In 1985, I told my parents that I would never move to the U.S. I had just returned home after spending four weeks at the Shad Valley Program at the University of Waterloo, where I had just made a lot of new friends who were a lot like me. We were going to be the vanguard of Canadian scientific and engineering entrepeneurs who going to our country prosperous. Key to doing so was not participating in the brain drain to the southern behemoth. I was determined not to sell out my country, which had given me my life and my education. Besides, I had just met these wonderful friends ("kindred spirits") with whom I would surely stay in touch forever.

My parents responded to me calmly. They told me that I should keep an open mind, and that one day, if the best opportunity meant moving to the U.S. that I should pursue it. They also added that although I felt that I had met my best friends that it was unlikely that our friendships would last. We were far apart and had spent so little time together That's the way the world works.

Right then, I felt my parents to be cruel and cynical. Today, thirteen years into my stay in the U.S.A., having lost touch (sadly and regretably) with all but one fellow Shad 85W alumna, I recall words spoken from parents to their eighteen year old son who still had a lot to learn.