I think it is interesting to see that Rodrigues realized how much of his life he "missed" because of his devotness to learning. I think whats most compelling is that its not just that he was determined to learn, he was determined to be better than his parents. In some ways, he was right in wanting to succeed in life, and do more than just basic educaton and factory jobs. I think he was misguided not by the passion of learning, but from the intensity and insanity that he developed from it. In a way, I think Rodrigues alienated himself from the rest of his life in order to achieve a goal that he hadn't quite figured out until the very end of his "education". It is almost sad to know that the whole time he was learning and alienating himself, he would come back years from then, realizing everything he had done was only to bring him back to his family. Its not sad that family was the "end-all" for him, but that he had dissociated himself from them for so many years.
I think that this essay describes how education can change us all, and in a way, we lose a little of ourselves inorder to obtain something from someone else. Its just up to us to determine how much we want to give up, perhaps?
I agree that he alienates himself almost from his family when he is determined to learn. It is difficult to try and balance tradition with the future, which is evident in his article. I myself had difficulty trying to keep Spanish vocabulary while being bombarded with English grammar rules and sentence structure all day at school. However I find it good that he used his parents as a motivation to keep his education going. Its unfortunate that he viewed them in such a bad light when he was younger, but in the end I feel that it was worth his education.
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