My job

So, since this thing is mostly to let people in my life know what I'm up to, among other things listed in my first post, I thought I'd write a bit about my job. For anyone who doesn't know, I work in a cancer research lab at UCLA, where I am effectively the lab manager, but my official title is staff research associate, which really is not very descriptive. While I don't think I'd want to do this sort of thing for the rest of my life, it's a pretty good job for straight out of college. And it's sure a heck of a lot easier and less stressful than college. It's kind of crazy that I replaced a guy who had been there for 16 years, which is kind of intimidating, but kind of cool. I maintain four mouse colonies, do all the ordering, monitor the lab's hazardous waste output, assist the grad students and post docs with a number of projects, and I have my own project that involves creating an assay based on microhomology-mediated recombination in yeast. Right now I am helping one grad student on a project to test the efficacy and toxicity of potential radioprotector drugs for chemo patients and astronauts, and helping another with a study on the effects of intestinal microflora on cancer risk. Some stuff is a bit tedious and annoying, but some stuff is really cool. But, really I feel like this job is helping me to figure out what I want in a career. I think I've at least tentatively decided to get a masters in public health. I may go on to get a PhD, but who knows. For a number of reasons I've more or less ruled out med school. Basically I'm just not sure I'd be happy living the sort of life that doctors must lead, and there are plenty of other ways I can use my talents to help people, and without going into hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of debt or spending the next eight years in school. The field of public health has so many opportunities to travel, work, and live abroad, to help people, the opportunity to lead and organize things, etc. And, I can do any combination of research, writing, administrative work, etc. Basically, everything I'm looking for in a career. However, I have absolutely no idea how it will all culminate into a career path.