Trin de Siècle

I have been going back and forth at work on my decision to become a hair assistant versus my decision to stay in the nail area. Honestly, I hate doing nails. It’s not as boring as working in the library was, because there is the whole social element that keeps me going. Still, I hate squinting at people’s dirty hands and feet trying to decide if the nail is actually crooked or if I have another anal, neurotic asshole in my chair (usually it’s the latter; I’m pretty much da’ bomb at filing some nails [rocket science, right?]). However, the pay I would be making as a nail tech is substantially higher than that I would be making as a a hair assistant. Long term is a different story, but the problem is I don’t know what I want to do long-term. Unquestionably I’d like to go back to school. Though, what I want to study isn’t exactly a marketable field and it may behoove me to have a marketable skill in leu of it. 

I continually search craigslist, and I don’t see a high demand for English majors. I don’t foresee a sudden change in that demand should I pop out of school with a MA or PhD (actually, the demand is more likely to decrease). I could teach, but then I’d most likely be adjunct and may still need another source of income. 

I wish I had been more interested in Science or Business. There is a great deal of demand/scholarships/grants/jobs for people with degrees in those fields. Meanwhile, the jobs I find requesting people with an English (or related) degree have been administrative work – good proofreading skills, ability to type, highly organized, etc. I don’t want to be a secretary, even if I could one day rise in the ranks of a business to become sort sort of director. Office work doesn’t exactly frost my cupcakes. 

I have been going back and forth at work, and they have been accommodating and kind, and have yet to gotten visibly annoyed with my alternating whims. However, this will change and I need to make a decision. It is the hardest thing in the world for me to try and think ‘long-term’ or see myself situated in a permanent situation in the future. I am protean; I cannot be limited or I become depressed. But I need to make a decision now.. I need to figure out the next year, and it needs to benefit my plans for the following year. 

This is why my stomach has been so messed up, it knew about this subconscious stress long before it caught up with my mind.

I have been watching a lot of Asian horror lately. It’s alright, but I think I am missing integral parts of the culture to really appreciate what qualifies as horrific. For example, I don’t get if the pallid children with bruised eyes and hair in their faces are something fundamentally loathsome in Asian culture or if it’s just a popular gimmick riding in on the wave of success made by the little creepy girl in The Ring  (though I lean towards assuming the latter).  Furthermore, I get confused by the ghosts themselves, and that, I believe, stems from a cultural difference. 

I am thinking I will watch The Maid tonight. Perhaps through watching enough movies, I will become enlightened as to the answers to my questions. 

(I have felt blocked in terms of writing anything personal about school/work/relationships. In part I don’t feel as though anything I am doing is important enough to document, all my plans are still formative and, given my fickle nature, prone to change at any moment, also I have felt uninspired. I am meeting with my mentor [at least the professor who I consider my mentor, though he probably doesn't know it] hopefully sometime this week, and perhaps he can help me out with figuring out school/work/things.)