the Future

tonight i spent a lot of the time that i should've technically been working (shh, don't tell!) having a heart to heart with one of the professors who comes into our store. he's a completely awesome person, besides which i love professors categorically. which is probably part of the reason that i kind of think i want to be one. granted, some of them suck, the politics can get pretty horrible, and the years of hoop jumping will be positively abhorrent (ooh, look, double p h adjectives! spaz? what?). but i can see myself enjoying it all the same; and if i don't, i'll leave. i have been initiated into the mysteries of sunk costs, i know how to walk away.

it was... really good to be able to seriously focus on it. but at the same time, it's so scary and overwhelming. because i have, big surprise, backed myself up to the deadline again -- i should apply to school, and do it now, another year without publishing makes me that much less desirable as a candidate. at the same time, there is something to be said for waiting, if i have to, and really doing my research on the front end in hopes of having an advantage later. do i do a terminal masters first as an escape hatch? even though it couldn't be farther from my mind right now, i am hitting the age when women generally tend to leave career for family and maybe i should do this in pieces so i can leave for a while if hell freezes over and that becomes me. and what program do i go into, exactly? just when i think i've mostly got it figured out, i find another angle. tonight's happens to be especially relevant: maybe i really should do an mba (business, ugh) with an econ concentration at a good school so that i'm qualified to teach in a business school later and therefore increase not only my starting salary, but my lifetime earning potential (because raises based on percentages are better when you've ratcheted up to start with...). i should really do informational interviews like my life depends on it. because it kind of does. but can i do that and still hit this year's deadlines? where do i put my emphasis? how much difference WILL it ultimately make?

and that's the best question, the one that i keep allowing to stop me in my tracks. because, as i just read somewhere (either kundera or broks, i didn't leave enough time between books to keep them from blending together a little), you really can't ever know. it's kind of part of the point. remind me to look up the exact quote later, it's well-worded. but at the moment there's a cranky kitten trying to sit on my hands, and i should probably go to bed.

i really need to find something to do with myself when i'm wide awake at midnight rather than explode words into cyberspace for people who don't really care. not that it works that much better in person, really... yeah, thanks for playing. have a nice life, goodnight.