What did you pick a long time ago?

The Recent List: Math or CS Professor, High School Teacher, and/or Software Engineer.

The Not-So-Recent List: Poet, Freelance Writer, Clinical Psychologist.

I don't know what I want to do anymore - I'd like to stay in this area, but the market for computer-related jobs sucks here (for the foreseeable future), and I can't take any GRE's this year.

I also don't have any "training" (so to speak) for the long-ago jobs.

I'm just kindof looking for ideas.

Hehe...I'm kind of in the same boat. Every fiber of my being tells me computer science because that's how I grew up since I was 2, that's what I do best, better than most, and that's what I feel my fate is.

However, at times I was confused and didn't see what was right in front of me the whole time. Sometimes I wanted to be a carpenter, to work with my hands. Other times I wanted to be a Marine or something, get to blow stuff up. And in that regard, at one point I thought about chemical engineering. Get to blow stuff up unintentionally. : )

I've also thought about majoring in music, graphics, and writing.

Anyways...I don't know where I was going with this. What do you enjoy doing most?

I have the whole INTJ thing going on - I like to mastermind things for other people to do. Like designing software that I don't have to code ;) I also, sometimes, have the whole INTP thing going on - I like to build things for their own reasons. Like, all that software, those poems, and all that gaming/dance stuff I do. And all the "file under other" stuff I do.

I like reading, and writing - pretty much always liked that. Mostly creative writing, but technical writing isn't a terrible thing for me. The problem with that is getting paid - I want to do something I love, but I also want to eat food. It's a toss-up, sometimes. And I keep having this vision of "living my dream" in a damn boz somewhere.

I think my main problem is that I haven't found a job that lets me take things apart and tell other people how they work. I keep thinking that there has to be a job like that - you know, outside of the military / special ops ;)

Urgh, join the club (INTP/J aka Clan of the Confused). You may or may not have heard one of my many scenarios to take over the world.

Hey...ya wanna take over the world sometime? We could plan the whole thing, then sit around eating donuts and pizza while other people do it for us. Now, if only we could find a bunch of rich people to become our parents, to get the funding.

You seem to also have the whole dilemma of "want to do stuff intellectually stimulating but can't run off to all the places that will let me do that stuff?" I'm digging my heels in at space bio not just because I fear for my sanity but mostly because the only place that's really doing it to speak of is the US...and even here it's mostly places like *ahem* Conneticut or Kansas. But even if I were to leave the US, I'd have to bring everyone else with me. And I'd write or paint/draw if I thought I could survive off it. And I'd become a shaman if I knew I wouldn't end up locked up somewhere.

What people do out here is buy up rental property, fix it up, then rent it out. This is really how people make the big money, which would allow you to do whatever you liked I guess. Personally the whole thought makes my stomach turn; everyone knows this is the thing to do to get rich, but the only people who actually do it are really creeps.

Taken a career inventory lately? I took two last week and one of them told me I was and artist and the other told me I was a scientist. Neither helped, but maybe if you haven't done one for a while it could serve to jog the memory (Oh wait, maybe that belongs under yer next post??)

You know, Xerox PARC is always looking for good people. Normally you have to have a PHD, but sometimes they let you in while you are finishing it up. Of course you'd have to live in Silicon valley, or near enough to drive, but it may be fun.

On a similar side, a professor allows you to take stuff apart...even put stuff together. In terms of CS professor positions, I'm in on a newsgroup that gets updated every time a new CS faculty position opens. They come in at around 3/day, many going unfilled for a couple years. If you want to be a teacher, just about every school in America is looking for a CS professor. From UW Madison, to the UofM, all the UC schools...you'd be surprised. I even think that Mac has openings...or will soon (some of our faculty are getting older...I'm contemplating going back to mac...you can't beat the gamer community there).

Of course that's coming from a guy who is planning on being a CS professor. I'm not too big on research, but I'm sure I will find something interesting. All it takes is to get Tenure...then you are set.

Q.

or an evil version of Q. You know? The evil mastermind kinda thing.

ugh! join the crowd!~

Methinks you definitely have to write. I'm tempted to say, "do CS stuff for the money and the writing on the side until you blow up big and can afford the Tuscan villa" but I know many times it doesn't work that way. The money stuff swallows up the time and energy that was meant for the stuff you love. And at the same time, I believe strongly that if you love something you can't stay away from it. It's anathema. If you have it in you, you'll do whatever it takes to get it out on paper/RAM/audio/etc.

This is why I'm going into translating of some sort. I can write and work with Nihon at the same time. Both stuff I love.

So, technical writing seems closest to that, in your case. You'll find something.

Write, you fool!

You're good at it. I've seen some of your work. You'd be a great geek writer - not tech writer. Tech writing is manuals and stuff, go ask Wiredferret and birdfigment about it. Geek writing is stuff for geeks. Like Roblimo (Newsforge), or Eugenia (OS News) or even (shudder) Robert X. Cringely (PBS,of all places).

So I think you should be the next Cringley. Except smart and respected like the first two. ;)

let me clarify.

i'm writing this from the CDC....

yeah.

Dude! I didn't know the Center for Disease Control had an office in the Twitties!

I hear the monkey-cleaning business is just booming in today's economy...

funny.....my parents thought the same thing when i left a message for them two years ago that i was going there.....they were freaking out till i called them twelve hours later.

and yes, there is an office here.

New idea: you should have yourself surgically altered so that you shoot black ejaculate. You can then become a star making pornographic films for Christian fundamanetalists about the Devil turning Spiritually devout women into shit-fuckers with his evil spunk. It's the next big thing, I swear.

You first, would-be black-spooge-master.

You know, just because you want to see some poor schmuck do something, you don't always have to tell me that I should do it. Maybe you should work for the CDC or something.

Consultants are corporate whores, but they generally do what you're thinking of. Plus they get mad paid if they do it well. Otherwise it looks like you'll be teaching.

At my college, professors are not only encouraged to write stuff in their spare time, they're *required* to. This includes English professors. We have a nice stack of staff-authored books in our bookstore. Kind of a vicious circle.

You can't make a living as a poet, and you shouldn't. Better to be a construction worker and write poetry on the side, like Bill Holman (one of the guys who started poetry slams, actually). But still be a poet.