Interest exploration

Making my previous lists got me thinking about what I generally spend my time thinking about in analytical ways or how my thoughts tend to prioritize if I don't consciously try to remember certain things or have obligations which demand specific attention:

1. Relationships and communication/psychology (this is a rewarding and never-ending experimental laboratory in my life: no funds required, no end to the questions and puzzles, always something to figure out or test either in someone else or in myself and my own reactions...)
   
2. Politics and cultural/social issues
   
3. Religion and philosophy
   
4. Travel and other social plans/commitments
   
5. Specific issues in daily life, like events, or goings-on in friends' and family members' lives, figuring out a career path, etc.
   
6. Chores and errands I need to do, like actually looking for jobs, cleaning, getting dressed, etc

There's probably a lot more to be gleaned from that list than what has to do with finding career interests, but I thought it was interesting because I suppose not everyone is quite the same in this sense. Then I started thinking about what I've spent most of my time reading about online (the bulk of my informational intake, not counting the time I'm actually producing [blogging, uploading photos for sale or display, responding to messages, etc]):

1. Social media (Facebook, blogs, chatting, YouTube, and learning about everything below through social media, so this isn't all fluff time but is largely not exactly peer-reviewed journalistic kinds of stuff)
   
2. Social issues and politics (particularly political and social science, philosophy/religion, psychological and other sciences, and history as they relate to mohodom [ask me privately if you don't know], relationships, health, or issues like climate change, gays in the military, marriage rights, sustainable energy resources, immigration, economic recovery, etc)
   
3. Random tangents (IMDBing an actor, investigating scientific bases for alternative healing methods, finding out what material my blanket is made of and what its properties are, checking the stats on my blog, finding Waterloo, Ontario on Google Maps, looking up the origins of pink lemonade or the phrase "on the lam"...)
   
4. Entertainment (watching TV online, mostly)
   
5. Job-hunting
   
6. Computer/tech news and information
   
7. Natural sciences
   
8. General news (I get more news from radio than online: I just research the news online)
   
9. Looking into fields of study

Obviously, this does not bode well for finding answers about a career path soon. Hence one reason for my deactivation of my Facebook account. I'll need to work on this more. Part of why I've decided to blog about this is to integrate my propensity to analyze what I blog about, and vice versa, and organize my thoughts into something at least coherent enough to articulate in some way, even if it's too long-winded and boring for most readers to get through. :-) So then I thought, when I actually decide to read a book, what kind do I read?:

• Fantasy/Sci-Fi
  
• Philosophy, politics, religion, sociology non-fiction
  
• Natural sciences (esp. marine or other aquatic and African and South American ecosystems) non-fiction
  
• Communication and relationships
  
• Other "self-help"
  
• Other novels

And documentaries I watch?:

• Social/Political (usually about or incidental to current controversy)
  
• Psychology/Sociology (especially human development, relations and abnormal psych)
  
• Natural sciences (especially fauna)
  
• Religion (especially common threads, history of religion and relationship with modern society)
  
• Arts (especially music, performing arts)
  
• History (especially natural, religious, WWII, Civil Rights in the U.S., ancient civilizations)

Courses I most enjoyed at the university level:

• Intro to Marketing
  
• Intro to Psych and Abnormal Psych
  
• Intro to Geology
  
• History and cultures of Latin America
  
• Biology
  
• Business Law
  
• Sociology
  
• Hispanic cinema
  
• Spanish for Business
  
• Writing and rhetoric
  
• Statistics & Risk Analysis
  
• Discrete Math

Well shoot, no wonder I left college more confused than ever...