Life, you bastard.
So, by now I'm sure everyone's sick and tired of my 'Woe is meeeee, whatever shall I do with my liiiiiife?' whining. Well, Tuesday night (or was it Monday?), the stars must have aligned or something, because during a long and involved conversation with nalroth I actually started listening to what he's been telling me for almost two years. I (well, really 'we', but nalroth has been sure of this for ages) decided "screw you, security, I'm going to take this opportunity to discover what I really want to do with life", and finally admitted to myself that what I want to be is an artist. For years I've shied away from this, coming up with a range of excuses from "OMG, how am I going to eat, everyone knows there's no money in art" to "What if I grow to hate it because I do it for a job?" to the most scary to me (which, surprise, also happens to be the most silly when you admit it out loud), "What if I won't be any good?". And I've also tried really hard to convince myself that all these other things (from biology, which I still love in the abstract, to various aspects of the computer sciences) were just as interesting and, coincidence of coincidences, also far more viable and therefore 'worth' my time... But nalroth, adept as always at cutting through the BS, helped me finally wipe all that crap from my eyes, take a deep breath, shuffle to the edge of the high-dive and get ready to jump.
The plan at that point was take a whole bunch of shotgun art classes at NOVA (nalroth encouraged me to pick anything, but Japanese overlaps with an art class I really want to take and I've pretty much explored all of my other academic interests), find some sort of flexible job (that wasn't retail, and may have required me discovering deepthink's secret), and settle ourselves down to living like paupers. For the first time in what seemed like forever I woke up the next morning feeling awake and refreshed and excited, and even hummed my way through work with all sorts of ideas and plans for artistic experiments... and what do I discover when I get home? An e-mail from the head of the Consortium for the Barcode of Life telling me, essentially: "Hi-- you're probably not eligible for the internship you were courting us for since you're not currently a student, but I have this great position that I haven't even advertised yet that I think you'd be suitable for. Full-time, benefits, the works-- you're not technically a federal employee, but within a year you'd be equivalent to GS-07 and, oh, btw, it'd be really likely that after two we'd throw you into an actual position with the Smithsonian. Whaddya think?"
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUUGH~! So, two days and a few dozen e-mails later, I have an interview tomorrow and will potentially have to choose between the Safe Path (taking the position, hoping I swim instead of sink, and end up with a full-time job with all the perks but no time for classes and extremely limited resources for art) or the Crazy Path (yeeeeeeeeah baby, I have no idea where this is going but I'm going to spend time and money goofing off and hoping it pays off! Woo!). I know, I know, I shouldn't be so whiny. As zhai pointed out earlier today, it's always good to be choosing from good options, rather than crappy options. But, still... it figures! ;)
The plan at that point was take a whole bunch of shotgun art classes at NOVA (nalroth encouraged me to pick anything, but Japanese overlaps with an art class I really want to take and I've pretty much explored all of my other academic interests), find some sort of flexible job (that wasn't retail, and may have required me discovering deepthink's secret), and settle ourselves down to living like paupers. For the first time in what seemed like forever I woke up the next morning feeling awake and refreshed and excited, and even hummed my way through work with all sorts of ideas and plans for artistic experiments... and what do I discover when I get home? An e-mail from the head of the Consortium for the Barcode of Life telling me, essentially: "Hi-- you're probably not eligible for the internship you were courting us for since you're not currently a student, but I have this great position that I haven't even advertised yet that I think you'd be suitable for. Full-time, benefits, the works-- you're not technically a federal employee, but within a year you'd be equivalent to GS-07 and, oh, btw, it'd be really likely that after two we'd throw you into an actual position with the Smithsonian. Whaddya think?"
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUUGH~! So, two days and a few dozen e-mails later, I have an interview tomorrow and will potentially have to choose between the Safe Path (taking the position, hoping I swim instead of sink, and end up with a full-time job with all the perks but no time for classes and extremely limited resources for art) or the Crazy Path (yeeeeeeeeah baby, I have no idea where this is going but I'm going to spend time and money goofing off and hoping it pays off! Woo!). I know, I know, I shouldn't be so whiny. As zhai pointed out earlier today, it's always good to be choosing from good options, rather than crappy options. But, still... it figures! ;)