The American Studies Blues

I'm an American Studies major. I have both a BA and a MA in the subject and I love it. It is my passion and history is awesome. But it's also one of those majors that people look at you with a slight tilt of the head and say, "What are you going to do with that?" right after you finish answering the question, "What is that?" Well, for your information, you can do A LOT with it. A lot. Just not in Hawaii, apparently. Actually, maybe it's only good on the East Coast where there are lots of agencies, organizations, historic sites, and museums who can use a person who is passionate about our American past and the implications for our country's future. There are places where this kind of education and knowledge are appreciated.

It's been my goal for a long time now to work at a museum. Any museum will do. I love them all. The big ones, the small ones. Even the ones that suck. I love anything that attempts to educate the public about history, even those lame quasi-historical displays in airports. So it was with no small amount of trepidation and skepticism that I left Washington, D.C. with its copious amounts of museums (perhaps you've heard of them) and married the love of my life and moved to Hawaii. I had about a 0.00002% hope of finding a job at a museum. But then, by some stroke of luck, I got in touch with the director of the Pacific Aviation Museum and he invited me in for an interview. It seemed to go well and he sounded very interested in both my education and experience. Since the PAM is a new and still developing museum, they have a very small staff and a limited budget. But the director asked me if I could come back in, once he'd reviewed the budget and spoken to other people. I received a very nice email from him yesterday saying that he'd love to hire me, but unfortunately there was no money to do so.

It wasn't like it was unexpected. That's often the problem with non-profit organizations like museums, especially small museums with limited funding. But it's still hard when you get your hopes up and all. There are a few other museum options I might look into, but for now, I'm trying to extend my job search as much as possible because, honestly, I'm starting to get very bored just sitting at home, waiting for David to get home from work so I can watch him do his homework. (I miss school already.) But it's made doubly hard by the fact that we'll only be in Hawaii for a year. Maybe I should have done something sensible like accounting or elementary education. But then I think about how much I hate math or kids and I remember why I chose what I chose. And someday, after I've gotten my Ph.D, I'll be some awesome curator at the Smithsonian and I'll laugh at all those people who had no courage to do what they loved and only did what was sensible.