Its funny how you can go weeks and months at a time only seeing one or two close buddies, and then within a week run into two friends that you barely ever see, and an ex-girlfriend that you haven't run into in even longer.
The two buddies I ran into I hadn't seen in a sober state in at least 2 years, but I still manage to catch up with at parties here and there. One was one of my friends since back in our kindergarten years but the circles of friends changed enough by the end of highschool it was only rare football or pond hockey outings that we caught up. When I went into a lab in town yesterday to pick up some sample bottles for a job today I was half expecting to maybe see someone I knew from the university collection of people that all go off and do their thing. As I stepped out of the foyer of the ultra modern open concept lab (read typical sterile lab environment with mostly windows as dividers) with a cooler full of bottles I thought I heard someone call me, but after a quick glance I kept going.
When I came back inside I looked around again and caught the eye of an apparent stranger before taking probably 2 full seconds to realize it was the old buddy in an out of context (read non keg beer in hand) setting there doing some wiring after just completing his electricians apprenticeship a few weeks back. Like everyone else I know that's gone through college in 2 years less time, some starting a year earlier, he's probably making more money now than I will for years. And contrary to the typical belief instilled in kids these days, university really isn't the be all and end all for happiness. Not like I thought it was and had reinforced growing up.
Infact I've lately been thinking I wouldn't mind a job at all being a field technician. Between the outdoors and the mobility to keep my attention, but not killing yourself with heavy work, it wouldn't be a bad gig. A job like that doesn't take a Masters degree to fill adequately, or even above standard with a bit of common sense. One thing I know for certain is that I don't want to end up behind a desk pushing paper and forwarding e-mails until i'm too old to hack it at the very earliest.
Although, days where you have to sample water in which you can see floaters and toilet paper washing on by is a bit more motivation to keep going with academia. The more qualified I make myself, the easier it will be to delegate the shit jobs (pun very much intended) onto someone else. Sanitary sewers are about as far from being sanitary as I could possibly imagine, short of finding bags of blood in the pipe as well?
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Some fun reading for you all over at Thought Mechanics: Why Can't I Own a Canadian?
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