As personal as I'll ever get on this blog

I'm awake and amped up from yelling at a bunch of drunk people in the parking lot (seriously, I feel more and more like an old man every day -- "Darn kids, get off my lawn!"), so why not write another post? I think I'll hit my weekly quota tonight.

I don't plan on making this blog something that chronicles my personal life (I'll leave that to the wife), but there is one place where my faith and the rest of my life intersect more pointedly right now -- deciding what I'm supposed to do with my life. If you know me at all, you know that I'm not exactly tied to being a lawyer -- I went to law school because it was the default option for someone with a liberal arts degree who didn't want to pursue his other degree in music as a profession. By the time I realized that law isn't really what I want to be doing, I was at the point in law school where I figured that I might as well just finish the degree, even though it would result in even more student loan debt (yay!).

Now that I've been working as a "real" attorney for the better part of a year, my views haven't changed much. Granted, being a real attorney beats being in law school, but the fact remains that I just can't get that invested in my work. I also realize that most people probably feel that way about their jobs, but I'm getting to the point where I'm not sure that that's good enough for me.

So where does this leave me? Three higher education degrees and STILL nothing to show for it! What's the solution? Go back to school, of course! It's something that I've been kicking around in my brain for the past couple of years, but it's slowly starting to escalate in my mind -- so much so that I actually signed up to take the GRE in September, which is something I never thought I would do.

Now, we finally get to the point where this story intersects with the avowedly Catholic nature of this blog -- I really want to go back to school and get my Ph.D in Church History. As much as I love several areas and time periods of history, there's still nothing that fascinates me and moves me as much as the history of the Faith. Fortuitously, one of the only Catholic schools in the country that offers a specific degree in Church History (as opposed to a history program in which one can specialize in the history of the Church) is the Catholic University of America, which happens to be located very close by. I haven't done anything but read the information on their website yet, but from what I can tell, I think the program would be a good fit for me.

Ironically, the reason I didn't pursue history to begin with was that I didn't want to be limited to professorships. Now, I think it would be right up my alley. If only I had come to this conclusion five years ago, I could have saved myself the occasional agony of law school (not to mention the tens of thousands of dollars in debt). Alas.

Of course, in a vacuum, all of this sounds like a great plan...until I remember that I have a family to support. We've gotten by on just Rosie's salary in the past, and I suppose we could do it again, but it will get harder and harder as the kids get older (realistically speaking, John Paul would be 8 by the time I finish my degree) and as more of them come along. But, on the plus side, I wouldn't have to pay back my law school loans yet if I went back to school full time!

After I have this conversation with myself on pretty much a daily basis, I always console myself by remembering that this isn't something that has to happen right away. But in reality, it kind of is -- the longer I wait, the older the kids will be when I finish. We're also thinking very strongly about home-schooling, and I don't know how that would jive with (a) me being a full-time student and (b) Rosie needing to work full time because of (a). I keep trying not to make this about me versus the spiritual and educational well-being of my children, but I often fail in that regard.

So, long story short, I'll probably decide by this fall whether all of these plans are actually going to come to fruition any time soon. If you have any musings on any of the above topics, I'm all ears :-).

Miracle of Miracles

As it's been almost two years exactly since my last post on this blog, I figure that it's high time to resurrect it. My reasoning for doing so is that I've been able to dedicate roughly half an hour each week to a new endeavour called Fantasy Bishball (more on that in a moment) -- if I can do that, surely I can update this thing a few times a week, right?

Anyway, a bit about Bishball -- ten of us who are part of the Catholic blogosphere (in varying capacities) got together and started playing a new game. We each drafted a "team" of three bishops (limited to bishops of American dioceses and American-born bishops serving elsewhere in the Church). We get points each week based on what they do in public -- for example, a column in a newspaper gets one point, an interview or public appearance (including special Masses) gets three points, and a condemnation of a dissident group gets five points. The point values are completely arbitrary, but I think they work well. My team is named the Pertinacious Papists, which I think is a pretty awesome name :-).

I was a little skeptical at first, but I've really gotten into it. It's a nice excuse to keep tabs on the happenings in bishops' lives each week, and I have definitely learned a lot about Cardinal George and Archbishop Vigneron, both of whom I liked a great deal before this started. My third bishop is Archbishop DiNoia, an American-born prelate who serves in the Roman Curia. While I know he's awesome, I haven't gotten any points out of him so far -- apparently, he doesn't do many newsworthy things in Rome. I guess he could turn it around, but as of right now, I'll probably be replacing him on our mid-season substitution day.

Anyway, that's just a brief snippet on what has coaxed me back in to the blogging world. Now, let's see if I can revive the heyday of this blog, when I may have managed three posts in a week :-P.