Keep it light enough to travel

Well, here I am. In the dreaded limbo between the end of a masters degree and a full time permanent job. I went to graduate school because I wanted to do more—I didn’t want to be a technician slaving away to collect someone else’s data so they could do something important with it. I want to do something important too.

I suppose I was warned about this space--but maybe it never quite sank in. I’m overqualified and unchallenged by seasonal positions, yet not quite experienced enough to analyze and publish a bunch of data without supervision—so I can’t get those permanent jobs that a PhD can. And if I went on for the PhD--which would be another 5 years of my life in competitive academia that’s just not my style—I’d probably end up at a desk in an office somewhere and never see my study species. I think it’s a fairly typical situation for my field, but also for a bad economy.

It could be traveling on this road for a long time before the near perfect job comes my way. (I’ve got 8 applications floating around at the moment.) In the meantime, I’m trying to make the best of it by seeing beautiful places that most people who work all the time never get to see. I need to do something so I don’t continue to feel as if my life has been put on hold.

I’m off to Tucson, AZ in a week for a fresh (although temporary) start. Arizona has 6 National Forests to play in and one National Park that’s not yet officially on my list--Saguaro. I will keep everyone posted on my whereabouts as usual.

Here's a few photos of the Grand Canyon from my first visit to it in 2004: