You know what I really miss about Italy?

And it's not the food. Don't get me wrong - the lack of pizza/rucola/parmiggiano/crudo/etc. here is all kinds of tragic. But what I really miss right now is being a madrelingua inglese. It gives you access to your own little job market, one that you share only with the other expats (and even then - only expats that have the proper certification). Here negli Stati Uniti most of us speak English, and so that does not compel people to hire me, and this leads to an unfortunate state of affairs known as unemployment.

When you're in college, people tell you 'take classes that appeal to you! follow your interests!' and it's all very rosy. And depending on which college you go to, you can take some pretty cool stuff. For example, at my particular Prestigious Institution of Higher Learning you could take a language called Khmer (where do they even speak that?), a class called "Mystical Mushrooms and Magical Molds" (or something along those lines), spider biology, game theory, intro to wines (also intro to beers, but only if you passed intro to wines), and a whole slew of phys ed classes ranging from 'intro to swedish massage' to fencing and whatever you call it when people shoot guns. The thing is, though, that it doesn't always turn out to be very useful (for example, unless you go into entomology as a field, how many times in your life is knowing the circadian rhythm of a spider actually going to be of use?).

Which is fine. It's fine to have a lot of random useless knowledge. The problem is that it is also kind of good to have some practical, actually-applicable-to-something kind of knowledge, too. My father, in particular, feels very strongly about this.

"Well, it's because you have a useless degree," he informs me. We are conversing about my current (lack of) job options. "If you had learned something useful like, say, how to build a bridge, you wouldn't be in this situation."

I consider this. I am not really a bridge-building type of person.

"Or welding," he adds.

Welding? What, like with metal and fire and stuff?

"Yes, welding," he insists, even though I haven't spoken, "That's the problem these days: they don't teach you useful stuff like welding anymore."

Indeed. Well, I think it is safe to say that unless another world war breaks out and I am forced to take over from the menfolk because they have all joined the Navy, and work in a factory like Rosie the Riveter or whatever, I would probably never have considered a line of work that involved welding, anyway. And even in the World War III scenario, I probably would have volunteered for other, less fire-related jobs. Like growing turnips, or knitting socks. Darning socks. Whatever it is that one does with socks.

I must have raised my eyebrows or something because: "well, what have you learned how to do?" he challenges me. I think for a moment. Good question.

"Well, I can converse passably well in three foreign languages..." (okay, admittedly, I already knew one, so that's not very impressive and he knows it), "... and I know how to create transgenic mice... and how to calculate how much oxygen it would take to burn a certain amount of carbon... and I know Freud's opinion on a whole variety of topics... and the elements of a successful vaccine campaign..." in my head I am running through all of the myriad classes I crammed into my schedule as an undergrad, looking for something that he would think was useful (ability to comment on the significance of the Dance of the Seven Veils in "Salome"? no. extensive knowledge of the issue of maternal mortality in developing countries? meh. probably not. ability to tell you all about cognitive development and spatial relations? definitely no). I am getting a bit desperate, so I go for the next thing that comes to mind, "... also I can read medieval Catalan pretty well... even though I don't actually speak Catalan." Pfft. Nice work there, Self.

It's his turn to raise his eyebrows. He thinks for a moment.

"Maybe you should work for the CIA. You know, with the languages and stuff."

I reflect upon this. Yes. It would be kind of like in a Dan Brown book. Or like Indiana Jones, except not with the snakes and stuff. Or... something. Yeah, come to think of it... probably it would not be much like that at all.

And that's the trouble with my degree. I think it is because we are just a little too theoretical, over at [Prestigious Institute of Higher Learning]. It's not that our degrees are in completely useless subjects (I, for one, did not take a single one of the classes I mentioned in that second paragraph there). It's just that we learn the theoretical stuff that, in theory, does relate to something useful... but we don't learn the connection to said useful stuff.

For example, I can tell you all about what a PCR analysis tells you and what the different components are and everything, but can I actually physically run one? No. I know all about how the brain encodes language and how language can affect your cognitive development in other areas, but had I ever once designed a language curriculum prior to teaching this year? Nope. I can even tell you exactly what your kidneys are doing on a cellular - even molecular - level, but would I know what to do if they weren't doing it properly? Still no. So that's what's missing.

In the meantime, if no one hires me this week, perhaps I will go learn how to weld things. I'm sure it is a useful life skill. Failing that, I will use my medieval Catalan philology skills and my rudimentary knowledge of Reggiana dialect (yay Arzan!) to become a spy.