A funny thing happened when Kevin insisted I wear makeup for the wedding. I discovered that I liked it.
Back in middle and high school, I had to glob makeup on my face every time I performed in a dance recital or musical. It was always heavy and felt caked on. It always made me break out. The experience led me to reject makeup altogether, and for years I almost never wore any. Unless a friend decided she wanted to make me over for a party, in which case I often felt awkward unless I managed to forget I was wearing makeup. But then I inevitably smudged my eyeliner or mascara or whatever, and looked awful by the end of the night.
Once Kevin asked me to wear makeup for the wedding, I knew I'd have to get in practice. I needed to remember how to apply it and learn how to get through a day without messing it up. I bought some stuff at the drug store and started playing.
It was surprising how quickly things started coming back to me. The realization that I needed to buy some extra brushes to get my eyeshadow just right. Mourning for the eyebrow brush I threw away so many years ago. Not to mention that it was satisfying. When I got my eyes looking just right, I was proud of myself.
In addition to this, I'd been looking for a specific shade of lipstick I loved in high school. It was being re-released in a limited run, and tracking it down was really difficult. In the process of trying to find it, I ended up visiting a lot of beauty sites and began to see tips on applying eye liner, keeping lipstick from smearing, finding brands that actually last all day. It all looked so fun and, more importantly, accessible. See part of my disinterest in makeup can be traced to my mom's disinterest in makeup. Without her to teach me the finer points I had a hard time learning. Though if I'd really wanted to I probably could have.
I also started seeing articles about women wearing too much makeup. Hand in hand with articles styling their hair in the wrong way or wearing the wrong shorts or just generally not being appealing in the right way. And I thought fuck that. I've never much cared about fashion or anything, opting for ease and comfort over style. But if men were going to tell me not to wear makeup, then I was damn well going to start wearing makeup.
And finally, the snowflake that caused the avalanche. Being one of the only women at work. Seeing twenty interns hired with nary a woman in sight. I got fed up with being one of the guys and decided to deliberately other myself. Because it turns out I do have a pretty strong contrary streak. I'm surprised I wasn't a more rebellious teenager (though I didn't really have anything to rebel against, so).
I went out and bought eyeshadows in fun shades. Blues and purples and pinks. I picked up some bright lipsticks to play with. I signed up for birchbox, because getting samples in the mail every month seemed like the ideal way to experiment. And in the very first box I found a hair product that I definitely have to start buying and using. It's amazing.
Incorporating makeup into my morning routine was surprisingly easy. I never do anything that takes more than five minutes, so it's not a big time suck. And it's so fun and satisfying that I find myself wanting to do things. I probably shouldn't have tried eyeliner for the first time on a work day, but it all worked out okay in the end.
Through all of this, the words of a guy I almost dated have started echoing in my head again. When I asked him about his tattoos, he replied "You only get one life, you might as well decorate it." It was these words that pushed me into getting my first tattoo and that are defining my experiments with making my face up every day. It's one more way to play with color, decorate myself, and define the way I look. It really is an art form, one that I'm getting better at and having a lot of fun with in the meantime.
Showing posts with label identity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label identity. Show all posts
Saturday, June 7, 2014
Friday, May 30, 2014
The 17%
Google recently released data on the demographics of their staff in an effort to be more transparent and to be held accountable for their diversity. They certainly have a long way to go to achieve equality, but it's good that they're trying. One of the numbers caught my attention immediately. When I saw it, I was struck with that weird mixture of disappointment and lack of surprise that is becoming all too familiar.
Google's tech force is made up of 17% women. Why did that number catch my eye? It was brought up in an NPR program that got a lot of attention about a year ago. The transcript can be found here. The take away is that that number - 17% - is an unsettlingly common number. It is, by and large, the number of professional women currently working in traditionally male-dominated fields.
17% of Hollywood film directors are women. 17% of US Senators are women. 17% of engineers, surgeons, professors, etc are women. Do a bit of digging, and you'll see this number everywhere.
More interestingly, 17% of people in crowd scenes in movies or television shows are women.
Recent psychological studies have found that most men perceive this as equality. When a group's ratio is 83 men to 17 women, the men are likely to say that there are as many women present as men. When women speak 17% of the time, men are likely to say that the women talked just as much as the men. And a worrying fact: when women speak 30% of the time, men start to complain that they were dominating the conversation. We have been conditioned to view 17% as good enough, to view anything approaching true equality as greed.
I should acknowledge that this is better than it was a generation ago. We have made great strides since my mom and my aunt were the only women in their respective offices. But I'm one of only five women in my office. We each get our own private stall in the bathroom, a perk I would gladly trade in to have some more female faces around me.
It actually feels like it's gotten worse the farther I've gone in my career. My college class was 25% female. Not great, but a good sight better than the 17% (or less) I deal with now. In fact, six years after I graduated, my alma mater achieved a 50-50 student body, and even graduated three more female engineers than male engineers. But they aren't making it into the workplace. At least not yet.
There are a number of reasons for this. Partly it's that they aren't being hired. Not through overt sexism, but because of a more insidious variant. A resume with a male name is likely to be seen as representing a more qualified individual than a resume with a female name, even if the two resumes are identical. A man being interviewed seems like a better fit for a company than his female counterpart, for some undefinable reason. Let's call it "culture".
There's also evidence that women aren't applying for as many jobs as men because of one of the sneakier aspects of sexism that I've only recently become aware of. Apparently women are likely to apply to a job only if they feel that they meet 100% of the requirements in the job description, whereas men will take a chance if they meet 60% of the requirements. This speaks to issues with self-esteem, confidence, and even arrogance. Of course, many companies are satisfied with that 60%, and they hire one of the men who applied as opposed to one of the women who didn't.
Then there are the cultural elements, something President Klawe identified and worked really hard to overcome at Harvey Mudd. Even if you're qualified to go to a school or take a job, many women will be put off by a student body or staff that is overwhelmingly male. Even if there's a lot of support for women, and a genuine effort to provide opportunities. My company is great about this, and I feel wholly supported there. It doesn't change the fact that when I interviewed I met with four men, and the only woman I saw the entire day was the head of HR. That leaves a distinct impression, and if there's an option to go somewhere more egalitarian, even if it's less prestigious or offers less money, the environment might make that trade off worth it.
Finally, there's the drop off effect. Women dropping out of college or PhD programs because the constant sexism becomes too grating. Women leaving careers in technical fields because they're sick of all the extra work that goes into being one of only a few women. Being constantly surrounded by men is exhausting. You're always on guard for them to make a sexist joke, wondering how to respond to one when it happens. Is it better to be a meek pushover or a feminist killjoy? Better to network and be on good terms with your coworkers or focus on your work and seek promotion based solely on your own merit? And what happens when you see man after unqualified man promoted ahead of you for a slew of reasons that are difficult to untangle and articulate?
Half of the things that happen to me in office barely even register as strange or uncalled-for. Until I share a story with my female friends and see the look of horror on their faces.
What's to be done? In college, we made a concerted effort to unite the women living in our dorm. And in our time there we saw a huge shift in the culture of our dorm, one that resulted in more women willingly moving into our dorm. But these were people I lived with, people I saw every day. An effort like that at my day job, where I really am supposed to be working instead of socializing, feels daunting. As does specifically recruiting more women, which by the way is not in my job description.
At the same time doing nothing feels cowardly. Like I'm betraying my gender, my future children. Watching that number stagnate is disheartening, though I can always hope that things will get better. But how long will that take? Will my (hypothetical) daughter be struggling with these same issues thirty years from now? Will we have merely jumped from 17% to 30%? Or will we be able, in that time, to actually create a diverse corporate world that reflects the realities of the world we spend the rest of our lives in?
There aren't any easy answers. It's hard to know where to start. At the moment I'm so exhausted (by this, by the recent Isla Vista shooting, by the prospect of another summer dominated by male action heroes) that I hardly want to do anything. But the pendulum will swing, I'll befriend the new woman on my team at work, and things will get easier again. They say it's best to attack these things from a place of strength. Until I get there I'll just rant on my blog.
Google's tech force is made up of 17% women. Why did that number catch my eye? It was brought up in an NPR program that got a lot of attention about a year ago. The transcript can be found here. The take away is that that number - 17% - is an unsettlingly common number. It is, by and large, the number of professional women currently working in traditionally male-dominated fields.
17% of Hollywood film directors are women. 17% of US Senators are women. 17% of engineers, surgeons, professors, etc are women. Do a bit of digging, and you'll see this number everywhere.
More interestingly, 17% of people in crowd scenes in movies or television shows are women.
Recent psychological studies have found that most men perceive this as equality. When a group's ratio is 83 men to 17 women, the men are likely to say that there are as many women present as men. When women speak 17% of the time, men are likely to say that the women talked just as much as the men. And a worrying fact: when women speak 30% of the time, men start to complain that they were dominating the conversation. We have been conditioned to view 17% as good enough, to view anything approaching true equality as greed.
I should acknowledge that this is better than it was a generation ago. We have made great strides since my mom and my aunt were the only women in their respective offices. But I'm one of only five women in my office. We each get our own private stall in the bathroom, a perk I would gladly trade in to have some more female faces around me.
It actually feels like it's gotten worse the farther I've gone in my career. My college class was 25% female. Not great, but a good sight better than the 17% (or less) I deal with now. In fact, six years after I graduated, my alma mater achieved a 50-50 student body, and even graduated three more female engineers than male engineers. But they aren't making it into the workplace. At least not yet.
There are a number of reasons for this. Partly it's that they aren't being hired. Not through overt sexism, but because of a more insidious variant. A resume with a male name is likely to be seen as representing a more qualified individual than a resume with a female name, even if the two resumes are identical. A man being interviewed seems like a better fit for a company than his female counterpart, for some undefinable reason. Let's call it "culture".
There's also evidence that women aren't applying for as many jobs as men because of one of the sneakier aspects of sexism that I've only recently become aware of. Apparently women are likely to apply to a job only if they feel that they meet 100% of the requirements in the job description, whereas men will take a chance if they meet 60% of the requirements. This speaks to issues with self-esteem, confidence, and even arrogance. Of course, many companies are satisfied with that 60%, and they hire one of the men who applied as opposed to one of the women who didn't.
Then there are the cultural elements, something President Klawe identified and worked really hard to overcome at Harvey Mudd. Even if you're qualified to go to a school or take a job, many women will be put off by a student body or staff that is overwhelmingly male. Even if there's a lot of support for women, and a genuine effort to provide opportunities. My company is great about this, and I feel wholly supported there. It doesn't change the fact that when I interviewed I met with four men, and the only woman I saw the entire day was the head of HR. That leaves a distinct impression, and if there's an option to go somewhere more egalitarian, even if it's less prestigious or offers less money, the environment might make that trade off worth it.
Finally, there's the drop off effect. Women dropping out of college or PhD programs because the constant sexism becomes too grating. Women leaving careers in technical fields because they're sick of all the extra work that goes into being one of only a few women. Being constantly surrounded by men is exhausting. You're always on guard for them to make a sexist joke, wondering how to respond to one when it happens. Is it better to be a meek pushover or a feminist killjoy? Better to network and be on good terms with your coworkers or focus on your work and seek promotion based solely on your own merit? And what happens when you see man after unqualified man promoted ahead of you for a slew of reasons that are difficult to untangle and articulate?
Half of the things that happen to me in office barely even register as strange or uncalled-for. Until I share a story with my female friends and see the look of horror on their faces.
What's to be done? In college, we made a concerted effort to unite the women living in our dorm. And in our time there we saw a huge shift in the culture of our dorm, one that resulted in more women willingly moving into our dorm. But these were people I lived with, people I saw every day. An effort like that at my day job, where I really am supposed to be working instead of socializing, feels daunting. As does specifically recruiting more women, which by the way is not in my job description.
At the same time doing nothing feels cowardly. Like I'm betraying my gender, my future children. Watching that number stagnate is disheartening, though I can always hope that things will get better. But how long will that take? Will my (hypothetical) daughter be struggling with these same issues thirty years from now? Will we have merely jumped from 17% to 30%? Or will we be able, in that time, to actually create a diverse corporate world that reflects the realities of the world we spend the rest of our lives in?
There aren't any easy answers. It's hard to know where to start. At the moment I'm so exhausted (by this, by the recent Isla Vista shooting, by the prospect of another summer dominated by male action heroes) that I hardly want to do anything. But the pendulum will swing, I'll befriend the new woman on my team at work, and things will get easier again. They say it's best to attack these things from a place of strength. Until I get there I'll just rant on my blog.
Monday, September 9, 2013
Local Friends
By the time we got back from vacation, three of our friends had moved to DC. Jen actually moved in July, and Zach and Sarah moved while we were still in California after the wedding. It's exciting to have them all here, and my social calendar has absolutely exploded because of it. I used to make plans once every two or three weekends; now I have something going on nearly every weekend for the foreseeable future. It's fun, but it's also exhausting.
I'm finding that I need to readjust and do a better job of carving out time to just sit on the couch and recharge. I got good at this in college, when I made sure that I took an hour every day to sit in my room and watch TV by myself. Of course that never ended up being enough alone time. After every semester I would collapse on my mom's couch for a week, unable to even think about making plans with my high school friends until I was too bored to stay in the house anymore. And it takes me a while to get really bored.
I overdid it a bit the first week everyone was here. We spent an evening down in the city helping Zach and Sarah unload their UHaul. Then Kevin's family came over for dinner Saturday night and everyone went out to brunch on Sunday. Somehow the rest of the following week was completely nonstop until I accidentally snapped at Kevin out of exhaustion. Then I spent six hours reading The Hero of Ages on Friday and felt much better.
Since then I've been better about pacing myself. I have to turn down the occasional invitation, even if I really want to go, so that I don't overextend myself again. I'm also trying to slightly adjust my weekday evenings so that they're more relaxing, resulting in more energy on the weekends. So far this has been pretty successful. I miss out on some of the fun, but it's worth it to fully enjoy the time I do spend with my friends.
I'm finding that I need to readjust and do a better job of carving out time to just sit on the couch and recharge. I got good at this in college, when I made sure that I took an hour every day to sit in my room and watch TV by myself. Of course that never ended up being enough alone time. After every semester I would collapse on my mom's couch for a week, unable to even think about making plans with my high school friends until I was too bored to stay in the house anymore. And it takes me a while to get really bored.
I overdid it a bit the first week everyone was here. We spent an evening down in the city helping Zach and Sarah unload their UHaul. Then Kevin's family came over for dinner Saturday night and everyone went out to brunch on Sunday. Somehow the rest of the following week was completely nonstop until I accidentally snapped at Kevin out of exhaustion. Then I spent six hours reading The Hero of Ages on Friday and felt much better.
Since then I've been better about pacing myself. I have to turn down the occasional invitation, even if I really want to go, so that I don't overextend myself again. I'm also trying to slightly adjust my weekday evenings so that they're more relaxing, resulting in more energy on the weekends. So far this has been pretty successful. I miss out on some of the fun, but it's worth it to fully enjoy the time I do spend with my friends.
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
One is Silver and the Other's Gold
It recently came to my attention that I've now been living in Virginia for over a year and have yet to make a single friend. Which sounds sad when you actually come out and say it. It's not that I don't have any friends, it's just that I don't have any friends here. Mostly, I'd rather read or watch TV than try to be social. I can go several days without craving human contact, which means that my motivation to meet new people is pretty low. But my social life lately basically revolves around Boyfriend and his friends and family, and that isn't entirely fair to Boyfriend.
The problem is that making friends is hard. And exhausting. And terrifying. I have to find a place to go, work up the energy to go out, figure out how to introduce myself to someone, make small talk, and eventually exchange contact information. Then I have to wait for them to call me or somehow figure out a way to call them and invite them to something. Which involves coming up with an activity I think might be mutually enjoyable and trying to find that balance between calling too soon and waiting too long. And every single one of these steps requires a ton of energy and a million opportunities for me to embarrass myself and I usually end up paralyzed by social anxiety and decide to just watch some TV instead. Buffy can't make fun of me.
Realizing that I've been stuck in this pattern for over a year sent me spiraling into a bit of a depression, hence the recent increase in book reviews. But moping around won't make me any friends. And those hypothetical future friends will be worth the ridiculous amount of anxiety I must overcome to meet them. Right?
Boyfriend is going to be out of town for the entire month of June, and I'm going to use that time to try and meet people. This has not gone well in the past. I left an alumni happy hour in tears because I couldn't think of one single thing to say to anyone. I occasionally go out with my co-workers, but usually end up listening to conversations instead of joining them. I joined a book club but didn't want to talk about the same things as the other members. I tried to join a ballet class, but I only made it to one class because getting home and eating dinner before 7 consistently is really freaking hard.
But the time has come to pick myself up and try again. I discovered a board game night at a local game store that looks feasible. They have weekly meetings that go until 10, so I'm making an effort to go to that every week.
I actually kicked off this Make New Friends project last night when I inadvertently scheduled myself for two social activities. A coworker was leaving to join Teach For America which necessitated a happy hour, and I had agreed to attend my first game night.
The happy hour was pretty much a failure. I got a glass of wine and tried to join a conversation, any conversation. Eventually three separate conversations had sprung up around me, and none of them involved me. I tried to at least pay attention to one so I could jump in. But I have so little in common with the people I work with and such a vast inability to operate in a group setting that this never happened.
I'm great one-on-one. But throw another person or two into the conversation and it takes most of my mental capability to follow the conversation, try and come up with something to say, and double check that it's not stupid or awkward. This process takes long enough that I usually miss my opportunity to speak. Sometimes I can keep up for a couple of minutes, but it never lasts. It's much easier for me to express myself in writing, since I have time to read through and edit myself a few times before anyone else sees it. I can complete ideas without being interrupted and follow my train of thought wherever it leads.
Anyone who's ever gotten high with me can tell you that I stop talking. I simply lose the ability to both follow the conversation around me and contribute to it. And the THC-induced paranoia only increases my natural anxiety that I will say or do something stupid. Which is ridiculous when everyone is high and doing/saying stupid things, but there you go. The self-hatred this situation inspires in me is a big part of why I no longer smoke. (The fact that I would also lose my job helps me maintain that decision.)
Unfortunately, that same self-hatred is now causing me to avoid social situations altogether. That's not a good thing.
Anyway, the happy hour was a bust, but game night was better. I learned a new game with a complicated enough strategy that it carried the conversation through the night. I didn't have to invent small talk, because I could ask what might happen if I played here instead of there. I met three people and exchanged emails with one. Less than an hour after I got home, he sent me information about a few other board game nights in the area. So I'm calling this one a success. And I think I actually managed to make a friend. Good conversation + shared interest + invitation to future activity = friend, right?
I think the board game night is going to be more successful than any of my previous endeavors. I didn't find myself awkwardly at a loss during conversation, and I didn't want to smack anyone I met. And it fits into my schedule pretty nicely. So I'll keep this up and see where it leads.
The problem is that making friends is hard. And exhausting. And terrifying. I have to find a place to go, work up the energy to go out, figure out how to introduce myself to someone, make small talk, and eventually exchange contact information. Then I have to wait for them to call me or somehow figure out a way to call them and invite them to something. Which involves coming up with an activity I think might be mutually enjoyable and trying to find that balance between calling too soon and waiting too long. And every single one of these steps requires a ton of energy and a million opportunities for me to embarrass myself and I usually end up paralyzed by social anxiety and decide to just watch some TV instead. Buffy can't make fun of me.
Realizing that I've been stuck in this pattern for over a year sent me spiraling into a bit of a depression, hence the recent increase in book reviews. But moping around won't make me any friends. And those hypothetical future friends will be worth the ridiculous amount of anxiety I must overcome to meet them. Right?
Boyfriend is going to be out of town for the entire month of June, and I'm going to use that time to try and meet people. This has not gone well in the past. I left an alumni happy hour in tears because I couldn't think of one single thing to say to anyone. I occasionally go out with my co-workers, but usually end up listening to conversations instead of joining them. I joined a book club but didn't want to talk about the same things as the other members. I tried to join a ballet class, but I only made it to one class because getting home and eating dinner before 7 consistently is really freaking hard.
But the time has come to pick myself up and try again. I discovered a board game night at a local game store that looks feasible. They have weekly meetings that go until 10, so I'm making an effort to go to that every week.
I actually kicked off this Make New Friends project last night when I inadvertently scheduled myself for two social activities. A coworker was leaving to join Teach For America which necessitated a happy hour, and I had agreed to attend my first game night.
The happy hour was pretty much a failure. I got a glass of wine and tried to join a conversation, any conversation. Eventually three separate conversations had sprung up around me, and none of them involved me. I tried to at least pay attention to one so I could jump in. But I have so little in common with the people I work with and such a vast inability to operate in a group setting that this never happened.
I'm great one-on-one. But throw another person or two into the conversation and it takes most of my mental capability to follow the conversation, try and come up with something to say, and double check that it's not stupid or awkward. This process takes long enough that I usually miss my opportunity to speak. Sometimes I can keep up for a couple of minutes, but it never lasts. It's much easier for me to express myself in writing, since I have time to read through and edit myself a few times before anyone else sees it. I can complete ideas without being interrupted and follow my train of thought wherever it leads.
Anyone who's ever gotten high with me can tell you that I stop talking. I simply lose the ability to both follow the conversation around me and contribute to it. And the THC-induced paranoia only increases my natural anxiety that I will say or do something stupid. Which is ridiculous when everyone is high and doing/saying stupid things, but there you go. The self-hatred this situation inspires in me is a big part of why I no longer smoke. (The fact that I would also lose my job helps me maintain that decision.)
Unfortunately, that same self-hatred is now causing me to avoid social situations altogether. That's not a good thing.
Anyway, the happy hour was a bust, but game night was better. I learned a new game with a complicated enough strategy that it carried the conversation through the night. I didn't have to invent small talk, because I could ask what might happen if I played here instead of there. I met three people and exchanged emails with one. Less than an hour after I got home, he sent me information about a few other board game nights in the area. So I'm calling this one a success. And I think I actually managed to make a friend. Good conversation + shared interest + invitation to future activity = friend, right?
I think the board game night is going to be more successful than any of my previous endeavors. I didn't find myself awkwardly at a loss during conversation, and I didn't want to smack anyone I met. And it fits into my schedule pretty nicely. So I'll keep this up and see where it leads.
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Update
I haven't been blogging lately (except for my Buffy meme updates). I don't know if any of you even care or not. But I'll try not to abandon this thing completely. Work has gotten a lot busier and a lot better. This has left me with less time to whine and fewer things to whine about.
My boss left the company at the beginning of the month. This was sad, but my new boss is awesome (and the exact person I was hoping would be promoted to the position). We met after her promotion and she managed to make me feel a lot better about my position in the company and my future with it. Also, a bunch of my projects have deliverables soon. This accounts for the sudden business of my life. It also makes me feel like I'm actually accomplishing something. Work is still frustrating, but it's the good kind of frustrating now.
Also, Boyfriend and I are starting to look at houses. Everything is still very up in the air and our plans are pretty vague. We went to a bunch of open houses this weekend (and I am planning to write a post about some of the ridiculous houses we got to tour) and I'm suddenly really excited about the idea of a house. Which means I'm far more inclined to keep my current job with it's nice paycheck.
I think I've been in a slump or a rut for the past couple of months and I'm starting to come out of it. Hopefully this trend continues. My job really is awesome and I'm pretty excited to keep it at this point.
My boss left the company at the beginning of the month. This was sad, but my new boss is awesome (and the exact person I was hoping would be promoted to the position). We met after her promotion and she managed to make me feel a lot better about my position in the company and my future with it. Also, a bunch of my projects have deliverables soon. This accounts for the sudden business of my life. It also makes me feel like I'm actually accomplishing something. Work is still frustrating, but it's the good kind of frustrating now.
Also, Boyfriend and I are starting to look at houses. Everything is still very up in the air and our plans are pretty vague. We went to a bunch of open houses this weekend (and I am planning to write a post about some of the ridiculous houses we got to tour) and I'm suddenly really excited about the idea of a house. Which means I'm far more inclined to keep my current job with it's nice paycheck.
I think I've been in a slump or a rut for the past couple of months and I'm starting to come out of it. Hopefully this trend continues. My job really is awesome and I'm pretty excited to keep it at this point.
Sunday, April 10, 2011
Take a Breath
Anya:What happens next?
Xander:Well, at some point we take off our clothes.
Anya:I mean, what happens next in our lives? When do we get a car?
Xander:A car?
Anya:And a boat. No, wait, I don't mean a boat. I mean a puppy, or a child. I have a list somewhere.
Xander:What are you talking about?
Anya:Just, we have to get going. I don't have time just to let these things happen.
Xander:There's no hurry.
~The Replacement
In this scenario I am Anya. I want the next thing. The house, the child, the dog. Just need a reminder that there is no hurry.
Xander:Well, at some point we take off our clothes.
Anya:I mean, what happens next in our lives? When do we get a car?
Xander:A car?
Anya:And a boat. No, wait, I don't mean a boat. I mean a puppy, or a child. I have a list somewhere.
Xander:What are you talking about?
Anya:Just, we have to get going. I don't have time just to let these things happen.
Xander:There's no hurry.
~The Replacement
In this scenario I am Anya. I want the next thing. The house, the child, the dog. Just need a reminder that there is no hurry.
Saturday, February 26, 2011
Where do I go from here?
I'm 24 with a top-notch education, a wonderful boyfriend, and a great job that could easily become a career. I'm living "the dream", but I don't think I want it. I don't think this is my dream. And I have no idea how to figure out what my dream is, or how to go about chasing it down.
I know how I got here. I basically fell into this life through a combination of luck, opportunity, intelligence, and a complete lack of goals. I took a lot of math and science classes in high school because these subjects were easy for me. This led me to Harvey Mudd College where I majored in physics because... Well, because it was more interesting than math and easier than chemistry. It had fewer requirements than any of the other majors which meant more time for electives.
By my senior year I was tired of it. Quantum mechanics frustrated me. General relativity confused me. Electromagnetism made me want to bang my head against a wall, which I actually did at least once a week. I hated everything I was studying and dealt with it by drinking far too much and smoking more. I remember thinking that if I had to do it over again, I'd major in history or literature. Because what's the point of understanding the universe if we can't even understand each other? With only one semester to go, I realized that the best option was to stick it out. So at 21 I graduated with a BS in physics, and the only thing I knew was that I didn't want a PhD in it.
After months of job hunting, applying, interviewing, and being rejected, I discovered a small company that did cognitive modeling research. Cognitive modeling is equal parts computer science, artificial intelligence, and psychology. It seemed like a good fit. At least I was shifting towards understanding other people while still using my very expensive education.
So that's the field I'm in now, though my job is a bit less psychology and a bit more computer science. Everyone I work with has an MS or a PhD in some field related to this. They're starting to pressure me to get one, too. Except I don't want another degree. The idea of going back to school repels me. I don't even know what I would study. I love to read. I love learning about people. So I'd be drawn, once again, to history or literature. Neither of these degrees is exactly related to my job. Psychology or sociology would be a good compromise. Do I want to base my career on a compromise?
The problem really is that I have a dream job, but it isn't my dream job. I have great colleagues, flexible work hours, interesting problems to solve, and the freedom to pursue a variety of different types of work. But I'm not passionate about it.
So where do I go from here? Do I keep my wonderful job, with it's steady pay and benefits? Do I look for something else to do? Do I bite the bullet and head back to school, pushing off other dreams of a house and kids?
The only solid answer I've really gotten is "start a blog". So that's what I'm doing. This is my place to figure out who I am and what I want out of life. I don't know what exactly will end up in here. I don't know if anyone will even read it. But I'm going to try and stick to it. Hopefully I'll figure out my life in the process.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)