pandacular
Masterpiece
Hi all, I'm Will, and for the summer, I will be working at the Pacific Bonsai Museum as a bonsai intern. Inspired by @DogwoodApprentice 's thread, I will be journaling my time--and hopefully repurposing these posts for my blog. As I need to attend to some duties in my own garden today, I'll start off with some background and how I got this transformational opportunity.
Those who know me have seen how quickly I've committed myself to this funny art. What started out as a hobby became a passion, then obsession, then dream of a vocation. I'm young, and highly optimistic about bonsai and community (if little else). For the last half decade, I've been working in an engineering field for which I have professional training, but as more and more of my idle thoughts have found themselves lingering on trees and art, I have struggled to put myself into that work. I'm not someone who finds it easy to half ass something--good enough isn't--and my inability to do better than "good enough" in my day job(1) was painful. A few months ago, I started applying for other jobs in my professional career with the goal of finding a role that would give me more time to focus on bonsai. While working on my resume, I got an email from PBM curator Aarin Packard, sharing an opportunity of an internship. If ever there was a fateful timing, it was here, as I had already picked out a date to quit my day job.
Stepping back even further; the first time I set a concrete bonsai career goal. I saw a post right here from @rockm that the museum was looking for a job. A job seeking part time work, with full health insurance benefits(2)! I resolved that next time such a job was available, that I would be prepared to take it. I didn't know exactly what that looked like at the time, but setting that goal allowed me to set a series of goals that became imaginable, achievable. Such as volunteering at the museum, and in the collections of others. This aim led me also to write down some mantras. I will close this journal entry with the first of these
next time, I'll write about my first couple days on the job, and maybe a bit of my last couple days on the old one
(1) I started using this term as a joke when I found answering "what do you do?", etc with bonsai rather than my corporate occupation
(2) Context for those who live in a modern welfare society, the United States has largely non-functional public health systems. One's access to quality medical care is wholly dependent on their ability to work a job or be independently wealthy.
Those who know me have seen how quickly I've committed myself to this funny art. What started out as a hobby became a passion, then obsession, then dream of a vocation. I'm young, and highly optimistic about bonsai and community (if little else). For the last half decade, I've been working in an engineering field for which I have professional training, but as more and more of my idle thoughts have found themselves lingering on trees and art, I have struggled to put myself into that work. I'm not someone who finds it easy to half ass something--good enough isn't--and my inability to do better than "good enough" in my day job(1) was painful. A few months ago, I started applying for other jobs in my professional career with the goal of finding a role that would give me more time to focus on bonsai. While working on my resume, I got an email from PBM curator Aarin Packard, sharing an opportunity of an internship. If ever there was a fateful timing, it was here, as I had already picked out a date to quit my day job.
Stepping back even further; the first time I set a concrete bonsai career goal. I saw a post right here from @rockm that the museum was looking for a job. A job seeking part time work, with full health insurance benefits(2)! I resolved that next time such a job was available, that I would be prepared to take it. I didn't know exactly what that looked like at the time, but setting that goal allowed me to set a series of goals that became imaginable, achievable. Such as volunteering at the museum, and in the collections of others. This aim led me also to write down some mantras. I will close this journal entry with the first of these
next time, I'll write about my first couple days on the job, and maybe a bit of my last couple days on the old one
(1) I started using this term as a joke when I found answering "what do you do?", etc with bonsai rather than my corporate occupation
(2) Context for those who live in a modern welfare society, the United States has largely non-functional public health systems. One's access to quality medical care is wholly dependent on their ability to work a job or be independently wealthy.
