A couple of days ago I got mailed a flier from the univ advertising that they have some “spend a month in Macau” thing for over the summer.
Interesting. Of course In Macau they speak Cantonese and I’ve been learning Mandarin, so what little spoken words I remember would be nigh-useless. Oh and since they were a Portugese colony, they speak Portugese. So basically it’s like Hong Kong, but will even more of a language problem and with much less cachet. Then again I have a passport that I haven’t used, and what else an I’m doing this summer?
So I figured I’d find out what was up with this deally. (The deadline is the
5th.) At the very least it would be interesting to see how they answered the language question.
That was until today.
Today I was offered a research assistantship for over the summer. Basically
I’d get paid to hack some lisp (most likely this thing) and oh yeah get tuition paid for.
Not a bad gig.
That is if you want to get a degree in CS.
I’m questioning why I even got into CS, and what would be the point in going on. (Note, this really isn’t that recent of a phenomena. I’ve been doing that consciously or unconsciously ever since I got depressed at (M).)
I shoved myself into engineering since I was brainwashed (willingly I might add) into taking every math and science course growing up. Not that that’s a bad thing. The science was definatly the most interesting thing growing up, and math was the tool you had know.
I took EE because I was told “You can get a job in EE.”. I bounced my way over to CS, since it was easy. Then I got caught up into that whole geek-power thing. Basically, I did CS for social reasons. I questioned whether it was something I wanted to do sometime around my sophmore or junior year, but ended up staying in it. I don’t know why. I guess because I thought it was kind of expected. You get a degree. You get a job. By then I had so much invested in it, I felt like I couldn’t switch. And even if I wanted to, I had no idea what to switch to, so I stayed. By the middle of my junior year I realized I had no goal beyond graduation. I figured something would come up with something. Maybe getting a job was the answer. I didn’t. It wasn’t. In fact the main reason I got a job was because it was expected, and hell I hadn’t applied to grad school anywere, and I figured spending some time with The Man would at least be some sort of education. (It was.)
I realized fairly quickly that working for The Man really wasn’t anything I liked. Why not? It was boring as hell.
I figure the intersection of corprate jobs and interesting stuff is near null. Couple that with the fact that I tend to lose interest after awhile, I figure that my personality pretty much leads me to a small cottage in the realm of Academia.
Of my 3 classes. I’m bored to death in advAI. Just merely “Yeah. This is stuff that’s good to know, but not really interesting.” in advOS. In Zhongwen I’m actually stimulated. I like seeing how you have to convert from one gramatical construction before you can translate. (ie “My [older] brother isn’t as tall as me.” becomes “My [older] brother doesn’t have my tallness.” (Wo gege mei you wo de gao.)) So I’ve been considering studying linguistics.
Sure you’re doomed to academia with an advanced degree in Applied Linguistcs. (First through your initiation as a PhD canidate and then later as a prof), but as I said before, I figure I’m going to end up there eventually.
I’ve thought about hedging my bets by getting a double masters. One in CS and the other in linguistics, but I thought “What’s the point? Why are you even bothering with a degree in CS?” To tell you the truth, I don’t know. I guess because I thought I’ve invested this much already, might as well go on; but that’s a lousy reason.
I have no direction in my life.
I have no meaning in my life.
If there was gold to dig, a railroad to lay, a pipeline to build, or something else equally monolithic, I’d be seriously tempted to go. At least it would be something to take part in. Even then, I’d just be avoiding finding direction and meaning wouldn’t I?
I’m so weary of being bored, of being unmotivated, of simply existing rather than actually living.
I know I’m not the first person to wrestle with this. Hell I even thought about reading On the Road. I flipped though it and read about Keraouc and decided his answer couldn’t be my answer. I even expect his answer(s) to either piss me off, or just come off as seriously lame. And isn’t that how it should be?