One month in...

I started typing a response to Inky's comment two posts ago and realized I was pretty much typing up another post in her poor little comment box. So now everyone gets stuck with it, instead!

A few people, mostly PCPA people that I've run into out and about, have asked me if I "miss it" now that I've been out for a month. The answer, honestly, is no. Maybe it's still the novelty of everything, and of course I miss the people, but no, I don't miss my old job at all, actually. In fact, it's sooo nice to not to be in this weird "loving what you do but still dreading going to work everyday" place. I was always so afraid of messing something up, or forgetting to do something, or worse, just not measuring up to standards. It's...a relief right now to have a job with such limited responsibilities (I clock in, help people find things and take their money, balance my drawer, and clock out). I'm not even finding it as difficult as I expected to get used to working mornings, because by the time I get done with work, homework/errands/housework, and classes, I'm usually ready to crash at night anyway. And dudes...two day weekends! All the time! (Okay, so my weekends are currently all booked for February already. But still, it's cool that I can do that!)

It's really awesome to be excited about learning again, too. As much as I love theater and working on shows, classes about it never interested me much. In fact, I probably skipped more classes than I actually went to. But this. This is a field I've been interested in literally since the first time my dad took me outside and showed me the stars. I look at this stuff and just think "this is SO cool!" (okay, the HF class itself is a bit of a drag, but the tangents they go off on in class are pretty interesting). Honestly, we can put a man on the frickin' MOON! Over and over again! And we could do THAT forty years ago! Just think of where we could go now! (Once we get over this whole bone loss thing, of course!)

Anyway, the short answer is that even though I don't always know where the money is going to come from to pay the bills, I still feel lighter than I have in a long time. And, oddly enough, I'm still glad I didn't stick with the engineering degree. I was never really interested in HOW the things were built. I was always more curious about WHY they worked and how all these really different systems work together smoothly to make a mission. Face it, a flight surgeon and an engine expert are totally seperate fields. Not even remotely similar. But yet the data they each provide and what they each control during a manned mission is equally important and necessary. And THAT is what I'm getting to focus on now that I never would have been able to if I had stayed just in engineering.

There's a design to this ride, and I'm really interested in seeing where it's going!