2003-10-25 - 9:29 p.m.

Exhaustion

Last week I spent three days in Oakland at an environmental conference. I presented a poster, but most of my time was spent listening to a variety of talks / presentations. I actually really enjoyed the conference. It is nice to know that you enjoy your profession.

My poster ended up looking really great, but the best thing was showing my folks. They were totally surprised by the quality of my poster. To quote my dad, "Wow! This looks great. It looks like something I'd expect to see in a text book!"

Friday when I returned to work I had my annual review. To my surprise I got a complete set of outstanding ratings! First time! My supervisor said that he couldn't justify putting anything but outstanding marks across the board and that he and everybody else has been incredibly impressed with my ability to come through consistently on complicated tasks and on time. The amazing thing (as he put it) was that the state is short staffed, and that I've taken on additional work without any loss in quality or time.

He is concerned about me burning out and leaving, but it gets better. After my review, his boss (my ex-boss) came in to also tell me how much the group needs me and how amazing I've been.

I was feeling really good about myself yesterday.

And it gets better. Today after waking up around 1 pm (I was at party in San Francisco til 6 am), I found that the county clerk sent me a nice certificate for good work in the Oct. recall election. It was the hardest I've worked at an election. Even though it may be that everybody got the certificate (I'll found out on Monday when I ask some election friends if they got the same thing), I affirmed at the beginning of the month that I do have good leadership and memory skills.

For example, in addition to processing more votes (mostly on my own) that I've done before, I was also able to remember small details about many of the voters. This is important because this is how we can combat fraud. Anyway, 20-somethings would come in to vote in the evening, and I'd tell them what their mom's and dad's were wearing when they had come by to vote early that morning. I saw over 500 people come through, had to instruct many first time voters how to vote (sometimes through the aid of children English-to-Spanish translators), but could still recall some details about many of those people.

This and the political (court talk) I was engaged in with a lawyer friend of mine last night, led me to believe that he may be right. Maybe I am in the wrong field? At one point last night, this lawyer was shocked when I was talking about standing and custody issues related to the "Under God" US 9th Circuit court ruling. He said, "You know, sometimes I think you really should have gone into law."

It is a shame that I'll probably die young, as my boss had this to say, "You probably have about another 5-years of building a reputation for solid technical work related to water quality, but after that, I and others see you rising into a leadership and decision making role for the state water issues."

I realized this weekend that a number of people do in fact have very high expectations for me, myself principal among them.

I'll think about that more, but for one last note, while at Mervyn's (I was wanting buy more underwear ... I like their black jockey stuff) three women flagged me down because they couldn't get their car started. They asked for a jump, and being a ... well me ... naturally I carry around jumper cables in my trunk. I pulled up and jumped their car. But the problem wasn't their battery. Their starter was on the fritz.

I told them that with most cars, when the starter is going bad, that you can sometimes put your car in neutral and start it from there instead of from park. The woman couldn't get it to work, so her mom asked me to do it for them. I got in the car and sure enough I got the car running first try.

I then showed them how to start their own car if this happens again. They both asked, "Hey, are you a mechanic or something?" I laughed and said, "No, I'm a Ford owner. My dad taught me this trick years ago."

Leader, older brother, writer, environmentalist, politically active person, engineer, tree-side mechanic whatever ... the bottom line is I'm not any one of these things. I am the person my family and community taught me to be.

I'll tell my dad that I helped some ladies today and used his trick. Bottom line is I'm feeling really good about myself today.

n.p. bananarama :: the greatest hits collection

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