A Higher Education

I’m a college dropout. I worked at earning a degree that I didn’t want for three years, stubbornly attending classes I didn’t want to take and memorizing facts I didn’t want to know, complaining about all of it loudly and frequently until it finally happened: an extremely light semester in which I withdrew from one class and got a D in another, just because I hated life and everyone around me. It was the wakeup call I needed. Without any more excuses I was forced to accept that I was not ever going to be a respiratory therapist, that I didn’t want to be a respiratory therapist, and that I was such a miserable person to be around that it would be better for everyone if I just quit. So I did.

It’s been about a year since I left the ivory halls, and I have some fresh perspective. I decided that 90+ credit hours shouldn’t go to waste, but I needed to change my major. There are two schools of thought when it comes to choosing a major. Well, probably more than two, but we’ll keep it simple today. The first is that you should do what you love. The second is to do what is practical.

Now, for a person who actively ponders upon the intricate workings of a hypothetical fairy culture, I am a surprisingly practical person. I know that outside of college people are paid to research (hard sciences), heal (nursing, radiology, pre med) and to make money for other people (accounting, marketing, etc.). They are not paid to think (philosophy), write (English), play (music) or be annoying in public (women’s studies). However, my practical approach didn’t work out so I’m going to go back to the first method. I’m going in for an English degree.

I’m doing this for two reasons. First, I like English. I tend to enjoy the work involved, and I don’t mind investing my time into it. Maybe it won’t directly lead to a career in writing, but it will lead to a degree, and hopefully I won’t be a grumpeteer while I get it. Second, I’m good at it. I was quite angry about that for a long time. Some people are good at lucrative things, like building bridges (engineers) or building businesses (entrepreneurs), or building impossibly sexy bodies (Ryan Gosling). Why couldn’t I be one of those people? Instead I seem to be kind of good at writing, which is not lucrative.* However, I decided that since I’m kind of good at writing, I might as well get really good at it. I’ll do what I was made for and trust that God will take care of the rest.

Today was my first class. I’m taking “Intro to Fiction” at the University of Missouri. The fun thing about college classes is that you never know exactly what to expect when you sign up for them. Some classes have you memorize a ton of factoids, most of them irrelevant to your personal interest; others want you to sit quietly while some old guy brags about his visit from the Queen of Qatar (or Oman or some other tiny Arabic nation with a better GDP than Europe). This class isn’t too weird, but it does require that I open a twitter account based on my own fictional character and “tweet” from his/her/its perspective.

There's a reasonable amount of reading and writing involved, and I have my normal "housewife" duties to attend. In addition, my first kid is due to be born any week now, so I expect that progress on my own work will be slowed. However, I am looking forward to this bright, bright future, and hope that the class improves my future writing.

Here goes.

*You may be thinking “nuh-uh!” and frantically pointing at some of the big names on the NYT best sellers list that have scored movie deals, but may I gently remind you that 99% of the authors in America are not on that list, and that those people are not being paid because their writing is good. They are being paid because their writing is popular, and “good” is only kissing cousins with “popular.”