I have to go to the university today, this time for me. I have to check up on my progress for my
second Master's degree. Oh, that sounds
all hoity-toity, I know, but really I am now going to be stuck with two
semi-useless degrees. I have an M.Ed.
and am dangerously close to earning an M.A. in English with a concentration on
writing. What that translates into in
regular talk is that I can now teach.
Wait. I'm already
teaching.
Well, I guess now I can teach even more! And still get paid what I get paid, and be
even more in debt than I was when I started.
Whose dumbass idea was this, anyway?
The good news is that I only have to take two more real
courses (one this summer and one in the fall), and then I have two semesters to
write up my capstone project. Now, if I
wanted to be a total bitch, which I truly am so this is no surprise, I could
simply print out and re-torque my blog and turn it in as my thesis.
But that seems too easy.
Sure I spend anywhere from one to four hours a day writing and prepping
and posting the blog. But it almost
seems like cheating. Almost. Except that I'm really writing it, and it
really does take up a lot of my time.
Time I'm supposed to be spending correcting papers for my day job and
writing papers for the degree I haven't quite finished yet.
So I'm meeting with the advisor today, figuring this all
out, thinking I have four more courses to take before my capstone project, not
two, and I decide to hang around for about fifteen more minutes so that my new
plan of study can be formally emailed to the grad office, and I can trek on
over by foot to sign it. Why not? I'm here, and I'm really not in that big a
hurry to get back home. It's a beautiful
day, I snuck down to the waterfront for a few minutes, and I got some pictures
of the ocean. I sit in my car for a
short bit looking at those. Okay, might
as well try to beat some of the traffic home.
As I pull out of the parking lot, I debate which way home
might be more clogged with traffic -- Salem center or Peabody Square. This time of day and this time of year, it's
really a crapshoot. I decide to head
down 114 into Salem. As soon as I pass
the point of no return, that infamous turn from Loring onto Lafayette, I see
that traffic is at a standstill.
Damn. Picked the
wrong way yet again.
But I am mistaken.
The reason for the delay is the massive accident in the middle of the
street, an accident that cannot be more than fifteen minutes old, an accident
involving at least three cars, an accident in which a car has clearly been
t-boned, shattered and battered across two lanes of traffic and smashed into a
tree in front of a corner-lot house.
Ambulances and fire trucks and tow trucks are everywhere, and the
sidewalks on all sides are packed with witnesses and gawkers.
Just happened. Just
loading victims onto gurneys. Fifteen
minutes.
Had I not decided to stay and sign my paperwork, had I not
dawdled in the parking lot looking at my random Salem shoreline pictures, had I
not stopped to let the woman walk in front of my car, the kid to cross the
road, the college student to catch his runaway soccer ball, I might well have
been involved in this accident.
Damn. I feel
lucky. I feel philosophical. I feel a bit sick to my stomach eye-ing the
carnage.
Today isn't a total waste.
I'm gaining knowledge (more than halfway through the degree) and wisdom (rationalizing my trip home). It's a two-fer. If only I could figure out how to turn this
all into a payable degree, like a Master's degree in Work Avoidance as it Pertains
to the Probablility of Getting Out of Salem Without Too Much Damage; or an
advanced degree in Lucky Dumassitis; or another diploma in Bullshitting 101.
Maybe this whole school thing is paying off after all.
Nah.
