Near misses and burnouts...

...and none involved the car.

Today I had a near brush with fate. With tuition as high as it is these days, I've been contemplating what I will do for employment this fall. I probably won't need to become employed *that* soon, but I'd rather get it over with and started. So, today, for the hell of it, I was browsing the job board at a certain Big Orange Railroad. And low and behold, there were positions open for conductor in VAW.

Shit. What do I do?

To review, I've got about a year or two left in school, depending on if I go full or half time. So, in other words, I am literally midstream. Even assuming that the BN job won't close for a month or three, that would still do two things. One, it would screw up my vacation plans, with my non-refundable $550 worth of airfare. Second, it might be totally incompatible with further near-term education. Or to put it another way, it might mean I have to quit school for a few years. Can I accept that?

B tried to talk me out of it, and he was right, but even as he protested, I was filling out an application. Yet, I didn't hit submit. Bottom line, as much as I love my friends, they're my contemporaries. They don't have any more breadth than I. I needed to hear from someone older. Da 'rents wouldn't do; even if they understood, they'd sit back and let me do what I wanted to, rather than actually give me thoughtful advice. Plus there's the whole parent/child dynamic. I have no other relatives who would be able to give me an in-depth answer. After scrolling through my phone, I landed on Brett. He had been there before for advice. Called. No answer. Argh. Who then? Of course, the one person who'd prodded me to go back at all. She told me exactly what I needed to hear, what I already knew, but had to hear from someone with more perspective. With a heavy sigh, I closed the browser.

Meanwhile, I've got papers piling up around me, and am feeling so unmotivated to do them. I need to. But right now, I'm trying to find a way out. MU is great, don't get me wrong, but it's hoops, and doesn't engage me right now. Is it a lack of structure? Or just a lack of purpose? Or just burnout? I'm not sure. I just wish someone else expressed a little faith in me, because my own is wearing a bit thin.