"I have seen slaves on horseback, and princes walking on foot like slaves." — Ecclesiastes 10.7

Graduate students live off of temporary employment—often manual labor—since we move constantly and frequently spend only short periods of time in one area. However, some of us are fortunate enough to have work fall in our lap that pays well, demands little, and comes with newfound status. We all know of students who land these jobs because they list the job on their CV and publicize this work experience. Oftentimes these students assume that the readers of their CV will see a direct relationship between the job and the strengthening of a particular skill they want to highlight; these students are correct to assume this, in part, because we give certain forms of employment instant social esteem.

Humankind is on a venture for which we are not well-prepared — life in a new geological age. Given the name Anthropocene by scientists because of the domination of cumulative human activities, this age succeeds the late Holocene, the era that has hosted all human religions and made possible all human civilizations to date.