I Just Want to Know...

Why did I get this education? 4 years of my life, over $20,000, sleepless nights and endless days... for what? The first job I got out of college was at a storage facility. Hans worked as a security guard at a juvenile detention center. How messed up is that? And why can't we get decent-paying jobs and health care in our own country? Something is severely lacking in an economy that can't support it's own citizens, and forces them to move to other countries for work.

Hans thinks a Bachelors Degree is the new high school diploma. It's hard to get a decent job without a Masters - at least in our fields of study. Then WHY did I spend so much time and energy getting the dang thing? Education has become as inflated as prices! It's value has become so eroded that we need more and more of it to get anywhere in life.

Now, I'm not complaining about the need for more education. I love school. I love stimulating my mind, pushing my limits, and expanding my perceptions of the world. I think even if education weren't inflated, I'd probably still want to go to grad school. I just hate that 4 years of hard study doesn't amount to anything these days.

So, what do I want to study? I could go back to school for music.

Pros: 20 years of study under my belt
Hundreds of dollars spent on sheet music already
It's a skill I want to teach my children
It's what I love
I can teach private lessons anywhere

Cons: I'm not good enough for a career in performance
A performance career isn't conducive to family life
A music degree isn't very transferable into other occupations
Accompanists are expensive
I haven't sung or played in over a year, and I am badly out of shape.

I could go back for math.

Pros: I enjoy math. I think I'm good at it.
There are lots of accounting jobs out there
Music is very mathematical

Cons: Math is not my passion
I would have a loooooooot of catching up to do
Who wants to be an accountant??
Why am I talking about music in the math category???

I could go back for Applied Linguistics.

Pros: I have a background in teaching ESL
I have a background in diction and phonetics
It's a good degree to have when you're traveling around the world
It might better our chances of landing a job in Europe, where I could REALLY study music

Cons: Don't know much about the program
Don't speak any foreign languages fluently
Don't know if it's practical for jobs within the US
There I go talking about music again.....

Yeah, I think it's obvious what I want to do. I just can't justify doing it. It's expensive, time consuming, and I don't know how beneficial it would be to anyone but myself. I REALLY want to be selfish in my education, but I just can't be. Music isn't something I can study online, nor is it something I can study in Japanese (not that I'd want to - Japanese singers are appalling!). I also don't know if I have the confidence I need to go through with it. I am truly stuck.

(P.S. Yes, I went back and censored this blog. I realize I might have shocked some of my more sensitive readers. That was not my objective. Sorry, guys.)