as kids we all go through phases as to what we say we want to be when we grow up. we try them on and abandon them for different reasons. over the years, i've wanted to be:
: : a paleontologist - abandoned this idea rather early when i decided that all the good dinosaur bones would be discovered by the time i grew up.
: : a lawyer - this is the thing i assumed i would be for years. right up until i didn't get into law school.
: : a riding instructor - i actually carried around application materials for johnson & wales college in rhode island for this. i think i just wanted a really cool trunk for my riding equipment and i never did really apply.
: : governor of the state i grew up in - yup, i could have been the sarah palin of the upper midwest. or not.
: : russian literature professor - got the farthest towards this one. but then life took me in another direction. and i never really liked the teaching that much, what i liked was the writing and the research. and the theory. oh, the theory. still love that.
: : spy - abandoned when i realized that i never really could keep a secret and that if i were to spy it would most likely be for the other side (due to deep and abiding loathing for ronald reagan).
: : writer - i've always thought there was a highly autobiographical novel in me, waiting to come out. it might still. when the conditions are exactly right. it's kinda why we built that whole writing house place in the garden.
: : stewardess - this one never really seems to go away. it stays in the back of my head and although stewardesses are really just waitresses in the sky, i still have some kind of romantic picture of that job in my head (despite how much time i spend on planes).
jobs i've actually done:
: : secretary - a couple of times, once to the vice president of a refrigeration company and once to the head of a foundation.
: : newsroom gopher - at a daily paper during college. spent a lot of time at the courthouse writing down who had gotten all those public intox and public urination tickets on the weekend. i also had to call all the bars and find out what bands were playing where, so i always knew what was going on. that was cool.
: : waitress in my favorite pub - it really was a pub and i was hanging out there so much i decided i might as well get paid for it.
: : eLearning developer - making training materials for a product i knew very little about. ha! funny how that can happen.
: : middle management - responsibility for big budgets and some 200 days a year of travel.
: : journalist - now i'm editing a magazine.
and here we come to the secret...i still don't know what i want to be when i grow up. do you?
