babiegoose.com

a long, long time ago (I cannot remember because I was not there. "they" told me about it), when man had just discovered fire, or perhaps before, or whatever, man was a hunter/gatherer... leaves and rabbit mostly - or so I am told. He would be able to "work" for 16 to 20 hours a week, and provide for himself and whatever family he had. Freeing him up to do whatever, like...

walking and grunting with friends...

or playing skin, rock, and stone blade...

or drawing pictures on the wall...

or discovering narcotics...

of course, the average life expectancy back then was quite lower... maybe even by so much as half... (probably from the drugs) but that is conjuecture on my part... (because really, I was never there - not in life or even in dream)

shorter life expectancy, longer life expectancy - the word "life" brings to light a whole slew of semantics... what is life... what is a good life... etcetera, etcetera, and a whole bunch of other philosophical shenanigans... but we will not enter into that, because, frankly, I do not want to talk about it right now.

in any case, in college, assuming you did not do homework or waste your time studying, 16 hours was considered a full week. leaving you free to do things like...

walking and talking with friends...

playing sports, video games, or whatever...

taking pictures and posting them on the internet...

discovering narcotics...

and now, if you can dig it (I knew that you could), "they" mandate that we work 40 hours a week and expect that you put in [gasp] overtime!

and since most of us are not born with inheritances, trust funds, settlements, alimony, or whatever, we find ourselves occupying our time with an occupation...

leaving us absolutely no time to do anything but "live" for the weekend (and even then, only if we are lucky)

and then people get stuck in positions they do not enjoy or in social circles with which they abhor and, essentially, waste their "lives"...

I am decidedly not one of those people (although I like to squeak when I hit doldrums)

I hope you are not one of those...

... ... ...

"I think people place too much emphasis on their careers. Gosh, I wish we could all live in the mountains at high altitudes. That.s where I see myself in five years. How about you?"

I am where I am because that is where I should be, and where ever I end up when I end up there, no matter how I got there, is where I should be then...

I make my choices.

to add to the infinite analogies of life to something...

life is like poker... we play the cards we are dealt the best way we know how. we may not know what everyone else has, but if you play smart, then you will be okay. And just because you had one bad hand, or bad night, does not mean that you should give up the game.

as you grow, so does your appreciation, and respect, for the game.

and in life, like the nuts in poker, there are things for which you should always go all-in...

but I will leave that for you to decide.

just discovered blo.gs and weblogs.com...

so, from what I can tell (assuming everyone I read pings their site - but I think blogger does it automatically or something...) I will be able to pop open a link and actually see who posted what and when...

I think.

this will need some experimentation - with all of the controls and variables, with documentation and expected and actual results and everything.

chem lab and orgo lab were cool...

... ... ...

well, I thought they were cool...

:-P