I'll tell you in a letter.

Dr.Woodbury,

Perhaps this method of answering my many questions about linguistics is a bit unorthodox, but I've never considered myself anything close to orthodox really, so I'll continue unphased. First, my name is Jessy, last name Cole. Its good to meet you...I hope. I hope you don't mind my emailing you out of the blue, but I ran across your name and job title on a website related to linguistics while I was searching for a bit of direction as well as information. Really it was something that you had been quoted as saying that caught my attention because I identified with it.

"I began to see linguists as intellectual auteurs, moving freely over a huge, open intellectual landscape, treading as needed from formal models, to the physics of sound, to social organization, literature, music, and history; and needing to be, often or always, writers, artful travelers and listeners, good thinkers and hearers, good sleuths and solvers, and very, very good teachers. And I wanted to be all those things. "

I know its odd, but perhaps I could prompt you for some wisdom, sage advice, little pearls of what have you..?

Well okay...where do i begin. I'm an artist, I've always been an artist. But I think I've always been a linguist too. I recently graduated from Baylor, which is also what pushed me further to write you if only for familiarity sake. I studied studio art in college, which is a far cry from linguistics, or not really, depending on how you think about it. But really, I loved and love art. However, I am finding myself at a place where Googling and books are just not enough for me to able to make an informed decision about what to dedicate my life to. I really think i need to hear it from someone who knows about the study of language.I know art and language art not mutually exclusive, and actually quite overlapping, but in terms of what I'm really looking for now, i need to pick.

I sort of accumulated a couple of languages during college, sort of by accident, and then eventually intentionally. By the time i graduated i found myself wishing i had studied linguistics instead. Still, without a single linguistics class under my belt ( but with several anthropology courses and the glimmering dream of becoming a polyglot) I somehow still cant manage to look away, walking towards the arts and looking over my shoulder longingly at language, staring back, ever so somberly ( its pitiful ) So i started reading...everything...Noam Chomsky and David Crystal's "how language works" and "The power of Babel"...I spent way too much time in the library and made friends with the employees at Barnes and Noble. Oh, and I moved to China. So I'm living in shanghai now learning to speak Chinese, and scarcely read and write it, all the while awaiting my graduate school application results and feeling a bit of trepidation as to whether or not I have the skills necessary for this, and also sort of wondering If I have any clue what im getting myself into.

I suppose my problem really is...I have no undergraduate work in linguistics, and normally, i suppose a linguistics undergrad would have picked up on the stuff that i have a feeling I'm clueless about. Specifically, I know i have interest, and i know i have talent, and I'm smart and capable and resourceful. But what do I do now? Do you think it is worth it to risk everything and jump into an expensive program and uncertain field that i have no idea specifically what I would do with when i graduate? How much does language give back to you? Do you feel that you're interests are relevant to the world? Do you feel relevant yourself as a linguist or do you feel that the study of language is something that gives to you and only you? Do you have any resources or directions to point me in as to what kind of work is available for graduates with an MA in applied linguistics? What are your specific interests as they relate to language? Isn't language awesome?

I know what my specific interests are as they relate to language, but I don't know how or where to go in order to study them further. I am incredibly fascinated with the anthropological implications of language, and the evolution of it. I am also more specifically interested in gender relations as they relate to language, and how self image is impacted by the structure of one's mother tongue. Psychology as it pertains to language I suppose is the larger, umbrella term for it.

I just need some direction, i suppose im looking for a little validation as well, inspiration, insight, anecdotes...about how you decided this is what you wanted to do. And really, any help is help at all.

I suppose its crazy to babble on like this to a perfect stranger, but really, its crazy to live in a place where the air pollution accounts for the 54 year old life expectancy of a traffic cop too.

Ni hao indeed,

j.