![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
February is the asskickingest month
Feb. 12th, 2011 09:53 amI've now applied for the local community college, which makes four institutions I'll need to wrangle transcripts from when I apply to grad school. My application tracking spreadsheet grows even more tabs, but whatever.
I've spent the last few weeks cogitating and fermenting, running figures and sitting all quiet for my emotions to come visit me like unicorns in the forest. Now that I'm out of cubeville and things are stable, now that I've had time to think for a while, I've been poking at the desire toward pt and seeing what it tastes like without the heavy flavour of desperation. Is it a daydream that had weight because it was an escape route? What else could I do with my life? What if I just let this fall aside? What do I need to commit to this? What are my personal resources and pitfalls? Am I ambivalent because I'm using this break to course-correct and refuel, or is this just midwinter nihilism and the fact that suddenly the biggest thing in between me and this huge thing is myself?
Yeah, a lot of tail-chasing. I'm like that sometimes. I'm also working on the ability to actually let myself rest and have downtime instead of being anxious about all the things I should be doing instead. Also talking, which is good. So coming down on the same decision is not necessarily a waste of time so much as it's a fetishistic reassurance to enhance confidence in the face of huge challenge ahead: student loans, a profession in flux in a field headed over an unknowable horizon (possibly a cliff), and starting it all by diving into one of the most competitive pools in the world when I apply for grad school.
It's borrowing trouble. Tens of thousands of dollars worth of trouble, possibly slightly more than my starting annual salary would be. It's making a bet that a non-doctor health care profession remains remuneratively relatively stable for the next 15 years.
But I keep coming back to the fact that nothing else seems even remotely as interesting, varied, and satisfying as mechanically trouble-shooting the body and working with people to help them feel better. It's working with my mind and my hands. It's science, art and storytelling, it's the integration of technology with physicality. It's also paperwork and politics and regulatory compliance, but I've sharpened my skills for those: there's little avoiding those, and I can hack 'em a lot better these days, especially when it's part of something worthwhile.
And while I don't see myself as ambitious or driven, I have the brains and stubbornness to not only succeed, but to make it impossible for me to coast happily in a low-expectation niche. I tried. I really really tried. And despite the winter doldrums, cabin-fever, burnout and double-barreled grief, I'm a much happier person now than I was in cubeville.
I can work my ass off for something worthwhile. I just need to know that it is indeed worthwhile. But that's unquantifiable to the level I'd like, and so I've been stuck on the edge of the diving board unable to gauge the safety of the water below.
I've spent the last few weeks cogitating and fermenting, running figures and sitting all quiet for my emotions to come visit me like unicorns in the forest. Now that I'm out of cubeville and things are stable, now that I've had time to think for a while, I've been poking at the desire toward pt and seeing what it tastes like without the heavy flavour of desperation. Is it a daydream that had weight because it was an escape route? What else could I do with my life? What if I just let this fall aside? What do I need to commit to this? What are my personal resources and pitfalls? Am I ambivalent because I'm using this break to course-correct and refuel, or is this just midwinter nihilism and the fact that suddenly the biggest thing in between me and this huge thing is myself?
Yeah, a lot of tail-chasing. I'm like that sometimes. I'm also working on the ability to actually let myself rest and have downtime instead of being anxious about all the things I should be doing instead. Also talking, which is good. So coming down on the same decision is not necessarily a waste of time so much as it's a fetishistic reassurance to enhance confidence in the face of huge challenge ahead: student loans, a profession in flux in a field headed over an unknowable horizon (possibly a cliff), and starting it all by diving into one of the most competitive pools in the world when I apply for grad school.
It's borrowing trouble. Tens of thousands of dollars worth of trouble, possibly slightly more than my starting annual salary would be. It's making a bet that a non-doctor health care profession remains remuneratively relatively stable for the next 15 years.
But I keep coming back to the fact that nothing else seems even remotely as interesting, varied, and satisfying as mechanically trouble-shooting the body and working with people to help them feel better. It's working with my mind and my hands. It's science, art and storytelling, it's the integration of technology with physicality. It's also paperwork and politics and regulatory compliance, but I've sharpened my skills for those: there's little avoiding those, and I can hack 'em a lot better these days, especially when it's part of something worthwhile.
And while I don't see myself as ambitious or driven, I have the brains and stubbornness to not only succeed, but to make it impossible for me to coast happily in a low-expectation niche. I tried. I really really tried. And despite the winter doldrums, cabin-fever, burnout and double-barreled grief, I'm a much happier person now than I was in cubeville.
I can work my ass off for something worthwhile. I just need to know that it is indeed worthwhile. But that's unquantifiable to the level I'd like, and so I've been stuck on the edge of the diving board unable to gauge the safety of the water below.
