I really need to learn how to update this a bit more often. I guess I just have nothing interesting to say lately. However, I did go home for Thanksgiving, so I now have things to say, in no particular order.
- I've been sick for the past couple weeks. Well, not really sick, so much as having a hacking cough. So, once Mom heard it, she decided that I should go see a doctor. It turns out that I had bronchitis. I was put on antibiotics and some cough syrup, and I'm starting to get better. I still have a little bit of cough, but overall, I'm feeling much better.
- Thanksgiving itself was fun. We went down to my aunt and uncle's house in Kenosha and had a huge dinner, and then just chatted and played games, and overall had a good time. It's always nice to have a little downtime. Unfortunately on the way back home it was incredibly foggy. There were times where I could hardly see the side of the road from the back seat of the car. It was kind of scary. We made it home safely, luckily. It was just quite freaky.
- Mom and I actually did the Black Friday thing, except we weren't crazy enough to get up before the crack of dawn to fight the mobs. We decided to go later on that night, around 5pm. It was really nice. Most of the people in Green Bay had done all their shopping already, so we didn't have to fight crowds, and the sales staff didn't work that morning, so they were fresh and happy as opposed to bitter and cranky, so it was actually pleasant. Mom also offered to buy me things, so I have a new pair of slippers and a new sweatshirt.
- Since I was at home and sick, I decided that I would sleep in most days. (Of course, if I was healthy I would have done the same thing, because I like sleep.) Friday I slept until after noon, because my body apparently needed it. I rarely sleep that long, so I was pretty surprised. It helped my body, but I also think that it was also partially the codeine in the cough syrup I was prescribed.
- My hometown now has its first Starbucks. It even has a drive-thru. The store is conveniently located near the highway, so those people that drink coffee can grab a cup to go and head out of town. I won't be frequenting the store often because I'm not a coffee drinker, but I'm sure it will make good money anyway.
- I kept seeing commercials and signs telling people in my county to shop in the county. In most places that wouldn't be a problem, but my county doesn't have a lot to offer. Yes, there are plenty of grocery stores, and a Wal-Mart, but if you want any type of gift store or a Target or Kohl's, you have to go out of town. But the thing that really bothered me was that the sign on one of the grocery stores said "Shop Local." That is just grammatically incorrect. It should be "locally." I know grammar isn't a high priority to most people, but it bugs me when it's wrong in print. When people are speaking, I don't typically have a problem (except with the way central Pennsylvanians never use a form of "to be" when something needs to be done), but in writing it just grates my nerves. I don't know why, it just does.
Well, I guess that's about it from me for now. I keep saying that I'll update this more often, and I hope to, but to the few readers I have out there, don't count on it. But, keep checking. You never know when a new entry will be posted.
Tuesday, November 28, 2006
Thursday, November 02, 2006
Professional Identity Crisis
In therapy today I talked a lot about how I really don't know what I want to do with my life at the moment. I had always thought that when you go to grad school, you start to develop some sort of professional identity and will find a job in that field afterwards. It never occurred to me that I wouldn't want to stick in this field when I finished grad school.
Well, that's not entirely true. It's not that I don't want to stay in this field particularly. It's just that I'm tending to be fairly choosy about what projects I'd like to work on. I'm still stuck on the question of how/why anoxia develops on the ocean floor in some areas, which was going to be the heart of my dissertation, had I still been able to go on for my PhD. (Yes, I'm still slightly bitter about this.) So, I'd really like to find a job that involves studying this problem. Granted, it's not a widely studied problem yet, even though I think it should be. I am slightly biased, though, so you may want to take my opinion with a grain of salt.
Of course, this whole identity crisis I'm having also sort of stems from the fact that I finally heard from Rutgers, and I didn't have the job. They were nice enough to say that I was ranked highly in the applicant pool, but they ultimately decided to go with someone with more experience doing the types of things the job required. I kind of figured that I wouldn't get the job, because of my lack of experience, but it's still disappointing.
That makes me go back to the time when I was looking for a part-time job when I was in high school. I had applied all over the place (grocery stores, department stores, restaurants) and most of those places wanted people with experience in whatever job I had applied for. I never really understood that. How is one supposed to get experience in a certain job if no place of business hires someone with no experience? I just can't get a good grasp of that. Eventually I did get a job as a busperson at Perkins, which was not ideal, but it helped me pay for my trip to France my senior year, so I can't complain too much.
Anyway, now I'm back to searching for jobs, not really knowing what kind of job I want to do. I have found a few teaching jobs in the midwest (Madison, WI and Springfield, IL) that I'm applying for. I think those would be the most ideal, because I actually like teaching, and they're much closer to home. I'm hoping those will pan out well for me, but I'm trying not to get my hopes up too much.
I've also been thinking of just moving home for a while and getting a crap job in retail or something while I figure out what I want to do with my life. It would be nice to have a roof over my head that I wouldn't have to directly pay for. Sure, I'd help out with groceries and such, but it would be nice to live somewhere rent free for a while.
I'm also playing around with the idea of not doing anything related to meteorology or oceanography. The main idea floating through my head at the moment is being a writer. Not in the novel sense, but more like writing reviews of TV shows and the like. I mean, I watch entirely too much TV, and I have lots of thoughts about the various shows I watch (especially Lost), so I think I'd be pretty good at it. Granted, I don't have a journalism degree, but who says you need one of those to be a writer? Again, it's just an idea right now. In fact, I'm seriously considering launching a second blog and try my hand at writing about the TV shows I watch. If I do that, I'll post another entry on here linking to that blog.
Anyway, my main point in this entry is that I have no idea what I want to do with my life. I feel like I'm in this quarter-life crisis I've heard about. At this point, I just want a full-time job that pays relatively well so I can not have to live paycheck to paycheck.
In other news, I finally converted my driver license to Pennsylvania. I was actually surprised at how efficient the DMV is here. It took me less than an hour to go through the line, fill out the paperwork and get the license printed. It probably helped that I went relatively early in the day, but still, I was impressed.
And to end this post, I got a Halloween card from my mom earlier this week that I keep chuckling about. On the front there are three ghosts, and they're all yelling "OOB!" Underneath, the text says, "Dyslexic ghosts," and inside it says, "Halloween Happy." I got a kick out of it, because it's from my mom, and sometimes she talks somewhat dyslexicly (if that's a word). In writing this, I realize it's probably not funny to anyone else, but I don't care. It's funny to me, and that's all that matters.
Well, that's not entirely true. It's not that I don't want to stay in this field particularly. It's just that I'm tending to be fairly choosy about what projects I'd like to work on. I'm still stuck on the question of how/why anoxia develops on the ocean floor in some areas, which was going to be the heart of my dissertation, had I still been able to go on for my PhD. (Yes, I'm still slightly bitter about this.) So, I'd really like to find a job that involves studying this problem. Granted, it's not a widely studied problem yet, even though I think it should be. I am slightly biased, though, so you may want to take my opinion with a grain of salt.
Of course, this whole identity crisis I'm having also sort of stems from the fact that I finally heard from Rutgers, and I didn't have the job. They were nice enough to say that I was ranked highly in the applicant pool, but they ultimately decided to go with someone with more experience doing the types of things the job required. I kind of figured that I wouldn't get the job, because of my lack of experience, but it's still disappointing.
That makes me go back to the time when I was looking for a part-time job when I was in high school. I had applied all over the place (grocery stores, department stores, restaurants) and most of those places wanted people with experience in whatever job I had applied for. I never really understood that. How is one supposed to get experience in a certain job if no place of business hires someone with no experience? I just can't get a good grasp of that. Eventually I did get a job as a busperson at Perkins, which was not ideal, but it helped me pay for my trip to France my senior year, so I can't complain too much.
Anyway, now I'm back to searching for jobs, not really knowing what kind of job I want to do. I have found a few teaching jobs in the midwest (Madison, WI and Springfield, IL) that I'm applying for. I think those would be the most ideal, because I actually like teaching, and they're much closer to home. I'm hoping those will pan out well for me, but I'm trying not to get my hopes up too much.
I've also been thinking of just moving home for a while and getting a crap job in retail or something while I figure out what I want to do with my life. It would be nice to have a roof over my head that I wouldn't have to directly pay for. Sure, I'd help out with groceries and such, but it would be nice to live somewhere rent free for a while.
I'm also playing around with the idea of not doing anything related to meteorology or oceanography. The main idea floating through my head at the moment is being a writer. Not in the novel sense, but more like writing reviews of TV shows and the like. I mean, I watch entirely too much TV, and I have lots of thoughts about the various shows I watch (especially Lost), so I think I'd be pretty good at it. Granted, I don't have a journalism degree, but who says you need one of those to be a writer? Again, it's just an idea right now. In fact, I'm seriously considering launching a second blog and try my hand at writing about the TV shows I watch. If I do that, I'll post another entry on here linking to that blog.
Anyway, my main point in this entry is that I have no idea what I want to do with my life. I feel like I'm in this quarter-life crisis I've heard about. At this point, I just want a full-time job that pays relatively well so I can not have to live paycheck to paycheck.
In other news, I finally converted my driver license to Pennsylvania. I was actually surprised at how efficient the DMV is here. It took me less than an hour to go through the line, fill out the paperwork and get the license printed. It probably helped that I went relatively early in the day, but still, I was impressed.
And to end this post, I got a Halloween card from my mom earlier this week that I keep chuckling about. On the front there are three ghosts, and they're all yelling "OOB!" Underneath, the text says, "Dyslexic ghosts," and inside it says, "Halloween Happy." I got a kick out of it, because it's from my mom, and sometimes she talks somewhat dyslexicly (if that's a word). In writing this, I realize it's probably not funny to anyone else, but I don't care. It's funny to me, and that's all that matters.
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