Feeling It

As someone who sees bright-eyed young future doctors all the time, I was interested in this post by PalMD about the moment when a person first actually feels like a 'doctor.'

You have all these years and years of education and study and training, and then somewhere in there...wow, a doctor!

I bet it's not the same as feeling like a 'physician' (or I guess a 'scholar' or something, if you get a PhD). That just doesn't have the same emotional zip.

I do wonder if it's also one of those things that you get to, and think "well, all right, I'm that"--but somehow you find it's not as enormous a thing as you anticipated back when you were starting out.

All the work that's gone into it kind of minimizes the thing itself by comparison. Not that you don't feel good about it, but it doesn't fill you with self-inspired awe or anything.

Or so I imagine, based on the magnificent achievements I myself have completed in my time. None of them was becoming a doctor, but I did once memorize half the periodic table.

.

Calling It

So I was out at a social event this evening, meeting new people from various walks of life, and the standard question came up: "What do you do?"

"I'm a librarian," I said.

I don't think I've ever said it before. 

It was not exactly earth-shaking, on account of it's just true, so whatever. And it's not something really intriguing that will make people sit up and take notice (not like "I eat worms for charity"). But I've now been a librarian for two whole months, and it was kind of fun to be able to introduce myself that way.

In other news, although I am pleased to have a job as a librarian, I am also extremely pleased to have a long weekend to look forward to. Guess what I'm doing tomorrow to celebrate?

Yeah, I'm going to go give blood. Later, I might write a letter to my congressional representative, volunteer at a food bank, sit in on a town meeting, walk some needy dogs, recycle my plastics, smile at babies, and eat worms for charity.

But probably I'll consider giving blood to be enough upstanding-citizenship for one day, and will come home and read blogs instead. Just a guess.

Just Another Pretty Facebook

I've found Facebook moderately helpful as a sort of medium-level social interface: I don't use it for many heart-to-heart conversations, but it helps me keep in casual contact with people I would otherwise not be in contact with much at all.

This was particularly interesting to me as a distance student while I was working on my degree, since I was able to add as friends some of the people in my classes in different parts of the country. We could then do the internet equivalent of waving hello to each other in passing, occasionally stopping to chat. 

It's not that we're becoming bosom pals through social networking sites, but we're acquainted. 

I'm now finding that helpful in another situation as I prepare to leave one job for another. I know a lot of people in my current job, and one always says "we'll keep in touch," but everyone knows that most of the time you don't.

Now we can link up on Facebook before I go, and we'll automatically keep in touch, at least a little. And being a little bit in touch may make it easier to send a quick note and ask if someone wants to have lunch, or whatever.

It will be interesting to see if that will make for a different experience leaving this job, than the last one I left, when all we had was email.