In the course of a year, my life has changed drastically, from careless to caring, from single-for-life to mated-for-life, from the easy and non-caring approach to life to a careful and studied approach.

It may not be of coincidence, too, that I read two of Khaled Hosseini’s books, The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns, over the last two Januarys. They cannot come close to mirroring my life, but they most certainly can give me perspective.

In January of 2009, I was nursing the final effects of overcoming a break up. I was not in love with the woman, but I was willing to attach myself to her, feeling that she would be one of my last chances for a decent woman with a relationship and family history similar to mine. That was the winter I read Kite Runner. It was torture, but engaging. I don’t want to give away the plot for anyone who has not read the book, but in the end, though it was not a “Happily Ever After” fairy tale, the story still gave hope.

Though it took me a while, my trip to the Philippines the next month cured me of the hurt. I changed emotionally and no longer cared about the woman whom I had been dating. Instead, I moved on.

Similarly, this winter I was coping with another loss. This time it was the loss of my job at SCU. I looked at the loss not entirely unpleasantly. Indeed, the working conditions there had become impossible. Whenever a boss like Smiley McMuffin exists, a comfortable working place cannot exist in that same vortex. However, the loss of the job was not as bad as finding a job to replace it.

Therefore, this January, I have struggled with the loss of my job. And then Hosseini’s A Thousand Splendid Suns entered my reading queue. Fittingly, I read the novel going to and from job interviews, most of which I really did not want, but felt trapped into accepting since Smiley McMuffin pushed me out of SCU after the “hiring period” of Korea.

A Thousand Splendid Suns is the story of two women whose lives become intertwined during war-time Afghanistan, from Russian occupation through Taliban rule. Again, I will not give away the plot, but again Hosseini rips the readers’ hearts out with each graphic, terrible page of Laila and Mariam’s lives. Again, though, in the end, though there is nothing close to a happy ending, readers are given hope.

And then there is where things come to play for me. I was offered an elementary school job. It was a good job, and I could live with it for a year, but I did not love that I was offered the job. In fact, I was more disappointed I was offered the job than rejected. I was holding out hope that a better job would come along.

On Wednesday I interviewed for a training academy. The people seemed nice and the job seemed fitting to my level, but I would have to move away from my comfort zone, away from the place I wanted to be.

That night, though, Fiona Treelover called me with new information. A job that I didn’t want earlier in the process because it required me moving had come available again. At this point, it looked as though I had no choice but to move. There was no other choice. But there is something about this job: it is at a top university, the flagship in its province (for you unknowing Americans out there, a province is basically the same thing as a state). I’ll call it Providence University because it sounds similar to “province,” and just like how people use the word “providence” for times when good things happen to them after a period of bad, the job gave me hope. There was a hiccup or two before I was able to go into the interview and decided if I wanted to go in the first place because of the original reason I did not want it, but . . .

I accepted the job!

I still have to take care of some business before I can start the job. First, I must make a trip to Seoul to get an official stamp on my police record since my visa status will change. Also, I need to leave the country two times. I just found out about the two times ordeal. Before, I knew I had to leave the country one time and planned to take a short trip to Thailand, but now that I know I have to leave two times, the first to change my status to a tourist visa and the second to claim my new visa, I will probably go the cheap route of taking a boat to Japan.

In the end, like everyone thought they would, things have worked out. I don’t know if I want to put myself through another Hosseini book. Yes, they are great stories, but I know that I was going through a bit of despair myself while reading each of the two I have read, and I don’t want to go through those feelings again. But life is a series of ups and downs, and maybe one day I will need Hosseini again to give me perspective that my life has been blessed and little downs, like the one I have been going through, are not so bad.