The heart wants what it wants
There's a line in When Harry Met Sally that goes, "When you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible." I've been feeling that way lately (about my career, not my marriage). As a Myers-Briggs ENTP (emphasis here on the P), I've been happy to leave my vocational future somewhat fuzzy over the last few years, since Sarah will be in school for the forseeable future. However, some recent conversations have made me rethink that. Some of it is the fact that I've now hit 30. That's still relatively young, but it may be another five years until I take the next career step if I wait until Sarah gets done. And then I'm in my early 40s when I'm looking for a job. Again, fairly young, but almost half my professional life (God willing) will be over by that point. On a bright Tuesday afternoon back in April, Sarah and I took a stroll around the state fairgrounds (close to the St. Paul campus) and talked about this. She said at one point (and I'm paraphrasing here), "Screw it! Let's just do it now."
Now on one level the reader will observe how this is purely financial insanity. If I were to go back to school and take an assistantship, I would be earning approximately 1/4 of my current income. We have a house and daycare to pay for, and we're not even currently quite even with all our expenses. Yet at the same time, to borrow Wesley's phrase, my "heart was warmed" with the idea. While I love my job, the idea of moving on, becoming a student again, suddenly seemed a much brighter future. Teaching writing has been a job I fell into--it's what someone with a Master's in English does in higher education. Here was something better
Couple that with a realization that the passion I'd like to pursue has recently come into clearer focus. I enjoyed teaching a class this spring that focused on my neighborhood of north Minneapolis. I realized that much of the teaching I found myself doing was basically urban sociology--understanding the social dynamics that create poor urban areas. Here at the U of M, I've discovered that the Geography Department (motto: "We don't just make maps!!") actually has several faculty who have this as a research interest. It's one of the top five depts. across the country, making it a unique opportunity. The would-be physicist of my younger years also fell in love with the idea of using numbers again and with the technology systems I'd get some exposure to as well (think "GPS gone wild"). One grad student is even writing a novel as their dissertation, which shows how broad a field it is.
So that's where I'm at. Funding is a big issue. Having two people in grad school is not the recipe for a relaxed household. Yet at the same time, by 2012 (when Micah turns 9 and I'm still in my 30s), we'd both be done with school and hopefully working productive lives, available for our kid(s) as they turn old enough to hate us. Yet, as Harry said, the lure of finally seeing the promised land for what it is is hard to resist. Idealism or practicality? That is the question.