Unemployment

This whole being unemployed thing is starting to get old. It was nice for the first 3ish weeks of being at home. Now I'm just getting antsy. Ideally, I'd like to get a seasonal position with UPS being a "driver's assistant." They hire them during the holiday season to essentially grab packages from the truck and run them up to people's houses. I can't imagine that it saves enough time to justify the position (especially since the pay is quite decent, $13/hour from what I hear), but I'm not complaining. Someone somewhere must have done a cost/benefit analysis, and I guess it would be cheaper to pay a bunch of seasonal employees than to send out more trucks to make up for the increased volume of packages. In any case, thus far this is the only position I've really applied for yet, though I have been looking for jobs in the general area. Soon I'll have to lower my standards. Not having a car makes it harder.

In the not as near future, I'm working on applying to a position in the Sierra Nevada doing bird research as part of a field crew (possibly supervising). The pay is pretty good considering that these positions tend to just be living stipend + housing, but this one is $1800-$2700 per month with free housing and work vehicles provided. And I would basically get to go backpacking in the Sierra Nevada and count birds! My lack of previous experience with mist netting, point counting, etc. is unfortunate, but I'm going to apply anyways and see what happens. That would be mid-April until August. I'll also probably look into seasonal work at a national park, most likely the Smoky Mountains. In either case, I hope to have a car by that point. Which means that the pressure is on to get a crappy job and make some money. At least AmeriCorps is taking care of my loans for a while yet :D

I don't have much of an idea of when I'll be applying for grad school. It's partially because I'm not sure if I want to go for a Master's or a Ph.D. I love research, but it can be stressful and time consuming, especially if I ended up going into academics. I just don't necessarily like the idea of having my career monopolize most of my time. I don't want to be a slacker, but I also would like an appropriate amount of leisure time. You only live once, why let your job dominate your life? Even if you love your job, variety is good. I guess I'm leaning toward going for the Master's first, and seeing how that goes.