ebb, and flow.

I'm feeling better now, much better and more positive than I was at the week's outset. Thanks to all who called and commented. Connecting with you really helped raise my wee sad spirits.

A few good things this week:

I started a job at a small gallery on State St., about 3 blocks from my apartment. My responsibilities there are very similar to what I was doing at the museum in Mpls., so it's easy and a bit mindless. I'm still keeping my options open, but the owners are a nice middle-aged couple, the pay is decent, it's close to home, and they're willing to work around my class schedule.

I completed my first diving physics take-home exam this week. I spent several hours working on the assignment, mathematics and formulas and equations never having been my strong suit. The work paid off though: the test results were returned this morning and my score was 98%. Sweet.

I met some of the advanced semester MDT students this week, including one (of 2, or 3) of the female students, Julie. One of my instructors, Geoff, after seeing that I'd met Julie, asked me into his office for a chat. He suggested I keep talking to Julie, and meet the other women in the program. Geoff is prone to bluntness, and soon revealed his real motive for pulling me aside. He wanted to know what my plan is, what I want to do in the business, why I'm in the program. He talked about the handful of women who've gone through the program; how women typically turn toward the research end of the commercial dive spectrum, where the pay's not so good, and the opportunities are few; about how few women he saw working in the industry in his many years on rigs; how any woman who does this kind of work is still very much a pioneer. His words weren't intended to discourage, they were meant to inform. I know what he's saying is true, I know what I'll do when I leave here isn't the same as half my young male classmates will do, I know we're all here for different reasons. I've thought about everything he said at least once before, and I still find it a curious, and welcome circumstance that life's adventures have led me here.

Commercial diving is, at its core, diving, and so it attracts divers. It's easy to romanticize what we're here to do, but our instructors like to remind us, lest we forget, that diving in this business is a means of transport, and at the very core of this work, we are laborers just like any other. So the chat with Geoff was good because it opened an avenue of investigation, and introduced a mentor/ advisor to help navigate.