Job prospects:
From 2002 to 2005 I did a bunch of seasonal jobs. These were fine, and with enough of them, I would be able to land a full-time, permanent job. However, I started to become pigeonholed into exotic plants and/or chemical work. There seem to be three categories for jobs that are available to me. The first is seasonal. These are the jobs I've had for a couple of years. They would run 1039 hours, because at 1040 hours I would get benefits besides vacation and sick leave. The second category is a term position. These jobs are financed with grants and other moneys that allow for something between 2 and 4 years, usually. Better than a seasonal job in many ways, including money and stability. The third category is full time, permanent. This is the top dog for me. I've got a few years of experience, but my experience is in exotic plants and chemicals. Since I want to focus more on water science, I am back in school again.

U of I:
I spent four years of five at the University of Illinois located in Champaign and Urbana, Illinois. I started out in 1997 as a Civil Engineer. In '99-'00, I left the Civil Engineering department, and did a year at Parkland Community College in Champaign. I returned to UofI in the fall of 2000 and started in Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences in the environmental soil and water sciences option, which is where and what I got my degree in two years later. Probably the most consistant activity I did there was the improvisational comedy troupe: Like Disco...But not Really.

Reach:
Reach workcamps. In 1994, after one year of high school, I went with my church youth group to Ashtabula, Ohio for a week of working on the homes of disadvantaged residents. The program was run by Reach Workcamps, a non-denominational Christian organization based out of Greeley, Colorado. The experience encouraged me to go to a week of camp each year for the next three years. I then graduated high school and went off to university. After my sophomore year at university, I applied for staff with Reach, and was accepted. That started four more years of working for Reach as a summer staff, where I got to help run the camps I used to go to. Each summer saw me working at 3 to 5 camps around the country from New Mexico to South Carolina to Pennsylvania and so on and so forth. It'll be hard to move on to whatever is next. The details on where and when are found at this section of my Livejournal.

SCA:
SCA In the late fall of my (2nd) senior year at UofI, I was looking around for what to do next. Even though I was getting educated in soil and water sciences, I picked up an interest in invasive and non-native plants and what they do to an established ecosystem. So I was thinking about trying to find an internship to give me a practical education and to see if my interest was worth following up on. Enter the SCA. Around that time, I received an email from my department about a presentation about something called the Student Conservation Association. This sounded interesting, so I went and found out about a program that invites young professionals and college students send in an application. The application is then forwarded to any number of potential internships dealing with everything from living-history re-enactments to surveying whales from a boat in Alaska. I found a few internships about plants and invasive species. The one I eventually accepted was with the Albany Pine Bush Preserve

Marine Biochemists:
After working for the Student Conservation Association, I planned on spending even up to 9 months looking for a full time job. I started on this plan at the beginning of 2003. I was pleasantly surprised to have a company express and interest in me just two months into the year. The company was Marine Biochemists, a lake and pond service company. I was interested in the invasive aquatic plant work they did. And I took the job, starting in March 2003. I learned about chemicals, I got certified in chemicals, forklifts, and applied those skills. Then the middle management entered the picture. I started hearing rumors of them telling me to move to California to keep the job. When they finally told me that the central Illinois position had changed from full time to seasonal, and the season was over (both those things happening in the same conversation), I decided that if I was going to move, I was going to do it on my terms.

Lake Mead National Recreation Area's Exotic Plant Management Team:
From October 2003 to April 2004, and again from October 2004 to April 2005, I worked for LAME's EPMT. This was a region crew working for the National Park Service, housed by Lake Mead NRA. We journeyed into 5 different states (Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, and Utah) to work at different National Parks to remove invasive plants. Primarily saltcedar, also called Tamarisk. This position was seasonal, 1039 hours. I was in placed in charge of chemicals, and worked daily with a Stihl 440 chainsaw. I reported on each project on my livejournal.

Gettysburg National Military Park:
From April 2004 to September of 2004, I worked for Gettysburg National Military Park in the Resource Planning division. I was on the seasonal crew that worked with any/many of the natural resource topics that occur in the park. That is, pest control for rats, groundhogs, roadkill, invasive plants, stinging bees, orchards, and other logistical things dealing with moving shops, damaged trees, etc. I had the opportunity to really test how far I'll go to be safe with chemicals and coworkers, as one of my coworkers was not a safe person to be around.

The Illinois Natural History Survey
I began work at the Illinois Natural History Survey where the Mississippi, the Illinois, and the Missouri Rivers meet in the Great Rivers Field Station for the summer of 2005. They hired me to take vegetation data along the shores of the Mississippi River for an ongoing EPA project. This was a good job, but I again got some Poison Ivy.

The University of Florida
First, a bit about why I'm back in school, and why I'm at Florida. I always knew that my career path had different options. To land a full-time permanent job, I could do several years of seasonal jobs and build up the experience part of my resume, or I could get a master's, or some combination of the two. I settled on working seasonal positions. However, two things came up. The first was that I was working exotic plants, and was in charge of chemical use for those jobs. I have always wished for water science jobs, but took whatever I could get. After a couple of seasons of the jobs, I found my applications for water jobs where being rejected because my "resume shows no interest in a career in water", as one reply stated. So it became necessary for me to look into a different path to my goals.
So I started to look for graduate schools. I took the GRE and did fine on that. I started applying for schools, and talked with a good two dozen professors at different institutions. I was prepared to sell my credentials and explain my experience to interested professors, and I read up on what each one was doing so I could show interest in their work. I was not prepared to have no replies from all but two of them. And neither of those really worked out. That is, until the last minute. Everything fell through, and I was driving home from Nevada with no plans for what to do next when I received two calls. One was for a summer seasonal position with INHS, and the other was from Dr. K. R. Reddy from the University of Florida.

At first, it took me a bit to get my bearings. I spent the fall of 2005 figuring out my course schedule for the next two years and helping other grad students at their field locations and with their work. So far, so good. Then, in November of 2005, my foot started hurting. I broke my sesamoid. This kept me in a walking boot for five months or so, and required me to change thesis topics. More coming soon.

The second thing that has come up to change my path a bit? (font color="yellow")
I am Allergic to Poison Ivy.(/font)
Allergic enough to require some consideration. Each time a person is exposed to PI, they lose some of their inborn resistance. The total amount of inborn resistance depends on each person. After it is used up (you can build it up some by avoiding PI contact), the reactions to PI become more severe. I am well past the point of having any resistance. I blew it all out when I reapplied sunscreen in the middle of a July day in 2003. I must have had PI oil on my hands when I did it. I ended up with small PI rashes all over my body. Every summer since then I've had worse cases. This past summer (2005) I got huge patches of PI rashes on my arms and legs and stomach and back. Knowing that I am in a career with many PI contacts to come, I asked a dermatologist about the long term health impacts. Fortunately, I will not be at more risk for things like cancer or disease. However, my skin will probably become more and more reactive to allergens.
So, I will need a job in a lab, or in a location without PI. The problem is that I will not let that stop me from taking a job outside in places with PI. I am much to happy doing those jobs, and with those areas.

Below this line are a few of my thoughts and opinions.