I Want to Do Something Stupid...

A friend of mine wrote a poem that stuck in my brain.

I want to do something stupid
While I can still blame it on being young -

I want to go to New York to study literary translation.  I'm not good with strange places and strange people, I grew up in the suburban Midwest and went to school in a medium-sized town - I don't think I can handle New York.  I have been assured by my professors - as well as the program director at NY - that I will not be able to make a living with literary translation.  Not to mention that it is a dual program in Translation AND Creative Writing - and while last semester I proved to myself that I can handle a Creative Writing class, it's still not my favorite thing to contend with.

Really, I should just forget about that program as impractical in every way, and just go to Kent State, like my professor advised.  (I told her I wanted to get out of Wisconsin - believe it or not, there is a translation school in Milwaukee - and she gave me Ohio.  Well, perhaps I should have been more general.)  The program there is technical translation, legal and medical and computer, all sorts of things that people actually pay translators for, and while it's certainly not the best field, I will likely do as well as can be expected.

But that's the safe option.  I've always taken the safe option, and frankly, I'm sick of it.  Not many people know this, but I almost applied for UAA - the University of Alaska, Anchorage.  If I'd done that, I'd probably be looking at Applied Linguistics and native language preservation by now.  And I'd probably know how to dogsled.  It was a pleasant dream my junior year, but when I actually started applying, I thought of so many logistical and practical barriers, that in the end I never even applied.  I went to safe, 90-minutes away, whitewashed, Midwestern Eau Claire.  And I met so many wonderful people here, and have enjoyed myself immensely and grown so much, and I have pushed my boudaries, really.  But Eau Claire is not Alaska.

I almost went to Graz, Austria, for my semester abroad, instead of Marburg, Germany.  But no one else was going to Graz; besides, the Austrian dialect is so thick it's hardly even German.  There, it is a complete immersion experience, and you take classes with native speakers in the native language.  Marburg, on the other hand, gives you German-for-foreigners with other foreigners.  Safe.

That was a mistake.

Long story short I was bored out of my mind and depressed for about six months straight.  That's what comes of taking the safe option.

Granted, I haven't even applied, much less gotten in.  The New York program is very competitive, and I'm going up against people who are already professional translators and want to expand their horizons a bit.  There is, however, another translation school with a good reputation in Monterey, California.  Monterey, from what I can gather, is the Eau Claire of California - there's nothing to do, and you're only there if you're a student or retired.  Monterey is the compromise option.  Monterey is the Eau Claire between the U of M and Alaska (though it is a bit closer to Alaska than the U).  So I can safely go there without feeling like a coward.  And I think in typing this I just convinced myself to go there after all.

But I'm going to at least try for New York.  I have to.  If I don't get in and end up at Monterey, that's fine, but if I never even try...well, that's just pathetic.  And if I do get in, and end up going there, and it ends up being a horrible mistake, at least I made an interesting mistake instead of a boring one.