BS: What you *were* going to do in life?....

Subject: BS: What you *were* going to do in life?....
From: Bobert
Date: 05 Apr 05 - 07:44 PM

Okay, this oughtta be a lot more fun than fussin' with CarolC over the 10 Commandments...

Ahhhh, when you were a a youngin' what were your carrer aspirations? Did you want to ba a fireman, nurse, lawyer 'er what?...

I wanted to be an achietect. My mom worked for one, Mr. Parlie, and I liked ro draw so I just figured I's be one myself. I actually made it thru the first semester in college before figuring out that archietects ain't nuthin' but engineeers & mathmaticans so I changed majors...

But how about the rest of you in Mudville?

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: What you *were* going to do in life?....
From: John Hardly
Date: 05 Apr 05 - 07:46 PM

All I ever really wanted to do was be in music. ...after my pro basketball phase anyway. I'm a potter.

Subject: RE: BS: What you *were* going to do in life?....
From: CarolC
Date: 05 Apr 05 - 08:06 PM

I wanted to be a zookeeper.

And I did that (be a zookeeper).

And I decided that, A. I hate zoos, B. I hate stinking like animal shit all of the time, and C. I hate zoos.

I also wanted to be a weaver (of cloth).

And I did that. I still like doing it, but I find now that I can't weave fast enough to do it for a living.

And I also wanted to own a little store or shop of some kind. I came very close to doing that at one point, but that one slipped through my fingers like sand through an hour glass ;-)

I still might do that one some day.

At some point, I decided I wanted to be a mother. And I did that. It was great, and now my son is all grown up and out on his own.

And later on, after all of that, I wanted to be a counselor (psychotherapeutic). I still wouldn't mind being able to do that, but I'm not in a position right now to get the necessary education and credentials.

These days, what I am doing suits me just fine, but I still might do some of that other stuff some day (or again). But not the zookeeper part.

Subject: RE: BS: What you *were* going to do in life?....
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 05 Apr 05 - 08:16 PM

What was I gonna do?

I think I'm doin' it...

:-)

Subject: RE: BS: What you *were* going to do in life?....
From: GUEST
Date: 05 Apr 05 - 08:27 PM

The chinchilla in the morris dancer video.

Subject: RE: BS: What you *were* going to do in life?....
From: Chris Green
Date: 05 Apr 05 - 08:29 PM

Grow up. Never managed it, I'm afraid!

Subject: RE: BS: What you *were* going to do in life?....
From: Padre
Date: 05 Apr 05 - 08:31 PM

At 16 - I was going to be a doctor
At 21 - I was going to be a research biochemist
At 25 - I just wanted a job
At 60+ - Now I see what I was meant to do!

Padre

Subject: RE: BS: What you *were* going to do in life?....
From: Little Hawk
Date: 05 Apr 05 - 08:35 PM

(sigh)

Ah, youth, glorious youth...had it, and had no idea what to do with it at the time.

Subject: RE: BS: What you *were* going to do in life?....
From: RangerSteve
Date: 05 Apr 05 - 08:39 PM

Like Duelingbazoukis, I also didn't grow up, at least not completely.
I wanted to be a policeman, fireman, sailor, park ranger, musician, cowboy and lighthouse keeper. I have done the first five, and for a while was a cop and fireman simultaneously. Life doesn't get much better than that. The job of cowboy was an impractical dream, and the lighthouse keeper bit came from a period during 8th grade when I grew extremely cynical and a job that involved little contact with the human race looked really good. I outgrew that phase by 11th grade.

Steve

Subject: RE: BS: What you *were* going to do in life?....
From: gnu
Date: 05 Apr 05 - 08:40 PM

Bobert said: "...so I changed majors...". What DID you do?

engineergnu

Subject: RE: BS: What you *were* going to do in life?....
From: jimmyt
Date: 05 Apr 05 - 09:03 PM

My original plan was to be a professional jazz trumpet player, but I got sidetracked. I am having more fun with music now than I ever did then.

Subject: RE: BS: What you *were* going to do in life?....
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 05 Apr 05 - 09:09 PM

I wanted to be a cartoonist, and a singer and guitarist. I ended up in Geology, and spent most of my life as Director of a Museum. I still fool around with cartooning, singing and guitar playing.

Jerry

Subject: RE: BS: What you *were* going to do in life?....
From: kendall
Date: 05 Apr 05 - 09:22 PM

As a teen ager, I wanted to be a forest ranger. Ended up being a Fish & Wildlife Conservation officer. Not too far off.

I told my father I wanted to be a truck driver, he said he wouldn't stand in my way.

Subject: RE: BS: What you *were* going to do in life?....
From: Ebbie
Date: 05 Apr 05 - 09:26 PM

First I wanted to be a schoolteacher- and then I found out that they get paid. I lost my innocence then and there. Then I thought that when I got to be 17 (I don't know why that was the magic number) I would adopt LOTS of kids; I was never going to marry.

sigh

Subject: RE: BS: What you *were* going to do in life?....
From: sixtieschick
Date: 05 Apr 05 - 09:29 PM

I wanted to be a black blues singer.

Subject: RE: BS: What you *were* going to do in life?....
From: Little Hawk
Date: 05 Apr 05 - 09:32 PM

I like your attitude, Ebbie. You might better have been born in a traditional society, such as existed long prior to the arrival of a certain value system we are all saddled with now.

Subject: RE: BS: What you *were* going to do in life?....
From: Joe Offer
Date: 05 Apr 05 - 09:38 PM

As the son and gandson of engineers, I figured I'd be one, too, since I really liked engineering. In seventh grade, I decided I wanted to be a Catholic priest, so I went off to the minor seminary in ninth grade (age 14). I stayed for eight years and got a wonderful eduction, but I decided I wanted to be a husband and father. So, I've worked in the church as a volunteer and unpaid teacher all these years, but I was employed as a U.S. Government investigator, something I never dreamed of doing.
-Joe Offer, retired-

Subject: RE: BS: What you *were* going to do in life?....
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 05 Apr 05 - 09:43 PM

I was going to be a teacher but discovered that I hate adolescents. So, I did something else for about thirty years until I decided I'd rather starve than do it anymore. I have been successfully starving for four years now.

Subject: RE: BS: What you *were* going to do in life?....
From: GUEST
Date: 05 Apr 05 - 09:47 PM

That explains your bitter self-loathing, then.

Subject: RE: BS: What you *were* going to do in life?....
From: Rapparee
Date: 05 Apr 05 - 09:50 PM

Let's see. When I left 8th grade, the nuns asked us what we wanted to do. I told them that I wanted to be a policeman, even a detective.

Ten years later I worked as a Military Policeman and in the Army's CID -- the detective arm of the MPs.

When I was in high school I wanted to be a high school graduate, and maybe go to college.

I got both my wishes, even though the college part was interupted by my Rich Uncle Samuel calling my name.

When I got out of the Army, I wanted to be a college graduate and go to Library School. I did that; ran out of money, moved to Ohio from Illinois, and got a job in a small library as a Reference Librarian. Haven't looked back since.

Well, yeah, I finally did finish Library School, getting my Master's degree (MS) from CWRU. Since 1971 I've been working as a professional librarian, and I've been having a ball.

I mean, yeah, I've had lots of other things I've wanted to try -- assassin, stud, cowboy, secret agent, Lord Of The Universe, spaceman, theoretical physicist, mountain man, hero and so forth -- but this is pretty nice and a heckuva lot of fun. Of course, you never heard of a RICH librarian, but what the heck!

Subject: RE: BS: What you *were* going to do in life?....
From: Deckman
Date: 05 Apr 05 - 10:12 PM

I grew up as the son of a master/magical carpenter and builder. He presented me with my first hammer when I was ten. I threw my hammer away when I was 23 ... I was tired of hammering.

I then wanted to be: a folksinger, a counsellor, a real estate salesman, a prostitute, a commercial fisherman, a logger, a casket maker, a bar keep, a park ranger, a radio announcer.

For the last 40 years years I've been trying to replicate my Father. I'm getting close! CHEERS, Bob

Subject: RE: BS: What you *were* going to do in life?....
From: jacqui.c
Date: 05 Apr 05 - 10:21 PM

I wanted to be a hairdresser and studied at college for a year and a half before contracting dermatitis and getting pregnant.

Three kids later I went to Teacher Training College, got my certificate but no job. Ended up working in an office as an injury claims negotiator, a job I loved.

Gave that up to hop the pond and marry Kendall!

Subject: RE: BS: What you *were* going to do in life?....
From: Bobert
Date: 05 Apr 05 - 10:29 PM

Best stories I've heard here in the 3 'er 4 years I've been here....

Lovin' each post...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: What you *were* going to do in life?....
From: GUEST
Date: 05 Apr 05 - 10:41 PM

An oceanographer. I joined Greenpeace instead, and went into freelance documentary work and writing as an environmental activist.

I actually got to work with the Cousteau crew once, which was sort of a dream come true. But I've since come to realize that working with these folks would be the pinnacle for someone like me.

Subject: RE: BS: What you *were* going to do in life?....
From: Bill D
Date: 05 Apr 05 - 10:57 PM

started off in grade school thinking I'd be a 'scientist'....then narrowed that to astronomer....then found out it was 94.621% math, which I never was strong in. So, as a senior in high school, I was working in a grocery store, when one slow Sunday after blue laws were repealed, (allowing us to be open on Sunday), I picked up a copy of "The Age of Ideology", one of a series of paperbacks on the history of Philosophy....and I was hooked.

I entered college planning to teach Philosophy, but LIFE interfered and slowed my education until after 13 years and 130+ hrs of Philosophy courses and an incomplete thesis on A.N. Whitehead, I discovered that there was not much demand for Philosophy teachers. (Two of my thesis advisors never finished THEIR PhDs, and became a race driver and a real estate salesman)

I made a grand total of $4000 in Philosophy, as a graduate teaching asst. for 2 years.

Some of you may have noticed residual reminders, in this strange and wonderful forum, of those years when I was attempting to learn to think   ;>)

Subject: RE: BS: What you *were* going to do in life?....
From: Don Firth
Date: 05 Apr 05 - 11:06 PM

When I was about six, I got totally hooked on the "Buck Rogers" comic strip. I couldn't wait for the next Sunday's funnies to see what was going to happened, so I grabbed pencil and paper and drew what I figured was going to happen. A few years later, I was drawing my own characters and doing my own stories. I had a fair-size collection of possibilities, including a masked and costumed crime-fighter ("Batman" influence) and a fighter pilot who practically won World War II single-handed (he bore an odd resemblance to Steve Canyon). When I was thirteen or fourteen, I could draw various aircraft such as the P-51 Mustang or the B-25 Mitchell right down to the last rivet. In my early teens, that was going to be it: I was going be another Milton Caniff, Hal Foster, or Alex Raymond and make my livelihood drawing comic strips.

Once my stories got a little more sophisticated, I learned the hard way to write up a synopsis of the story ahead of time, otherwise I could waste a lot of time, ink, and paper getting my hero into a pickle I couldn't get him out of. I wrote the stories up like a movie script: dialogue plus a description of the illustration. But soon I found that I was writing the stories way ahead and not getting back to do the strips themselves. By that time, I was in high school, and I took an English elective:   a creative writing class. The teacher liked my stuff and she was very encouraging.

In the meantime, I had taken up fencing (one Rafael Sabatini novel and one Errol Flynn movie too many), and in order to find more people to fence with, I got permission (over some faculty members' misgivings regarding safety) to teach an after-school intramural fencing class. Over a couple of years, I had several dozen pupils. Becoming a "fencing master" had a nice ring to it, but there were already a couple of good fencing teachers in Seattle, and they taught for free, because they were active in competition and they wanted to keep their amateur standing. Couldn't make a living at it.

I entered the University of Washington with the idea of writing Great Literature (and science fiction when nobody was looking).

Then I fell in with rampaging gangs of folk singers, including Sandy Paton, Walt Robertson, and Bob Nelson (Deckman). The next thing I knew, I was playing the guitar and learning songs. Some desperate televison producer from the local educational channel dragged me in front of a camera to do a series on folk music, and in the resulting local notoriety, I found myself singing in a coffeehouse and doing concerts—and strangely enough, getting paid for it. That sorta thing can hook a guy! The Great American Novel (or the Great Galactic Novel [if nobody was looking] would just have to wait until I got this folk singing aberration out of my system.

Since then, I've taken various "day jobs." I've worked as a production illustrator (draftsman) at Boeing, a radio announcer and news director, a telephone operator, and a technical writer (for the Bonneville Power Administration—so I've worked for the same company that Woody Guthrie worked for back in the Thirties or so). But I've kept singing off and on all this time—and I'm still doing it.

So it's not out of my system yet. But I am writing a lot these days.

I still draw and sketch a bit from time to time. The occasional irreverent cartoon.

Don Firth
(Still trying to figure out what I want to be when I grow up. If, that is. . . .)

Subject: RE: BS: What you *were* going to do in life?....
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 05 Apr 05 - 11:14 PM

Dear GUEST,

CLICK!

Discuss.

Subject: RE: BS: What you *were* going to do in life?....
From: Deckman
Date: 05 Apr 05 - 11:24 PM

Don... "He had the gift of laughter and a sense that world was mad! ... EH? Bob

Subject: RE: BS: What you *were* going to do in life?....
From: Rustic Rebel
Date: 05 Apr 05 - 11:44 PM

When I was about 6, swinging in a swing, singing, 'How would you like to go up in the air? Up in the air so blue" I decided I wanted to be a singer.
In high school I stayed in choir, but I took up a lot of art that got me into drawing, clay, fibers and painting. At that time I wanted to be a portrait artist.
After school I took off on the road with a friend and we hitchhiked back and forth across country for 5 years. That's when I picked up my first harmonicas and guitar. It also got me into working (carving) with stone, hunting and studying rocks and minerals, and I wanted to become a geologist.
When I settled down and moved into a farm I started studying and growing herbs and wanted to be an herbal healer.

Time sure flies- So now I, play my music, sing, play harps, write, sculpt clay, go on rock hunting trips, grow herbs and gardens and have a seasonal job as a supervisor in a beautiful park, and I still can play half a year!

Subject: RE: BS: What you *were* going to do in life?....
From: hesperis
Date: 05 Apr 05 - 11:46 PM

Well, when I was less than 3 years old I wanted to be a world-famous composer and definitely did not want to be a world-famous piano player. Later I wanted to be a ballet dancer, but decided I didn't like suffering in order to dance... I wanted to dance for the enjoyment of it and not worry about performance and strict standards of what is beauty.

I wanted to be a wife and have a wonderful husband and family. Some of that's happened and some hasn't.

Then after high school was over I really wanted to be a professional jazz French Hornist... but could only afford a flute. And all I could play on flute without buying a ton of music were the old songs that my mother and I used to sing. So I got into this folk music kick and that hasn't stopped.

Then I discovered computers, and they ruled. And I discovered computer games and realized that in the field of computer game production, I could use all my generalist knowledge of art, music, programming, and writing, and my love of pulling creative threads together into a finished project with a team... in just one job.

And now, I compose music and songs, have created 2 CDs over time, have material for at least 5 more CDs if I can only find a place to live long enough to record them, and have friends all over the world who love my music. I'm also a Sacred Circle Dance teacher and a web host and a web designer, and just produced my first completed game with friends. (It's oldskool and kinda amateurish, but rather cute for all that.) Just wish I would earn enough money with all of those to have a nice place for myself and my husband to live.

Not bad for being sick a lot, eh?

Subject: RE: BS: What you *were* going to do in life?....
From: Peace
Date: 06 Apr 05 - 12:09 AM

Since I was four years old I have wanted to be a firefighter. I became one at the age of 46. I have failed at many things, but not that.

Subject: RE: BS: What you *were* going to do in life?....
From: dianavan
Date: 06 Apr 05 - 12:16 AM

Not bad at all, Hesperis. Try visualizing your place to be. Write down everything you want as a home and then read it over every night before you go to bed. Think matter of factly that it will come into being. Its worth a try.

Me - I never wanted to be anything. I assumed I would be a wife and a mother. Later on I decided I wanted to know myself thoroughly. Then I wanted to become a bridge between cultures. I accidently became a teacher when my need to feed my family interfered with my love of learning.

My kids taught me more about myself than I ever thought was possible.

My students keep my love of learning alive.

Husband? Had one of those for a couple of years but now he's just a friend of mine.

Subject: RE: BS: What you *were* going to do in life?....
From: Little Hawk
Date: 06 Apr 05 - 01:16 AM

I have been a folksinger, a radio shack employee, a jewelry engraver, a computer technician, a guitar teacher, a worm picker, a newspaper columnist, an assembly line worker, a gas station attendant, a government employee, and what the heck else...most of which had its appropriate time and place.

I now run a small manufacturing business, and pontificate on the Internet. The first pays well, the second keeps my mind occupied in an enjoyable but largely useless fashion.

The only thing I ever wanted to be all that badly was a folksinger, but it was not a very workable way to earn a living, given my basic temperament.

Subject: RE: BS: What you *were* going to do in life?....
From: LadyJean
Date: 06 Apr 05 - 01:26 AM

When I was a little girl I wanted to be a dancer. Not a good idea. I have coordination problems. But I still dance, just not professionally.
When I was older, I wanted to be an actress. I still wonder what would have happened if I'd pursued a career in theater. One of my high school classmates was Molly Picoun's niece. She couldn't really be said to act, but she looked like her famous aunt, so she got the lead roles in school plays.
My mother wanted me to teach. I volunteered at a local school when I was a senior in high school. I didn't mind the kids so much, but I didn't think much of the teachers.
So, I decided to be a writer. Well, I publish some, though not enough to pay the bills. And I'm still at it. I clean houses because that leaves my brain free to write.

Subject: RE: BS: What you *were* going to do in life?....
From: dianavan
Date: 06 Apr 05 - 01:55 AM

In between I've been in sales in the fashion industry, a coding clerk (medical insurance), a deckhand on a couple of gillnetters and trolling boats, a cook on other fish boats and at folk fairs, a University fund-raiser, a manager of the coffee shop at the local community center, a tutor, a Special Education Assistant and a teacher. All paid positions.

I totally thought I was going to be a wife and mother. My husband and I would live on love. I dreamed of finding the man that would make it so. Beyond that, I really wasn't encouraged to do much except look pretty and know how to cook and clean.

Boy have times changed!!!

Anyway, my life didn't turn out the way I thought it would but I certainly do not regret the journey.

Subject: RE: BS: What you *were* going to do in life?....
From: GUEST,MBSLynne
Date: 06 Apr 05 - 07:56 AM

First of all I wanted to be a zoologist, then that crystalized into wanting to be a vet.....I really wanted to work with animals. When I was 12 or so, I went through a phase of being extremely squeamish so decided I couldn't be a vet, and didn't do things like chemistry and physics, which I would have needed. I found that it had only been temporary, but by then I was in a diffeerent stream. I wanted to be a journalist but didn't get the cadetship I applied for when I left school. I always wanted to be a writer of some sort. I became, over the years, an Australian Government clerk, a waitress, a stocktaker, a chambermaid, a factory worker, a filing clerk, a strawberry picker, a milk delivery person, a sales person (lasted 2 weeks!), a cowman, a tupperware seller, and an artificial inseminator. The last I loved and worked at for nine years until I got pregnant (no jokes please!!). Now I milk cows part-time, and grow herbs and give talks on them. I sell the herbs and also a herb cookbook and herbal that I have written. My biggest happiness and satisfaction in life (apart from my family) have come from working on and around farms, so my original desire to work with animals was the right one. Having produced two books as well, though they were not what I envisaged when I wanted to be a writer, I guess I've fulfilled my other early ambition. Neither worked out the way I imagined. Isn't it funny how life often gives you what you want, but in a completely different way from what you might have expected?

Love Lynne

Subject: RE: BS: What you *were* going to do in life?....
From: Stu
Date: 06 Apr 05 - 08:04 AM

I decided to make my dream come true as I approach my forties and retrain as a Palaeontologist/Geologist by doing a degree, until I recently run out of cash (due to unforseen circumstances) and had to abandon the lot halfway through the second year.

Back to the drawing board.

Subject: RE: BS: What you *were* going to do in life?....
From: Fibula Mattock
Date: 06 Apr 05 - 08:07 AM

Become an archaeologist. And now I am, albeit circuitously. Hurrah.

Subject: RE: BS: What you *were* going to do in life?....
From: A Wandering Minstrel
Date: 06 Apr 05 - 08:24 AM

I wanted to be an actor, but in order to make it pay I ended up teaching Drama (and English, Maths, Biology and Latin). Then somebody asked me to write a text book and gave me a word_processor to do it with. Took to computing and have been a systems analyst for 25 years.

Now my daughter wants to be a theatrical director

Subject: RE: BS: What you *were* going to do in life?....
From: freda underhill
Date: 06 Apr 05 - 09:04 AM

I grew up in a non religious family. when i was 9 my father asked me what i wanted to do when i grew up. I said I couldn't decide between being a nun or a circus performer.

later i wanted to be an artist and writer. i have done of those things professionally.

my list of things done includes:

factory work (screwing one bit of wood into another); stand up comedy; writing and producing pantomimes for kids; door-to-door surveys; political cartooning for various trade unions and community organisations; social welfare worker (housing), some community activism (prisons & prisoners rights, anti-police verbal campaign, movement against uraniuum mining), refugee decision maker, community liaison work with various ethnic communities in oz, currently writing political briefs for politicians and bureaucrats.

ps. had three beautiful children - all in their twenties now, and one has given me a bneautiful grandaughter.
collected some very lovely friends on the way.

Subject: RE: BS: What you *were* going to do in life?....
From: Rapparee
Date: 06 Apr 05 - 09:08 AM

Well, along the way I've been a newspaper delivery boy, an inventory taker for closing stores, a contract killer, an assistant bookstore manager, a maker and setter of tombstones, a student, a system administrator on a Unix system, a strawberry picker (at 7 cents a quart), a caddy for golfers, a snow shoveler, a guy who mows lawns, and some other stuff I forget now.

Subject: RE: BS: What you *were* going to do in life?....
From: GUEST,Bill D ..in cookieless mode
Date: 06 Apr 05 - 11:04 AM

addenda:

I actually once worked as a genuine Bean Counter. I did cycle inventory at a Stokley-Van Camp's cannery/warehouse. (I had to count all the other canned good in the warehouse also, but Pork & Beans was the single biggest item.)

Subject: RE: BS: What you *were* going to do in life?....
From: GUEST,MMario
Date: 06 Apr 05 - 11:14 AM

all I've ever wanted to be war retired with a comfortable income. I figure I've got about 4 decades left to go.

Subject: RE: BS: What you *were* going to do in life?....
From: GUEST,Flamenco ted
Date: 06 Apr 05 - 12:02 PM

I wanted to become a walrus.

Subject: RE: BS: What you *were* going to do in life?....
From: GUEST
Date: 06 Apr 05 - 12:24 PM

When I was young, I resisted my piano teacher's push to major in music.

I started college as a Spanish major, absolutely fascinated with languages and literature. When I realized that a 6-year-old kid in a foreign country could always speak the language better than I could, I changed to chemistry.

I wanted more than anything to raise a family, so I taught high school math until my twins were 16, then worked as a lab technician and chemist in research - my favorite jobs.

After several downsizings, I was diagnosed with MS, so then worked for my husband in a veterinary clinic. It turned out better than I thought it would since I grew up working for my father in a retail store and never planned to work with or for a relative.

Now I'm home, play with the granddaughters, tutor math and ACT preparation, do a little data entry for a catalog, design web pages for friends/relatives. I gave piano lessons along the way, but don't encourage new students anymore. (I am trying to influence the granddaughters.)

Subject: RE: BS: What you *were* going to do in life?....
From: GUEST,Mary in Kentucky
Date: 06 Apr 05 - 12:25 PM

oops, that was me above, came through the back door.

Subject: RE: BS: What you *were* going to do in life?....
From: GUEST
Date: 06 Apr 05 - 12:58 PM

I was small I was going to be a missionary, but that idea was knocked out of me with a sharp blow to the head, by a sunday school teacher wielding a hymnal.

I then decided animals were much nicer than most people and desparately wanted to become a veterinarian. That idea was abandoned when my father informed me, that educating women was a waste of time and money, as they only ended up getting married and having babies.

Later, I thought being a legal secretary sounded exciting, but gave up on that idea also, when I failed shorthand and typing.

Fortunately my other academic skills, apart from some difficulty with math, were somewhat stronger. Bound by the conventions of the time, I was advised to become a nurse, but later decided, a school teacher, although I hated school and had absolutely no idea of how I was going to fund the undertaking.

A far cry from earlier dreams, and by some intervening fortuitous circumstances, instead of teaching, I ended up in a laboratory playing with microscopic worms.

All subsequent endeavours have been just as diverse as fiddling with worms was from my childhood dreams and I did eventually get married and have babies, but not any of it has been a waste of time or money. Except perhaps the shorthand. BG

Subject: RE: BS: What you *were* going to do in life?....
From: GUEST,Metchosin
Date: 06 Apr 05 - 01:01 PM

oops, my post 12:58PM

Subject: RE: BS: What you *were* going to do in life?....
From: GUEST,CarolC
Date: 06 Apr 05 - 01:16 PM

On the subject of serendipity... one of the best kinds of work I ever did, I never expected or even imagined I would do. That was my one season as an interpretive naturalist. I had submitted an application for employment to the local zoo. The director of a brand new nature center in the same park as the zoo found my application in the zoo's files, and he contacted me and offered me the job. I am forever grateful for that one. And the nature center job got my foot in the door (so to speak) for the zookeeper job.

Subject: RE: BS: What you *were* going to do in life?....
From: GUEST,Liz the Squeak
Date: 06 Apr 05 - 02:17 PM

I was told at age 14 that I was going to be the good little girl who stayed at home to look after mummy and daddy...... I sort of never bothered to even think about anything after that, because at that stage, I couldn't see any other option. I was crapping out badly at school, getting freindly with alcohol, fast motorbikes, Hells Angels and had a job in a pub kitchen. School careers advice was basically 'get these qualifications and you can be a nurse/teacher/vet, don't get any, you'll end up in an office' - said like it was one step up from prostitution.

Left home having discovered over the following 4 years down the line that the last thing in the world I'm suited for is looking after parents. I've worked as a cleaner, pub cook, in a chocolate factory, as a secretary, a researcher, archaeologist's scribe, illustrator, museum assistant, Vicars' PA, window dresser, seamstress, proof-reader, sous chef, youth club assistant, in scrap metal, painting and decorating, child minder, library assistant and Revenue assistant.

I have also been paid for singing, but that doesn't count as work, because I like doing it!

So from being told what to do, and having absolutely no idea what I wanted to do, I ended up doing a lot of different things. There are a few of those jobs I'd refuse to do again, and some I'd love to have back....

LTS