Ranger 146

To show that I am not the only seasonal biologist out there going through this, here is one of the classic websites that I'm sure is in every bio tech's Favorites menu. I like his photo: No cellular coverage!

Ranger 146: My Life as a Seasonal Wildlife Biologist
(Also many excellent job links!)

Photo by Ranger 146

In other news... I had a bad day. I had the bad interview, I was yelled at by the bad woman-hater, my achilles aches badly.... And I finally heard from Colorado State. Bad?

DENIED!

Frankly, I was shocked. Don't wanna toot my own horn, but my grades were excellent, Dean's List and graduated with honors, excellent references and work experience... It's not even that I wanted to go anymore - I pretty much decided I wouldn't enroll this fall. But the fact that I didn't get in!! Then I look at the reason: They ran out of open spots. Doh! It doesn't help that I had thought my application was finished in October when, in fact, I was missing one letter of recommendation and turned it in very late (May!). So I salvaged some of my pride knowing that they didn't have many open spots in the first place, and I still kick ass. They don't know what they are missing.

get with the times!

Lots to write about but I've been very busy - Casey and Brynn's wedding, getting things ready for Tara's shower, the new job, interviews, yaddayadda... But I'm annoyed and thought I would rant a little bit.

By the way, I do realize that the content of my journal isn't very exciting to people who don't know me, and probably not exciting even if you do. The original intent of the journal was to keep family and friends updated, and also provide a place for me to babble. I do hope to write more fun stuff in the future but that time is not now! Oh, I am also writing a novel so my creative juices are flowing elsewhere. ;)

I visited my city boys today and, as always, a certain jackass greeted me with "Geez, haven't you found a job yet?" and his typical barrage of "you're lazy and stupid and worthless" comments. Methinks he hates women and has bitterness towards his mother or some other female figure in his life, because he hated me the moment we met a few years ago. I don't take his psychotic rambling personally. He's just an ass.

I have a job now, albeit part-time, so I thought maybe, just MAYBE, he would lay off.

Apparently I forgot who I was talking to.

"Oh yeah part-time, that's really "working"?! Get a real job! Even McDonalds is more of a career than what you do! If I were your parents, I would have kicked you out by now to teach you a lesson!"

He sounds like an old man. "Back in the day, we'd have none of this freeloading!" He's only 34.

Fortunately, I have a sharp tongue and quick wits and volleyed right back.

I started telling my other friend what I do as a "stewardship intern" - the township's parks are mostly non-developed and they place a lot of emphasis on preservation, education, and passive uses, and I am helping develop the program. They don't have althetic fields and haven't razed the land the way Novi does.

This sparks off another old fart - "What a waste of land. They need to tear it down and put in a mall or something to create more jobs."

Argh! There is no use to talking to people like that. Thank goodness he is too apathetic to vote.

The most frustrating part is that they think they are right, and that's how things are or should be. But really, times DO change.

I live at home. But so do nearly all of my friends. I recently read in the paper that 2 out of 3 college grads my age live at home. If you go to college, you can't move out at 18 like many of my blue-collared 30-something year old friends did. They started working at 18 and got married, end of story. Now they just bitch about it. For college, you are PAYING for four years, and right now even a degree from a great school with great grades such as I have doesn't mean you can find a full-time job. And it seems like a waste for me to work any old job that I will HATE when I don't have to. I do have the luxury of choice right now.

That's just the way things work where I live. Most of our high school class went to college, and now most of us live at home. I moved out for a while but I ended up back at home. Most people I know won't take a crappy job out of their field just to "work" unless they really need the money.

It's even harder to make them understand what I'm doing because they don't understand that the natural resources field works a bit differently than, say, engineering. There isn't a lot of money in what I want to do, so there aren't paid interviews (my engineering friend frequently had paid travel to their interviews - hotel, air, and food!). You need a degree, but you must learn most of it on the job and usually get paid very poorly, if at all. In the more "traditional" fields, you get trained at an entry-level career job; I have to mainly rely on seasonal jobs, as career-entry level enviro field jobs are hard to find.

I'm not complaning; I love what I do/what I am aspiring to do. I was paid to hike through a park and identify birds yesterday. It's just frustrating when people try to tell me how "things are supposed to be" when they don't know how it really is. It's hard to swim upstream when people like that get in your way, but at least I'm in the water. Figuratively and literally sometimes - worked in the rain every day last week! ;)

**This is Amicalola Falls in Georgia. I took it in March 2003. Tallest waterfall in the eastern US at around 723 ft or something like that.

What a great weekend!
I attended an awesome wedding for a great couple, went for my first dip in Lake Michigan for the year, watched my hottie Seth Bullock battle his inner demons (and get it on!) on Deadwood (season finale, my favorite episode so far!), and then watch the Pistons shut down the Lakers in yet another game of bball.
Life is good. ;)

Basketball

Game 3 of the Pistons-Lakers series is tonite, and you can bet that I'll be up late watching it!

Anyway, I like this article from AOL about why Detroit DESERVES to win!

Shouldn't Kobe be in jail or something anyway?? ;)

work? what's that

Monday, I received a call about that stewardship crew job. I was all set to say no... But instead of offering me full-time, they offered me two 10 hr days/wk (with occassional weekend and evening) for decent pay.

I had to think about that one. Having to drive an hour each way sucks, but I could cope only doing it twice a week. I was definitely going to turn down full time but this... I might be able to work with this...

She needed to know by that afternoon, and I decided I would tell her yes. An hour later, I get another phone call: an environmental consulting firm, regarding a full-time staff scientist position. Set up an interview for Tuesday.

Now I had a dilemma: Do I accept the part-time job with the risk that I would have to quit right away if I was offered the full time? Or do I say no to part time and hold out for this (or even some other) full time position? I hate quitting jobs, but "that's the way it goes" is what everyone advised me. So I accepted the part time.

Yesterday I went to the interview. I have the book "Job Interviews for Dummies" and did a speed-read to prepare. I am great at being personable, likeable, enthusiastic, and energetic (read: I fidget a lot but smile and giggle) but my skills end there. This book actually helped a lot!

Interview went well - I sold myself like a nickle whore! The book explains ways to show how your experience and skills will help the company out, and I even researched the company on the web and brought up what I found. I'll find out Friday if I get called back for a second interview with the president.

The job itself wasn't quite what I though. I want to do field work, but apparently they try to avoid women doing those jobs. "Not that we're sexist, it's just very hard physical labor and we don't want anyone to get hurt." It's statements like that that make me want to do labor to prove them wrong! (Yeah, I'm stubborn like that). I insisted that I get to do some of the fun stuff though and he said we might be able to "work something out". I hate phrases like that!

So I was wary that I would be mostly inside doing budget and project management and writing papers. But wait, isn't that what consultants do? Isn't that what you want to do Lisa - is be a scientific professional? We'll get back to that later.

(Phone rings... answer... just landed an interview as an environmental sanitarian with Livingston county! The fun never ends!)

Then we talk about hours and pay. Minimum 45 hrs per week to get everything done, but to do well it would probably be more like 50-60. Lots of overtime! Now I did work 50-55 hrs/wk often at the end of the summer at Rocky, so it's not that I'm totally lazy (ok, that's part of it...) I don't do overtime unless it's for something I am passionate about or at least enjoy. The pay is ok to start but the opportunity for advancement is huge if you put in the time and effort. Thing is, is that money doesn't mean much to me. It does, but happiness comes first. At this point, I realized that I could DO the job and probably do well if I tried hard, but it would be all work and no pleasure.

I realized that I don't want to be a professional. At all.

I went to college but I like to be simple. I am intelligent but don't want to use only my brain - I want to get dirty and use my hands and keep active. I've thought this is only a phase and I'd get over it and want to be a white-collar worker, but NO! I am convinced that some people are fundamentally designed for certain types of work - I am smart but not driven or ambitious enough to slave away at a desk job and manage people. I dont like people telling me what to do, but I don't want to supervise anyone except myself!

And this whole time I've applied for those kinds of jobs. Screw it. I don't care if I stay low in the food chain as a laborer - it's what I like to do. Like those seasonal National Park Service positions. I want to be seasonal forever! (Except they don't offer benefits, and that's annoying.)

So then I made the mistake of starting to read my latest book, Vagabonding by Rolf Potts. It's about how to be a long-term wanderer. Work a little, then hit the road. Or work on the road. Point is, is that whatever disease infected him is also in my blood, and this book is only encouraging me to adventure on. Get another seasonal fed job, move to Alaska, or even move somewhere forgein.

Some people dream of wealth and power, sports cars and huge houses. I dream of experience and adventure, jungles and mountains.

And now I go to my new job, so I can earn money for my next adventure. ;)