Big rethink

Every so often I write of my tentative plans for grad school. Recently, I’ve been considering the matter with the most realistic mindset since my graduation 6 years ago.

I’ve come to accept that what I want, and doing it in the way that I want simply isn’t realistic. I’d love to fall into academia, holding classes full of lively debate and thought provoking discussion. That’s what I loved about my undergrad experience. Ideally, I’d love to gift it to everyone.

Yet the fact that for every brilliant discussion and illuminating presentation, hundreds of hours are spent slogging through papers and discussion board topics (not all of them brilliant or inspired) can’t be ignored.

As much as I’d like to think I have the patience to make a career of teaching, I have to be honest with myself. I am impatient. Not an angry impatient, more the restless sort. So grad school’s been tabled, pending a career path that fits my need to feel fulfilled by my day job, while still permitting time to pursue my true vocation: music (and dance and photography and writing….).

So what’s the plan as my student loan debt shrinks into a lovely debt free oblivion? Travel. I’ve never left this hemisphere. I’ve seen lots of the U.S., but I crave adventures abroad (though not Antarctica, sorry ice continent). I have managed to narrow my scope a bit. There’s a chateau in France where you can stay and help in its restoration: Chateau de Gudanes.

I love that idea! It suits my need to be doing something, plus it’s so damn lovely. I’ve also looked into travel groups that cater to women who want to travel but are aren’t coupled up and don’t want to be the third wheel.

The prospects keep me from feeling utterly stuck. Though the feeling has never been stronger, I have to remind myself that chucking my life and running away from home only results in eventually feeling stuck, just in a different locale.

Now if only there were a trick to getting unstuck from your own mind (yes, I’ve tried vodka….makes my mind even stickier). Reading helps a bit, but it also makes me want to go back to school, and that whole loop starts again.

Tv distracts, but with The Americans over, I really only have Westworld. That show is constantly throwing out literary references and so again we’re back in the grad school loop (very meta). So I’ve gone back to watching Doogie Howser, which is pure nostalgia and the realization that Neil Patrick Harris hasn’t aged a bit.