I want to be free. What should I do?

[StellaBlue]

Seriously, I ask this as an individual.

I am single, no kids, no husband, 27, two degrees, some skills, $40,000 student debt, $5000 owed on car, $10,000 credit card debt (due to the breakup of my previous long-term relationship in which I was massively screwed over and forced to return to the US).

I really want to leave the country.

As I see, my options are:

Flee and claim asylum (worth a try, perhaps)

Marry someone I don't know (not as easy as it sounds, and the paperwork on visas still takes MONTHS even if you're married)

Continue my academic studies by doing a PhD in the UK/Canada/etc (another $100,000 of debt)

Try to hang on and pay my consumer debt off while avoiding the internment camp, then figure out how to move abroad


Any ideas...? I lived in the UK from Sept. 21, 2001 until June 12, 2005. Didn't want to come back here to begin with, but now I don't even see a reason to "stay and fight" when there is nothing to fight FOR, what with no Bill of Rights and all...

[quinnox]

1. if you have two college degrees

and you are young, then you have a lot of options. I suggest Australia but any country would probably have an interest in you since you are young and educated.

[StellaBlue]

3. as I found out when dealing with the UK immigration authorities

It is now VERY hard for people to move between democratic nations. Not only do you have to be educated, you have to fill a shortage in their economy. You can't just up and move to the UK or Australia or, really, anywhere else worth moving to, unless you have a sponsoring company who can prove there is no native person who can fill the position, or you are in a very highly skilled niche area. Which I am not. So I get to stay here, work for $12 an hour, unable to pay for healthcare (no benefits!), unable to make my student loan payments, until they take me away to the internment camp.

Sorry, I am very depressed today.

[deaniac21]

2. If you can summons up a melodramatic flair the Lifetime

channel is looking for screenplay writers!

[stillcool]

4. it's your life....

do it up. Shakespeare said something like this..."There is a tide in the affairs of men which taken at the flood lead to great fortune...omitted all the journeys of their days are filled with strife and misery...on such a full sea we are now afloat...we must take the current when it serves or forever lose our venture"...and I say...we are all born alone, we all die alone, and for most of our lives we all live alone inside our own head. Choose the very best you can for you...you're all you've got.

[earth mom]

5. I'd go in a nanosecond if I could...

but my husband has a job he won't leave...plus the house and all the god damn stuff we have! I've been thinking about it all morning, wondering how we can even afford to leave now because now housing prices have started going south in our area and the equity is what I was counting on living on elsewhere. But if it was just me, myself-no hubby, no kid, no pets-I would already be packing my bags.

Good Luck to you! :hi: