Dreams of the future
I was talking to R last night just before we went to sleep, and we fantasized about winning the lottery, as we often do 
However in talking it through I realised something I’ve been thinking of for a while. I would really love to be able to be financially free, and just live the life of an academic – do research, write books, do a couple of masters degrees in linguistics and literature perhaps, and maybe one day teach something of the sort. That would be awesome – to spend my days learning and writing, playing the fiddle and getting into the subjects that really touch my heart.
I still enjoy coding a great deal, although with the more management work I’ve been doing at LP I’ve come to realise deep down that I’m not going to be able to be a coder for the rest of my career. I want to go beyond that – some of that will be in architecting most in management I suspect. But if I suddenly struck it rich I think I’d be tempted to just go into hardcore development mode for a while – code till I got bored (although not the old 16 hour days any more, or I’ll have no time with R and B) and then when I’ve burnt that out of my system, just drop back and go to studying, research and writing. Perhaps it’s the hopeless romantic in me but somehow that seems a rather idyllic life to me…
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Not wanting to shoot your dreams down, but…living the life of an academic-of-sorts…I think it’s not quite what you imagine…<br /><br />Ok, so you like the idea. You even like the research, at least to a certain extent, although I suspect the sort of reading you would have to do for a Masters would be a lot…harder…than the stuff you’re reading now. The whole realm of peer-reviewed literature is generally more stodgy than anything someone would try to sell in book form. <br /><br />If it’s not too personal a question, what qualifications do you have now? It’s generally possible to get into a Bachelor degree based on an exam and ‘life experience’, but I don’t know of anywhere that’d just let you skip the preceding years and go straight to a Masters. <br /><br />The idea of financial freedom is nice, but it’d be even nicer if it came with an extended warranty on life to make sure we’ve got the time to enjoy said financial freedom.. <br /><br />Anyway, I’ll stop ranting. There’s certainly something appealing about independant research, but it’s also terrifying. <br /><br />Maybe you should just skip the degrees and write a book or two on what interests you.[Reply]
Oh the degree thing was actually separate to the research
I’m interested in doing masters in those things just for the fun of it – I know I’d have to do the whole study thing again, and I was meaning go through the bachelors etc *then* the masters – if I don’t have to hold down a normal job I’d have the time to do that.<br /><br />The other half is I’d like to spend time researching the stuff I’m into and write about that, as well as write fiction.[Reply]
As a side note, I’m also kind of a book nerd so I actually enjoy the fusty old manuscripts etc
Sometimes it’s difficult to wade through but for some reason I enjoy doing it – I just love getting into all that, it’s like touching the history of language itself – even more so when it’s a subject so interesting.[Reply]
Yeah, the reason two of my subjects go from 4-6 and 5-7 respectively is so that working people can fit them in. CAE I think runs subjects from Melbourne (subjects that regular students do too) and those subjects tend to be at night, and can count towards a degree later if you want to transfer in, I believe.[Reply]