to read and to be read

(the things my mind invents when on vacation/shouldn't have waited till i was sober to write)

a few hours ago, i thought it COULD be not only plausible but worthwhile to go back to school after graduation for a BA in english. oh god, i just heard avenue q in my head (what do you do with a BA in english?) we're in south carolina. i'm sitting on our deck drinking with my mom, my aunt patty, and our friend teresa dorsey and i have a book in my hand (ok, a play...red light winter by adam rapp) and teresa notices that i'm rarely without one and says, "why didn't you become an editor or something?" honestly, it's never even crossed my mind. i've always been strictly science as far as school goes, though the arts have oozed out of my every pore whenever i give them the chance.

does every person with a steady, normal person job also have talents on the back burner that do not lend themselves to steady, normal incomes? it's easier to think people just give up on these and that is the thing to do. i know that music is not something i want to study...music is something i can always do and i long ago decided doing music academically would kill it for me. and theatre, that is a love that isn't worth pursuing because i haven't got the natural talent. but literature. why haven't i ever given it a thought? i've been the biggest bookworm i know my entire life. i devour literary works in my free time, ranging from trash to classics (who takes a summer to consume as much drama as possible)? i have an unnatural love for grammar. i know i can write a hell of a paper, and i can fool around with fiction. i love to write almost as much as i love to read, i just make less of a habit of it.

the (sober) pragmatist in me is struggling with this because in all likelihood i wouldn't use the degree. i could tell myself that it's a door to alternate careers should i ever want to change directions in life: editor, critic, even a writer of some kind. but really what i want it for is...just to be educated. to be a little better rounded and cultured. i feel like nursing has filed me down to bare bones critical thinking (my department loves to stamp out all creativity) and i am in danger of developing tunnel vision. what i see when i look at people and things has been quite narrowed. to study great writing would be so different and so good for me...developing the right side of my brain, which is probably weak and pathetic compared to the truman nursing steroid-enhanced left side.

due to tipsy spontaneity (we did tequila shots tonight), i actually looked up truman's requirements for this degree and found that i can complete it in exactly one year. if, of course, i can get all the classes i need in 2 semesters. and yes, it would be truman. it would make the most sense because i have the entire LSP completed. and a nerdy admission: i can partially credit truman's liberal arts philosophy for inspiring this desire to be well rounded. truman, teresa, and tequila...hmm, catchy. in the end...it's only one year. but what i need to find out is if delaying entering the workforce for a year would hurt my chances of getting hired as a pediatric nurse...or if it would make me more interesting and marketable. this is a crazy whim, and i rarely have whims, let alone act on them.

this whim has to do with a question i have posed for myself: is a life worth living without contributing artistically to the world? and a quite different question, is nursing enough for me?