Oh internet, how is one really supposed to pick a major? Anything gets exhausting after a while.
The good news is that I'm no more than 3 quarters away from an AA. The bad news is that I haven't yet considered what's going to happen after that. Perhaps I'll grow cacti in the Arizona desert, never leaving the house without an umbrella. Perhaps I'll become a championship igloo inspector, standing atop the structures with my arms outstretched. Perhaps I'll dedicate the rest of my life to the recovery of Amelia's leather flying cap.
I told PatrickOpie today that I felt like an empty vessel. Taking it in and hanging on to it. I said I felt pretty boring at parties because my thoughts are all Ecosystem and Punnet Square. Johari Window and Marian Anderson. Then I did a little dance.
So instead of filling you in on the details. I'm just going to do a little dance, instead. It's a slow step backward from love, 2 jumps toward an asteroid, and a thorough shake of the moneymaker for good luck.
Posted by Sonya at December 20, 2005 06:10 PMI don't mind if you talk to me about ecosystems at parties. It's not as boring as talking about television.
Posted by: flamingbanjo at December 21, 2005 10:02 AMYep, ecosystems at parties. Me too. But there are no parties to go to. I wish you could come over and talk about ecosystems. Especially river ones, because I still have to do a project on those. Congrats on your grades, by the way. You've definitely got me beat.
Posted by: Appalachia at December 21, 2005 10:41 AMYou could always go to the UW and get a degree in the "comparative history of ideas". That's a real major there.
Of course, I've alwayw thought of it as sort of the equivalent of spending $4,000 on a degree in underwater basket weaving, but then again I've got a degree in fucknig ENGLISH for gods sake. So cast the first stone and all that.
I'm still rooting for a history degree for you. And for me, as a matter of fact.
Posted by: Joshua at December 22, 2005 05:46 AMI'll take a stab at it - I enjoyed (really enjoyed) a less successful (much less successful) college career, but I trust that with Josh looking over my shoulder I can't go too far wrong.
Think about how you'd like to think.
Think about the tools you'd like to have at your disposal to make sense of the world and the people around you.
Josh suggested a History degree - a suggestion typically at odds with almost every major social current of our time. But one that might foster a respect for perspective, the importance of context and a greater facility with maintaining a sense of scope when confronted with a confounding world.
Other degrees would lend themselves to critical consideration, analysis, dispassionate debate. But there are, to a lesser or greater degree, characters to each of them. And I would argue that it is these tools - the patterns of thought, methods for processing new information, integrating it into your worldview and reaching your conclusions - that matter more than the bulk of the "learning".
Unless you want to build bridges - then its pretty much civil engineering and hang the philosophy. Not that philosophy isn't important, but it will not be the determining factor in whether someone lets you design a bridge.
Posted by: John Galt at December 23, 2005 11:14 AMPersonally, I'd like to build a philosophical bridge that'll hold up for a while. I didn't get a useful degree - that's my excuse why I tend landscapes. I'm not too good with the career counseling. When asked what I'd like to do I still give them the blank stare. For me, maybe it doesn't matter. You, dear poet, may be different. Merry Christmas!
Posted by: nathaniel at December 23, 2005 08:48 PM