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Oct. 15th, 2004 10:29 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alonewiththemoonSome of these are entertaining:
I saw Incident at Loch Ness last night with a fine cohort of people. I can't really say a lot about it to people who haven't seen it, but it is precious. Werner Herzog is exquisitely precious. Zakk Allen is not very precious, but in just the right way. What is truth?
Then I watched ER, my guilty soap opera pleasure. The character of Neela has just decided to bail on being a doctor, but is discovering that when you have trained in something specific all your adult life and then suddenly don't have that path before you any more, it's enormously difficult to figure out what else you can do. I don't think I was anywhere near as whiny about it, but the story arc is reminding me of how I felt when I left McGill and had to think about what I might do, besides be an anthropologist, when I didn't really have any concrete skills besides being an anthropologist. People always say "oh, academic skills are transferable, it's more important to have a trained mind than already know how to do a job, blah blah blah" but honestly, it's hard to sell those things to prospective employers. Ultimately, the one transferable skill I had was that I was a reasonable typist after years of writing papers. In my current job, I am at least using much more of my undergrad education. But I can't say I'm really putting that graduate degree to any good use, apart from carrying the perspective of an anthropologist around with me as a way of viewing the world. I guess I should be a little less harsh on myself, because I also started seriously assessing my options, after getting financially stable, just as the dotcom bubble was bursting, so the kinds of jobs I could have talked people into hiring me for (information technology, research, etc.) were evaporating or being given only to people with specialized degrees, or who could also write code.
Anyway the whole Neela thing has made me far more reflective than an NBC prime time soap opera ought to. I should be more concerned with how Sam is going to tell Alex that they are moving in with Luka, and how Alex will take it. Also, I have a tiny crush on the rock-n-roll doctor. It's the black nail polish, I tell you.
I saw Incident at Loch Ness last night with a fine cohort of people. I can't really say a lot about it to people who haven't seen it, but it is precious. Werner Herzog is exquisitely precious. Zakk Allen is not very precious, but in just the right way. What is truth?
Then I watched ER, my guilty soap opera pleasure. The character of Neela has just decided to bail on being a doctor, but is discovering that when you have trained in something specific all your adult life and then suddenly don't have that path before you any more, it's enormously difficult to figure out what else you can do. I don't think I was anywhere near as whiny about it, but the story arc is reminding me of how I felt when I left McGill and had to think about what I might do, besides be an anthropologist, when I didn't really have any concrete skills besides being an anthropologist. People always say "oh, academic skills are transferable, it's more important to have a trained mind than already know how to do a job, blah blah blah" but honestly, it's hard to sell those things to prospective employers. Ultimately, the one transferable skill I had was that I was a reasonable typist after years of writing papers. In my current job, I am at least using much more of my undergrad education. But I can't say I'm really putting that graduate degree to any good use, apart from carrying the perspective of an anthropologist around with me as a way of viewing the world. I guess I should be a little less harsh on myself, because I also started seriously assessing my options, after getting financially stable, just as the dotcom bubble was bursting, so the kinds of jobs I could have talked people into hiring me for (information technology, research, etc.) were evaporating or being given only to people with specialized degrees, or who could also write code.
Anyway the whole Neela thing has made me far more reflective than an NBC prime time soap opera ought to. I should be more concerned with how Sam is going to tell Alex that they are moving in with Luka, and how Alex will take it. Also, I have a tiny crush on the rock-n-roll doctor. It's the black nail polish, I tell you.
