Tuesday, February 01, 2005

In This Bright Future You Can't Forget Your Past

Now Playing: The Jazz Spectrum on the Impact 89 FM

There's some saying out there about how you can't escape previous events in your life. Well folks, I'm there. It started out so innocently about 2 years ago. A year after receiving my Bachelor's degree I found I had no desire for a career in the engineering field. Where do I go from there I said? I might make a good lawyer. So I gave money to the LSAC to take their test (does it really cost upwards of $100 to administer the test?). I did so well I thought I'd give them more money for a second shot at it. Scoring higher only fizzled my desire to attend Law School, not the mention thoughts of ungodly hours away from my future family. Nope, I didn't want that. And judging from my observations of Law students, I'm glad I'm not one of them.

That left me at another crossroad. At (almost) 24 years of age I'm thinking about what I want to be when I grow up. That led me to one thing I've always found solace in -- the sport of swimming. I got it, I'll become a swim coach! Hot diggity! I applied to various institutions of this great country of ours to see if they would let me into their schools. I was contacted by one faculty member who was intrigued by my engineering background. Biomechanics might be a good fit for you. OK, why not? If I can understand how the body moves better I can apply that to my coaching to get better & faster swimmers.

That brings me to this here & when. I've got a couple of big things on my plate: 1) I've got a little thing called a Thesis that I need to start planning for next year. This of course requires me to sift through pages of published research articles to form the base of my research. 2) I'm applying for a position with the USOC's summer intern program at their training facilities. As I read more into the literature, an all too eeire, deja-vu like feeling is coming over me. All these equations used to describe a swimmers motion are reminiscent of engineering stuff I've learned (don't get me started on fluid mechanics). And if being a coach doesn't pan out, I'd really gosh-darn like to research this stuff.

As much as I'd like to say I'm not an engineer, I still am dammit, and perhaps embracing that will help me in my future career.

In other events I'm picking the Patriots 24-17.

I'm out.

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