Jill of All Trades

My job, like most of the jobs I've had, requires me to know a little bit about many things, but doesn't seem to provide the opportunity to acquire any deep knowledge about one particular subject. This suits my mental tendencies, but the drawback is that I have no expertise.

I would like to be a master of something. I considered becoming a master knitter, but the credential doesn't seem to carry enough prestige. Take a look at the pictures at the The Knitting Guild Association's masters program website. These women don't look very different from people with masters degrees from academia. I bet some of them also have masters degrees from academia. I wonder which masters they're happiest about?

My excuses for not getting a masters degree:
I don't want more debt.
I hate jargon.
I don't think I have more than 2,250 words to say about any particular subject.

My reasons for wanting a masters degree:
A lot of people I know have them.
It's something to do.

I've been trying to create a list of the books that most influenced my thinking for one of those facebook five lists. I realize that I can't remember the names of the books from the first course in my major, communications. A lot of the material I read for the course was in a bulk pack of excerpts. Still, I'm kind of bummed out about the fact that I can't remember the books, only the ideas. I'm not sure I actually read a book by Saussure, but I was really excited about the ideas that someone said were his. Did I actually read Christian Metz, or just a critique of Metz? And who wrote that article on the effect of camera angle on credibility, or that thing about frog retinas? I wonder if the professor would mind sending me a copy of the syllabus from a course he taught over 20 years ago. I seemed to have a natural gift for playing the communications game, but I was a lackluster student.