Ambition

I've never been an ambitious person. I had one dream growing up, I wanted to go to UC Berkeley. That, as it turns out, was a fail. Sometime in the near future I will be applying to schools again, this time as a Graduate student looking to further my studies in linguistics. No doubt, Berkeley will be one of the schools I apply to, even if my chances for getting in are slim. I won't fool myself this time, my grades aren't great and my connections are even worse. I'm completely unimpressive.

But I love this shit. Ling is something I don't really tire of. For some reason I have this strange desire to know what language really is. A great deal of people, all vastly more clever than me, have made a great deal of progress explaining this, but their theories, all of them, contain numerous holes. And it's exciting to me, knowing there is so much out there I can still learn about, so much that I could potentially explain to the rest of the community.

I want to go to grad school, I want to get published in a linguistic journal, I want to produce works (PLURAL) that will make people think or look at things in a new way. And I want that goddamn phd. I used to dream about these things, wondering what it would be like. Not anymore, I want to do them. I can't really see myself doing anything else at this point, I've been trained to do nothing of any value in college, I mean I look at vast lists of words and note interesting things about them...how the fuck is that going to get me a job.

So I'm writing this to convince myself, finally, that my future is in academics. It is in research, and more school, and there really isn't any way around it. I won't ever be part of the elite, I won't ever be very distinguished even in my field, but if I can get paid to keep looking at words and noting interesting patterns it will be worth it. If I can get the things I enjoy published it will be worth it. I love this shit. And if I love it there must be someone out there who will enjoy my work too. If I can contribute in a small way like that, hell, that will be more than enough.