so.

I just now today figured out why I am so frustrated with my job. There is no intellectual interaction. For the four minutes that I got to talk to my boss today about why or why not the John Swett High School was significant.. how I had been approaching the basic integrity issues, how I hadn't considered that the school was significant because I see a high school as an organic part of the growth of a community, rather than a significant one. He says (not felt, or argued or discussed) that rather it is a significant marker in a community.

I find that kind of a loose interpretation of significant, and got about a minute of discussion out of it. But that was it. Right then and there.
Its not the fact that there is no mentoring, that I have garnered all that I will out of this job and that I had to learn it myself, not that I have to write the same report for any building. But that there is no actual interaction or intelligent discussion when it comes to preservation or historic integrity or anything.
Nothing.

So instead of me being in an intellectually stimulating environment, which I should be participating in- as someone whose field is cultural resource management, essentially, I am in a report factory.

I need someone to talk about this stuff with. To discuss it and flesh it out, and see where the preservation issues are and how they impact a resource.

Its really refreshing to understand that this is where my frustration and basic disinterest in my field has come from. That it really is not that I have again picked a path that is not the right one for me, but rather instead that it really is this job.

My fear has always been that I am not using my brain, that I am not thinking or being challenged or exploring. That's one of the reasons I take on, so whole heartedly, the things that I am interested in.

There's just no reason to sort of understand things, you have to be able to talk about them and be always learning. Always learning, thats what I am missing.

It is so certainly, certainly time for my future to unfold before me. I am ready to see where it goes, scary as it is. Because boy oh boy, it is. Sue, that follows a lot of what you and i talked about.

But I need to flex my intellect, and its not happening. I am looking forward to being done with my thesis, not so much because I loathe it or the process but rather because I need to step back into the process of learning new things. That probably has a lot to do with getting a better handle on the other facets of the history of NASCAR and where that leads, and then again, if that door never opens, well, so be it.

I think that if i do not get a good response from the Hall of Fame or the people that I know who are involved, I might try to reach out to Greg, who lives in South Carolina. He is the God of NASCAR history. And he needs an assistant, whether he knows it or not.
Maybe thats a full on option anyhow. I could move to SC. Work a job job and maybe help Greg and his archives. *cogs turning*

We'll see. It was a long hard day, but I feel a lot better.