Just Do What You Like

I was on a flight over the weekend and while we were waiting to take-off I eavesdropped on the people in front of me. Not on purpose (although I am a master eavesdropper), as it was one of those tiny planes between Albany and Newark, so it's not like there was a lot of room. On one side of the aisle was the dad and little girl, and in front of me were the mom and little boy. The kids could have been twins, and maybe 7 years old, while I had noticed the mom in the airport because she had pink hair. Anyway, here's what they were talking about:

The Boy: Mom, I want to be a paleontologist. I want to look at dinosaur bones.
The Mom: You have been saying this for a long time, and I think you would be a great paleontologist! But you don't have to decide now. You've got lots of time to decide what you want to be. You know what job I wanted to have when I was younger?
The Boy: What?
The Mom: A plumber. Then I wanted to be a teacher. Then I majored in something that made me unemployable.
The Boy: What does that mean?
The Mom: It means I majored in anthropology.
The woman next to me laughs and says to me: Speaking of unemployable, I'm a philosophy professor.
Me: Well, I'm an art history grad student.
The woman next to me: We are all awesome back here.
The Dad: Maybe you should think about being a vet. Vets make more money than paleontologists, and you like animals, right? And then you won't have to buy tools to dig up things with.
Little Girl: HORSES!!!
The woman next to me, to the boy's mom: Once he gets to grad school, then people will pay for him to go dig places.
The Dad: Wouldn't that be cool? You could go look for dinosaurs anywhere!
The Boy: Yeah!! And I don't need money. I think people should just do what you like. That's better.
The Mom: That's right, honey. You work a lot, and it's so much better if you enjoy what you do.
The Boy: Because they just do what they like, right?
All of us: Yeah.

I'm not normally in peak form at 7 am, but this made me smile. Although it was followed with a chat with the SUNY professor (who was very nice and had a rockin' purse, by the way) about budget cuts and being on committees and where she had gone (Toronto!! Where I will likely apply, so that was cool) and dissertating and plagiarism all that sort of thing. And she was going to Prince Edward Island to be with her family over spring break, so I was pretty jealous about that. Still am, actually.

And as for me, and just doing what I like? After three manic days, I presented in my seminar today, followed by an Italian make-up test. They were probably both fine, I can never predict these things. I don't hate talking in class as much as I once did, but I'm still not wildly fond about presenting in conference-paper form, especially in something that I'm not totally comfortable talking about. (Like, for instance, comparative signs of prophecy in Ilkhanid manuscripts and Eastern Orthodox ones from the 1300s, for example. Actually, the Ilkhanids are amazing. I can go on about them a lot now, ha!) The professor for this course is exceptionally good, but she also knows she is exceptionally good, and she is one of those people that wants you to see things EXACTLY as she does, which gets frustrating. Best of all, I am DONE for the next 24 hours, so am taking the night off. I did dishes for the first time all week, and cooked dinner for the first time all week, even if it was just oddly-gluey potato pancakes and a glass of wine. I've got a stack of thank you notes to write, so I'm going to cuddle up with a blanket and do that now.

All in all, I'm doing what I like, I suppose. It's at that point in the semester when I don't know what I like anymore though, other than getting enough sleep, and I'm tired of feeling stupid or stressed or unprepared or homesick. But all in all--right on, paleontologist boy. Right on.