Things have been quiet, and I’m still trying to put my finger on way. Perhaps it’s the weather — after three perfect spring days, I awoke this morning to sound of car tires on wet pavement and an even coating of snow of ground. I rode home yesterday in a t-shirt and pants, and now, the temperature is hovering in the 20s. But I won’t use the weather as an easy excuse.

I’ve been flirting with idea of the going to graduate school. Right of out school, I decided to avoid more school (and debt), so I packed up my philosophy and writing degrees and ran a climbing gym. In the following ten years or so, academia never really felt like an option. Once I started programming, I had completely forgotten about it — there I was, working professionally in a field where I was nothing more than an autodidact — why did I need graduate school? Now, after working for several tiny companies that have gone the way of the dodo bird, and stints of independent contracting, I’m working for the Big, Bad Corporation (mostly not by my own doing, since the company that hired me was promptly consumed by the Big, Bad Corporation). It’s not the most challenging or interesting work (we joke that we just move buckets of data from here to there), but it is not stressful, and it pays well.

So, I watch Jen, now in an MFA program at Chatham, and I get a little jealous. The gang I run with online also makes me pine for drinking coffee, reading theology and philosophy, and writing. So, I started to consider my options. An MFA program would be “easiest” — both Chatham and Carlow have programs geared toward professionals, so I could continue working. The Pittsburgh Theological Seminary has a Master of Arts in theology that can be done strictly in the evenings. CMU has a Master of Arts in philosophy with an emphasis on computational logic and design, again geared toward professionals. All are very attractive in their own ways.

I have been playing out the various situations in my head, trying to divine where I should be. But I haven’t found the path quite yet. Going back to school while working would be an enormous burden — the programs at CMU and PTS would require two classes a semester, meaning two evenings where I was away from home. Part of me thinks I’m not quite ready to do that. And despite the monotony of the current job, I’m not quite ready to give up on programming either. So bear with me as thoughts jump from writing fiction, studying theology, and reading Dooyeweerd — my focus is clearly lacking. One day I think, hmmm, theology, and the next it’s, hmmm, philosophy. And underlying each of those thoughts is,ahh yes, writing. And in the end, flitting back and forth means nothing really gets done.

Posted on 8 March 2005