A departure into the semi-philosophical

I'm not sure what to do with my life. As of your Sophomore year of college you're supposed to havea pretty good idea where you're going in your studies and career pursuits, which I thought I did. Then the gods and godesses or perhaps just the Nameless Malicious Forces That Be decided once more to give me special attention and mess with me just for the hell of it. Now that I'm in recovery mode, I'm not so sure I want to try to get back on and continue in the direction I was headed.

I hate college. Really, I do. Classes almost invariably feel like a waste of time as dozens of braindead students lock themselves before the flapping mouths of their professors, ingesting the material only to spit it back out on command. There is one acceptable way to learn, one acceptable truth to memorize. College does not accomodate diversionary thinking. Hell, learning is its own flunking religion in this way: one path, one way to believe, blind memorization and acceptance of pre-established theories. The only difference is whether one accepts reason or spirituality as the ultimate guiding force.

The worst part of college study is the grading system. That's what locks students into the right way, wrong way thinking, since if you don't answer with the material desired or the manner proscribed, it's unacceptable. You're forced to abandon independent thought for the sake of impressive grades.

It's a big part of why I was such an awful student, to be honest... I'm afraid I'm rather an impossible person if you want to force me to conform. Damn the chains of religion and the educational system! I shall break them with my wildly rebellious, nonconformist self! (Haha.) I got into more than one quite literal verbal battle with my teachers, even in the midst of their lectures. (Anyone remember my child psychology professor? Or the time we had a guest speaker in my Deprivation of Liberty course?) If I disagreed with the material and the answer I was supposed to supply on the test, I would put my own answer. Sometimes even a snarky comment about how the right answer would be x but here's why I think it's incorrect or incomplete.

Don't get me wrong, though. I adore studying. It's the college system that I reject. For the reason of curriculum I loved studying at a university! It provided me with the resources, direction, and motivation to keep learning. I do a lot of this on my own, true, but not as intensively. I flourished in the college environment and delighted in the abundant resources. I loved being able to approach certain teachers outside the class environment with my thoughts, opinions, questions, conflicts. (Notable awesomes: Professor Reichler, to whom I'll forever be indebted, Professor Mastrangelo, Professor Middents, and Dr Gillespie who actually managed to get me to appreciate the value of literary interpretation as well as authorship.) If I could stay in that scholarly environment forever, all expenses paid, I'd probably do it.

....Where am I going. Jeez. Okay.

I love learning, education, scholarly pursuit. I hate college for its pointless busy work (COUGH, PROFESSOR FREAKING THOMAS, COUGH) and narrow-mindedness (GOD I HATE YOU PROFESSOR THOMAS. I don't know what I want to do with my life.

I'm actually happier right now in my menial job as a cashier and baker at the Cheesecake Factory than I was pursuing a career in psychology. I like a job which doesn't over-tax me and allows me time to think, write, read, and pursue learning on my own. I like to have a job in which I have fun. I seriously don't think I'd be happy as something important, a psychologist or doctor or researcher.

Then the problem comes in. Do I seriously want to keep working these unimportant, going nowhere jobs just because I enjoy them? Do I want to let myself be a nobody forever?

Or... Will keeping these pay-the-bills jobs give me time to become someone on my own? Will I have the dilligence and talent it takes to make it out there, do something, go somewhere without the rigidity of college?

I know that I want to write. Every experience feels like, and is, just a new way to gather material. But am I ever going to USE it? The only thing I ever write is this damn blog. I don't have a growing collection of MS Word documents, unfinished or even barely begun novels, nothing to show for all the things I say I mean to write. For that matter, I can't even think up any plot ideas. The only crap I can think to write about is my own life. Blah blah blah, whine whine whine.

SIGH. So that's my dilemma. College, grad school, doctorate and career or random jobs and endless blog entries?