(I am in Philadelphia! There's a neat little room off the lobby of my sister's apartment building, and I have come here to work on my paper. And hey, there's wireless. Nifty.)

Earlier this week, I spent a while online poking around at jobs. I'm not actually looking for a job, but I wanted to see what jobs were available that I could perform and feel happy and fulfilled. You know, hypothetically. The jobs I found that looked interesting were (of course) with the Sierra Club, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, the WWF, etc. And the ones that looked really, really interesting required a degree in environmental science.

So I've been thinking.

I am majoring in psychology. I am minoring in 1) biology and 2) environmental studies. This is not a degree in environmental science. I have no intention of pursuing a career that utilizes my psychology degree.

My parents are anxious to see me do well in life, which in their minds goes hand in hand with education. They will probably help pay for grad school.

I could go to grad school somewhere righteous. (Pacific Northwest, perhaps? I don't know which schools are good, so I can't really say yet.) I could do awesome things while being a grad student. There is a 99% chance that I would enjoy studying environmental science. I could get a degree in environmental science, and then I would be able to get really cool jobs. And then I would be able to look back at my life and be proud of the things I will have accomplished, and that'll be pretty cool.

So I think I'm going to seriously look at graduate programs for environmental science. And I'm going to take the GREs. And oh my goodness, I'm intimidated. Grad school. I don't even know where to begin, and applications are due in a couple months.