Sunday, January 27, 2013

What I Wanted To Be When I Grew Up

Me at work a few years ago: ESL teacher on an excursion*
It's that time again... Listicles! This week's topic is pretty awesome: ten things you thought you'd do or be back when you were a child. My ideas about what I'd be & do when I grew up changed every year. I can't really come up with ten jobs that I wanted as a kid, so I'll have to include other things too. Here's a list:
  1. Artist: I started drawing as soon as I could hold a crayon & my love for making visual art eventually led me to a couple of years at Emily Carr after high school. I don't really make much art anymore, though as a stilt performer, I suppose you'd call me an artist.
  2. Nurse: my mom had these books with envelopes for each school year where we'd write our height, weight & career aspirations next to our school photo. I think I wrote this one year.
  3. A lawyer: I think I put this down into the book one year... or thought about it for a few months. I like arguing... but I wasn't interested in the actual job when I realized what the working environment & hours would be like.
  4. Writer: this was one that sort of alternated with artist from year to year. & I'm proud to say, as of 2011, I've actually gotten paid to do it, if not made an actual living at it. Though not as a novelist, which is what I was envisioning in those ancient times before blogs & laptops.
  5. Well-travelled: I've done a couple of month-long international trips to Europe. I've been to Germany, France, Belgium, The Netherlands & England. Also the US, on other trips, mostly with family. I'd still like to do a lot more travelling, but MAN is it expensive & Europe is REALLY far away from the west coast of Canada.
  6. A fashion designer: I started really basic hand sewing when I was in kindergarten & was using my mom's Singer by age 9. Combined with my love of drawing, this was a natural fit. I still sew & I love to see a designer's couture line on the runway, but as a career? Nah.
  7. A librarian: I think I wanted to be this at one point when I was small. I love reading & always have--a big thanks to my parents who are both bookworms & passed it on to us too.
  8. A book illustrator. A bit more specific than artist. I'd still like to do this some day...
  9. Married: When I was little, I always assumed I'd meet someone, fall in love & then get married. Though there was a brief few years where I decided marriage was backward & didn't fit with my politics, I eventually caved to societal pressure in 2003. Also, I wanted to have a big party.
  10. A mother: This was step two after the fall-in-love-&-get-married bit. Also decided I wasn't ever going to have kids when I was 21ish. I pretended I didn't want to have kids for years after that so my mom wouldn't hassle me for grandchildren as much. Didn't work. She started knitting for the grandchildren YEARS before she ever actually had any.
I'm pretty sure if I looked back at that book, I wouldn't find teacher written in there. I thought it was the last thing I'd do, particularly in high school. I didn't become a high school teacher, but in my eight years as an ESL teacher I did teach my fair share of teenagers, as well as adults. Spending most of my childhood in small towns in BC, I wasn't exposed to a lot of crazy circus performers, so I didn't really envision becoming a stilt walker until I was an adult & I started to see them at festivals here in East Van. I also never could have anticipated the way the internet would become such a huge part of my life: blogger or social media manager just didn't exist in the 1980s.

What did you want to be when you grew up? Did you do it or were the results completely different from what you expected as a child?

*APOLOGIES for the quality of this photo. It was taken on my first camera phone: a 0.3 megapixel Nokia something-or-other.



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27 comments:

  1. Eclectic! I feel the same way. I could have and still could do so many things and be happy. I remember vividly wanting to be a nurse but I think it was based on a costume someone gave me!

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    1. What makes me a little sad, though, is how gendered my choices were. No firefighter, no prime minister

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  2. It's so true that the internet really did change the world. Things we never even thought of can impact our dreams. It's interesting to look back on dreams of childhood and see the journey.

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    1. Writing this list really makes me want to go find that book to see what I wrote from year to year. I think there should be one or more from every year of school from kindergarten right up to grade twelve.

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  3. Isn't it interesting that I wanted to be a teacher but didn't end up pursuing that route, and you wanted to do everything else but then became a teacher?

    I love Emily Carr--have you read the book The Forest Lover?

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    1. I've read one of her books, I think, but it was so long ago... It's funny, the school, though named for her, has nothing to do with Emily Carr. It's very conceptualist & urban

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    2. It's not actually Carr's book--it's a novel based on her life, by Susan Vreeland. You should check it out!

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  4. There are really interesting. I thought I wanted to be a teacher but could never have done it!
    My 12 year old daughter VERY seriously wants to be a teacher. I think she may really have what it takes!

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    1. I think the key thing with teaching is PATIENCE. I have barely enough, which is probably why it's not going to be a lifelong career for me. :)

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  5. I never thought about becoming a professor until I was doing my Masters degree. Isn't it amazing the path like takes us on?

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    1. Wait, you went to grad school not realizing you might teach? Isn't that nearly the only thing you CAN do with a Masters? ;)

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  6. Stilt-walker/ Teacher?? That sounds like a perfect combo. Sweet, funny list. Erin

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    1. It was surprisingly compatible--my stiltwalking gigs are nearly always evenings & weekends. It was also hilarious to see my students' reactions when they came to some of the events where I performed.

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  7. I love your blog, you get me thinking! I wanted to be a teacher, I would spend hours in my garage with my big chalk board and pointer just teaching to anything that was in my garage :), I also loved all paperwork, I guess because my mom always brought me papers and files and stuff from her office. Now my daughter wants to be a teacher and a circus artist (the rope swinging kind)and singer as well as a writer/illustrator. Here's to pursuing those amazing things, I use to think you could only choose one, but now I know life is long and adventurous and ever-changing and that's the awesome part about it! hugs! Michelle W

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  8. Great topic! Artist would have been bottom of my list - nothing was as stressful as being directed to be creative AND have a mess to clean up at the end! My 5 year old would love to be an artist although her first wish is to be "a mommy and then a grandma." I wanted to teach special needs kids, a career inspired by reading every book Torey Hayden wrote. I also wanted to be a flight attendant and OH how I wish I could have just typed "pilot!" or something else that is inspiring and defying gender stereotypes.

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    1. Ha, yeah I've never had an issue with making messes. I spent most of my first year at art school with charcoal under my fingernails & paint on my clothes. :)

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  9. Love how many of us fancied being a librarian. I like the photo actually!!

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    1. Thanks--I think one of my students took it. Well framed--just the resolution & lens quality... ugh.

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  10. Well traveled would've been awesome...I'm good with getting to the grocery store and bank these days.

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    1. LOL I know that feeling. Some days I celebrate just getting out of the house to the park a couple blocks away.

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  11. I'm sure there are many kids out there right now who would love to say they were a stilt performer when they grew up. Very cool!

    I wish my husband and I had travelled more pre-kids, but as you said, it's so expensive. I hope we're still in good health and able to travel when we finally have enough money to do it and the kids are older.

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  12. Wow...such a diverse list. Love it!

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  13. I love your comment about being a writer, congrads on your accomplishment. Writing has always been so much fun, and traveling as well. Your list is inspirational and I was happy to see you put married, I was a little nervous when I made my list. Society tend to be judgmental sometimes about those of us that want to grow up and be Mommies or married - its nice to see others share the same ideas. Besides, the big fancy party is the best! Can't wait to see next weeks post!

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  14. I'm always so jealous of people that can draw! Thank god I've figured out how to draw trucks since that's all my son asks for :)

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  15. This may sound silly, but when I was very small, I was a fan of the old show "Space 1999". I thought that someday they would actually build Moonbase Alpha (or something similar), and that I would have some kind of job in space. Not an astronaut per se, but just a job in space. It seem obvious to my 6 year old self that we would have space colonies by the time I was grown up.

    I also spent several years wanting to be an inventor of some sort, like Edison or Tesla. That is probably why I went into engineering. It is too bad I hated engineering so much. :-/

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  16. I totally forgot that at some point I wanted to be an artist. I used to take those pics in the back of magazines, draw them and send them in. Can you believe I never heard anything? ;-)

    Thanks for stopping by Seriously Kate! I love your blog!

    Kate @ http://seriouslykateblog.blogspot.com

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