2003-07-03 - 1:06 p.m.
It's a beautiful day (insert U2 song here)

If I ever doubted that "learning" - reading, writing, asking and answering questions - was the sole purpose of my being, the last couple of days have cured that for me.

I've been poking around into gradschool options (yes, again!) and took the GRE prep test out of one of those books-with-CD packages they put out every year. Only missed 1 question out of 38 on the verbal. (Who the hell knows that the antonym to QUOTIDIAN is UNUSUAL, and that the antonym to MISCONSTRUE is APPREHEND? Me, I guess. I find that a bit disturbing, as I had no idea my vocabulary had gotten that large just from novels, TV, and fan fiction.)

So I was staring at this nearly-800 Verbal score, thinking about how the Maths score came out at 660, how the scores were 730 and 710 on the SATs nine years ago, how I got 18 semester credits out of College English and two AP History courses before I ever set foot on the George Fox campus, and I thought to myself, No wonder I burned out my third year at university. I *can* do the computer programming thing, mathematics, physics, hard science, what have you. No sweat. But I don't *love* it, and it's not even what my skillset is primed for.

I've always wanted to go back and get an advanced degree, but I've been hampered by the fact that my bachelor's degrees are a B.S. in Computer and Information Science (my parent's idea) and a B.A. in Writing and Literature (my last-minute salvage attempt). Practicality would suggest the former for advanced pursuit, as I spent most of my time at Fox in that degree, the profs probably still remember me well enough to write decent recommendations, and it would lead toward careers that would make decent money even in this down-turned economy. Interest - and my planned future as an author - would suggest the latter, but by the time I signed up for most of the courses for *that* degree in my final year-and-a-half I was bitter and burnt out, and my performance showed it. Oh, I still got better than a 3.0 in that major, and a 3.54 (cum laude) overall, but I was nothing special, and I only had most of the teachers once or twice; not good for recommendations to grad school.

Neither degree offers enough temptation for me to combat the obstacles and pursue a master's or doctoral program. Postbaccalaureate education is all about obsession, desire, and determination, at least if you want to succeed; that's the real reason why I didn't just go to grad school immediately and damn the finances, no matter what else I said at the time. I *knew* I would fail, and so I didn't go. I still needed to "find myself", and that's not what grad school is for. No matter how much I still wanted to carry on being a student and soaking up the learning atmosphere, I needed a direction to go in, and the ones I had available didn't suit and never really had.

I think the main computer science prof (wonder if he's a Dr. yet?) figured that out by the time I left Fox, too, and was disappointed. I was the only girl in my year in the CS program when I started there, and I was this little genius with gold stars all over my high school and SAT records; that's a big reason I got the science scholarship after my freshman year. But after another year or two my enthusiasm was visibly waning, I never took him up on the lab assistant opportunities, and then I told him I was adding the second degree ... He's of the school that wears T-Shirts repeatedly misspelling "I am a programmer" in various crossed-out ways and summing up with "I write code", so I think it's safe to say he didn't understand the lure for me.

Anyway. Back to the thing that prompted the beginning of this entry ... I still want to go back to school, so periodically I check websites for options that might (a) be fairly practical and (b) fire my interest.

Recently anthropology's been a subject of some curiosity -- I completed the ANTH 103 basic telecourse at the local community college last month, and got an A -- but it requires much fieldwork as a career, and with my basically shy personality that aspect has been intimidating to me. Again, not enough desire there to inspire me to overcome personal obstacles and go for it.

History is another subject of interest, but what "category" of history would I choose? You've got to write your master's thesis on *something*, and I have such a wide fascination with history -- Norway in WWII, the Greek revolution in the 1820's, the Norman conquest of England, the ancient Celts, the fading days of the Roman Empire, the American Civil War -- that I would have the devil's own time picking a specialization, not to mention learning the requisite foreign language (Norweigan? Greek? Latin? Agh! I'll be lucky to master Spanish and/or French for the basic M.A. requirement, nevermind adding something harder.)

Also, I *do* like the various writing and literature (Creative Writing, English, Comparative Literature, etc.) subjects. Just not enough to be interested in writing scholarly articles on this or that aspect of this or that author's work, et cetera, ad nauseum, and my actual creative writing (original works, especially) is personal enough that producing it on demand would be very difficult.

HOWEVER, as it happens, the U of O has a degree that combines all three fields. It's called Folklore. I poked through the requirements page, then thought about how I could turn it to rummage around in the details of what Disney's done to the classic fairy tales, or what the existence of "fan fiction" implies about the near-complete lack of traditional storytelling in American culture and the human impulse to tell stories in general, or any one of a dozen other topics that have been rolling around in my head in recent years. Recent years, hell -- if you count my childhood reactions to the filmed versions of fairy tales versus their originals or versus "modern" ones such as Star Wars, I've been cogitating on this subject all my life!

I looked at the list of possible classes I'd be expected to take, and the sorts of projects that might be involved, and started smiling. I considered how my SCA experiences could be tied in, and my fingers started itching. I wondered about the kinds of things I might be expected to read, watch, or listen to in pursuit of the degree, and suddenly the impulse to move nearly had me out of my chair.

In short, my reaction to the webpage could be pretty much summed up as: "Holy shit, I could get a degree in that?" Forget the financial viability of the careers it would lead to -- if I have to, I'll go into teaching, or whatever's necessary. That doesn't matter. What matters is, it flicked my switch with a vengeance.

Precious little does that these days. (That's a hazard of being chronically depressed and having AD/HD, obviously, so when it does occur ...) Provided the interest outlasts my "up" mood, and I think it will, I'll be planning on moving to Eugene next fall, scheming how to get recommendations despite everything, and so on. I haven't been this aware, this *on*, in forever; God, it feels good to have short-term goals again!