some folks like to get away...

 I love my job. I have a great boss, some fantastic co-workers, and three beta fish. There's something about feeding those fish that fills my life with purpose. I enjoy the responsibility I feel as I go to work each day and accomplish my assigned tasks. When I first started working in the lab, I felt mentally exhausted at the end of each day. I felt like I had to learn so much. It wasn't easy.

 But I'm getting use to it now. I am feeling more comfortable tasting the Latin as I speak it. I making sense of the intricate details on the small specimens. I can tell you what a halter is and where to find the calypters and the coxae. My task at the moment strays a bit from my learning. And now, instead of mental exhaustion, I am often finding myself emotionally exhausted at the end of my shifts. 

Solitude is a beautiful thing, I find it hard to find in this bustling college town. But as I sit at work and archive my boss's photo collection, I get pretty close to the feeling of complete oneness. The feeling of just being with myself. I usually spend my time thinking through my actions in the future and analyzing my actions in the past. I often find myself imagining what could have been, how I could have made it different, and then I remember that what is, is. And that I have no choice but to make different choices in the future. Like I said, it's exhausting. 

But I learn a lot. A lot about myself. Sometimes I let myself get lost in the pictures. I just spent three weeks travelling the world while sitting at a computer in Provo. For two of those weeks, I was in Mongolia. I fell in the love with the culture, the scenery, the people. It's all so beautiful. By the end of the two weeks, I was beginning to miss this place that I have never been. Mongolia looks so untouched, the people look so serene. Maybe not happy, but content. I just want to wander through it's hills, sit by it's rivers and lose and find myself all at the same time. 

Until then, I guess will have to settle for the beauty of a photograph

and the solitude of a small lab in Provo.