Saturday, March 05, 2005

When I grow up I want to be

For someone as fickle as I am, I've only really ever had one career aspiration that survived the "I want to be a dancer" or the "I want to be a doctor" phase and funnily enough, it wasn't "I want to be an engineer". I want to be a vet. I decided when I was about eight and that dream hasn't left me yet.

I'm crazy about wildlife and conservation, although, I have to admit, I haven't been on any projects - my parents think it's a waste of time. They're not evil or anything, just very much from the 'must study first' caste.

I wanted to be a Green Peace activist at about nine, but they didn't exactly do a university degree in protesting, so I opted for being marine biologist at 12. Then at 16, I decided to get a little more realistic, financially, and decided that being a vet would be awesome - a job I would really love. Unfortunately mum and dad were having none of this 'Save the animals' crap and Mum insisted that if I was going to save anything it should be people, by becoming a doctor, and Dad wasn't going to pay for four years of vet school abroad, he said I could jolly-well do it here.

I don't know, after reading this you'll probably shake your head at me for not staying the course and chasing my dream, but maybe I wanted to come here to study even more, and I'm a Jack of all trades, I'll do good enough in anything I put my mind to. I suppose, to appease my mother and avoid getting disowned (my dad was over the moon), I chose engineering. I don't regret it, I really enjoy the course, I'm a geek, but I do think about helping animals still, and maybe this summer, I think I'd like to get off my ass and make my life a little less self-centred.

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