20090831

What next?

So, for those of you that don't know, my job will be ending in just over a month.  We haven't been given an official last day yet, but the bank I work for is shutting down the branch I work at on October 9th.  


My long term goal is to study Byzantine History at the University of Chicago, get my PhD, and teach at the college level, preferably somewhere small like Whitworth.  The guy who's focus is Byzantine history looks like he's right up my alley, but let's face it: he's not getting any younger, which means I need to move fairly quickly so I can get there before he retires.  And lucky me: for a favorite field of study, I picked one with the most required languages (scroll to page 7), although the language tests don't sound quite as scary as I would have thought.  I'm not sure exactly what the "departmental certification" means, but I'm assuming I'll need a pretty good grasp off all the languages--Byzantine Greek, Latin, German and French--by the time I get there.  I'm hoping I'll be ready to apply next year to start my studies the following fall, so sometime between now and then I need to work on picking all of those languages up.

Short term goal(s):
Find a new job, preferably one that allows me some time for language studies
???
Profit!

Secondary, medium term goal(s):
Get my TEFL certification so I can teach English in Germany, France and maybe Greece, picking up those languages while I'm there, and study Latin on the side
???
Profit!

Tertiary, unrealistic goal(s):
Win the lottery, so I don't have to worry about working (freeing up much more time for study), can afford whatever language school I feel like, and don't have quite as much time pressure while working on my doctoral dissertation
???
Profit!

I'm sure that got old after the first time, but I don't have a whole lot of opportunities to use it, so lay off me.