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23 of 52

It’s week 23 of 2018, just a skosh below the halfway mark and I’m just now getting around to picking up the intentional blog project I had planned to do this year.

Better late than never, I suppose.

So, right. My goal is at least one post a week, ideally more like 3+, to keep me writing, thinking, engaging, and being digitally active even as I struggle with the current realities of social media. We’ll see how I do.

As part of my more intentional life I’ve been challenging myself to ask open-ended questions on Facebook that encourage actual conversation and personal sharing. This has led to a lot of people worrying that something is wrong with me, that these open-ended questions are a form of Vaguebooking or a cry for help, but they really are meant for interaction and human engagement. Today’s convo prompt was “Tell me about the best job you’ve ever had” which has led, naturally, to me considering my own favorite jobs.

I’ve had a few favorites but my first and deepest love has to have been the Cincinnati Museum of Natural History. I started volunteering there when I was like 12 and just never wanted to go home, they finally started paying me and I stayed there until I went to college (it wasn’t my only job at the time, but it was the only one that mattered). There were metal mammoths out front, dusty old “Big Al” the Allosaurus in the lobby, and a maze-like world of magic behind the scenes. From day to day I might be doing demos with Balboa the massive boa constrictor (who taught me that snakes can, in fact, vomit), feeding people edible bugs, telling folk stories in the Planetarium, trying to engage unruly kids during a sleepover, roaming the man-made cave just because I loved to be in there, cleaning off the disgustingly rank bones of the former Titon the Bison (who was unexpectedly well preserved by an underground cold spring), or doing any number of a million zillion other fascinating things. I had my first real mentor there in a woman named Betsy, still one of my favorite people on the planet. I never noticed the crap work, I never said no to anything I was asked to do, I was just jazzed to be on the show – whatever that meant on any given day.

I still miss it, regularly and often. It was a wonderland of learning, laughing, and life experience. I don’t know if any other workplace will ever come close, but I sure am grateful I had the experience.

(c) Regan Wann 2018

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