The Mortal Tragedy

I'm not entirely sure if being mortal is a good or a bad thing yet.  Eventually, like vampires, you would probably lose all humanity, witnessing everyone you once knew and loved dying, disappearing, never to be seen again.  I imagine that it will break anyone, make anyone impervious to death, but isn't the fact that we are mortal make life so unbelievably amazing?

The tragedy in life isn't that we are mortal, it isn't that we will eventually die, it is that we only have so much time.  If you want to learn everything you can, explore everything you can.  You could spend your entire life traveling and still never experience what it's like to live somewhere else, you couldn't take in all the culture, get to know every single person.  So we have to pick and choose, and that's the tragedy.  I chose writing, and have continued to do so.  While pursuing this career path, I am at a job that isn't bad, but it isn't the promised land for me.  And even if I do become a successful author, I still will never experience being a zoologist, a researcher, a marine biologist, rehabilitating lions for reintroduction into the wild, working to save the panda population.  The whole other side of my brain, the one that wants to save the world, has gotten thrown to the side while I march forward, pen and paper in hand, probably destroying the environment more with ink and paper usage than helping it.

So here I sit, looking at a photo I took of an orangutan, and the soft reflection of my forehead appearing in the bottom right corner.  I titled it, "Reflection of a Human."  And it really is human.  Eyes looking up at the sky wondering, nose wrinkled while he chews, all the lines going across his face.  I live vicariously through Animal Planet and other television shows all of the lives I could lead.  I realize I am still young, but even if I do end up getting a degree in Environmental Science, I wouldn't know what to do with it.  If anything, I'm probably safer to spend my time volunteering, especially if I can become a published author.  That way, I can learn on the job, pour my money into some non-profit, and continue writing.

It's the mortal tragedy.

Private School = The Need for a Third Education

After getting a really expensive undergrad degree at a private college landed me on the opposite side of the country with no idea what I should do, no direction, and absolutely no help from anyone (minus my loving parents, of course), and after working as a barista for a year, a hostess for five months, and working three jobs for two months to barely make my life work, I think I've finally realized what makes me tick.

Beyond writing, which I can do any time at my own leisure, I have this strange desire to save things. Not people - I've never been one for saving people - but animals, trees, and heck - everyone knows, I'm a huge pack rat. That's what I do best, get a lot of things into a very compact space.

So, with my pack rat skills, my desire to save, and a now useless college degree in hand, I've decided to apply to an online school - probably University of Phoenix - for BA in Environmental Studies. If the other Rachel Desilets can live in Vermont and grow an organic farm, I can certainly live in Los Angeles and do ... something to help the environment? Starting with that grey, smog filled sky of ours.

Only one basic math course, one basic chemisty, one basic biology, and then you are on your way to learning specifics. Conservation biology, geology, environmental law, ecology and evolution, risk assessment, and overall: how everyone is messing up the world. Things of that depressing nature.

But the end result, is possibly, and hopefully, to finally land me in a job where I feel positive. Like I am doing something positive for the world.

Why not do an expensive college again? Or maybe, at least, a campus school?

Expensive college is just that - expensive!
And a campus school - when you are working a full time job, it really doesn't bend to your schedule, now does it.
And plus, I hate driving.

Also, I truely believe now that you learn more in the field than studying it in the classroom. Emerson could have taught me the world, but that wouldn't mean anything to perspective employers. "I know everything about everything!" The response, "Great, what experience do you have?" ... Long, awkward silence.

So, a degree, though it is a fancy looking piece of paper signed by fancy people, means little to me anymore. I'd rather get the general knowledge (which, let's be honest, I could by textbooks from 2004 and learn the same amount, but you can't very well go into a job interview and say that you've read textbooks and that's why you are qualified) at a less expensive school that gives me flexible hours and scheduling where I don't feel stressed out. I get my knowledge, my fancy paper, and my hope for a brighter future all wrapped into a simple education.

Yes, I like this plan.