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11 July 2008 : Fruition.
Getting lost in the most basic way can be simple enough, but the kind of getting lost I've been involved in recently is both an art and a science. It's a good thing I have so much education.
There is a lot going on, and my time is hurtling past so quickly I tend to miss it, but I find myself dumbfounded at the other end of every day, wondering how I managed to get nothing accomplished.
Again. There is nothing going on.
It's closing in on a year, and I repeatedly find myself wondering what happened to my bright future. Ideas are bandied about: medical school, which means Doctors Without Borders, or the International Relations program at the University of Indianapolis, to which I will absolutely apply once I win the lottery. The Peace Corps will not take me and my genetic abnormality.
Still, they're only ideas. I go to work in a kitchen, carry grease to and fro, get lost in the art of perfecting the reuben, my ankle swells and I panic. Or I go to work in an office, get lost in the art of perfecting the no-mouse data entry sequence, my ankle swells and I panic.
But I'm tired of panic, I'm tired of moaning and lamenting. I'm tired of dreaming up far fetched schemes to get me somewhere beyond this hand to mouth existence that I am pretty sure I won't survive much longer.
On Tuesday night, Amanda and I went out for a beer and food tasting at the pub where I am no longer employed (angels, swelling music, plucking harps), and we met a nice couple who were new in town(and half of whose names escape me). After hearing some of our conversation, they turned to me and said, "So corporate life not what you were hoping for, huh?"
As it turns out, I wasn't hoping for much more out of corporate life than a moderately fatter paycheck so, hey, mission accomplished. But I explained to them that it just wasn't where I had planned to be at this point in my life (matter of fact: I had actually planned to, at this very specific moment-to-moment point of my life, be in Zambia studying livelihood strategies among internal refugees).
The next question was: "So, do you have a dream job, then?"
There was no hesitation. I was a few beers up, a few inhibitions down. My hand hit the table, making the cheese platter rock slightly. "I want to be an anthropologist."
Say true, sister, say true.
I'll stay on the path, until the very moment that I hear that it is actually, physically IMPOSSIBLE for me to continue. I bet there's an area of the world where I can study immigrant livelihood strategies adjacent to a hospital modern enough to perform a simple prothrombin time. And hell, should all go to plan, by the time international travel becomes necessary I will be below the recommended weight level for women with my particular issue, and will have eliminated all risk factors other than genetics.
I have options. If the rumors about the IUPUI graduate program prove to be unfounded (I sent the email to my undergrad advisor today: is it true?! CAN IT BE SO?!) there are options. Commuting to Purdue would be, in two words, a bitch - but I could do it. Or maybe in a year's time, or two years' time, I won't be such a pussy and I'll be capable of relocating without dying (literally, too).
In the last five years, every time I've been really content it's been because I was on this path. So I lace my shoes back up and step into it again.
Move forward, move forward.
posted by lindsay at 20:20 ::
Getting lost in the most basic way can be simple enough, but the kind of getting lost I've been involved in recently is both an art and a science. It's a good thing I have so much education.
There is a lot going on, and my time is hurtling past so quickly I tend to miss it, but I find myself dumbfounded at the other end of every day, wondering how I managed to get nothing accomplished.
Again. There is nothing going on.
It's closing in on a year, and I repeatedly find myself wondering what happened to my bright future. Ideas are bandied about: medical school, which means Doctors Without Borders, or the International Relations program at the University of Indianapolis, to which I will absolutely apply once I win the lottery. The Peace Corps will not take me and my genetic abnormality.
Still, they're only ideas. I go to work in a kitchen, carry grease to and fro, get lost in the art of perfecting the reuben, my ankle swells and I panic. Or I go to work in an office, get lost in the art of perfecting the no-mouse data entry sequence, my ankle swells and I panic.
But I'm tired of panic, I'm tired of moaning and lamenting. I'm tired of dreaming up far fetched schemes to get me somewhere beyond this hand to mouth existence that I am pretty sure I won't survive much longer.
On Tuesday night, Amanda and I went out for a beer and food tasting at the pub where I am no longer employed (angels, swelling music, plucking harps), and we met a nice couple who were new in town(and half of whose names escape me). After hearing some of our conversation, they turned to me and said, "So corporate life not what you were hoping for, huh?"
As it turns out, I wasn't hoping for much more out of corporate life than a moderately fatter paycheck so, hey, mission accomplished. But I explained to them that it just wasn't where I had planned to be at this point in my life (matter of fact: I had actually planned to, at this very specific moment-to-moment point of my life, be in Zambia studying livelihood strategies among internal refugees).
The next question was: "So, do you have a dream job, then?"
There was no hesitation. I was a few beers up, a few inhibitions down. My hand hit the table, making the cheese platter rock slightly. "I want to be an anthropologist."
Say true, sister, say true.
I'll stay on the path, until the very moment that I hear that it is actually, physically IMPOSSIBLE for me to continue. I bet there's an area of the world where I can study immigrant livelihood strategies adjacent to a hospital modern enough to perform a simple prothrombin time. And hell, should all go to plan, by the time international travel becomes necessary I will be below the recommended weight level for women with my particular issue, and will have eliminated all risk factors other than genetics.
I have options. If the rumors about the IUPUI graduate program prove to be unfounded (I sent the email to my undergrad advisor today: is it true?! CAN IT BE SO?!) there are options. Commuting to Purdue would be, in two words, a bitch - but I could do it. Or maybe in a year's time, or two years' time, I won't be such a pussy and I'll be capable of relocating without dying (literally, too).
In the last five years, every time I've been really content it's been because I was on this path. So I lace my shoes back up and step into it again.
Move forward, move forward.
Labels: When I grow up
posted by lindsay at 20:20 ::
1 Comments:
Wouldn't be much of a path if it wasn't a little devious.
Go get 'em, ace.
By 
Frank Charlemagne, at
12:41 AM