feeling stressed?

Then how about you get another job and add an additional academic program? Or, is that just me?

My job starts next week, and it's two nights a week four hours at a time. The lesson plan book is so heavy I don't need to buy weights - I'll just carry it around. I have a bucketload of paperwork to do for it, but later. Not now. I'm so tired I just want to curl up with a good book, but I have bucketloads of homework.

I'm toying with the idea of adding a Masters degree program to my JD. In international development. The int. dev. program here just got a $4.3 million federal grant to examine child slave labor in African cocoa farms. OK, what in that grant does NOT appeal to me? I like money in the millions, I advocate for children, I'm opposed to slavery, I love Africa, and cocoa is the basis of my existence most days. So, I was thinking about starting up a conversation with them, maybe do some legwork for them somehow, and then I saw it - I could do a joint JD/MS in International Development. I emailed a law prof who is affiliated with them and I'll ask him questions if I can.

Why? Hello, do you know me? I have a good reason. Because none of my degrees have an "S" in them. I have a BA, and MEd, and after another 100K a JD. No S. Why not an MS?

No, but seriously - all the core classes in the Int Dev MS are things that interest me AND best of all - if I take summer school courses (which I was going to do anyway, though I need at least a month of legal experience this summer as well), I could finish BOTH degrees in three years, and hopefully not much more money (because how much more money can they extract from me??). If I do a joint degree, then the law school excuses like 10 credits and the other department excuses like 10, so it could be three years without killing myself.

What's the benefit? Well, nothing right away, since it's not what I want to do at first. But eventually, once debts are paid and all that, I'd love to do some legal work in developing countries. And the real benefit? Maybe there are hot guys over there in the International Development Program who are of legal age.

OK, so this job, it will almost pay for my trip to Senegal by the end of November. That doesn't suck. Because what that means is ANOTHER FUN TRIP NEXT SUMMER!! I think this job will be as tedious as the home instruction I did last year, so I have to keep my eye on the prize. Cameroon! Cameroon! Cameroon! (Not that I really care about going to Cameroon - I'm just running out of West African nations that won't kill me.) I should be realistic though and realize that what it will take me six weeks to earn now I can probably earn later in about four days as a lawyer. So, if it doesn't enhance the quality of my life, I won't keep doing it after this time.

And once I'm settled in here, I can be more streamlined with my time management. I just put up the last storage device (I got a slew at Lowe's which I always forget is SO CLOSE), so I'm almost done with all that and ready to actually just BE home instead of BUILD home.