Have I made the right decision?

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As most of you know, I start college again next week.

I am majoring in geology.

But I am now worried that my goals, and my wants and needs, may not be consistent with each other anymore.

What I want:

To have a happy and enjoyable career as a geologist.

To be able to have an active lifestyle and live comfortably in Seattle--despite the high costs of living--among many like-minded individuals.

To have a happy, and long-lasting relationship with a woman who I feel would be perfect for me--someone with similar interests and beliefs, and preferably another Aspie.

How consistent do you think these three things are with each other? How likely do you think it will be that I will be able to have this winning combination. Will I be able to have this combination in places other than Seattle?

Your feedback is greatly appreciated.

Tim

If you want to be a geologist, the west coast is probably the best place to be in the US (aside from Texas, but that's only if you want to work for an oil company).

Do what you love and success will follow. Don't worry too much about the relationship part. The right girl will be happy if you're happy, no matter where you want to live or what career you have.

Well Seattle is the crackhead capital of Washington so I dunno.. Seabeck is the worse though, but mostly there were a lot of meth labs there. Yeah, never go to Seabeck lol. But if the college your going to go to is good then I guess you shouldnt have a problem. Usually there are a lot of nice girls in college too, which I learned. And failed with all of them by the way, but that was my problem

They are consistent, it is all possible if you make the choices that reflect who you are.

Hi, all I can say is that when I was trying to decide to sell everything and move to Alaska years ago the deciding factor for me was "I don't want to die saying Gee, I wish I would've...."And I'v been the happiest here than any where in my life. As for "having it all?" I'm kinda like Mulder on the x-files. "I Want to Believe" It hasn't worked out for me but that doesn't mean it won't work out for you.(relationship wise)Somebody I really respect told me once "When your trying to decide something and you hear that little voice in your head, and then you hear all the other reasons against it. Go w/ the first one and quit wasting your time w/ the thoughts that are trying to talk you out of it. follow that firast instinct. Good luck and thank you for being so kind and welcoming me here to WP.

You might have to work in more remote areas to make big money, then come back to seattle if it still attracts you. you can travel a lot with geology and it's interesting to see other parts of the country/world. maybe you'll meet someone there. who knows. good luck, it's a good career choice.

Some things are you, like geology, a field with many branches. Get the degree. Education means income.

Geology does have outdoor work, and you seem suited.

As for the girl, "A man picks a wife like a cow picks a farmer." Again, get an education and show a promise for the future. They claim to not be in it for the money, but a house and two kids costs several million, and someone has to pay.

A girl picks a life with a man. She choses to marry the boy next door and buy the house across the street, and has picked out where you will all be buried, or she wants to get as far from her hometown as possible, and see what happens. An army wife expects to move evry eighteen months, a corporate wife every three to five years.

The girl that marries a field geologist expects some long camping trips. You cannot just pick one out and say, lets go live in a tent for six months, they will drop supplies by plane.

I have spent a good deal of time at Universites, and girls in the Geology Department have the best legs on campus. Mutual interests keeps people together. You need one who can cover twenty miles a day with a full pack.

She will see in you what I do, this guy is good natured, important when miles from nowhere, and he can backpack more than a burro.

As for like minded people, good luck. Particularly on the west coast. Seattle was a logging and fishing town, with pulp mills. They all went to high school together, then new and educated people came, and it was us versus them. People who could not make it in LA or New York went, looking for something to feed on. The place is famous for serial killers and suicide. Seattle is Tacoma with some strangers in town.

It is upscale gang warfare. Like Haight Ashberry and The Summer of Love, it went from out of sight to out of hand quickly. Once the word was out, a thousand Charlie Mansons decided that is where they would go when released from jail.

The area is beautiful, the mountains, far from people, and the best is on the Canadian side, on up the McKenszi River, Bella Coola, old trees and few people.

Define what you mean by like minded people. I visit Seattle, but would not live there.

I like Texas, yes it has it's strange, so does everywhere, but it has a culture, not a mindless changing mix. The west coast is people who left somewhere else after WWII, they live in a fantasy.

Texas people are grounded in a reality, droughts, dust bowls, good times and bad have not changed them. I was disappointed with the west coast, a waste of a great potential, but Texas, I expected Bible thumping rednecks, and they never cease to amaze me, they face thier problems, think, and act. Texas has a reality.

Like a Nation between two great powers, the English and Spanish worlds, Texas is a friend to both, and sees solutions where others see only problems. I hope it is the future.

I think Austin and the Hill Country have a great future, a knowledge center for the Americas.

Visit the world, but keep your culture.

I think the 3rd one would be a bit difficult anywhere.

Tim, I think a lot of it also has to do with what type of geology you go into. If you'd be happy working in a lab watching for signs of earthquakes, going more the archaeological rout, or possibly paleontology, or alternatively if you'd like to be the guy doing soil samples to determine if there's a firm enough amount of bedrock for a high-rise building to have a strong enough anchor in the ground to stay up. As for the crowd you'd be working with, that's as much luck as the part with the relationship (or at least finding someone who fits you like that).

All I'd say is good luck. If you have your priorities straight, do well in school, try to grab up all the practical knowledge that you can, and proactively try to find yourself the right kind of job you're really doing all you can - the rest don't worry too much about it just because that element is really half fate and its almost expecting omniscience and clairvoyance of yourself when you really think about it if you take the last two as signs of whether you've really succeeded or not.

When I say I am liberal, what I mean is:

I like animated sitcoms (especially the Simpsons, South Park, and Family Guy). I also like indie films, and a lot of comedy movies.

There are some elements of these interests that many "conservative" people could potentially find offensive.

It is not a political or religious thing.

Tim

"To have a happy and enjoyable career as a geologist.

To be able to have an active lifestyle and live comfortably in Seattle"

Go for it, you lucky man. Apart from the badlands which if memory serves are SE of Seattle you're also on the edge of the 'Ring of Fire' and close to at least two active geological faults. You are therefore where the action is.

Now would be a good time to be making friends at the USGS

Ed Almos

I heard that you have to have a master's degree to be a geologist for USGS.

Tim