find gainful employment

[mrmage]

The following day, Sadde goes to town at a reasonable time to buy a tiny cactus with some of the proceeds from his terribly tedious job, and sneaks it into the bag with his clothing he brings to Isabella's room. It is inside a cute little box, which he offers Isabella the following morning when she wakes up, saying, "Happy three-month anniversary!"

Comments

[mrmage]

He looks down at her hand and smiles. "Well, that's a much better reason than mine."

[eclipsi]

"I mean, it also sounds fun, but lots of things would be fun and I'm not going to major in English and do recreational Shakespeare scholarship."

[mrmage]

He makes a face. "Majoring in English does not sound fun."

[eclipsi]

"Maybe not for you. I like old British fiction."

[mrmage]

"Well I don't hate old British fiction but it's my impression there's a lot of essay writing and finding meaning where there's none in an English major."

[eclipsi]

"There's meaning! I mean, I'm sure some people make shit up but it's not a requirement."

[mrmage]

"If you say so," he says dubiously.

[eclipsi]

"All right, you caught me, everything Shakespeare ever wrote wasn't even in English, he just hypnotizes everyone with soothing stress patterns until we impose plot and character and humor and wordplay and literary allusions and narrative structure onto the text."

[mrmage]

"Hey, that's not what I'm saying!" he protests. "I'm just saying that it often looks like choices that are completely meaningless are minutely analyzed for the sake of finding meaning. I mean, if I were a writer there'd be a lot of details I'd include merely for the sake of verisimilitude with no hidden symbolism whatsoever."

[eclipsi]

"Sure, but you'd have to pick which details somehow. Shakespeare wasn't rolling dice and may have made subconscious choices. It can get navel-gazey, but not all of it is."

[mrmage]

"Right, and I never said all of it was, just enough of it that I probably wouldn't choose that as a major. But I think the main thing is that... I like consuming fiction, not so much spending time thinking about it, even if I do love hearing your thoughts about everything including this."

[eclipsi]

"I don't write recreational English essays," she admits. "But if I were going for a purely 'fun major' it'd be that."

[mrmage]

"I think a purely fun major would be mathematics," he muses.

[eclipsi]

"Well, if you think so, maybe you should go for it. It's useful stuff."

[mrmage]

"...it is?" he wonders.

[eclipsi]

"Well, I guess it depends which kind of math and maybe to get anything really good out of it you have to go to grad school, it might not actually be worth it for a mage, but there is a kind called 'applied'."

[mrmage]

"Hmm, come to think of it maybe econ's a better major."

[eclipsi]

"I think the conventional wisdom is that if you start in math you can switch to econ easily and if you start in econ the reverse doesn't apply."

[mrmage]

"Easy in what way?"

[eclipsi]

"You'll be prepared for the coursework by what you were already doing."

[mrmage]

"Oh. Well, I think most of what I'd learn would be, like, self-directed studying anyway. I could major in econ and minor in math."

[eclipsi]

"Sure. Although you don't want to load up so much that by the time it's no longer feasible to bide your time in college you don't have anything marketable."

[mrmage]

"Hm, yeah, fair enough. I'm not even sure I'd go with either of those, though."

[eclipsi]

"Oh?"

[mrmage]

"Well, I'd only be picking them for being fun, if I found something actually useful that was not going to consume all my magic time I might go with that instead."