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comfortably accustomed to living in the city. The street noises, the street lighting, the unfamiliar faces of the people, the confined environment contrasted to the wide sweep of landscape that I had always known, all combined to produce an efiect boraering on the claustrophobic. But to my astonishment, after the passing of a few weeks, I realized that | the new style of living was becoming habitual, as though it were the only Style that I had ever known. As a matter of fact, on my first brief visit home, the old familiar surroundings seemed familiar no longer. Everything appeared to have diminished in magnitude and clarity. The feeling was slightly eerie, somewhat unreal, but comparing notes with some of the other country classmates revealed that they, too, had had a similar. experience. Truly, the new environment was exercising an attractive force all its own; our ties with our old habitats were being steadily eroded.

One morning in early December, the bulletin board served notice that, some ten days later, the mid-year examinations would begin.-- a rather chilling reminder that some of us might not be returning after the Christmas vacation. Failure to make a passing mark indicated that the candidate would have practically no hope of success at the year-end finals, since the second semester would not deal with any of the work we had done during the first. lor this reason, he or she was advised to quit and come

back next year for a freshistart. In some degree, it was like "trying the

Entrsnce" all over again.

Our first session of the new year Showed that a sizeable number had failed to make the grade -- a tacit warning to the rest of us that we would face an even more searching challenge toward the end of another six months. When that:test:cgme £ was successful in placing somewhere in the upper half of the pass list, but instead of returning in the fall, I decided to try my hand at teaching. A year's experience told me that the

teaching profession was one that I did not enjoy, und for which I