What is the good life? or, the Adolescent Existential Crisis strikes again
I don't know what I want to do with my life.

Well, I kind of do. I know I want to be an archaeologist, teach at a beautiful and conveniently-located university, work adjunctly at a museum, and write books.

At the same time, I get these strange, antithetical urges to break the rules. The rules that say that a smart, driven Yalie should get ahead -- not necessarily financially or prestigiously, but in terms of maintaining high acheivement goals. It's not that my goals don't sound incredibly fun; it's that they're intense. Every so often, I wonder about my ability -- or anyone's -- to withstand prolonged intensity.

One of these urges is to just have kids (and, I'm finally reconciling with this, getting married) and do a realtively simple job that allows me to spend as much time with them as humanly possible, such as teaching elementary school. Not that teaching is easy, but it's not exactly "publish or perish." Every time I see kid I want one, so I can vicariously enjoy the holidays through him/her. Is that wrong? I don't think so. Just to be at home with them, by the fire, making cookies...the joys of domesticity... WHAT am I saying??

The other urge is just to be a bum and travel around. I mean, who doesn't want to get rid of all their burdensome stuff save what they can stuff in a backpack, and live sub-simply? I watched a film in French class last year about how easy it is to get food without buying or stealing it. Agriculturalists reject so many fruits and vegetables that aren't shaped like the commercial standard, and just leave them in piles or in the fields. Some people even go through garbage cans and find fresh, obviously unspoiled food that restaurants and others have rejected. When I think about it, our consumer society makes me sick, I love traveling, I'm not materialistic, and I love just spending time thinking. I would be the perfect Kerouackian dharma bum. It's so exciting to think about breaking the system and just beeing free and guiltless.

Then again, what would become of my Yale education? We are SO entrenched in our society's expectations. And archaeology is just cool. And so on and so on...


...but still...