Growing Up

I'm really very awful about keeping up this blog. Probably because I have the commitment level of a five year old; which is none. Hahaha.

I recently went through a dilemma.  I  REALLY, REALLY would love to be a veterinarian at a zoo. I have my undergrad degree, a variety and good quantity of experiences related to the field, my test scores aren't awful and many great people behind my letters of recommendation. The next step would be vet school. I have already applied twice and been rejected.

I'm discouraged, and it's not due to the failure I'm facing with applications. I've been working in the veterinary field for awhile. The periodicals, that come into clinics I've been working in, have been documenting a downward trend in job availability. Recent students I've met, who are in process to graduate from veterinary school, are saying that they plan on more school along with residencies and internships; just to be competitive for entry level jobs.

I have realized that I don't want to do that. I don't want to plan on 6 - 8 more years of school, after the 8 - 10 more admissions attempts. I don't want to get to where the other things in my life take off; like having a family or buying a house (like a grown-up), and then having to choose between time and experiences with people I love or focusing on school for a career. I don't want to give up the lifestyle I envision for raising children because I'm struggling to pay bills and school loans.

So I'm having to find a new career with a new career path. I greatly enjoy conservation, and mostly ecosystems within that category. This isn't too far off from where I'm starting, but I have no experiences to help me. I also have only a very little idea of which direction to head; I don't even have a job title or description of what I think could be the end goal, going down this path. I'm winging it, and I'm terrified.

I recently acquired a new, full time job. Now, I have two. I can't financially afford transitioning to the new one, but I can't career-wise leave the second. Putting those two schedules together has been a nightmare.

My new job is in a state park. I get to be outside all day, it's great. An interesting thing happened there the other day. To preface this, I continually think of myself and my peers as children; I don't think we have enough ducks in a row to be adults. A coworker and I were supposed to go clean some campsites that were five miles or so from the gate, and we were told to drive the chevy maintenance truck there. My coworker said she'd drive, but then forgot her license. As I had mine, I drove. I had no experience driving trucks of that size, on any road. The road we took was a dirt road. I was nervous and scared. The trip to the campsites went fine. I drove excellent, there were no close calls. The interesting thing was that, on the way back I noticed that in my mind, I had started to think of myself as an adult.

This surprised me. I still don't know how this mindframe shift is affecting, should affect or how I'm gonna let it affect my life and my views on such.

Also, we saw moose!

Changing

So it has been awhile, and lots of things have changed. I've been avoiding this blog; mostly because it has made it hard to recognize the little things. It was like trying to dig in the sand, in the Sahara, with a seive.

Anyway, I've moved. I got a new place for myself. It's nice, but I can't seem to keep it clean to fit my OCD expectations of myself. Those expectations are entirely unrealistic, I know. It's amazing to me the new things you learn in each stage of your life. Being on my own, I'm figuring out exactly what is important to me; & it's not what I thought I had all hammered out. For instance, come back to the cleaning; I'm super worried about my couch being clear, the bathroom clean and my bed comfortable. Not so much the dishes done every time I use them and having impeccable paper organization, like I thought I wanted. It's not just cleaning though; I'd rather spend quality time with my dog, friends and family then any mundane errand like groceries, cleaning out the car or getting the oil changed. All tasks I thought I'd be on top of doing. I would also rather be hanging out than at my job, which I love! I'm really starting to understand why time is the most important thing you can spend, and why you should be careful with it.

Other lessons I'm learning that I thought I was better at are asking for help, being alright with negative emotions like stress and anxiety and how to deal with them and pick myself back up, and finding things to be happy with in my life (not just .... hypocritically pointing them out in others'). It's been a tough month financially and that caused much stressing. I started out complaining and throwing myself a pity party every conversation. People just walked away from those; dunno if it's because I throw lame parties or I'm usually optimistic enough they don't know how to handle it.

However, things are turning around, and life is great at the moment.

At the store

I went shopping today. You know I'm still five inside when I spend the most time in the toy section. I found bouncy balls that were extra bouncy. I find those extremely entertaining! Crayola is making glowing sand! Sand to play with in the dark! It says it may stain things.  I'm curious to know if I end up staining something if it will glow, long-term!

Catching up

Apparently, I'm not getting to this every day.  It's a new habit that I am going to have to concrete.

I will try to recap my week and pull all of the entertaining items out.  Monday, I went to my volunteer job at the zoo.  I was just doing some cleaning.  One of the enclosures I was cleaning was for a pair of ferrets.  They are adorable!  They are so inquisitive and energetic; I love to watch them run around their enclosure trying to get on just the right level so they have a decent view to see what you are doing.
This week, I finally finished a rock climbing problem I had been working on.  I'm not very good at climbing, and I'm terrified of heights.  When I grabbed the top of the wall, though it felt like a huge accomplishment.  It might not be huge, but I love the feeling anyway.
For a couple of days this week, I had been continually injuring myself (unintentionally).  I feel fine now and looking back on it is just silly.  I landed on my foot wrong and stretched my shoulder out too far climbing.  I hit my hand at work at just the right angle to make my fingers hurt, too.  The funny part is that it happened altogether, as far as the time frame goes, and I was really upset about everything hurting.  Two days later, however, and everything is de-pained, if not back to normal; it's ridiculous to see how upset I was, you would have thought I was three.  

I am going on vacation and I'm pretty excited.  There are sure to be many little things to enjoy during vaca!



Also they have come out with jungle themed Mother's cookies!  There are green frosted ones!  They don't taste different, but I love them more anyway.
 

The Beginning

So occasionally, okay probably really often, I act or sound like I'm still five years old.  This ends up meaning that no one is surprised when I play in the sand like a five-year old or can entertain myself with a box.  Sometimes, this entertains others; and I'm sure sometimes it annoys people.  However, my aim is to contribute to my own and other peoples' enjoyment of random things I notice or that I found humorous and entertaining that day.

My thought is this: there are so many little things every day that are beautiful, random, funny or otherwise smile-to-face-bringing that they should be able to easily counteract a bad morning or crappy afternoon.  It takes so much energy to be glass half-empty, and I would rather devote that to being glass half-full. 

Fair warning - I'm an animal nerd.  So you know when the mere sight of a doggy or kitty makes a three-year's day?  Mine too.  There will be many such random animal sightings.

Fairly decent view of the city from the freeway.  Nice weather, the mountains are all green.

This is a field full of COWS!! ....only an animal nerd gets this excited.

Look how pretty this mountain is and there are some clouds.  Just ignore the power lines, they're not important (artistically speaking).

Horses!!!

A rose bush.  Its interesting how many phases of growth one plant can be in at once; there are buds that haven't opened yet all the way to roses that are dying and drooping.