Dancin' with Myself

If you look at the timestamp for this post, you'll notice it says 3 AM. That's local time. It's not a mistake; I can't sleep. I'm hoping that if I just type out some of the stuff going through my brain, I'll be able to doze off for a few hours before going to work. I'll try to be entertaining.

The reason I can't sleep is because of an epiphany I had about a week ago. It went like this:

GIVEN:
A) My current job sucks, and
B) I have no connections to Rhode Island;

THEREFORE:
A') I should quit said job, and
B') Leave Rhode Island.

NEW GOALS:
1) Move to St. Louis.
2) Pursue a degree in Linguistics.

Why Goal #1? Because I do have connections to St. Louis. I've always thought of it as Home. It's where all my friends are. And by "friends", I mean parents & Ms. Mynx.

Goal #2 struck me as odd when I first thought of it, but here's how I arrived at the conclusion that Linguistics is the field for me. There's always been a part of me that thought that I should have pursued computer science. I even tried it a bit in college, but it didn't really stick. So I started thinking about it, and I wondered what it was about comp. sci. that interested me. I can tell you, it's not object-oriented program or bubble searches or any such crap. It was programming. Coding. The act of learning and using a new language to make a machine do stuff. It's the language of computers that interested me, not so much the computers themselves. Then I thought about it some more, and I realized that it's always been language itself that interested me. In high school, I memorized the first 15 lines of the Canterbury Tales because I thought they sounded cool and were fun to say. In college, I studied Old English because it made Modern English make sense, because you can see what life was like for the Germanic-tribal folks before the Romans showed up and wrecked the party. And because it sounds cool and is fun to say.

So I've been doing some research into pursuing these goals, and it seems that, even though I didn't really study Linguistics as an undergrad, I could still get into a grad program. One aspect that kinda worries me (besides the whole GRE thing) is the letters of recommendation. See, my whole undergrad career was based around the assumption that I was gonna be a teacher. So all my letters of recommendation talk about what a great teacher I'll be. Not sure if that'll be cool or not.

Oh, and there are two other little snags. There are no colleges in Missouri that offer a degree in Linguistics. And I've pretty much missed the deadline to apply for this year.

This is what's been keeping me awake all night. But I think I've finally managed to wrap my head around it. This was accomplished via the following dialogue with myself:

A: Given that you can't apply to grad school this year, what's the plan for 2005-2006?

B: Well, the way I see it, there are two options: stay where I am, or move to St. Louis and hang out for a year.

A: Staying where you are would be simpler than moving.

B: Yes, but that goes against Conclusions A' and B'. Current job sucks, Rhode Island sucks.

A: True. But given that there are no schools in Missouri that offer a degree in Linguistics, what's the point in moving there?

B: To get the hell out of Rhode Island, obviously. And out of the aforementioned sucky job.

A: But then wouldn't you just have to move again in a year?

B: Yep, but so what?

A: Hm. I guess you have a point. But a year seems like a long time to wait. I wanna study linguistics nooooowww!

B: Listen, Veruca. Linguistics will still be around in a year.

A: Yes, but then you'll be 25, almost 26!

B: Your point?

A: Tick tock, tick tock.

B: Shut the hell up.

So. New plan:

1) Move to St. Louis.
2) Hang out for a year.
2a) "Hang out" is defined as getting some job and saving money. Pretty easy to do in St. Louis since apartments are ridiculously cheap.
3) Apply to grad school for the 2006 school year.

Based on fiddling around with Gradschools.com, it seems there are many schools that offer a degree in Linguistics. Unfortunately, like I said, none are in Missouri. But one of the schools that caught my eye that does have a Linguistics program was U.C. Berkeley. Hey there, brother o' mine.

So, folks, what do you think?