A Pre-Manifesto

I'm thinking a bit about graduate school these days. I don't mean "a bit" as a euphemism, or as stylistic placeholder, in that sentence; I really mean I'm thinking about it a little bit.
Five years ago, I was going into my last year of high school, and I was thinking a LOT about college: where I wanted to go (probably Columbia, but I hadn't yet seen the disarming apparent Jewtopia that is Penn), how I'd do on the SATs, which electives I'd take, how I'd pay for it, what I'd write my essay(s) about, what I'd major in, what I'd say I'd major in, &c. &c. &c.
There were of course other things on my mind -- girl(s), sports video games, general off-and-on misery; the usual -- but college was really all there was.
So after one year of finding myself -ish and three years of transcript-building (and -demolishing), more or less always assuming I'd head into the world of the academy, because a) I like reading and fancy myself an intellectual, albeit a meek one; b) being in school is much less taxing, having-responsibilities-wise, than most anything else; and c) for various reasons good and bad, I cannot really think of any other path. But, at the same time, I don't really want to follow that path as much as I thought I would...
On the cusp of my senior year, therefore, I am tugged at by a bunch of different (maybe irreconcilable) goals and needs, and am unsurprisingly as lost as I've ever been, with the stakes raised to levels that seem almost unfair.
For one thing, I need -- stress on NEED -- to get the hell out of OrthoJew-dom, ASAP. The urgency of this cannot be overstated. Basically, I'm not part of the 'faith community' (if I'd validate Brooklyn enough to call it either a community or an entity in any way related to faith), and I certainly don't share any of the values flying around these parts. And living away from home would probably be good for me.
Second, I need at least one good friend. I learned a few things in my yeshivah year -- e.g., Bnei Akiva-brand Religious Zionism is crazy, Americans can be crazier, Tanakh can be cool, it's really fun to really acquire a language -- but none more strongly (in this connection) than the fact that I can't get by without friends. (This knowledge was reinforced in a big way by my experience in China almost two years ago. I was lonely, and my having a girlfriend -- she wasn't there with me, but my being in a relationship at all -- didn't help as much as I would have thought.)
Third, I need to have books close at hand, and outlets for talking about them. Working on/picking up a language would be a big plus.
Fourth, I need to have some kind of Jewish involvement. I don't know if this means socially or intellectually or emotionally or communally or what, but something. This doesn't mean kosher food or minyan, per se -- God knows that's no sticking point -- and it probably doesn't mean MO-issue discussion group; but whatever it is, even if it means a Judaic Studies section of a library, or an occasional Kabbalat Shabbat service, I'm pretty sure I'll need something Jewish. This may just be a manifestation of a conservative-religious-identification-holdout strain, but I'm really not that good at getting myself.
Fifth, I'd like to figure out some kind of career-ish path, and do something that'll help me get there. I'm not feeling super-invested in this at the moment, but I feel it's not something I should ignore completely.
... So what to do? The options are as follows: I can look for entry-level jobs in writing- and editing-related fields (maybe publishing, maybe journalism-type), if such things are available. Or I can look for teaching positions in middle America or Europe or elsewhere (Goob sent me this site for teaching English in Korea). I can look into graduate programs in history, Judaic studies, religious studies, geography, education, or whatever else humanities/teaching types would be into. I can look into shorter-term programs like Yeshiva University's Revel Graduate School, where I can get a Master's in Medieval Jewish History. I can move to Wisconsin, look for work in a diner or library or congressman's office, and live in an apartment that will surely be cheaper than just about anything in New York.
That's what I've got so far.
Pretty lame blog post, if you ask me...