Major issues

Yeah I went. All I can say is this: Manzoku! (Japanese for 'Happiness all the way to the roof'. )

Also, as expected, not much writing this weekend. Today is a holiday, so we'll see...

I just got back from an education conference in Nagoya. I expected to be bored out of my wits. But I actually enjoyed myself. However there were colleges there. And that's a bad, bad thing. Whenever I meet with college reps, I get pulled in a million different directions. See, I don't know what I want.

Or rather, I know exactly what I want. I want to be a writer. But we all know that writing probably won't support me until around my 5th book or so, if ever, and therefore writing is a second job. My problem is that I don't really want to do anything else. How can I pick a day job?

I know I'd love to study. Not entirely because I want to further any particular part of my knowledge. I happen to like school: the culture, the people, the buildings, the library, the clubs, the studying. Yeah, I'm that sort of nerd. And I know I want to be on campus, and not online, after all, see where studying falls on the list.

But I don't know what to study.

The contenders:

MFA/MA Creative Writing/Writing for Children

Pros
-Well, duh. I definitely want to be a writer. MFA can't hurt, especially if I manage to stay out of debt :)

-1, 2, even 3 years dedicated to writing. Just saying it feels like I died and went to heaven.

-Migrating to London or New York, where the 2 residential programs I'm most considering, are.

Cons
-And work where? My mother would give me mounds and mountains of grief for a masters that didn't guarantee me a job. Thankfully she hasn't figured out that the MFA is just that. Yet.

-I'm not really that into any part of publishing other than writing. I hate selling, so agenting isn't for me, and I hate politick-ing so I'll say no to editing as well.

-You don't need a degree to be a writer.

MA Translation/Interpreting
Pros
- I'm well equipped for the task, and the only thing that really stops me from being a translator is that shoe in the door.

-Once again London (and England in general) ROCKS for this degree.

Cons
-Don't need a degree to work in this field

-I only want to translate literary works. I have no desire to spend the rest of my life up to my ears in technical manuals and scientific journals.

MA TEFL/TESOL/Second Language Acuqisition
Pros
-I'm actually really interested in this subject, having gone through the process in various ways myself.

-With an MA qualification in TEFL/TESOL, I'd be welcome at universities in pretty much every non-English country in the world. You know that makes me swoon even more than the thought of meeting Orlando Bloom.

Cons
-I actually prefer teaching my foreign languages to teaching English. There's no challenge in teaching English.

MA French/Spanish/Italian

Did you notice I'm considering Italian? Which I don't have a first degree in, mind you, but which I love, love, love.

Pros
-I love foreign languages and would love to have an opporunity to use them again, besides Japanese of course, which I use more often than English. Apart from blogging.

-Opens the door to teaching French, Spanish or Italian at university. And since pretty much every university in the West teaches on of those, doors will open pretty much every where in the West.

Cons
-I'll probably end up in an English speaking country (yes, I know. That should be a pro, right?)

-I'll have to choose a language. I chose between French and Spanish 15 years ago, and I never want to choose again. My relationship with language is so different: my grasp on French is the best, but I have not desire to live in a French country; I love Spanish culture, but my Spanish is not the best grammatically; I have the strongest desire to be in Italy, but since I've only done a year of conversational Italian, I have like no vocab.

Not much to do with writing, but it was Monday (when I thought this up) and that's what's on my mind.