How did you get into this career?
My degree’s in biology, with an emphasis on marine biology. So right after college, I got to go work on Catalina Island off the coast of California at what’s called the Catalina Island Marine Institute. It’s kind of a science camp for kids.
Groups of school kids would come out there for half a week or a week, and we would take them snorkeling, we’d take them sea kayaking. We’d have various classes about different aspects of marine biology.
Boudicca, getting it done
I quit saying, “when things calm down…” years ago. It’s simply never going to happen. Not that that is a bad thing – I like being busy. When I have time on my hands, I don’t get anything done at all. However, I’d like to find a bit more time in my schedule than I have right now.
See, I had a baby 16 months ago. She is awesome – fun even when she’s throwing a wobbler. But boy, are babies ever time-sinks. When people say, “you look up, and the day is over!” they aren’t kidding. It’s like every baby has a copy of Hermione’s time-turner but they are using it to eat your day rather than help you get more done.
Another thing about having kids that is true – you suddenly become much more ruthless regarding your time. I don’t have time to waste doing anything that isn’t fulfilling me or us in some way.
As a result, I am working hard this year to focus and get more things done. To help me with this, I have these goals:
Dream jobs. I know they exist, because I’ve had one or two in my life, but I also know that two things are true: one size does not fit all, and even the absolute best, can’t-wait-to-go-in jobs have their days where you are, simply, burnt. Here are some other people’s opinions on the subjects:
An interesting perspective on the mundanity of everyday work: The mundaneness of science
Here’s a counterpoint to the above article – “Everyday I tell students in the lab that they’re really doing something that’s never been done by anybody at any time, ever.”
Even a dream job has its ups and downs. Here are some tips on how to relight your fire: Are you busy at work, but still bored?
You might think something is your dream job – but take it from someone who knows – it may not be all it’s cracked up to be: The Bitchless Bride: Rainbows and Unicorns
How to pick a career you will like. This has some excellent points about how the grass is often greener…
The Oatmeal on dream jobs
Posted in Links
How would you find something like this if you didn’t explore?
This week I’m obsessed with streetwalkers. No, not that kind. I’m interested in people who make it their goal to walk every street in their town.
Have you ever thought about what it would take? For some small towns, not much. But there are other cities out there that would take an extreme effort to cover.
Posted in Weekly Obsession
What is your actual title?
Well, I guess my official title is just teacher. Licensed teacher.
Tell me a little bit about your job. What do you do in a typical day?
My job is multi-faceted in many ways. Typically, I teach five classes. Three middle – 7th grade general science. It’s mostly life science. And then I teach one advanced math class and one marine biology class.
Most of my day is spent in actual instruction time, with the kids and in the classroom. I have my math class first – first class of the day. Then I have three science classes in a row. And then my marine biology class at the end of the day. Then I have one class period of planning time. What goes on during the class, there’s all kinds of different things. I mean there’s what you would consider instruction time, where the science class – we’re generally doing some kind of hands-on activity and analyzing that activity and getting results from that activity, and going over some of the vocabulary we learned in that activity. And maybe setting up what we’re going to be doing the next day, to build on it.
photo by Emmli
When I was in college, I became quite the snot. Seriously bitchy in certain circumstances – I was infected with a bad hipster virus, and it made me very arrogant about certain, hipstery-things.
One of the manifestations of this was that my friends and I would go to dance clubs and spend at least part of the time making fun of how people were dancing. Not that we were great dancers, by any stretch of the imagination, but for whatever reason, when we got bored with the music, it’s what we would do.
It took me a while to realize what this was doing to me. The longer I went along with this, the more and more self-conscious I became about dancing. I loved going to clubs and dancing, but it was starting to really affect me. Going out and doing one of my favorite things was no longer fun. It just made me sad, after a point, and extremely self-conscious. So, I decided it was time for an attitude adjustment. I stopped making fun of people, and instead focused on how the music made me feel, which is generally pretty damn happy. I started to enjoy dancing again, and more importantly, I stopped feeling self-conscious about it.
Snark can bite back. Drop it, and you’ll probably find yourself feeling less self-conscious yourself.
Posted in Year of Living Fearlessly
Tagged finding your passion in life, overcoming shyness, shy
Photo by Lucy
How did you get into this job?
I’ve always thought about doing something of the like. Never really thought it would happen. But when I was working at the Montreal Children’s Hospital, I had a colleague who went for 6 months and came back, so I said, maybe it’s time to check it out. I applied to a few hospitals up north, because it’s not [the only] center that exists up north.
In the northern part of Canada, there are many other hospitals, because of the codes, the different bays. And because everything is so remote there are many different hospital settings.
So you had thought about working in the sort of rural atmosphere for a while.
Posted in How did I get here?
Tagged career journey, finding your passion in life, health, nursing, STEM
