few chure
Right now I'm feeling an indescribably overpowering euphoria, about big plans in the near future and big plans in the far future, plans that are unimaginably far-fetched but somehow seem possible.
First, Cara and I are going to Chicago this weekend almost on a whim. We had been discussing a fun weekend trip to Chicago on and off for a while but not making anything out of it. Then, on Wednesday morning, I was reading my music camp friend Kalyan's journal and she mentioned that she was playing in Chicago this Friday with her band Joiya. At first I disregarded this, as over the past couple years I've been inundated with advertisements for Joiya shows that I just couldn't see because they were mostly around Detroit and pretty much all in Michigan, and Chicago also seems pretty far away. But then I got to thinking... what if I could hop on a Greyhound after class Friday and be in Chicago in time to catch the show, and just hang out there all weekend? After some investigation, it proved feasible, and Cara and I walked over to the Greyhound station today and bought our tickets. We should be in Chicago around 7:30 tomorrow evening, giving us about an hour and a half leeway before Joiya plays. Either we'll take a bus to the venue or Kaylan will be able to pick us up in Joiya's van. Carly, another Blue Lake friend who is going to school in Chicago, has been super-nice and volunteered to let Cara and me sleep in her room. I don't really know for sure what's going to happen and how it will work out, but I do know that it will work out and adventure will happen!
The second is even better. I met with Catherine Ringen in the linguistics department today and I may have figured out the rest of my life. The linguistics department has a joint undergraduate/graduate degree program that allows you to double credit for courses for both the undergraduate linguistics major and linguisitics master's degree. This master's degree is really what people want to see when you're applyinng for jobs teaching English as a second language. You can't apply for the program until you have 80 or 90 credits, so usually people apply for it before their senior year and take the doubling courses their senior year and graduate with an undergraduate degree, then the next year they take a few more courses and graduate with their MA in linguistics. Because of AP and FLIP credit, I could conceivably end up at 80 credits after next year and apply to the graduate college before my junior year so I could spread the program out over my last three years instead of just my last two. Now, if I'm careful, I can also get German and Spanish majors in addition to my linguistics major in my first four years. Then, the next year, I just push on and take four or five more linguisitics courses and an elective or two, and I've got an MA. The catch is, I have to get into the graduate college before I can take any of the doubled courses, which requires a 3.5 GPA and that I take the GRE. However, now that I know where I'm heading, I know exactly how hard I need to work and, more importantly, exactly what I'm working for. This is such a good thing for me to do. I think most people go to college and get one major and take a bunch of electives. That's cool and all, but as long as I'm able to do it practically for free, I might as well get as much recognition for my knowledge and as much additional knowledge and experience as possible for it. The five-year deal also gives me a graduate degree with only having had to pay for one year of school because of my $5000-a-year undergraduate scholarship from National Merit and William and Effa McMeans. Now, academics is cool and all, but it's not exactly life. That's where the sweet part comes in.
With an MA in linguistics, I will be highly qualified to teach English as a second language all over the world. This gives me the ability to do exactly what I've always wanted to do but also be highly paid while doing it. What I want most to do is to travel around and not just sightsee but inundate myself in a culture and really get to know the people and how they live, to live more as a native than as a visitor. I also want to know as many languages as possible. To me always before, the path to knowing as many languages as possible was taking introductory courses in a language here and a language there as my electives. With three majors, though, that's not quite so possible. However! If I have an MA in linguistics, I can get a real job in Japan, in Saudi Arabia, in Finland, in Zaire, in Brazil, wherever in the world I want to be. And I'll get so much more language exposure than just an introductory course at a state university. And it's a perfectly acceptable "career" to jump between all of these every year or two, essentially studying abroad for the rest of my life.
I walked out of Catherine Ringen's office a different person than I was when I walked in. It seems absurd that I'm thinking about graduate school and the rest of my life, but suddenly it all seems so feasible.
First, Cara and I are going to Chicago this weekend almost on a whim. We had been discussing a fun weekend trip to Chicago on and off for a while but not making anything out of it. Then, on Wednesday morning, I was reading my music camp friend Kalyan's journal and she mentioned that she was playing in Chicago this Friday with her band Joiya. At first I disregarded this, as over the past couple years I've been inundated with advertisements for Joiya shows that I just couldn't see because they were mostly around Detroit and pretty much all in Michigan, and Chicago also seems pretty far away. But then I got to thinking... what if I could hop on a Greyhound after class Friday and be in Chicago in time to catch the show, and just hang out there all weekend? After some investigation, it proved feasible, and Cara and I walked over to the Greyhound station today and bought our tickets. We should be in Chicago around 7:30 tomorrow evening, giving us about an hour and a half leeway before Joiya plays. Either we'll take a bus to the venue or Kaylan will be able to pick us up in Joiya's van. Carly, another Blue Lake friend who is going to school in Chicago, has been super-nice and volunteered to let Cara and me sleep in her room. I don't really know for sure what's going to happen and how it will work out, but I do know that it will work out and adventure will happen!
The second is even better. I met with Catherine Ringen in the linguistics department today and I may have figured out the rest of my life. The linguistics department has a joint undergraduate/graduate degree program that allows you to double credit for courses for both the undergraduate linguistics major and linguisitics master's degree. This master's degree is really what people want to see when you're applyinng for jobs teaching English as a second language. You can't apply for the program until you have 80 or 90 credits, so usually people apply for it before their senior year and take the doubling courses their senior year and graduate with an undergraduate degree, then the next year they take a few more courses and graduate with their MA in linguistics. Because of AP and FLIP credit, I could conceivably end up at 80 credits after next year and apply to the graduate college before my junior year so I could spread the program out over my last three years instead of just my last two. Now, if I'm careful, I can also get German and Spanish majors in addition to my linguistics major in my first four years. Then, the next year, I just push on and take four or five more linguisitics courses and an elective or two, and I've got an MA. The catch is, I have to get into the graduate college before I can take any of the doubled courses, which requires a 3.5 GPA and that I take the GRE. However, now that I know where I'm heading, I know exactly how hard I need to work and, more importantly, exactly what I'm working for. This is such a good thing for me to do. I think most people go to college and get one major and take a bunch of electives. That's cool and all, but as long as I'm able to do it practically for free, I might as well get as much recognition for my knowledge and as much additional knowledge and experience as possible for it. The five-year deal also gives me a graduate degree with only having had to pay for one year of school because of my $5000-a-year undergraduate scholarship from National Merit and William and Effa McMeans. Now, academics is cool and all, but it's not exactly life. That's where the sweet part comes in.
With an MA in linguistics, I will be highly qualified to teach English as a second language all over the world. This gives me the ability to do exactly what I've always wanted to do but also be highly paid while doing it. What I want most to do is to travel around and not just sightsee but inundate myself in a culture and really get to know the people and how they live, to live more as a native than as a visitor. I also want to know as many languages as possible. To me always before, the path to knowing as many languages as possible was taking introductory courses in a language here and a language there as my electives. With three majors, though, that's not quite so possible. However! If I have an MA in linguistics, I can get a real job in Japan, in Saudi Arabia, in Finland, in Zaire, in Brazil, wherever in the world I want to be. And I'll get so much more language exposure than just an introductory course at a state university. And it's a perfectly acceptable "career" to jump between all of these every year or two, essentially studying abroad for the rest of my life.
I walked out of Catherine Ringen's office a different person than I was when I walked in. It seems absurd that I'm thinking about graduate school and the rest of my life, but suddenly it all seems so feasible.