Robot Monkeys

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?

For the past two weeks I’ve found myself contemplating a getting a job. A quick cursorary look in the Southern Illinoisan confirmed what I already knew. There isn’t much demand for programmers in SI. While I could easily gain employment in Saint Louis, I don’t feel like moving or commuting there. Also without copious amounts of bandwidth telecommuting isn’t an option. (Also I have serious doubts about whether I would actually work if I worked from home.)

There’s a lot of want ads for RNs and school teachers. My advanced medical knowledge is limited to the ability to fake my way through CPR, so the RN job is out. While I’m reasonably confident that I could teach eighth grade math and/or science, I do not possess the proper certification, and I’m pretty sure that getting certified involves alot more than simply showing up at the Superintendent of Schools’s office with $50 and 2 hours of free time and leaving with a type <letter><number> certificate, so that’s out.

What I’m looking for isn’t so much something to do, but somewhere to go and get money in return. (No, the unemployment office doesn’t count. I already had this discussion about whether I should draw unemployment with my parents. I argued that I shouldn’t, because it’s not that I can’t find work, it’s just that I won’t.)

Tonight I was bored, so I decided that I’d go to Longbranch and drink a cafe mocha. (In fact I’m drinking another one now in my kitchen at home. If you’re wondering who drinks that Folger’s cafe mocha stuff, wonder no more, it’s me. If I felt like justifying it I’d say something like: “My parents don’t own a coffee machine, let alone a coffee pot. All they drink is Folger’s, so I’m stuck with this.”, but I don’t. Instead, I’ll just say: “I bought it tonight. I drank it. It doesn’t taste that much different from the real one I had earlier tonight.”) While I was there I decided that the guy behind the counter had a kickass job. He sits on a stool. Talks to his friends. Occasionally pours a cup of joe, and passively (or actively) smokes, all the while getting paid $5.15 an hour. No pressure. Only negligible amount asked of you. Pretty good. In fact quite possibly the ideal job. Well, I wouldn’t want to be sitting there at 42, unless of course I owned the coffeeshouse, so I guess it’s only a locally optimum solution.

I also found myself thinking about getting a degree in comparitive linguistics. Afterall I’ve been thinking about writing off and on for about the past 18 months. (I decided that I don’t care about learning a language, as much as I care about learning how a language works.) So what can you do with a degree in linguistics, you ask? Well I believe that with, SIU’s Linuguistics department said it best. In other words: “It’s just like any other liberal arts degree. Not much, besides teach it.”

And as I sat there drinking from my incomprehenably wide mug, trying to come up with other minimum wage jobs that require almost no effort and weren’t somehow uncool, and contemplating getting a liberal arts degree, I came to the realization that I am a slacker.

I don’t work. I don’t look for a job. While I wouldn’t necessarily mind drawing a pay check, my set of acceptable jobs right now is so comically small I insure unemployment. Basically it’s coffeshop guy. I thought about mailman (or more generally, “Package Delivery Guy”), but then discarded it since they’d want me to go places and deliver stuff, or at the very least move stuff on and off trucks. That’s more work than I want to put in.

I’m a slacker; and you know what? I’m cool with that.