This color scheme is a visual weapon. Believe it. We should go and paint this shit on the walls of Iraqi office buildings. Well, the ones we haven't already leveled with carpet-bombing.

Anyway. My friend James should have the pictures from the photo shoot developed by the first week in March. Then I can put of the obligatory art-fag photos of me lurking around this crazy apartment building above a pawn shop here in town. It's a pretty wild place. It's rented out by a guy whose name is Marvin Martian. (Really... it's in the phone book.) He rents the apartments out excluisively to artists, a lot of whom don't actually live there, but come to use it as their studios. As such, it's been "modified" extensively by tenants past and present. Murals and paintings on every wall, statues tucked in corners, ceilings packed end to end with postcards... it's quite the place. Lots of photo opportunities, too.

Moving on. My good friend Christian was here in town yesterday. It was good to see him. He's doing law-enforcement training in Helena, regaling us with gleeful stories of getting pepper spray in the face and hitting people with plexiglass riot shields and what-not. There's no one else quite like Christian. He truly is a modern-day Conan.

Being that I have too much free time on my hands this semester, I've had plenty of hours to worry about the future. It's times like this I remember why I felt a certain hidden relief at burying myself in school stress. Having a rapidly approaching term paper deadline or final cramming session lets you forget about the structureless vacuum of Making Your Own Way in Life that lies in wait. And, of course, by the time I do graduate, I'll be nigh on to 30. I think that's about the time they STOP hiring you, isn't it? What's the average age of the id software programmer? 21? Oh yeah. I've got a chance.

This is, of course, meaningless pessimism. Why don't I put on some black clothes and write bad poetry, for Christ's sake? Where's my Sisters of Mercy albums?

Ace has told me that he could get me a job in D.C. right now, doing what he's doing, if I wanted it. There is a part of me that wants to drop out of this school bullshit and go start right now. Avoid the whole anxiety. I would be making decent money, doing something I want to do, and it would be experience. Experience that doesn't involve chopping celery into boxes. And hell, if that phone-demolishing maniac can get a job, I sure can. (Just kidding, Ace, I love you, man.)

My problem is direction. It's not that I don't have any. It's that I have more than one, and they're contradictory. For ninety percent of my college career, I've wanted to be a history professor -- to be the history teacher that isn't boring (or isn't a frigging football coach), the one who makes the difference in some kid's life. My English teacher, Mrs. Winterburn, did that for me back at HHS in 1989, so why shouldn't I do the same, right? And it is something I want to do.

But, of course, there is the matter of my seriously deteriorated GPA, which I may or may not be able to salvage by graduation. It's nasty. It's bad. Sophomore year I was on the dean's list, for Christ's sake; now I'm scraping over the top of academic suspension. Hoo-a! I can fix it, in one intersession, but I still don't like it. Neither do I like the apathy that overcomes me sometimes, in regards to school. Maybe it's just been too long. Too much academia. Not enough discipline.

Then comes this whole technological angle. I'm not so dippy and naive that I think my thimbleful of experience and skill is going to land me somewhere at Bell Labs next month or something, but the fact remains, I have reaped pretty enormous bounty in a short amount of time. It's addicting. It's compelling. I want more. I could get a real job. Well, real compared to what I've been doing, anyway. It's pretty tempting to just forget those grad school years and hike to greener pastures. My own advisor practically told me to, for crying out loud.

Misty took me up on this yesterday, when she told me I needed to find out for myself which direction I wanted to go. This is true. I'm still sitting on the fence, and my time grows short.

The biggest difficulty is, my reasons for wanting to go into each field are so different. My ambition to teach is personal, emotional, but not always practical -- often I wonder if it is just a daydream I don't have the discipline, intelligence, or academic skill to bring to fruition. The computer biz has the lure of quick and dirty cash -- a strong lure, given the support I got from certain among my family members when I told them I was majoring in history. ("History? Shit, that won't make you any money. Why don't you learn to do them there computers? Everybody's got one of those, BIG money!")

But will it be satisfying? Do I WANT to be a cubicle rat? Well, who does? Computers have no soul. They're silicon and plastic. They don't grow, they don't learn, they don't really do anything but what you tell them to. Okay, so this can be applied to college students, too, but dammit, I'm trying to make a point here!!!!

Yeah, yeah, I know. Shit or get off the pot.

Well, the hell with it. I'm grabbing my Winchester and headed for the book depository. See you all tomorrow.

D.

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