In which I make plans... again...

I'm at (hypothetical) spider-bite plus 10-15 days, and I still don't have any superpowers (other than self-deprecation, and that one I was born with). I've been attempting to climb walls and seduce Kirsten Dunst for most of the day, to no avail. Those movies lied to me.

I've just gotten home from a Jehovah's Witness wedding at the Art Gallery. I was constrained from drinking by the vast quantities of penicillin in my body. So I ate, didn't dance (with the waifish 20-something God Squad in ample attendance) and was a bit bored. But I did get to see Will and Bree and their delightful hatchling Wesley for the first time in months, and bantered briefly on politics and publishing with Will's sister Jocelyn, who is wrapping up her M.A. in Public Health. It got me thinking...

Maybe it's time to re-enter academia. I finished my Masters' almost two years ago and abruptly dropped off the academic map, mostly because I went to Thailand. My ambition of carving my Master's thesis into 2 or 3 smaller papers and publishing them somewhere where potential employers would see them got thoroughly shelved, and I haven't really dusted them off yet. I'm actually starting to fall behind a lot of my rival Men of Mystery because I haven't had much published, academically speaking, and at some point I need to get that done in order to boost my job-seeking chances out in the dangerous world. So I surely need to get in touch with my adrenaline-junkie thesis advisor for some pointers and see if I can get some press writing about suicide terrorism.

But I'm also wondering if I ought to bite the bullet and go get a Ph.D. No minor question, that. It's a minimum three year commitment that thwarts most of the people who try and dooms the bulk of those who DO complete it to lives toiling in academic obscurity. That last bit certainly doesn't sound like my cup of tea. Academia drives me nuts - the infuriating moral relativism; the inane need to treat any idea, no matter how asinine, as potentially valid; the constant pissing contests between nerds of all stripes. These things and more tend to send me scowling from campus after a year or so. Moreover, it's bloody hard work to finish a dissertation, and it pays starvation salaries - I've little desire to re-enter penury so soon after (marginally) escaping it.

And yet.

Terrorism, rumour has it, is a hot topic these days. I have genuinely new approaches to counter-terrorism policy that could be hugely influential if I had much more extensive research to flesh them out. I could make a name for myself in the field with an eye towards policy jobs rather than academic tenure, and probably find my way into a think-tank or (better yet) international enforcement at the UN or somesuch. I could learn Arabic in the process of doing my fieldwork. I'd have the credentials to find work in my field anywhere, even here in Vancouver - no more dicking around with jobs where people ask me "why the hell would THAT interest you?". Most importantly, I could demand that everyone, including my blood relatives, constantly refer to me as Dr. Paul.

I've spent enough time on my hiatus from my true (if somewhat unhealthy) professional passion - figuring out why people kill each other. I think I need to start doing some research on who might be willing to pay for me to go talk to terrorists for a couple of years.