Why should I forget VMware or any other virtualization product? They also give you 95% of native performance and a full-screen X on top of that.
With 2GB RAM becoming the norm and stand-by mode having replaced power on/off cycles, I have no issues running two systems side-by-side on my laptop at all times.
Pick a language that you love. That will probably happen to be something not very mainstream. All not-very-mainstream languages suffer from the lack of good, quality libraries to one degree or another.
Fix it. Since you mentioned OCaml, I assume you like it. I suggest you look at Python libraries (very mature bunch) and port something you like over to OCaml.
National Instruments (Austin, TX) used to do that alot and it worked great. They start with some code critique and then slowly, starting with "how would you re-write this from scratch?" they get you to write some, following by popular "optimize for speed/memory" and so on.
I just recently had somewhat similar idea: to reverse tables and ask them to interview me. Not the typical "how do you like it here?" kind, but I want to ask people to ask me technical questions and see what they can come up with.
With 2GB RAM becoming the norm and stand-by mode having replaced power on/off cycles, I have no issues running two systems side-by-side on my laptop at all times.