I'm becoming intent on hunting down my muse around the world

[determinist]

I'm spending the day in the library, greedily glancing up at the windows now and then, wishing I could have some of the sunshine that's streaming in. I feel much better about everything today--I talked to some good people who let me know that it's ok to do my own thing, my way. Sometimes I sorely need to hear a new perspective like that, especially

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[noahflower]

Hmmm... have you considered trying to find a grant or fellowship? Like a Fulbright? A little while ago, this guy Eric Tagliacozzo stopped by the GBN office. If my memory serves me well, he's a history prof now at Cornell, and he used to work at GBN back in its infancy. He told me about the wonderful adventures he had in Southeast Asia, backpacking around gathering material for a report on the spice traders of Indonesia. Now, imagine that. I'm used to thinking about academics in very serious terms. I'm sure he had some very serious and interesting things to say about the spice trade by the end, but what a totally cool subject -- and he got paid for a year of traipsing around in a foreign country. I haven't done the research yet to find out where you get that kind of money, but he assures me that all you have to do is a bit of googling to turn up the various institutions that offer them. It'd be competitive, yeah, but so worth it to get to take the trip :)