of the culture. For example, when to use certain forms of address. Who outranks whom in social situations. How to address a teacher, a speaker, a parent, a subordinate, a child, a manager. What is considered polite, what is considered unspeakably rude. In that process, the learner begins to see his or her own customs and culture through the eyes of another. The student learns that what we consider to be normal isn't necessarily, it's just what we do. No more right or wrong than anyone else's culture.

We've been at this ridiculous war for almost four years. Why in hell, with all the money we've had at our disposal, couldn't a few more people have learned Arabic in FOUR YEARS??? Why aren't we recruiting every decent Arabic instructor in the country and putting them to work?

We'd rather blow stuff up than talk to people.

It sounds like you're engaged to the wrong man. Sad but true. He may be a wonderful person, but it sounds like not for you. The town, his profession, his goals in life, his health... none of them sound like they fit with you.

You're young. You know this... that in a city, 25 really is a dewy-eyed baby. So... pack up, move, and get on with your life. Easy for me to say, it's not my life but yours. You won't find what you want in that small town.

How will you feel in 10 years when you're still childless? How will you feel when you're bringing up your potential children in a place with values you don't agree with? How will you feel when you retire, and you and your husband ran out of things to say 15 years ago? Leaving isn't easy. But it is far, far easier now than it will be after marriage.

Break the engagement, sell the house, move to the city, and finish your degree at a bricks-and-mortar real school where you will meet other people. You won't regret it.

Some day, you will wake up and realize you just don't care any more. For me, it was a good few years past my 10th high school reunion when everyone (me included) was still trying to impress each other. It was somewhere after meeting my husband (a nerd just like me) and before the first baby came along, that I realized I just didn't care any more... there were far too many things to worry about than me. It would take too much energy to try to wear the fashions, listen to the right music, look just right. I was happier wearing whatever I damn well wanted to, watching movies at home with a couple of close friends who really cared about me instead of what I look like, and not giving a rat's behind about appearing cool at a dance club or a bar.

I am a nerd. I never really was anything else. The difference is that now I embrace it. It is who I am. I can live in my own skin now. I won't even begin to rattle off the preferences that put me firmly in the unfashionable categories of the entire universe. They're mine, just as yours are yours.

I am now a fortyish soccer mom nerd with too many books and not enough time. Before that, I was a thirtyish newly married nerd. And then before that I was a twentyish nerd in the city, then before that, the geeky college student who ALWAYS said and wore the wrong thing. All the same nerd. The cool part is that now it just doesn't matter any more.

You'll have to get there on your own, taking your own path. I wish you peace and joy when you arrive in your own home, with one or two or three people who mean the world to you whatever they wear or listen to, whatever their opinions are.

Good luck.

I seem to recall a case a few years ago where some of the Disney characters copyrights were due to expire, including the flagship Mickey Mouse. Remember that the original Mickey Mouse cartoon (the black and white Steamboat Willie) was created in the 1930's. The Disney corporation was instrumental in extending copyright law so they can renew the copyrights on Walt Disney's creations, no doubt until the end of the world as we know it.

If our courts are willing to extend copyrights ad infinitum for Disney, there's no reason they shouldn't do it for the children and grandchildren of smaller players like Theodore Geisel, J.R.R. Tolkein, and others. I'm not so sure I agree with it either, but the precedent has been set by the biggest guns of all in the entertainment industry.