Perhaps there's some cosmic message that I'm just not getting. The events of the last week seem to have multiplied.

I had a conversation with my advisor that began with her saying, while smiling, "So, we're meeting to plan the rest of your life"... which would be an accurate assessment of the conversation if by my life you mean my academic career. The meeting ending with me having the distinct impression that I need a new advisor. Not because I would not be able to get along with this one, no, certainly not - I have been drinking with the woman and it was all fine & good. No, the reason that I got this impression is because the areas where my interests lie, and more importantly, the areas that I might market myself under, don't really lie in any of her areas of expertise.

In part that saddens me, because I've liked working with her.

In part it scares me because I feel very cut loose. There's a piece of my brain that says I should celebrate such freedom - at least my advisor hasn't planned out my dissertation for me like a colleague's has (down to the title!) - but it's also a bit scary because I'm not sure who to turn to for advice now. Or who to approach as a supervisor. I have some suggestions, but I still feel like they're quite vague and not terribly helpful.

I also feel a bit out of my element - like I don't know anything.

I had gone into the meeting with a series of questions. I guess you could say that I got answers to those questions, but they weren't answers within the realm of what I had imagined they might be, and they generated as many, if not even more, questions in turn.

But I think the part that really gets me is that - I still don't know what I want to be when I grow up.