this is supposed to be about the future

I hope these long hours in front of notebooks and diagrams are worth the loss of sunlight and sleep and conversation. I wonder what exactly they are preparing me for. I hope I'm studying the right things, not just the right things for the two exams that are probably going to floor me on Tuesday, but the right things that fit what I want to do with the next couple of years.

I hope I ace these exams. I think I'm working smarter this semester, or at least more during the day and less methodically. Maybe it'll pay off.

The speed of RNA folding keeps getting interrupted by insistent questions about my definition of success. I don't want to be bored, but I don't want to be constantly battered by changes that are out of my control. This, they tell us, is why you have to Further Your Education. You should get a Challenging Job with Room for Advancement. never mind the glass ceiling (that might put a stop to all my Advancement), until you and your pantsuit and pumps are standing around wondering why. I don't want to wonder as much as I do now, I guess. I'm exhausted from not knowing. Not knowing if they like me back, not knowing if I'll pass my exams, not knowing where I'll work next year, not knowing what classes to take, not knowing how I'm going to get to a place that sells shampoo and bread.

places I could go

Rochester

Philadelphia (but sure as hell not Pipersville/my parents' house)

DC

Boston

San Francisco

Baltimore?

not Chicago...too far from the ocean.

back to spaghetti

can't is safer than could.

never is safer than maybe.

no is safer than yes.

am i ready to be dangerous?

I can't do this.

i suppose i'd be concerned if my retinas really lit on fire

you want the truth?

the truth is that i've had a thing for you since i was about sixteen. it's the sort of thing i can get past, of course, because the little sparks behind my eyes went off some four years ago, but they're still there. it's the sort of thing i thought would disappear entirely, actually, because we're in different places now, but it...hasn't.

i wonder if it's obvious.

"never quite as simple as ordering from a restaurant menu"

I graduate in like ten months. so this is a list of career wants (and do-not-wants) based largely off the examples in Now What? by Nicholas Lore...since i have very little idea about what i want...

Positives:

i want to make a contribution that personally matters to me. i want to feel i am doing something that makes a difference.

i want to be successful. to me, being successful means...thinking creatively to be the "best" at solving problems. being very good at what i am doing. being an indispensable part of a team.

i want to feel satisfied and fulfilled in my career.

i want to be an expert in some specialty.

i want my work to be a natural expression of my talents and personality.

i want a balance between working very hard and potentially burning out, and not feeling that my job is important enough to try at.

i want to be self-employed or an entrepreneur...or run a non-profit.

i want a career where i am doing things that come easily to me and that i enjoy.

i want to be extremely successful, one of the top people in my chosen career./i want to be highly respected at work because i'm so good at what i do.

i want to work somewhere where people are friends, but not so close as family. it usually ends badly when things get very personal.

And the negatives:

i do not want to spend the majority of my time working for myself.

i don't need to make much money, i don't need to be wealthy. i need enough to live on and be independent from anyone else.

i'm not too entranced by adventure and danger at work.

i do really want to work. i'll get bored otherwise.

i want to work with people that are as motivated as i am.

this just happened...

I like the way I feel in restaurants. i can walk through and talk loudly and I probably walk a little funny but I feel good. proud of this skin and these clothes and this arrangement of silver on skin. I can order and they hear me and I smile and they smile back. I walk down the sidewalk and when I feel like everyone's staring I don't care, because I'm looking back at them. even if my nails never grow i'll wear dark purple or orange-pink and take their shape boldly. I like the way i feel in bowling alleys ungraceful and weak simply because these are my wrists and biceps and hips. I like the way I feel flying down the road suspended in my own voice singing and my body flowing with the wheel and the brake like I was never afraid of the oncoming traffic. and I like the way i feel at a table with a mug of coffee and a hundred pages before me, waiting to be combed and styled into something I can understand and something I can write about and tell you about.