Happy happy
My heart has been bursting; I'm so grateful and ecstatic that I got this job and that I happened to see the application and everything that has led me to this point. A few months ago I was filled with this heavy, quiet dread that I had to go into a writing career and do journalism and I knew deep down I didn't want to do journalism at all. And all my applications were for writing places and they all turned out terribly and then this was the one random job I tried for that was all science and it's the one that came through and I feel so?? comfortable??? here?
The people are wonderful and nerdy, the work is interesting (sometimes scary because we're working with toxic chemicals but always interesting), I'm allowed to sit in on classes and lectures so I'm being paid while learning so much new material. It's helped me understand what science is, that it's so much guesswork and toying around to see what happens and in a lot of ways it's an artistic process in that you have to think creatively to solve problems and be able to imagine new scenarios that no one has thought about before. I think the biggest benefit is that I get to sit next to these smart as fuck people and hear them admit ten times a day that they don't know something or that something confuses them, and it's revealed that you don't have to be a genius to succeed in this field. You just have to be willing to keep asking questions and read a lot and know how to think through problems. And I can do that!! I can learn and think; I know I can, because I've been spending the last three days trying to teach myself the chemistry behind this one process we do (even though i hate chem), and I think I finally have a grasp of it and I'm!! so proud of myself for figuring this out!!
Idk, I'm not aiming to be some ivy league, ivory tower professor because the academia culture can be toxic and political as all get out and I'm not into that. I'm going to try for that masters degree and hopefully that won't squash this enthusiasm I have for geology. (advanced degrees look like hell) But I'm imagining this whole new future that wasn't there five months ago, where I get to work for a lab or a park and keep learning about how the world works and what it was like in the past, and that's incredible. That's fucking incredible that I get to be part of that. I'm just thankful for whatever random cosmic force pushed me toward this direction because I can tell it's been for the better.
The people are wonderful and nerdy, the work is interesting (sometimes scary because we're working with toxic chemicals but always interesting), I'm allowed to sit in on classes and lectures so I'm being paid while learning so much new material. It's helped me understand what science is, that it's so much guesswork and toying around to see what happens and in a lot of ways it's an artistic process in that you have to think creatively to solve problems and be able to imagine new scenarios that no one has thought about before. I think the biggest benefit is that I get to sit next to these smart as fuck people and hear them admit ten times a day that they don't know something or that something confuses them, and it's revealed that you don't have to be a genius to succeed in this field. You just have to be willing to keep asking questions and read a lot and know how to think through problems. And I can do that!! I can learn and think; I know I can, because I've been spending the last three days trying to teach myself the chemistry behind this one process we do (even though i hate chem), and I think I finally have a grasp of it and I'm!! so proud of myself for figuring this out!!
Idk, I'm not aiming to be some ivy league, ivory tower professor because the academia culture can be toxic and political as all get out and I'm not into that. I'm going to try for that masters degree and hopefully that won't squash this enthusiasm I have for geology. (advanced degrees look like hell) But I'm imagining this whole new future that wasn't there five months ago, where I get to work for a lab or a park and keep learning about how the world works and what it was like in the past, and that's incredible. That's fucking incredible that I get to be part of that. I'm just thankful for whatever random cosmic force pushed me toward this direction because I can tell it's been for the better.