Here at the new-and-digressed [as was so gleefully pointed out by many readers yesterday] Archives of Our Lives, a lot of things have changed {for the worse, evidently}.  One thing that has not changed is the fact that every Thursday almost like clockwork, I will be posting an answer to one question from one reader, asked previously {by email or comment}.

If you are new to this website [that would include everyone, inasmuch as even I am new to this website] and have been able to stomach the hideous colours, insufferable font, tiny print, annoying comment features, and everything else that makes you hate me (indirectly, via my blog), then…welcome.

This is the first question I will answer on the new-and-reduced Archives of Our Lives.  Enjoy [though you probably won’t, all things considered].

Q [from Anonymous]:  Why, oh why, are you going into the field of museum whatever when you are so obviously talented in writing. It makes absolutely no sense at all to me. I am baffled, seriously baffled. I mean how can you even get a job in museum whatever where you live? You can write anywhere.

A [from me]:  Hi, Anonymous!  Who are you?  That’s a good question, and one I’ve taken pause to ask myself over the past month.  Well, good news: I’m not.  Not anymore, that is.  I have forsaken the one subject in college which actually appealed to me (art history) and changed over to English.  It’s almost official–I’m just waiting on word from Satan Admissions that the deal is done.

All my life I have heard “Don’t choose a career based on money–do what you love, and the money will follow…or else it won’t, but at least you’ll love your life.”

And today, I am taking that advice and shoving it down the toilet, along with all my dreams of being a curator for the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.  Sewage, all of it.

Fact: I live in rural-ish Canada now.  Fact: My neighbors are farmers.  Fact: They hate museums.  (Okay, the last two may have been generalisations, but it got the point across.)  There is one decent museum within the range that I would be willing to commute every day, and there are only a handful of paid positions available there.  Who knows when one of those positions will become available?  Not I.  Furthermore, in these times of economic difficulty that are supposedly taking over the world, museums and culture will be the first to go.

With a degree in English, I will be the one writing about how sad it is to see them go.

Quite frankly, if I ever intend to become a working member of society, I would rather do it from the comfort of my own home with my laptop, than flipping burgers at the A&W™, which is where a degree in Museum Studies would get me now {though burger flippers make $15.00 an hour up here}. With a degree in English, my options are more on the broad side of unemployed.

Do I feel like I’m selling out?  Yes.  Absolutely I do.  Do I feel empty–hollow–inside?  Ummm…yes.  Did I vomit in my mouth, swallow it, and gag again on the taste when I looked at the course list I’ll be enduring for the next infinitismal (infinitely dismal, see) semesters?  All that Shakespeare?  All those research papers?  All the poems? Yes, I vomit.  Am I doing it anyway?  Yes.

Happy?

Share this post: on Twitter on Facebook on Google+