From fifth grade (and reading "Never Cry Wolf"), I was sure I would be a biologist of some sort. Got a B.S. in biology from Antioch College, which means I got "real life" experience teaching at an environmental school in Maine, taking care of animals (including breeding feeder mice and rats) and doing some public interpretation at a large aquarium/museum, and doing research on the social behavior of wolves in captivity. Cool.

After college, did two volunteer stints with the Fish & Wildlife Service in Alaska studying caribou (wolf prey!) and worked in a museum (and a company specializing in second mortgages and yacht loans) during a year off until grad. school. In grad school, studying foxes, I realized I did not want to be a university professor, however, they are not set up to tell you anything about the alternatives... Went off to work with captive chimpanzees (recordkeeping and behavioral research oversight) and never finished the graduate degree. Tried to free-lance for while doing research and writing text for zoo and museum exhibits -- too shy and undisciplined to market effectively on a nation-wide scale, which was what was required.

Got depressed. What to do? Got pregnant. Oh, I'll do that for a while.

When my son was 6 months old, had an opportunity to become managing director of our local "friends of traditional music". Did that for 8 years, but it's not too lucrative of course! ;-)

Decided to become a teaching artist -- bringing American folk dance and song to the schools. Had a part time position teaching "general music" to kindergarten-2nd graders. Still too undisciplined at the marketing end on the dance gigs, and so too slow off the block to make the $$ hubby wanted. Got depressed.

Now I'm an administrative secretary (picked up a lot of business/office skills with that "non-profit administration" job...) -- to a couple of professors who study evolutionary genomics at the local univ. And, in order to increase my part-time hours, I'm going to start working in the lab this summer as well.

You never know where life will take you. I still don't know... I figure I've got another 20-25 years of working life ahead, maybe more if Social Security and Medicare go down the tubes. Who knows when the next left turn will be? They don't tell you about that stuff when you're in high school and college....

~ Becky in Tucson