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What did you want to be when you grew up?

May 19th, 2006 at 02:07 pm

When I was a small child I wore glasses to correct a lazy eye. I went to the eye doctors a lot and therefore thought that may be a good career choice for me. I actually had bifocal lenses when I was only 5 years old to help strengthen the muscles in my eyes. After a while I changed this chosen career to a dentist. This was good until I really stopped and thought about it. A dentist spends all day in other people's yucky, infected, cavity infested mouths.

Dentist was out scientist was in. I got this from watching all of the Godzilla movies. The problem with this was that although I practiced quite often I could never really master that art of speaking while my mouth did not match the words so I had to pick again. I still watched Godzilla movies and had an interest in science but needed a new goal.

Maybe I could be an astronaut and go in space like Buck Rogers or Captain Kirk. Then one day I saw Kirk and Dr. McCoy drinking some kind of blue drink, and I realized that there must not be any chocolate milk in space!! Kirk, Bones, and Scottie never had chocolate milk. Neither did Buck, Apollo, Starbuck or Mr. Cartwright. Luke Skywalker drank blue milk but not chocolate milk, so if living in space meant no chocolate milk I had to find a new profession.

I thought that if I practiced running enough that I could be really fast. I could be a football player if I were really fast. This went well until my Brother ruined it for me. He said that running all the time would not make me faster, it would only make my legs stronger so I could jump higher. This would conflict with my fear of heights, especially after I had a few dreams where I could jump up really high and see all over town. I stopped running so much and put more thought into what I really wanted to be.

I could go back to science and be an evil mad scientist. I was smart, clever and did not overindulge in the greed that ultimately did in many mad scientists on TV. Giving it a little more thought, I noticed that these guys did not get paid, and their evil plans to take over the world were always foiled by said greed, or their inability to eliminate their enemies. If your arch enemy, the one person who can stop you, is handcuffed to a railing overlooking an erupting volcano, with nothing but a pack of gum, his watch and a helicopter six feet away, do not assume that he will be burned to a crisp, lava induced end. Shoot the helicopter with your cleverly designed mini laser pistol, shoot him, or at the very least take his gum. I figured I could overcome the obstacles where my scripted counterparts could not because I was smart enough to put a password a little more secure than 1 2 3 4 5 on the big red button that could cancel my master plan. If I did rule the world what would I do? There was not much fun available if everyone hated you.

If I were a chemist, I could use my powers for the good of all mankind. Everyone would want to hang with me and I would probably have a robot friend to boot. It was perfect. Perfect it is until I went to the local college for a week in 5th grade with the gifted program. During this time, in a cool physics class where we made a rocket, we gathered around and talked about what we wanted to be when we grew up. The boy sitting across from me said that he wanted to be a chemical engineer. I had never heard of this before but I certainly could not say that I wanted to be a lowly chemist now. After I dittoed the chemical engineer, a dozen more kids repeated it as well. That local college eventually grew up to be a University.

I majored in Chem E while attending Penn State University. After 3 years, I transferred to the University of Pittsburgh and changed my majoy to Computer science because I was lazy. I was good with computers and the classes were easier for me. Looking back to my childhood, they did have some really big computers in those Godzilla movies, so I guess there is a tie in between what I wanted to be and what I am.

6 Responses to “What did you want to be when you grew up?”

  1. contrary1 Says:
    1148047212

    I loved your entry here. I stuck pretty close to my plan........ I wanted to teach dance to physically challenged kids, and after getting to high school I wanted to be a foster parent.

    Did the foster care bit ........for 34 years now. The other got a bit muddled, I had my own dance studio for years, but had no physically challenged kids.
    I have had disabled foster kids in my home for decades, and taught them everything BUT dancing. Go figure.

  2. miclason Says:
    1148049199

    LOL! ...I wanted to be a kid's doctor...and then my nephew was born, and I started thinking...If I got 10 like him everyday, I'd go crazy!...so that was off the list...and, in the final year of High School I decided I wanted to be a freelance translator for the United Nations...I did work for the UN for a while, but only as a recptionist/telephone operator...and, I have always done translations as part of my admin job....does that count??

  3. robex Says:
    1148055608

    I always wanted to be a mom...managed that one 3x over!

  4. flash Says:
    1148065008

    The only thing I wanted to be was a Mom...the one thing I can't be (except to all the ones that keep showing up to live here!)

  5. dmontngrey Says:
    1148085444

    I wanted to be a Paleontologist! I went on to get a double major in Biology and Math. Math was always my best subject, but what do you do with that? After graduation, I decided I didn't want to work in Biology at all. It was neat to learn, but I like numbers better. I fell into a payroll job (with no experience) and that seems to be working ok for now. I still don't know what I want to do with my life, but that's ok.

    I do still like dinosaurs and digging in dirt - but not as a career!

  6. smacktrack Says:
    1149540432

    I wanted to goto Penn State!!!!

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