Mandatory First Blog Post

Blogging for a grade is something I would never consciously do; if I had to write a paper while sitting in the middle of the street I would choose the potential danger of getting hit by any number of cars over a blog on the internet. The anonymity of internet blogging is somewhat appealing, but the fact that it's available to the world's public gives me unease. This isn't one of my Tumblr blogs full of idiotic pictures and ridiculously hilarious posts, this is a blog about me as a person and my actually experiences within the world around me...which is to say a little unsettling. However I will push on and see how this project turns out.

As a Junior at Grand Valley State University, I study Bio-medical Science with a concentration in Microbiology while also obtaining a minor in Fine Arts. "What are you going do with that?" is often the first thing people say when I tell them my studies. The answer is the obscure and not often heard of art of Medical Illustration i.e. the art of illustrating life in its most basic and natural form. Medical Illustrators create drawings for medical textbooks, medical journals, new surgical procedures and basically any other range of medical literature.

I've always loved medicine as well as art, and studying to be a doctor and wasting my life in medical school no longer started to appeal to me. I became more conscious of how little time I had on this planet, and how little of it I wanted to spend crammed in my room studying day and night for a job that might be well paying, but also one I knew I would be miserable in. I was raised by a conservative family that wholeheartedly drilled into my young mind the (very biased and potentially incorrect) belief art wasn't a proper career.

Now I am aware that art isn't a stable career, but it is, if anything, a proper one. I enjoy art and I can be poor as a piece of dirt on the bottom of a shoe and know that I would still be happier than a career which I have slowly lost interest in. Medical Illustrators do make a livable amount of money, and with it being a freelance career with open hours, I can take time to do things I love and work on my outside interests. The stigma of this country is that you have to work constantly to pay for things that you ultimately don't need, that you can't stop or everything will fall apart, you have to keep working and progressing and going. I have no intention to fall into this position which so many Americans unknowingly do. I intend to live my life to the fullest, with the greatest appreciation for the life around me, to be present in every moment. And I hope that this blog will help others to see that they should too.