… while you’re busy making other plans.
I saw this thread over on h2g2 and thought it was an interesting topic, so I thought I’d ask the same question here.
What did you want to be when you were a kid and how close did you get?
I wanted to be an artist all during my childhood. I was rarely without a pencil in my hand and I would draw almost obsessively. Then when I was 14 I was aching to go to a special highschool in Toronto that focused on art, but my parents wouldn’t let me. Other things were going on at the time, which eventually led to me leaving home when I was 15, but that was kind of the final straw. I put down my pencil and never drew seriously again. I did try to start again in my twenties but something inside had been lost.
For a few years after finishing (normal) high school, while doing a totally random selection of odd jobs, I dreamed of being a dancer. But I knew this was just a fantasy as I would have had to have started much younger.
After that I wanted to be a clothing designer and moved to Toronto to take a course when I was 25. I ended up working for several designers after that as their production manager, which ended up with me really hating the whole fashion industry. So I left that and started waiting on tables at age 30 (and have never earned so much money before or since).
Then when I was 33 I left Canada, moved to England and then to Spain. And for awhile I flirted with the idea of writing (even have a horrible unfinished novel to show for my efforts) but as I’ve been teaching English for the past 15 years I think it’s safe to say that I didn’t actually get close at all.
How about you?
casa azahar 
my younger dreams were to be an archiologist, a detective and of course a rock and roller, but from the time i was about 9 i wanted to be an engineer. my folks woke us up in july 1969 to watch Neil Armstrong walk on the moon – and i was hooked! knowing i probably couldn’t get into the astronaut corps, i wanted to work for NASA. i was tearing all sorts of things apart, and could occasionally put them back together. working on cars with my brother was part of the inspiration.
did i get there? pretty damn close. majored in engineering, fully expecting to flunk out, and i’d have gone for tech theater. didn’t flunk, so i made it… and although i work in the field of aerospace, my specialty is semiconductor materials – jacking electrons and photons basically.
was it all planned? ‘stumbled upon’ is more appropriate. i’ve been extrordinarily lucky… and we know it’s smarter to be lucky than it’s lucky to be smart.
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I wanted to work in nuclear physics – I got to work in the local Uni Physics Dept as a lab assistant but the realities of life took over and I had to work for a living instead. In the past two decades I have gradually found I much prefer writing and photographing although I am still a sucker for a science story or anything astrophysical. Now that I am a trainee retiree I am happy snapping and scribbling for fun. It would be nice to be published one day tho.
My most hated subject at school was history – yet now I am fascinated by it. Ancient history segueing into mythology.
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It’s funny…as a kid, my sister and I used to play ‘school’ (along with ‘house’ etc. with each other and our friends). Then in high school, I took one of those long convoluted tests (on those new-fangled inventions, a computer!) that told me, in the end, that I was suited to be a high school teacher, a college teacher, a university professor, or a furrier.
Went straight to university after high school…always intended to have my BA, and then go on to an MA and a PhD. Got the BA, in Linguistics and ended up teaching adult ESL for 12 years. Dabbled a bit in going back to university, but really didnt’ have my heart into it…
teaching was, as expected (!!), a natural choice for me, I was damn good at it, but it wore me out. Did some career counselling, discovered my verb — “to coordinate” — and got into event planning. Now I work for the government, where I’m negotiating and managing agreements, doing a lot of coordinating of information I guess! 🙂
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I’ve always loved books and pictures. Especially books with pictures.
My degree was in Ancient History and Philosophy and I thought about staying on to do my PhD but then – through lack of any clear vocation – I “fell into” working in fundraising in the charity sector in the UK and did that for 8 years.
Then I got ill, took a year off and eventually got into working part-time in an agency which represented artists who illustrate books… then I was offered the job I now have, commissioning and managing the illustrations for the books my company makes.
This job suits me so well, its kind of odd that I happen to have it by accident, rather than through a carefully worked out career plan. 🙂
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I wanted to be a fighter pilot (too tall, too shortsighted, to inclined to suffer from motion sickness), a zoo keeper (too lazy to follow up) or a librarian – this is the one I “should” have followed up (given my appetite for books & reading) , but didn’t.
So here I am having had a career in IT for most of my working life – reasonably well-paid, reasonably happy in my work. Most importantly, it allows me to have a decent lifestyle away from work.
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One of my students was just telling me today that he is too tall to fit into a fighter plane, Johnny (and apparently the Spanish prince had to have one specially built for him). I didn’t realise there was a height restriction. Anyhow, I think having a job you like that allows you a decent lifestyle is quite a good thing. Wish I had one of those!
I don’t think I even knew what an engineer was when I was nine, daisy. And yes, sounds like you have got pretty damn close.
A “trainee retiree” … love it, Archie. 🙂 Like you, lots of things that didn’t interest me at all when I was a kid I now find quite fascinating.
I think I’m also a ‘natural teacher’, Lori, but also like you it really wears me out. And so at least I’m really lucky to have quite a nice bunch of students at the moment.
I’ve read more than once that an illness that causes someone to take some time out, as in your case truce, is sometimes ‘in response’ to feeling on the wrong path. It certainly seemed to help you get on the right path, even though it didn’t seem like a ‘plan’ at the time.
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I wanted to be a secret agent who’s cover was a writer/journalist/English teacher.
If I tell you anymore, I might have to kill you.
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Heh. I wanted to be an engineer. The choo-choo driving kind. In high school I wanted to be a writer, most days, or an actor.
I failed to graduate (Career advice for kids: never call your algebra teacher a “mindless sack of $#17”–especially if you’re sitting in the principal’s office when you do it).
So I joined the Forces and became a trucker. Big machines, the sharp end of responsibility; pretty close to my childhood dream. Became a tractor-trailer driver, then went to college for electronics engineering and flunked my way into writing.
Finally, I got a job writing, and there I am. But I also act–I’ve been onstage in six plays in the past year.
So really, I’m pretty much where I wanted to be, only I haven’t so far acheived millionarity.
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I guess I probably wanted to be a wizard – as a scientist I come pretty close.
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wizard = scientist with better clothes….
i love that!
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