What do I want to be when I'm "grown up"?

It's inevitable that what you want to be when you "grow up" will most likely change as you go through the actual process of "growing up".

I just wanted to talk about my own personal "growing up" process and how my future career hopes have changed.

When I was four, my mom was pregnant with my brother. Call me wierd, but I was fascinated with the idea of the changes a woman goes through during pregnancy, and the thought of a baby being brought into this world. My mom would bring me with her on trips to the doctor to get her ultrasounds and checkups. I thought it all fascinating. I decided at the age of four that I wanted to become an obstitrician. At the age of four, I could even spell the word, obstitrician. I wanted to be a part of bringing babies into the world. Then I realized that babies aren't cute and clean when they're first born. It's an icky, bloody mess that I'd rather not go into detail about. (I'll leave the detail to your own imagination.) However, I still wanted to help little kids, so I thought, "Maybe a pediatrician instead." (keep in mind, I was very small when I thought of this.)

I was in ballet when I was five, but unlike many other five year old girls, I didn't want to be a princess or a ballerina when I grew up. Ballet was just a hobby of mine, not a career path. I knew very well that it was not possible to become a mermaid or a princess when you grew up. You could pretend to be a mermaid or a princess (which I did a lot of) but you could never BECOME one. I was really mature for a five year old.

I'm not sure what happened to the pediatrician notion as I grew older. Maybe it was the fact that I hated shots and I didn't want to torture little kids by giving them shots.

Around fifth grade, I wante to be a marine biologist and work at Sea World. I grew up in California, and I always had a passion for the ocean and Sea World. Then I saw the movie "50 first Dates" when the walrus pukes on Adam Sandler. I asked my mom "Does that really happen?" and she said that she'd imagine so. That changed my plans of being a marine biologist really quickly.

I've never really been fond of animals anyway. So that leaves the occupation of "Veteranarian" out of the question. I'm allergic to cats, anyway, and I just don't like animals with hair or fur. I love snakes though.

It wasn't until ninth grade that I started writing poetry. I'm not really sure how it happened. One day, I just sat at the computer and started to type. I wrote a poem that would later be published in my school's literary magazine. I was very fond of my English teacher back then; and I'd always loved English anyway. I showed my teacher the poems I'd written, and she gave me some wonderful feedback. She told me to keep the poems and start a portfolio, because I had quite a talent with poetry. At the end of the year, I was surprised to recieve a certificate at the awards ceremony. My English teacher had awarded me with a "Future Author Award". It wasn't until then that I'd seriously considered becoming an author as a career.

Then the summer came. I read the book "Eragon" by Christopher Paolini. I absolutely loved it. I read that Christopher Paolini was around my age when he had this book published. That's when I thought to myself, "I'm good at writing. I could do this! If he can do it, why can't I? I think I'll start writing a book!"

And I did. It's still not finished, but it's developed greatly as I've been working on it. I'm excited for the finished product. So far, I've only got a basic storyline in my head, along with a few chapters.

Since ninth grade, I have written over fifty poems that I hope to publish in a series of books, like Shel Silverstein. I have also written two screenplays that were intended to be an assignment for my Drama class, but they turned out so wonderful, I've kept them.

However, I've realized that a person doesn't get published overnight. Therefore, I've come up with a sort of backup plan. I'll take classes in college to become an English teacher. I want to invoke the same passion that I have for English and poetry in others. It makes me sad when I hear people say "I hate English. I hate poetry. Blah blah blah. Negativity."

But there was another career option I might be good at, that I hadn't realized until this year. For one of the college classes I took, we had to do a job shadow. I decided to job shadow my pshychology teacher to see if maybe I'd like to consider psychology as a teaching job as well. After the I had job shadowed and interviewed my teacher, we got to talking about shows dealing with psychology. I personally love the show, "Criminal Minds". My teacher wasn't familiar with the show, so I told her it was about criminal profilers. She told me that I'd make a good criminal profiler because I'm good at analyzing situations and I'm good at psychology in general. I told her I'd never considered it as a career until now.

So here I am, about to graduate high school, with so many career paths I would like to explore that I'm not sure which one to choose. I want to do something that I love so I'm not stuck behind a desk in a small office cubicle, bored and miserable and hating my job. I also don't want to flip hamburgers for a living, asking people if they "want fries with that?".

I love photography, and capturing the beauty of the world. A picture really is worth a thousand words. I love English, writing, poetry, all of the above. I also like journalism and psychology. Now all I need to do is narrow everything down. If only there were a job where I could do all things combined into one. *sigh*

I guess what I'm really worried about is that if I choose something I love as my career and I do it all the time, will I still love it? Wouldn't it get old? Would my passion for it remain; shining and silver, or would it be tarnished by years of use? And what of my other passions? If I use only one of my passions as my career and focus in it, forsaking all the rest... what then? What if I'm so focused on becoming a teacher so I can make money until I become a successful author that I no longer have time for photography?

These are the issues I'm faced with as I begin to enter college. My major is undecided not because I don't know what i want to do with my life, but because there's SO MUCH I want to do with my life, I don't know which to choose.Which one will award me with a better future? What will I have to sacrifice in oder to obtain this better future for myself?

This is my own personal conflict. Well, one of many at least. It has nothing to do with the world around me, but with my own world. Perhaps that's why I'm not very good at writing about world issues like other people on here are. I'm really focused on myself and my own personal future right now. As selfish as it may seem, it's what i need to do in order to succeed in my college life. I know that I'm not able to juggle so many things at once. How can I be a college student, a politician, an environment saver, and worry about all other world issues all at once?

I just felt the need to justify why I don't really talk about issues other than my own internal ones, or ones that closely strike my fancy.

I don't expect many people to read or comment this blog, because no one ever really does anyway, but feel free if you wish. This is just a result of me wondering how I got where I am today, and where I expect myself to be in the future. I examined it, and this is what I came up with.

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