Roll with the punches…but what direction?

So, I have been sitting at work reading travel blogs for a while because business is very slow.  In consulting it is like slow torture.  Your billable percent slips lower and lower yet there is nothing you can do about it when you are at a certain level.  I am not allowed to market nor do I have a PE (professional engineering license) to do so.  When I finally give in to the fact that I am not going to make it, I make plans.  I am leaving this job where my most common work task is to make copies.  Yes, that is right, they pay me a lot of money to make copies.

Now, some people in the world might say.  Wow, pay me lots of money to make copies and reading blogs, sounds cushy.  Not me.  I am not that type of person.  I am the type of person who needs to feel intellectually or physically stimulated, preferably both at the same time.  Pressing the “copy” button does not count.  I feel the need to be doing something that makes a difference or is productive.  I want to be cultivated skills that will be able to break me out from the pack and be able to be successful so that I can carve my own path.  I am not going to get that by making copies or surfing the internet.

However, today I was given enough work (only HALF of it copying and scanning) to get me through June at least.  However, I was beginning to think June was my estimated time of departure.  I have not applied for my visa yet, nor have I bought my ticket yet.  I am not quite to my savings goal.  So I could stay.  If I stay until August I could take more classes this summer to defer my loans and prepare for graduate school.  If I stay until October I could get my PE and probably be sponsored full time in many countries because I have a degree in Chemical Engineering and work in Environmental/Water and Wastewater Engineering.  But that is the slippery slope I have been on for the last 5 years.  I will just work a few years to pay off some of my loans, get some experience, and figure out what I want to study and where I want to study for my masters or if I want to get a PhD instead.  Always next year, and the next year it always seems more impossible.

So what is the answer.  Push back a few months?  If I go in August it will be right before my 28th birthday.  If I want to do Australia and New Zealand for the entire year then I have to leave by then because I got the impression New Zealand cuts off at the day you turn 30 (Australia was inclusive of 30, I suppose I could reverse the order).  But if I work until August/October I can make that much more money, especially if I get my PE. If I quit in June it would be mid project which is kind of rotten.  But its business right, would I be afforded the same thought if they were going to let me go?

So.  Here I am at a crossroads, a test I am sure life is throwing at me at an opportune moment to test my on the fly decision making and flexibility.  I am willing to roll with the punches, but I am not sure which way to roll?  Which path do I take?