I recently returned from a pretty fabulous work trip to New Mexico and Colorado. Photos of the adventure are slowly making their way onto Flickr, so definitely continue to check out the sidebar to the right over the next few days, and hopefully more scenic photos will appear each time. (Notice how I distanced myself from the action of uploading as much as I could in that last sentence.)
Now, the astute reader may think, “work trip?” But that’s right, the new glamorous phase of my life, drum roll please — grad school. I luckily got to dive in (face first is probably accurate imagery here) with this summer’s research trip, known in the geology biz as a field season. I hadn’t been to the southwestern U.S. since I was two, which basically means I had never been at all, but I can now say I’m a pretty big fan. For starters, it’s stunningly beautiful, and the terrain is varied, so each leg of the trip was different. I feel pretty darn lucky that it is actually my job, capital J, to get to know this place very well. In case you’re not yet convinced of my good fortune, I will point out some awesome things about New Mexico and southern Colorado, in no specific order:
- wild horses
- breakfast burritos
- the sky
- low humidity
- high elevation (if you’re into that)
- the mountains (my raison d’erte, at least with respect to trips to this location, but let’s face it, that also applies more broadly, since I am en route to professional geologist status)
There are some nerdy, geology-specific pros too, but I won’t bore you.
I have been pleasantly surprised since my return that the most frequent question I receive is something along the lines of, “So what do you do on a trip like that?” Or, “Whadya do, dig up rocks?” So even though you didn’t ask, I will go ahead and briefly answer this FAQ. Fieldwork is basically like a camping with a purpose. A masochistic camping trip, if you will. We head out into the middle of nowhere and camp (in this case with a car, but that’s not always true). Then every day we hike around with maps and notebooks in tow. We find rock outcrops, measure aspects of the rock, write stuff down, plot our location on the map, then whip out a sledge hammer (really) and whack off a chunk of rock. We put the rock in our backpacks — hence “masochistic” above — and repeat the process. Yep, you read that right. Climb a mountain, break off pieces of the mountain, stash them in your backpack, and then head back down the mountain. Repeat daily. Luckily for this trip we had a car to haul the rocks from our campsite allll the way back to a post office, where they get shipped to our lab back home. And this is the ridiculous but true outline of, well, what may be the rest of my life.
And now, some feelings. You’ve probably inferred that I’m excited and terrified. After my requisite years of post-college drift-and-recovery, I am launching what is hopefully my Career. Very different from the jobs, lower case j, that I’ve had during that drift period. It’s refreshing to once again have internal motivation, since even at its best, I’ve mostly been motivated at aforementioned jobs by external factors. (“Someone needs this report!”) I actually needed a dose of that after college, since I had drained my internal motivation pretty thoroughly. And speaking from front line personal experience, it doesn’t always feel terrible to do work that goes unnoticed, uncredited, or under-credited (as long as you know your time was well-used, and it definitely helps if some people express appreciation). But the thing about a Career is it is about being noticed, credited, and appreciated. While it’s all well and good to sit in a cubicle pondering what it might be like to be recognized for achievement, it’s quite another thing to stand at the starting line and hear the gun fire and hope that you’re running towards recognition and achievement. And it feels especially tricky to be standing at the starting line if you’re prone to seeing yourself as under-qualified, less-capable, or an impostor. (A quick primer on that is here if you’re curious.)
All whining and nerves aside, I feel incredibly lucky to be starting this adventure. I also know that learning involves being uncomfortable, even terrified. Fear isn’t just excusable or tolerated in the learning process; I think it’s necessary. (Thanks, Professor Burger and the Creativity gang!) So there’s nothing left to do but jump. Actually, I think I already jumped.
P.S. Jess: I loved and appreciated your earlier comment, and clearly could not come up with a brilliant response, but I think it’s safe to say this blog is going to involve a lot of reflection on learning!
