Sometimes I just want my old life back, where I go to work four or five days a week then come home and ride my horse. Wait. I’ve never had this life before. For the last nine or ten years I went to a job that took all of my time so I never had time to ride a horse. When I had horses back in the late 1980’s, I wasn’t working full time. What I want to do is incorporate a time when I did work full time but it didn’t take up all my time and the time when I had horses. So I want to put two old parts of my life together to make a new life.
It’s funny how all the pieces are right there, right in front of my nose but I think I need to invent something completely new for my life. Feeling compulsive I applied for a forest service job up in Frazier Park, about an hour away, against rush hour freeway traffic. The job is for a recreation program manager. It would mean dealing with the off-road vehicle people, the horse people, the mountain bikers, the hikers, the conservationists, the hunters, and others. The first three types are real pains in the arse. I say this as a horse person and a mountain bike rider. The first three types are the most organized and most vocal and seem to have the most money, which buys them attention. I’m not sure that this is the type of job I really want but I can’t say no if they don’t ask me, and they won’t ask me if I don’t apply. This is also an exercise in shaking out my resume.
I feel as though I’ve been waiting for a sign or omen to not finish my Ph.D. program at UCLA. No sign is going to spontaneously appear in the sky that says, “Corrina, you are not meant to be an academic. Do something else!”. But that is what I seem to be waiting for. Even if such a sign were to appear, I wouldn’t have any alternatives, like a job, so I would have to continue. If I really want a sign, it needs to be in the form of a viable job offer. Hence, I must apply to some viable jobs.
If the right job came along, I’d probably take it. I doubt this recreation lands manager job is the right job but it pays well enough I’d take a chance, knowing that I could leave in two years if it truly wasn’t right. I could still finish my Master’s since my research would be done in February — the closing date of this job isn’t until December 22. No one will start looking at resumes until after the holidays, they won’t make any decisions until February. The earliest anyone would start the job would be around April. Perfect. My research would be done. All that is left is the writing. I can do that on weekends and be done by the end of summer. I’d probably still have time to ride horses twice a week (and more money to do so!). Ha! I act as though I already have the job while the truth is they probably won’t even call me since I don’t have any recreation management experience — just a lot of fire management experience. Sometimes the personnel department sees management skills as transferrable, sometimes not. Now I only have to wait. I can work on my research in the meantime. And ride horses twice a week.