Back to the future

Home, home on the range. Where the bunnies and the coyotes play. At least here in La Center, Washington they do. I'm home today for a brief stay over this Easter weekend 2000. It's a good time really. I drove down with my roommate Matt Cameron mid-today and had a great time talking with him about our futures. This conversation was so inspiring, I wrote an extensive email to Sarah about both of our futures. In it, I told her that I'm honestly not sure what I want to do with my degree once I earn it. And that's the truth. Geology has been a great love in my life. I hold the Earth as a sacred object which holds very interesting details about its appearance today and what it may have been like millions of years ago. I look at a mountain and can now mostly understand how it may have become the marvel it is today. I can also see that mountain for what it really might be: a violent and devistating volcano as in the case of Mt. Rainier. These are very real and useful pieces of information. But my studies in geology have gone well beyond that, I'm afraid. I now toil through class after class teaching nothing but microscope led tedium. Herein lies the problem. Like I said to Matt today in my car, I don't want to have a career that is going to require me to sit in front of these magnifying mostrosities.

The last few classes I've taken in the upper division of my geology have included much work looking at thinly sliced pieces of rock specimen through which we pick and indentify minerals and the processes that may have put them there. I can honestly say that the labs I do in these classes are more draining than straight physical exercise. Hours upon hours of this sort of education have drained me of not only energy but of will for my major. Sure I'll keep going through this major because I'm almost done. Quitting now would be stupid. What will happen after that is what I'm questioning. I have many interests in my life and I now feel like some of those interests are nudging their way to the front of my mind and into the plans for my future.

So now what? With all this on my mind what on Earth do I do? For that answer, stay tuned. I'm going to begin to take a more serious look at what career my life may encounter. I will keep going and I will be content with whatever I end up doing. Now I just have to figure out exactly what that "whatever" might be.

Comments (0) | To Top