November 25, 2004

• Glue-sniffing. I'll die well before ten years.
• Neuroscience and meditation: bridging the meditation traditions of Buddhism with contemporary neurosciences. My final exam would be to a high altitude skydive with an EEG monitoring system, and record my control of my emotional states in freefall. So I'll have to study neuroscience, Buddhist meditation, and skydiving. It should be interesting.
• The project would be infallible birth control, and the dissemination thereof. The book would be entitled: You're semi- Safe Now, and include a decades-long dose of the perfected medication.
• What would you study, moneyjane? And, what would your book be called? I'm a curious monkey.
• The Adventures of Xott: First Monkey on Mars
• I'd like to have an education in the Classics. Classical Greek, Latin, and the surviving works in each. I'd visit the important sites of antiquity. As far as the book goes, I don't think I'd write one.
• "The Hedonist Helicopter Pilot's Drug-Fuelled Lifestyle - is it Really So Bad"...
• Psychology and Political Science. My book would be "51% Is Not A Mandate: The Rise of Amerikan Fascism" or perhaps "A**raped at the Ballot Box: The Pwning of America by Bush and The Neocon Right" I have no intentions of forgiving, forgetting, or any other conciliatory act. Man, I need a vacation.
• Hmmmm...I'd study every damn thing there is to know about the history of prostitution and its perception as a social/legal problem. My book would be called; "Step Out My Way Bitch; Why Monogamy and Prostitution Are Joined At the Hip" Or some such shit. I got about ten years before I'll need to be stepping out of the biz to some extent - it'll be time to put that writing degree (ok, I'm 12 credits short still) to work and get on the lecture/seminar trail. By then I should be out of debt - and unless I want to be hangin' in miss moneyjane's refrigerator box at 65, I need to get a gig I can still shake money out of in my...how do you say?...golden years...
• I'd like to study theology, just to figure out what the deal is. The title: "What the crap is the big deal about this Jesus stuff, anyway?"
• Self-fellatio. The title would be: "A million bucks well spent."
• I already did this. I wrote a book on sound in the cinema in French. PDF on request.
• Wolof. you got a million bucks for it? Might I borrow a small pittance? I promise to pay it back as soon as my publisher floats my tome.
• I'm not sure I'd really switch from what I'm doing now (naval history of the Cold War). In practice I'd just be starting out my career with the salary of a top professor in my field. However, if I had to pick something more sexy (and impossible to do with my research funding right now) I'd research techniques for remotely monitoring and repidly deploying to prevent war crimes. Book: 'War Crimes Monitoring and Prevention'. I'm sure it'd be a best seller.
• Genetic Augmentation of the Horse.
• I've never learned much in school, no matter how much I loved the subject. Given unlimited funds and an ability to go wherever to learn what I want to...I'd be EXACTLY where I am right now, doing what I'm doing at my new job. Wow. That's so weird to think about, but it's true.
• You mean I could have become an expert and been paid for my trouble? Shit; why didn't you tell me this four years ago. Now, though, I would devote myself to writing the biography I'm supposed to be writing full time. Of course, then it wouldn't take ten years.
• I would study Old English. At the end of my decade, I would write Hwæt!, the opera about Beowulf. The great basses of the world would contend furiously for the role of Grendel.
• Brock University has a neat little program in Oenology and Viticulture. I'd become a Vintner, then a Master Vintner, then do post-doctoral studies in some Chilean mountain shack, watching grapes grow. My book would be called "From Water to Wine: Recent Shifts in Post-Modern Paradigms of Cool Climate Oenology." My results would be discredited because my sample size wouldn't be large enough -- the book would be a diary of me getting drunk on local wine in tiny South American bars. Million bucks well spent.
• I would take every verse of the bible and record any meaning that anyone has ever claimed from the passage. I would also add any meaning that seemed rather easy to extrapolate that I could see. I would then categorize all of the meanings (rules of the Sabbath, the place of women, the end of the world, etc.) and list each verse under the appropriate topic. I would call my book "How to Make the Bible Say What You Want."
• I'd study the causes and predictors of conflict, within and between countries. Thunder in the distance: perceiving and preventing state failure
• I'd make a study of "how to get an expert to ghostwrite a book for less than $10,000", which, coincidentally, is the title of my book. 3)Profit!
• Teory and application of advanced cunnilingus techniques Beacause somebody has to write the book on that most mysterious of subjects.
• Theory Of course, someone would have to spell-check my book.
• Beacause somebody has to write the book on that most mysterious of subjects. It's primarily an oral tradition.
• I'd work on communication with dolphins (or any other promising species). There would be lots of investments in technology for primary research. Mind you, I don't expect them to have anything like what we call language. But they definitely communicate. If they have such a concept/phrase, I'd like to have them broadcast it all over the world: "stop fucking with us." And then I become a millionaire again, having shorted Sea World and tuna fish.
• I feel like with ten years and a million dollars, I'd hmm... I'm not quite sure what I'd do. I'd like to study consciousness in art, I think. Everything from neurotransmitters and aesthetic reation to philosophical theories of consciousness as explored through the work of people like Gerhard Richter and free jazz musicians. God, that sounds pretentious. But I find it fascinating...
• two ideas: Become a lawyer/IT guru and focus on copyright law/intellectual property rights and write a book called, "FU RIAA-CRIA-MPAA et al". Countries would love me and adopt my principles. My eBook would be the number one download on p2p networks ... heh. Making money wouldn't be the final goal but spreading new ideas and perspectives. Travel the world and study at various art/design schools. Eventually buy my aunts plastics manufacturing plant and make high end disposable furniture for the masses. I'd give Ikea a run for their money. :)
• I'd learn to communicate with chimpanzees. That'd show that Goodall woman. My book would be called "We Actually Hate Bananas".
• I would become an expert at how to create a sustainable lifestyle. I would purchase some land, read up on the bioregional characteristics of the place I was living and scratch out a living as best I could. When all was said and done hopefully my book would encourage others to embark on a similar path.
• I would spend five years studying under master carpenters and cabinet makers, then another five studying under master glass artists. Then I'd start my own business and get rich making stuff that most of you couldn't afford. My book would be called It's Pretty, But I Have No Feeling Left In My Hands.
• I couldn't concentrate on a single topic. Rather than a book, I'd collect a massive database of odd and humorous things in the English Language: Oxymorons and Pleonasms, Puns, Aphorisms and Murpheyesque Laws, Cliches, Regional and Ethnic Slang (yes, I want to be Richard Lederer when I grow up, because languagehat-level literacy is far beyond my reach), and maintain it on the web (hey, I already own the domain name murphyslawlibrary.com). With my spare time and short attention span, I would research everything I could on statistics and buy the rights to re-write How to Lie With Statistics. I am so derivative.
• FreddytheFish: It's been done
• I would do a sweeping history of the expansion of Europe, say 1400-1800, through the eyes of the peoples and civilizations that were conquered, absorbed, or eliminated. I would focus on what the "others" thought, how the encounter with expansionist Europe upset their ideologies and faiths, and what new ideas were generated by the encounter. There are tons of regional studies for what I am thinking of, but no one has brought it all together satisfactorily.
• wendell: I read 'Richard Lederer' as Howard Lederer, who, incedentally, is who I want to be when I grow up.
• Extensive and exhaustive research on the practices of high-class courtesans. Book title: Boinking for Dummies.
• rocket88: Unfortunately, Thoreaus really didn't do that at all. The damn fool would run home to his Mom (who lived a mile away) for dinner and laundry at least once a week. Not exactly self-sustaining.
• Oh, and I would spend 10 years studying quantum computation but that's what I already plan on getting my Ph.D. in as soon as I get out of my undergrad so I'm not exactly in the target audience of this question.
• Lessseee, I guess I could take the 222 credits I have and finish up the 6 credits I have left to get the double major English, writing option and BAS in Bizness and Office. I could declare the linguistics minor I had in mind (if I remember, that's about 9 credits away) Then I could go for a graduate degree in English, but what I really would like would be to get into Vet Med and become an equine specialist--guess I could bribe my way in to vet school with a million. I could do some work in Washington, some in Texas, a bit on the East coast, maybe hit a couple classes here and there in Europe. I could even get into some of the genetic test work on Mongolian wild horses. Would be fun. But, knowing me, I'd wind up quitting with a gizillion credits and being 6 credits short of employable. Oh, the book? mmmmmm ... Hey, It's Only a Damn Piece of Paper After All
• I think i would become a sexual sociologist specifically studying how different cultures in various stages of "development" define, practice and regard sex. i.e from so called "primitive" cultures to westernized cultures and everything in between. The title of my book? Hmm...the sociology of sex? sexual sociology? social sexology? something of that nature.
• I would study dimensional theory. I believe this require more than a million dollars. It most probably would require a secret lab on/in a volcano, with about ten of the world top scientist secreted away inside of it. It would also require some lackeys and grunts (for upkeep and whatnot), a massive library, and a dedicated satellite. There will definitely be more that I'd need, but I can't say what yet. It depends on my discoveries. Same with the title of the book. If nothing is learned after ten years, the secret lab can be converted into some dance club for the uber-elites.
• I wish my field of study demanded a secret lab in a volcano! Like some others, I'm *already* studying my favorite thing! (Thanks, moneyjane... I should remind myself of this whenever I'm so stressed that I have to psych myself up to leave the house without crying. I love what I do... do I just have to do it all at once?) Anyway, I'm studying marketing aimed at "tween" (8-14 yr old) girls, and the ways this connects to a) the potential sexual opression of this age group (remember the countdown clocks for the Olsen twins? They started when they were 13. This is also the first generation to go through mostly abstinence-only sex ed in the AIDS era) and b) that this generation sees consumption as their only outlet to create identity and express themselves politically. Basically, I get to watch Nickelodeon (and the N -- yay, Degrassi!) and call it research.
• I love what I do... do I just have to do it all at once? ditto that.
• When they were 13? *shudder*
• Yeah. A lot of my research is creeping me out. I wrote a whole chapter that was like: pre-adolescent sexuality = good, grown men + preadolescent sexuality = bad
• Does your study involve spending time in the Yahoo! chat rooms? That would be horrible.