advice to Gail and new plans!

My advice to Gail - only stalk students if they work at a place that provides some benefit to stalker. I have a student looking for a job, and I've been begging her to work at Starbucks. Though, when I worked with you I WAS known to stop by students' houses - I think you went with me that time to the girl across the street?

I'm off to Zzyzx within the hour ... once I start packing. Was up too late last night investigating my next great plan.

Zzyzx was started in 1944 when a kooky guy opened a resort there without permission from the government (whom the land belongs to). In the 1970's it was repossessed and in 1976 the Desert Studies Center was started. It's a program through Cal State San Bernardino and CS Fullerton that offers field research opportunities to biology students.

You can take classes there through CSF's extension (and CSUSB, I've heard) - or in my case, the guy teaches a CSF course once a year, so he has access and he's taking us there.

So, what's my next great plan, you ask?

When CSF (and all the Cal States and UC's) rejected me because I already have a BA, I looked up my alma mater. Tuition there is WAY TOO EXPENSIVE for out of stater ... but they have summer school courses which are exactly what interest me - and I pay resident tuition for summer. And Susan's roommate is moving out, so I can have "my" room back - it's where I lived for most of my undergrad time. Biking distance to school and the dogs and everything. Small space and no dishwasher, but it's "home."

So, the plan is to go there this summer and take Neurobiology and Ecology and Reptiles and Amphibians of Oregon and Field Botany ... and see if I love it. If I do, I could finish up a BS there in a couple more terms (one term spent at their Marine Research Station, which I've always been interested in), and then apply to CSF's master's program (or others with ethnobotany and field ecology focus). But if I *don't* love it, then there's nothing lost by spending the summer hanging out and learning new things. (Except that now I have to tell the principal that I'm NOT teaching summer school when I just told him I AM. UGH - I hate seeming flaky.)

The problem with biology study is that I just don't see my future career in it - I want to make more money than most biologists do, and while I have to be out in nature regularly I need a city homebase for the opportunities available there. Maybe spending some time doing it and talking to biologists would expand my horizons. I'll talk to my instructor this weekend. I don't want his life (I don't have his energy and generous enthusiasm), but I'm sure he has good thoughts.

The great benefit to a field biology career is that it is a FANTASTIC REASON to spend all sorts of time at REI! And using the gear for my job would make it tax-deductible.

I've been interested in biology ever since 6th grade when we had a project to identify trees. Other kids did lame-ass things, but I did this huge poster board display with speciments of all sorts of different types, labeling them and identifying their relationships. I think that was when I knew I was different than other people - I get really excited about things like that.

Then later, after I graduated, I took a Native Plants class and had a GREAT TIME - and then I got a job at the museum and started reading up on ethnobotany and got really excited (I was the native plants expert at the museum, which was quite a rewarding challenge). I know I'm not interested in labwork - what gets me excited is the fieldwork. I could never do microbiology (though I did have a bit of a love affair with biochemistry for awhile). But I could see myself doing surveys of areas before construction or to measure effects of development, etc. An excuse to be outside and look at pretty flowers, and perhaps I could do it internationally. There's very little done on much of West Africa in terms of plant/animal surveys (as far as I can find) - and I could consider a teaching appointment in different places like that. And when I lived up north, and then when I led school groups at an arboretum in Oregon, I got obsessed with lichens. (Alice Algae took a 'lichen' to Freddy Fungus.)

Who knows what the future holds, and I am so blessed to have so many possibilities and opportunities.

It does seem that the smart thing would be to take those classes rather than just wonder what could be.

I also (this is for you, Gail) have major fantasies of a science-magnet school. We talked about it before, wanting to coteach an English/science core that would revolve around real-life science learning. Teaching 7th graders to go birding would be GREAT! Teaching generations of environmentalists to be aware of the earth's issues and relationships - that would be great. So, Gail, you need to get your administrative credential!

So, now I guess I have to email my principal and blow him off. Which bugs, because he was actually really really nice to me yesterday.

Oy! And I REALLY have to pack now!