on dreams (this time the stupid figurative kind)

I can't be bothered posting this on wordpress. lulz. sup blogger.

Okay, here's something that's been bothering me...well I suppose it's always been in the back of my mind, but only now has it been more at the forefront, the black cloud of sorts.

I'm doing a psychology degree. I love psychology. I always have. In high school I researched it all by my lonesome, because I found it so interesting. In my last year of high school, my interests in uni majors bounced everywhere - but something I realize now is that all of them - nurse, psychologist, teacher - are...specific, I suppose. We need more nurses, and more teachers, and more psychologists, too. I guess I mean that they're in industries, health and education specifically.

Bear with me as we go into gibberish territory. I write. I write in my head constantly, I write on the bus, at home, when I should be doing assignments. I always have. It's what keeps me sane (or 'keeps me insane', which might explain a fair bit). I don't care that I've never been published, or that the people least interested in last year's Nanowrimo adventure were members of my family, who still look confused when I mention 'writing' and why I would possibly waste my time on such a thing.

And that mindset? It's always been with me. I don't care about making a ton of money, whether it's as a psychologist or something else, I just want enough to keep steady. I always, always want to be independent, to be able to keep my shit together, to have steady, gainful employment that can keep me above water. So when I first decided I'd go to uni, and heard a barrage of 'why the hell are you wasting your time on that, when you can just get a normal job and start your life' from certain family members, it didn't surprise me.

I don't think that they're right, in the sense that uni is useless - because, duh, it isn't. But why did I go for those industries, consider nursing and teaching and such? Why did I never once consider an arts degree? Because there's not much you can do with an arts degree, unless you can combine it with education, and my interest in teaching waned quickly and is now too low to think about that. Sorry would-be students.

I've been daydreaming, wondering if I don't have the brains for psychology, if I should have gotten a goddamn hold of myself and just gone for it. You always hear those lame sayings, if you don't go for what you love, you'll regret it. I love psychology. It interests me. Will I get through the next three and a half years, one of which is a very difficult honours year? I don't know. I'd like to think so, because the easiest way to make me do something is to tell me I can't do it (that's what motivated me to finish high school at all, anyway).

So I love psychology. But I don't love it. I don't have the passion for it that I have for writing. I knew I was heading towards 'oh shit' territory when I blatantly put off a very close, very important psych assignment because I was on a roll with a new story idea. That's stupid. Passing my courses is more important than how a bunch of invented people in my head live their lives.

I don't regret choosing the degree, because I've learned things, I think differently, I've met some cool people and come out of my shell quite a bit, all in less than...three months or so. What I regret is that I'm not passionate about it. And that scares me.