Monday, May 31, 2010

Update

Summer's here again, and it's harder than ever to write a decent post while sitting in front of a computer. It's ironic that I'm beginning to use pen and paper far more than laptops and smart phones to do my leisure writing. Lot of things on my mind lately, like whether all this science stuff I'm trying my hand at will eventually work out somehow. With the basic issues like being able to find and hold down a job (I don't really want) so that I can pay my way through school and all that weighing down on my mind all the time, being able to pursue science as a vocation feels like a pipe dream all too often. Yeah, sure. Everyone works, more or less. And a lot of them actually work to pay their own rent, tuition and buy their own food like I'm doing right now (oh right, I'm talking about undergrads). All too often it's really a problem of future, and repercussions of mistakes I might make. Neal Stephenson wrote something about that in one of his books... Some kids go to jail for 10 years for striking up a joint, and some other kids get to protest in front of the city hall after making it to college. Some people just live in a very fault-intolerant world. That's about where I am. Not quite as bad as some kids I teach, but still enough to worry about becoming homeless after some idiot run me over with a car. And after you're homeless... Well it'll be a whole lot harder to beg professors to let me into a lab without being treated like some junkie or a maniac.

Something like that probably won't happen, but I can't help but feel that chill in the back of my neck time to time. And about the only thing that makes all the fears and uncertainties worth it... Well I'm still not sure what I'm supposed to call it. Most people seem to call the practice of it science. It's some kind of pursuit toward something. And it makes life worth it.

Posted via email from Textdrome