Between living my first year of
marriage, finishing my degree, applying to Optometry school and working 60
hours a week any chance to stop and reflect on my experiences in a post has
been difficult. Even when the dust settles and I have a moment to sit down
behind the computer I find it nearly impossible to choose a topic to address.
There are so many:
1. My newish job
2. Graduation
3. Being
married
4. Our trip to Oregon
5. Figuring out my career path
6. Our anniversary
7. Social
experiments
8-2034…. ect.
I finally decided I just need to
bite the bullet and pick one. I'll talk about the other ones later or simply
leave them to your imagination. I’m sure you could come up with some stellar
scenarios that would make me out to be legendary. That is how legends are born
after all right? Lack of information and no shortage of embellishments to fill
in the gaps? I have faith you can pull it off.
Anyways after taking some time off
and heading to visit my Grandpa in New Mexico I finally have some time to focus
on a topic. The topic that will be decided, of course, be rolling a 6 sided die
and assigning each topic a number (excluding social experiments and ect.
naturally. There are some things you just can’t know if the experiments are to
work. You understand).
So the topic of the day is…
My newish job? Fair enough. It
wasn’t that long ago that I talked about the wide variety of jobs I’ve had in the past. After graduation we made the wonderful/terrible decision to live with
my folks so we could save up some money while trying to get into Optometry
school and/or figuring out contingency plans. Upon coming home and beginning my job
search my Brother suggested I look into being a pest control technician. Not
long after I was certified, had my own truck and was expertly assassinating
critters with biochemical warfare.
The irony of this development didn’t hit me
until I had been exterminating for a while. Back when I was a young tyke in
elementary school I had somewhat obtuse career goals. Each year when teachers
would inevitably ask us kids what we wanted to be when we grew up I was
surrounded by the usual answers. In a classroom of potential Firemen,
Astronauts, Policemen, and Athletes I was the weird kid who wanted to be an
Entomologist. Perhaps I liked being different, perhaps I got a kick every time
people (including my teacher) had no idea what that was, but mostly I liked
bugs. A job where I got to study them sounded like heaven to me. I found them
fascinating.
Look! bugs I recently found.
This Dragon Fly has some cool markings.
The blue color is striking and the wings are made up of fun patterns.
They can fly forwards, backwards and side to side.
Look at the size of this thing.
Brings me back to my days in Texas where everything is bigger.
Not something we see often in Nevada.
um.....
..............
................... !!!
At times I wonder how miniature me would feel
if he somehow found out that my living is made by seeking their destruction through raining pyrethroid death on their colonies and nests. Instead of studying the
way they live I study how I can more effectively make them die. How laughably similar
and yet opposite my childhood aspirations and adulthood realities have turned
out to be. It’s hard to take a child’s dream job seriously when experience
tells us just how many things will change between elementary and college
graduation. But those early interests and obsessions can still impact our way
of thinking and our personal development. The reason I chose to work toward a
career in Optometry was because my poor eyesight gave me lots of experience in
an eye doctors office and I could easily see myself in that capacity. In my
attempts to prepare myself for Optometry school I took the necessary classes, immersed myself in appropriate extracurricular activities, taught, researched and narrowed my interests. After years of
focusing all my efforts on following that course things have not been working
out the way I hoped they would and we’ve had to do some very serious
reevaluating.
Looking back with new perspective
at all of the skills and interests I gained and built upon trying to be an Eye
Doctor I discovered a love I have not only for certain subjects I studied but
for teaching those subjects. A love I would have never found if I hadn’t pushed
myself so hard to achieve my goals in Optometry. I fell sort in some aspects
while superseding my expectations in others redefining my limits and my
strengths. Whether I end up a Doctor, teacher or something completely different
this was a powerful lesson to learn.
I guess that covers the topic of Figuring out my career path too. I have always been fond of killing two birds with
one stone.
