I wish I were 4

So my niece is right now at the point where the whole toilet training thing is starting to come together. Which is really good. Tonight, she was so excited about her success for the day that she was running/skipping/trotting/bouncing/crazying around, waving her hands, and shouting "I peed and pooped today! I peed and pooped today!" I wish I were in that place in my life. I can't imagine how blissful my life would be if I were able to count days as successes if I both peed and pooped during them. Maybe I'm just expecting too much out of life? I don't know.

After that downer post from this morning, I got a little bit of the fire in my belly going. I want more from my life. I want it now (Verruca?). But now doesn't seem to be completely realistic. So I want it at the soonest now I can get. My first move was to look around on careerbuilder.com (again). There were several promising looking postings, but they seemed similar to others that I've already applied to with no real positive end for me. But I'll apply anyway. But I started admitting to myself one thing that I was trying to avoid admitting to myself: I probably need to go back to school. . . crap. . . crapcrapcrap. . . So I looked at the graduate programs at MSU, and they've got an MA in Digital Rhetoric and Professional Writing that looks pretty good for me. The website says that the degree is a professional degree and also preps students for PhD programs in Rhetoric and Writing. Sounds good to me. Looks like working toward the degree will give me the opportunity to gain experiences like internships and even publishing that are distinctly lacking from my resume. Cool. The fact that it can feed in to the PhD at MSU is another plus. Looking back on my BA, I've realized that it was mostly the literature classes that burned me out on studying English. I loved my linguistics, rhetoric, composition, editing, and other similar classes. But the lit classes were just so much of the same thing. I loved reading all the different literature. But I hated writing papers about literature because it was always so clear what the professor was looking for from a paper (regurgitation and imitation), and I rarely got the opportunity to express my own opinion instead of an opinion that synced with what the professor expected. . . That last bit probably makes more sense to me than anyone else. Sorry. . . But I loved my classes that emphasized writing and the mechanics of language and what have you. So if I were to get a PhD and maybe even teach someday, it would probably be best for me if it were to be a degree in Grammar and Rhetoric. . . Oh yeah. School would be a good place for me to meet people, especially since I'm now in the mindset of trying to meet people. . .

OK. So here's the plan: I'm going to take the GRE real quick and apply to the program before the May 1 deadline. At the same time, I'm going to keep looking for work. If the work I find seems like a career that I would like to stick with, then I probably won't go back to school. If the work I find involves a nametag or a mop and I get accepted to the MA program, I'll probably go back to school. So that's the plan.

When I got back to my sister's place, my sister told me that one of her friends from work thought I should apply to work for one of the insurance companies in the area that's going to be opening a new branch in the area soon. As my brother's-in-law barber, whose wife works for that same insurance company, had also recommended that I apply there, I feel like I really need to do that.

I was going to tell you the story about how, while I was looking after my niece and nephew, I got to find out where my sister and her husband keep their plunger, but I think I'll maybe leave that for another post.

I'm grateful for the fire in my belly (20).