How Hard Could Life Planning Be?

That is the question I have asked myself for over a year.  How depressing.   Good thing I may be locating the light at the end of the tunnel; at least the end of the thought tunnel, not the actual plan tunnel.  I guess I should say it is very depressing that it took me over a year to even come to an idea of what I would like to do with my life.  So what is this big plan that I have come up with for my life? (I enjoy thinking other people have any interest in my thoughts!)

A career in International Relations.

I know that is fairly vague considering there are many different areas that you can use an IR degree.  I’ve been leaning and focusing my studies on the Middle East in hopes that by the time I am prepared to go into the business, the Middle East will still be a hotbed for International Relations.  Obviously that is hardly something to worry about considering the Middle East has been a mess for years.  Everything I am doing to prepare for this right now is on my own time.  I haven’t registered for schools or any thing of that nature for a multitude of reasons.

1. I didn’t do all that great in high school;  it wasn’t because I couldn’t but more along the lines of just not wanting to.  I have always had issue with busy work and school is the epitome of busy work.  Rarely are you taught something that you actually want to learn.  Gaining acceptance into University will take some preparation on my part and hopefully I can manage to learn enough to slip in.
2. General dislike of College.  I’m all for learning, however I enjoy learning on my own terms as opposed to someone dictating what I should and should not be studying.  The idea of being back in school and having to do work that has nothing to do with what I want to do with my life frustrates me.
3. This is more of an issue towards my choice of International Relations.  Obviously there will be a lot of communications classes for such a major and I’ve always had issue with these sorts of things.  I am not a public speaker.  When I was younger I had a speech impediment called ankyloglossia or tongue tie.  I still have issues once and awhile and I absolutely hate the way I talk because of it.  It is just one of those dumb psychological things that is caused by stupid childhood happenings, but it still bothers me.  I could get a very easy and quick surgery to fix it, but it may or may not even help at this point.  This issue brings up lots of problems considering I find it almost impossible to give any sort of public speech.  I guess this is one of those things I’ll really have to work on and maybe even see a speech therapist about.

Just a few things I have to deal with on my road to the world of government affairs.  It’s ok though, I have plenty of things to keep me busy while I work on all those issues.  Currently I am studying European history, where I had a friend of a friend who goes to Harvard get me a syllabus for a class taught by Steven Ozment.  The class is on the Reformation era and thus far is very intriguing.  I’ve always had a major interest in religion and its effects on humanity, and there is really no time more interesting in the scheme of religion than the Reformation.  As for my Middle East research, I figure I will follow up with that after I cover a good amount of European history.  I am currently learning Farsi on my own, and have the necessary learning tools for Arabic after or with Farsi.  I figure if I become semi fluent in a language such as Farsi, my chances for acceptence into an International Relations program will be greatly increased.  It took me a year to figure out what I wanted, but I have a feeling that a year will be nothing in comparison to the time it will take me to actually make it into the field of International Relations.

~ by funafuti on November 19, 2008.