Monday, January 27, 2014

I dream of a summer forest...

I believe I've spoken about this before, but for a practical person, I am extremely susceptible to dreams, fancies, and ideas. Somebody mentions ONE THING and all of a sudden I have my whole life planned out as a pilot, a writer, an ecologist, whatever.

I think I wrote about it semi-recently along the lines that if I get a job, I can see the next 20 years or whatever at that job. It's really a rather depressing way to look at things like jobs.

So, my most recent flight of fancy which is probably entirely not an option and I wouldn't like it anyway because the word research makes me cringe up inside... ecology/forestry.

Granted it was Mom's idea originally. The Story County Conservation group would take her school kids out to tramp around the woods and point out interesting things and basically do those fun things that get kids interested in nature until other less-fun classes beat it out of them. I'm looking at you, Biology 212. But anyway, she mentioned that it would be a great job for me because I love tramping around in woods and picking up rocks to see what lives under them and I liked science back when science was fun.

I looked into it and realized I would need another degree and dismissed it.

So there are two things that made me dream again. One is a friend of ours named Shane. Shane currently sells cell phones at Target, but he just finished getting a degree in something like IT and will be getting a job working with computers, which he likes. And why not go back to school or do school part time if it leads to what you want to do?

And the second was an actual dream where basically, my grandparents were selling us their home in Kansas and David was actually accepting because it was a really good deal and David is an opportunistic buying and we were going to relocate to Kansas and I would have to quit my job, but there were rolling hills covered in trees that still had beautiful leaves even though it was winter that I could tramp through to my heart's delight... I should note that the house, outbuildings, and Kansas as shown in my dream look nothing like the actual house, outbuildings, or Kansas. I mean, rolling hills? For some reason I was freaking out in the dream because I didn't want to live in Kansas and when I woke up, I'm like, "What is wrong with me? Rolling hills with trees!"

And then I moped around a bit because I wanted a forest that wasn't freezing. Seriously, it's so cold around here I could cry... and then my tears would freeze.

And so then I'm like, "Hey, if I really wanted to be an ecologist, maybe I could go back to school part time and in a few years, I could get a job with Story County Conservation and tramp around in the woods!"

Which, I am sure that it doesn't work like that. I bet there isn't as much wood-tramping as I envision. And I would have to work more in the summer, which is precisely what I don't want to do... because I like being outside in nature in the summer... maybe that part would work out. And maybe (I haven't quite figured it out yet), I would need a graduate degree and if there is one thing that scares me more than research itself, it's dissertations. I wouldn't get a graduate degree in cookies or biking or World of Warcraft if I had to write a dissertation.

Queue David coming in and saying, "You should be a writer! It would be perfect for you!"

Oh well. Maybe this dream can't happen, just like the airplane pilot dream. Or puppy dream. Or living in Colorado dream. But it might amuse me for a little bit. And let me think of warm summer woods. And I can add "ecologist dream" to the list of dreams that didn't work out next time I need to trot out the proof of my own unreasonable whimsical emotions.

I bet Mom saw this coming.