July 23rd, 2010
What Do YOU Think I Should Do With My Life?
Seriously: give me A PLAN. I am extremely open to suggestions. I am also listening to plenty of Jayhawks, my old standby comfort music. The Jayhawks are probably my favorite band, and this just might be my favorite of their songs. In any case the lyrics suit my current sense of instability.
Anyway. WEEKEND: hell yes here I come. Beginning with a Welcome Back Ian/Welcome Mary, McClain’s girlfriend from Wassau barbecue! I’m bringing asparagus.
PS Crazy Daze was good stuff. The Kearneys are just great. We had lots of fun despite lots of rain.
PPS Here’s a neat fishbowl-y photo of me at my Zinefest booth, taken by the Twin Cities Daily Planet:
July 23rd, 2010 at 2:08 pm
Man, you make science seem like a good gig. Except for the organs. Those are scary.
July 24th, 2010 at 12:17 am
The first panel reminds me of scott pilgrim. Also, it just looks B.A.
July 24th, 2010 at 12:29 am
Old joke:
“How do you make God laugh? —Make a plan.”
Sure I have no need for a god, but I think it more or less holds true for athiests as well.
July 24th, 2010 at 7:11 am
It’s a old military adage that no plan survives contact with the enemy. In your (and my case as well) the enemy is life.
July 24th, 2010 at 11:32 am
I mean, you’d think that. But then look at me. Science to the gills, and the only reason I’m not living at home AND unemployed is my parents like having the house to themselves so much they’ll make sure I stay in St. Paul.
July 24th, 2010 at 4:36 pm
Ya gotta love Danno’s comment. It should be on our wall somewhere…
July 25th, 2010 at 10:26 am
“I’m taking advantage of my parents’ generous offer to move to my childhood home in Northfield for a year so I can have a year’s worth of maximum freedom and mental slack because I am creating a work of brilliance. If I passed up this opportunity in favor of “real life” I would regret it for the rest of my life. Don’t YOU wish you had a creative opportunity like this? Now QUIT ASKING!”
That’s your cover story. None of us has any doubt in your capacity to create a work of brilliance. Dig in, work hard, and you’ll have no regrets.
July 25th, 2010 at 11:03 am
I’ll go ahead and second Chris’ comment.
July 25th, 2010 at 9:21 pm
I had another crisis about this stuff last night. I was updating my I HAVE A PLAN LOOK AT ME – EXCEL SPREAD SHEET and looking online at current students at my dream grad schools who have to be at least 30 and have done everything you can do without curing cancer or winning a Pulitzer. It gets to feel kind of futile. Like am I even ready or good enough or is this just so I can say I have a plan? How do you know if you’re ready to move from serious to Professional and on your own Even my upcoming internship is a limited kind of plan what do I say if I don’t get into grad school and people are like what are you doing next????
If someone tells me one more time- “everyone has their own path” I’m gonna kill ‘em. I am also a plan person not a ‘life is a winding journey’ person, and I am praying that getting out of my own home town and parent’s house will make it better. I refuse to give up my grand schemes but I’m not sure I’ll have much of a choice when reality keeps seeping in.
As much as committee stuff was hell, I do miss having life advice (even wrong advice) available and easy to argue or agree with. Even post-Hampshire I kind of miss standardized testing as a way to form a plan around a specific score like get a 1600 and win a successful career in the field of your choosing.
Dream jobs don’t fall out of the sky and for the kind of work we do we’ll need a sugar daddy to own our own home. Want to join me next year or the year after on J-Date? Just click the “unofilliated” box under observance and know that you’re not alone among the bull shit.
August 10th, 2010 at 5:08 am
My gut reaction: One step at a time. If “Dream Athena” really is your goal [ahem?] other than the obvious investment in a late night info-ab-buster, what is the first step she took to get there?
Whatever your goal, however scrim obscured or loftily mulled, there is a first, small, step towards it that you can accomplish easily, and doing so will fool you into thinking you’re moving forward. Momentum can feel just like confidence in such matters, and build upon itself. One step after another often leads you to another place (deep, huh) but stagnation will eat you up.
Big goals are scary. Ignore them whenever possible.
This is not surprisingly a verbose restatement of advice from your grandfather, a man who was energetically committed to my advancement, which pissed me off no end. For many years I refused to heed on some pig headed principle. I now find myself quoting him almost daily. Heed the wise.
September 1st, 2010 at 12:16 pm
Oh my gosh! Many thanks to all of you for your kind words, sage advice, personal anecdotes, and all the rest of this!
Diana, it was so nice to hear this update from you! I should’ve figured that you of all people would identify with this. I DEFINITELY identify with you, right down to the excel spreadsheet…
I too LOVE plans. I understand that life is always gonna throw your curveballs, but that’s never gonna change how much I love planning and organization. (Looking at my mother’s clipboard of multiple to-do lists, as well as her giant color-coded calendar, I guess I come by it honestly…) I was talking with one of my coffee shop co-workers about this recently: we both confessed to our total LOVE of lists and organizing. She said that she re-writes her to-do lists constantly. I do the same thing.
I think this kind of obsession (some might say fanaticism) is what makes it so hard when people just say “don’t worry about it/everyone has their own path/you’re totally normal/someday you’ll figure it out/etc.” They don’t seem to understand that this is not feeling an OBLIGATION to have a plan…it is a DEEP and GENUINE LOVE OF PLANNING.
I wish I had you nearby to bitch about this stuff, and compare plans!
Lemme know if you stumble across a network of aging billionaires willing to finance the dream of 20-something overachievers…for minimal sexual favors.
UncaBen: Aw man, thanks so much for your words! You are definitely right about small steps. When I start thinking big picture, I tend to freeze up and just watch a bunch of 30 Rock (not that that’s a bad use of my hours…). I will do my best to heed the words of wise guys like you and Grandpa and take it one goal at a time.