The Cynical Career Counsellor Explains Your Future as a

Marine Biologist

Oh, hi there--back from that job shadow thing at Sealand? Yeah, when I heard you were coming I got these brochures for you. You must've learned a lot about looking after those Orcas or whatever they're called--how come their fins get all bendy in those aquarium places anyway? You all good, then--I mean, you learned it all there, right? Really? Out in the real ocean? Okay, I guess I can try:

You'll go to some respected college--on a coast, I might suggest--where you'll be one of the many who think this is the ideal career choice. Most of them will be gone before they've completed three semesters. Heading out on a class marine excursion on choppy water is never fun, but combine the stench from when the boat is used for non-academic commercial fishing, and the hangovers from frequent dormitory beer bong parties, and it's silly to think many typical undergrads won't find a better major without the nautical obligations.

You'll stick, though, and your passions will carry you through the four years with honors. You'll be offered a chance to continue in graduate work, and soon you're published in a variety of obscure quarterlies that only other marine biologists ever see.

There will be a variety of studies for you to participate in; whatever is trendy enough to garner funding becomes your topic of the season. Most of your time on the water is spent close to shore--that's where the interesting sea life resides, and you soon are spending as much time in scuba gear as you are above the water. You continue to work for your mentor, a respected older professor, and the night he drinks too much and confesses his love and willingness to leave his wife of 33 years creates an awkwardness that never is addressed once the moment has passed.

Eventually, you find your passion--fish farms. You study their environmental impact and are shocked to discover that they are destroying countless wild salmon runs and endangering entire species of marine life. Your mentor shares your dismay and the two of you co-author several inflammatory articles denouncing them, while you struggle to find funding to generate a study which will verify the extent of the suspected damage in your particular part of the world.

Meanwhile, your mentor is gradually losing his "edge". First he simply forgets deadlines or misplaces things, but then he becomes increasingly bizarre and begins work on genetically modifying pirahna fish to thrive in cold ocean waters. His plan is to then release the voracious killers near the notoriously badly-built fish farms and let them work their magic.

You cannot stand by and watch him ruin the reputation of your department or your college, so you report his eccentricities to the department chair and soon a retirement opens the door for you to replace your former guide as a full-fledged professor in the marine biology department.

Your mentor is furious. A series of strange occurences put you on edge--coming home to find pirahnas in your bathtub is only one manifestation of an obssession to destroy you that never rests.

The stress of your ex-mentor's harassment makes you welcome the opportunity to go out into the field--you are following some tagged salmon far from shore to assess their condition. You travel with two men--fortunately with your looks being the only female on long lonely ocean trips will never be a problem for you, despite the quiet desperation you once inspired in your mentor. This trip, like so many before, looks to be worthwhile but uneventful. Your two partners seem to be professional and knowledgable--graduates of the same university as yourself.

News of the tropical storm comes surprisingly late--it will take a sudden turn in your direction, and as you are well out in open sea, you'll be forced to make a run for the nearest inhabited island. Unfortunately, that island will still be far away when you settle in for your four hour sleep break (the sea is surprisingly calm but the storm will be bearing down on you) and you will wake to hear your partners' incredible explanations of how not one but both motors have fallen off your craft.

You try your radio, but it is dead. Fortunately, your colleagues tell you, they already radioed for help before the radio died. You settle in with them to watch the movie permanently stuck in the cheap, defective VCR powered from the boat's battery--"A Perfect Storm". It merely brings you closer to panic.

Then you will be relieved to hear the beat of a helicopter fast approaching. It hovers over your vessel and lowers a ladder. You are so adamantly against having any special courtesies attached your being a woman, that you insist on being the last pulled from the boat. The problem sadly will be that after both of your partners are safely in the aircraft, the ladder is not lowered for you. You look up and recognize the face of your former mentor shaking his fist and laughing above you.

Then it all makes sense--your two partners were also his proteges, and eager to help with his plan to destroy you.

With luck you'll finish your 22nd viewing of "Perfect Story" before your boat is swamped and you shivver to a watery grave.