The Purgatory Called "Academia"

"You've got a lot of choices. If getting out of bed in the morning is a chore and you're not smiling on a regular basis, try another choice." -Steven D Woodhull

That, my friends, is easier said than done.

 

For the first time in my life I am absolutely sure of what I want to do. I even have a pretty good idea of how I want to do it.  I want to write. 

Now, I know you may be thinking, "Nicole, you're blog is relatively entertaining, but honey, my dear precious (pitiful) little friend, you're not that good." 

Well, I wouldn't blame you for thinking that, but I have something to say in my defense:  I'm actually an awesome writer. 

Toot! Toot! (yes that was me on my own horn of fabulousness.)

This blog is my lazy, don't think twice about what I just wrote, cry for general attention, writing. My actual writing is pretty impressive. 

Like some of you have observed from following me on Facebook or reading this blog, I'm currently harboring the hope of going to Northern Ireland to work in the peace and justice field, while collecting as many Irish/British stories of political unrest and religious warfare.  (If you want to help me out with that, click here or talk to me for non-taxed options.) 

I want to write about these people's lives, I want their stories told, I tire of the UN covering up the reality for people in places like Northern Ireland or Sri Lanka who deal with civil "unrest" *cough* *cough* *war* *cough* *cough* (excuse me! [pound on chest for dramatics]).  And if journalists won't tell the truth, then who will?

And on top of all this, I'm in a couple writing classes with an award-winning journalist as my professor, and according to him I am "one of the most emotional voices" he has ever read and that I "need to do this profession more so than anyone else" from my generation he has met. 

Talk about the best compliment of my life. 

Toot! Toot! (Yep, there it goes again. Sometimes I can't control it.)

Problem is, I get bored. Talk about trait of the trade. I'm bored of where I am. I'm bored of what I'm doing. I don't wake up with enthusiasm and smile my way through life anymore. I feel like I'm walking around like a zombie (without even an appetite for brains). And as much as I'd like to just "make another choice" and just take off, it's never really that simple is it?

I have to graduate. Not so much for me, because I don't need a degree for what I want to do, but for my parents who've put up with my nonsense since the day I was born, and for my Grandpa B who told me that the last thing he wants to do before he dies is see me in a cap and gown (talk about pressure).

I guess I'm just complaining about my first world white girl problems. But seriously people. 

Wouldn't it be amazing if we really could just be those fictional people who just go for whatever they want and for whomever they want? In a world with no negative outcomes (especially those that affect other people) I probably would. 

But in the meantime, I guess I'll just write my seemingly never-ending MLA-formatted  research papers about the visual rhetoric of the "usual suspect" and death in the media, and plug away at meaningless mathematic equations, so that my grandfather can die in peace.

Questions? Comments? Concerns? Anything?