"Living the dream" versus actually attempting to live it

They should have known better than to let me have like 8 days without working.  Or has it been 9?  Eh, it's been a while.

I have grown so accustomed to my new post-low-wage-slave-labor life that I have almost forgotten that I am still chained down, for a little bit longer.  Here's to hoping that I do get that tutoring position so I can do something of social value.  Helping people succeed in school.  Sometimes school can be daunting, and it's good to have a mentor to help guide the way through it all.  I would be good at that, and I definitely have knowledge in the subject of English.

With my master's degree I will be able to teach freshman college comp level classes and classes at community colleges and probably technical schools too.  Or be a full-time tutor.  Or writing or editing gigs.  Really, there are a lot of possibilities.

My goal is to go on and get my Ph.D. in English Lit.  I want to teach like modern British and American Lit courses.  I think it would also be cool to have a Kurt Vonnegut class or a subversive lit class, or something along those lines.  It would consist of Melville, Orwell, Huxley, Vonnegut, Bradbury, maybe Philip K. Dick, Hunter S. Thompson.  I don't know.  I would have to do more reading and analyzing.

I am taking a Melville class next semester, which I am excited about.  I am also taking Chaucer, which I have read, in Middle and Modern English, and can take or leave, even though I know it's important.  I have even read a Saint's Tale by Chaucer.  Finally, I am taking my first Shakespeare course.  I don't know how I avoided it in my undergrad, even though they covered ol' Bill in my one survey course with Dr. Berardinelli -- but he only covered the Sonnets.  It's nerdy, I know, but I will finally get to put my Complete Works to use.

In fact, depending on what the Melville course covers, I already Billy Budd and The Piazza Tales, Moby Dick and Israel Potter.  I might have to buy one or two more, and possibly the Chaucer, although I definitely have The Canterbury Tales in middle English in my Norton Edition.  I don't know what else the class will cover.  The Canterbury Tales is by far Chaucer's most significant contribution to English Literature, so whatever else it covers will be secondary.

This semester has definitely been useful, I will definitely use my new knowledge of linguistics and sociolinguistics to use.  I am doing a paper on the effects of present tense in Rabbit, Run, I'm doing a paper on social media literacy, and I'm doing a paper on lexical ambiguity in sex slang.  And I am going to apply to a conference with my Havelok the Dane paper.

Without having to work for my corporate slave driver, I would be able to focus even more on my career path.  That's why I need to get a job in my field, a part-time one, even if it is not with Akron.  Somewhere.  Maybe at a library.  Or -- the dream -- a writing job.  I would write about anything.  Just saying.

No matter what, no more "living the dream"at work, where, even on a basic level, I could actually be living it.  I do, after all, have a bachelor's degree.