I just want to DO something with my life

I need to change.

I like what I do for a living. It's fun. It (mostly) pays the bills. The people are pretty great.

I don't feel fullfilled anymore though. I feel like I'm just muddling through, doing the work. I'm not accomplishing anything. Increasingly, I feel as though I should be doing something that has impact. I should be living a useful life. I should be helping people, or changing things. Perhaps I should just sell everything I own and join the Peace Corps.

Except that the Peace Corps doesn't want me. Remeber that college degree I set out for? I got distracted by the lure of work in my field and I have't much regretted that. I finished three years of college, and I got out of it what I wanted - good training and experience that helped me get an apprenticeship in technical theatre. Since then, I've been working continuously in a field where it seems like all jobs are transient. I can't complain. But it's hard to switch careers (assuming I can think of something I want to do) without a degree.

I thought about going back to school in VA, get a job at the nifty performing arts center there at CNU, spend a few years there doing the part time student thing. I just don't really want to move back to VA. There were, I thought, two good reasons to return there to finish. One, the director of the theatre department would be very helpful in getting me credit for lessons learned elsewhere (for example, he doesn't think that I really need to sit Lighting Design II since I've designed professionally) and two, going to school in VA seemed like it would be a cheaper prospect than going to school in NY.

Those advantages aren't what they used to be. I don't really want the theatre degree, unless perhaps it becomes an arts administration degree - for the technical applications, my work experience is far more importaint. So the additional credits for life experience at CNU are only useful insofar as they get me closer to graduation, with a degree I don't really want anymore. (Dave points out, accurately enough, that if I finished that, I could go to grad school in something totally different.) It turns out also that in-state tuition at CNU (I've been faithfully paying income taxes to VA while on tour and in random other places for that status) is almost twice as expensive as in-state tuition at CUNY. I should apply to City College and see what transfers. Especially if we're going to move to upstate Manhattan next year!

Problem is, I don't know what I want to be when I grow up. I always thought I would have that sorted by now!