I just applied to UBC! So yeah, I have considered it for a while, a few months I guess and I just took the action that will preciptate change. While I don’t need to decide yet, I am considering studying phychology. It was either that or philosophy, and I think psych is more useful and practical. It’s strange, cause I have no career goal or expectation going in to this. My motivation for going back to university is one of personal gain. I have been thinking about growing old lately. I don’t want to be 40 and look back and have not accomplished this. Getting a degree is just an important thing to me that I need to remind myself that I am not a scumbag, that I can achieve great things and that I am an intelligent, thinking being. I need it to validate my existence. I expect that graduating with a BA will not really expand my career opportunities. I think careers are hard to come by no matter what. But what I will have when I graduate is knowing that I put the time and effort in to getting something and learning a great deal about a subject. After that I can still do whatever it is I want.
There is some apprehension as I write this, thinking about the future. 2010 Olympics mean a great deal of work in the trades up until then, the next four years. Right now is such a good time to get in to the trades in BC. Work is abundant and pays relatively well. Carpenter helpers and framers are making $20 under the table. But here’s the thing, while that path would guarantee me money and employment stabilty for the next few years, I would have to live everyday with the fact that I am the same as those dudes I see hammering nails and lifting wood on every constuction site I see, and have to live with the fact that I don’t have a BA and haven’t studied psych. I just want to know that I still have a brain. I don’t want to be my worst nightmare – a 40 year old living in with a mortgage on a shitty home out in the ‘burbs married to some whench, with a bunch of responsibilites aged 8-12, and my life consisting of hammering nails every day and going to AA meetings that remind me that I’m genetically defective and socialy inept. That life sounds like suicide, and it is not my picture of a healthy, comfortable life.
When I was in treatment I met a bunch of people. Some of them were young but many were older, of all ages. This was when I really starting talking to people that were 45+ other than my parents and feeling comfortable about it – seeing them as ordinary people like me. Well, I met this old guy named Sam. He must have been 65. He was in there for heavy drinking that nearly killed him and destroyed his home life. He was president of this company specializing in marine radar systems. He did very well for himself and had a nice home in Sydney (the Victoria one, not the Australia one). I talked with him a lot and we became good friends. We were on our daily walks one day, a few days before he was to be discharged and we were talking like friends do. He said something to me that I still remember.
He said, “Nick, you’re so young. So young. You are so immensely lucky to have the rest of your life ahead of you.”
Curious, I asked him if he could give one piece of wisdom to someone my age on how to have a good life, what would it be.
He said, “Go to university. Get a degree. It doesn’t matter in what. All that matters is that you get a degree. I never did, and I still regret it to this day. It expands you, makes you a fuller person, and a more aware member of the world.”
I really appreciated his response evidently, cause I don’t usually remember anything, and we had that conversation over two years ago.
I have only applied. I may not even get in, but I think it is likely that I will be accepted. My first program choice was the Bachelor of Arts. I had to pick a second choice program, and the only other thing that looked remotely interesting was a Bachelor of Fine Arts in which I selected a Major in Creative Writing. So if I don’t get in to the BA progam, i may still be accepted in the BFA program, which I would not really be so in to, but i had to have a second choice.
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