Real Talk: My Alternative Careers

There are very few people that I know who know exactly what they’re going to be when they grow up from a very young age.

People whose parents force them into a career don’t count, since it’s not them making the choice for themselves.

I’m lucky enough to have parents who have always been cool with whatever future I envisioned for myself as a kid. Below are a list of careers  (in chronological order) that I seriously considered spending the rest of my life doing- as well as what I’ve decided to do until some force of nature or another stops me:

1. Palaeontologist (ages 4-7): First things first, I still find dinosaurs to be super rad and I was distraught when my Intro to College English prof told me that brontosauruses weren’t real dinosaurs.

   Going back more than a decade, working with dinosaurs was what I decided was my calling in life. A combination of visiting the Redpath Museum on McGill’s campus many times with school and family, the movie Dinosaur, and a book following the daily routine of a palaeontologist sparked my interest in our fossilised friends.

   I was also very curious as a child (see: I never stopped asking questions) and had a deep love for science-y stuff, meaning that working in an environment where I could discover and explore fossils and perhaps name something after myself — I’ve always been a fan of me — would have been totally awesome.

   This one fizzled out, but more so due to the fact that I fell in love with the next fantastic sounding job than anything else.

2. Teacher (ages of 8-11): I know full well that teachers do not get enough respect from awful children who spend seven hours committing the worst shenanigans. I know, because I was one of those kids, but that’s another story.

   The reason behind this career choice was two-fold: it’s the job you spend the most time around as a kid, which means that you have many instances of I-can-do-that or I-can-do-that-better while you sit in class – and I knew many teachers (family and family friends). I had a lot of those moments where I would come up with ideas of how to approach teaching a given concept (all the way though to CEGEP).

   And I’m lucky enough to be able to teach Sunday School, but I know that I couldn’t handle it as a full time job.

3. Foley Artist (ages 10-14): I love special features in movies- like bloopers, the detailed explanations of CGI, interviews with the cast, etc.

   For the special features of Brother Bear, they had segment on the Foley art used in certain scenes to explain how the sound effects were made.

   And I thought it was the coolest thing ever.

   I didn’t look into schools or anything like that, but I held on to this idea for such a long time because it was something that I knew I could do and would deeply enjoy. Seeing how it was done made me realise that there were careers that I hadn’t even heard of that were options.

   I lost interest of having it be a serious career when I figured out that I wanted to spend my life working with people and helping them.

4. Lawyer (age 9-14): This one’s partially due to the fact that I would always try to negotiate everything with anyone with whom I was trying to come to an agreement. The other part is that I was — and still am — justice and ethics driven and believe that those are things are very important and should be taken into consideration whenever a decision is being made.

   Initially, I was hoping to go into family law since I figured that would help people the most. But then I realised that I couldn’t fully man the operation and the judge had final say on how things went. Meaning that my client could end up worse off that we were hoping.

   I wanted to be more involved with the process of helping the person in need, which you can’t do as much as, a lawyer.

5. Psychologist(age 14 onwards): I hyper-analyse everything and I keep an eye out for those who I consider close to me.

   If I think something is wrong, I’m going to ask, offer to listen, and give advice if that’s what you need in a given situation.

   With time, I’ve refined what it is exactly that I want to do with my studies and with my life: helping at-risk youth stay in school and off of drugs and out of gangs, and teach them communication skills and to be more self-aware.

   Through psychology, I can help people who otherwise would be forgotten about by society, and give them the resources and attention they need.

   My dream is to combine clinical and research work in a longitudinal study, but that still needs some finer tuning — and I have a decade of school left, anyway, so I’ve plenty of time to figure it.

It’s Just Science

“If the explosion of the combustion reaction is countering the upward motion of the piston, wouldn’t that create fractures in the rod of the piston, making it useless?” I answered the instructor of the auto-mechanics presentation I signed up for during Vocational Career Exploration Day, hosted by my school board.

A look of surprise crossed his face. I was right.

I was one of three girls in the room of maybe 40 other grade 10 students. He wasn’t expecting much from us as whole, with the temperature of our room far too high for mid-April, and our being the last group of the day.

He most likely expected even less from the girls. I knew that one wouldn’t be participating since she was tagging along with me to the session, as I’d gone to the first two of three with her.

Next slide.

A video starts explaining how pistons are powered by combustion reactions and that if they overheat, things could get dangerous.

“What would be good way to avoid the engine overheating?” The instructor asks, after having paused the video. English isn’t his first language.

Probably not his second language either.

My hand shoots up.

“You could use a coolant liquid or you could stop the engine to let it cool down.”

He nods. “Yes – usually it’s the coolant that’s okay if you need to keep moving.”

The rest of the video plays out.

I’m half listening, half playing with my name tag/schedule.

Next slide.

“Let’s talk about other side of things – what would you use to protect the engine in the winter?”

My hand’s up before he’s finished asking his question. “Anti-freeze.”

He nods, smiling this time.

Our back and forth routine of theory-question-answer goes on for the remainder of the 50 minute information session.

The micro-lesson finishes up with him offering for someone to come up and try changing a part of the engine that he had off to the side of the front of the room. Having monopolised the theory aspect, I stayed in my spot, happy to see the girl I didn’t know get up to take part in the applied component of the session.

The bell rings, and we line up on our way out, collecting an information pamphlet on auto-mechanic courses, a pen with the vocational school’s information on it, and a set of sticky notes.

The instructor hands off a pamphlet to the guy standing in front of my friend, a smile comes across his face when our eyes meet.

“How you know so much?” He asks in his broken English.

I take the collection of promotional information from the instructor, saying with a smile, “It’s just science.”

Tiny Circle Head

The last week of school of the year is always my favourite.

There’s hardly anything left to cover in class, finals haven’t started yet, and anything that still needs to be handed in is pretty much done.

My grade nine math class – which was actually grade 10 math, because we all had to do two level of arithmetic in grade seven – had covered all of the material we needed for the ministerial exam. My teacher gave us free time in class, but was in the room correcting assignments and willing to go over questions if anyone needed.

My friend Sambavi and I were sitting in the row of desks closest to the windows, trying to catch a breeze in the too-hot classroom. Air-conditioning was not a privilege to be had at our public school.

We were sitting in the newly purchased desks, the kind where the chair was connected to the table by a metal bar perpendicular to the back of your chair. This upgrade made for an interesting feat, jumping over the bars in our uniform kilts, going from one row to the next.

I was facing backwards to talk to her, since she was sitting behind me.

“I just want school to be over already, y’know?” I say, stating the shared thought of everyone in that room.

“Yeah, I feel you. I wish it were summer already,” she replies, while fanning herself.

I looked over at the clock, doing lazy mental math to figure out how much of the 50 minute period remained. Along the way, something caught my eye, as it stood out against the powder blue walls of the classroom.

“Yo, what is that?”

Sam turns to see what I’m pointing at.

She got out of her seat, walked three desks down to the last spot, and stood on the chair to pull down the semi-circle of white loose-leaf from the wall.

“I guess someone got bored and made a face and stuck it to the wall?” She offered, sliding back into her spot, placing it on the desk for me to see.

“Cool. I’mma keep it.”

I pulled out my agenda, and stuck the palm-sized face to the plastic pocket before the first page.

At least the artist was making better use of their last week of class than we were.

Piece out.

Night Owl

“You look tired…” Most frequent comment I’ve received since grade 9.

For the most part, I spend my days running on barely any sleep (ranging from three to seven hours on an average night).

I need at least 10 hours to be in peak condition.

I’m a light sleeper. My dog snores, three rooms over, and I wake up. It’s no easier when he’s quiet, considering my upstairs neighbours love to express themselves through such media as Stomp and River Dance.

I get my second wind at 9:30 pm.

I’m most productive after midnight.

The rest of the world, however, is keen and perky around 8 am.

Half the time, I have to wake up at 5:30 am, during which point I have to convince myself getting up is worth it – bribing myself with the future of a nap on the train, or a cheeky kip in the library in between classes.

I was born at 10:26 pm, I’ve got this whole night thing down pat. Morning, on the other hand, less and less.

I’m not made for this morning-person world. No amount of caffeine will keep me alert before 10 am. I fake my way through the day, ready to collapse by 2:30 pm.

 

I had my first non-New Year’s Eve encounter with Midnight in second grade. I decided, for the sake of Ashlea-science, I was going to stay up until midnight, on a school night. I wanted to see if anything special happened.

‘For the sake of science’ doesn’t always mean it’s a good idea.

At the time, I was sharing my room with my younger sister, and we had bunk beds – of which the top bunk was mine. From my elevated position, I had a perfect view of the digital clock, with its red, boxy numbers.

From 8:00 pm to 12:00 am, I found ways to keep myself awake despite it being literally past my bed time. If nothing else, you could say that I was a trooper.

 

“Yeah, but you could just go to bed earlier!”

Yes, hypothetical reader, I could claim defeat some time around 8 or 9 pm, but the amount of work that I have to get done per night would mock me from my desk – in perfect view of my bed – ridiculing my fatigue.

“Didn’t you make your schedule this semester to start at 8:15 every day?”

Yes, I had. But it was done as a last ditch effort to regulate the mess of my sleep cycle (also, my classes are pretty rad, which is a nice bonus).

 

If there were a quick take away message that I’m looking to boil this down to, it would be that I’m not made for a day-time world, please let me sleep when I can, and the dark circles under my eyes are badges of courage – symbols of my sacrifice for a system that doesn’t suit me.

Final, final note, you will get blasted with sass if you wake me up. It’s not pretty, and I’m not sorry.

My sleep is precious.

German Office Chair Racing

I’m going to assume that you don’t like happiness if you don’t find racing down the hall in office chairs to be fun.

Back in grade 11, I took the metro as a part of my morning commute. On my way in, I got a copy of one of the free newspapers that are handed out at the entrances, and caught up on world happenings while making my way to school.

I would read the international pages first, since I had to keep up with current events for Contemporary World that year.

It was mostly saddening stories about war, our environment in its continuing state of disarray, and people dying all over the place.

But one morning, in international news was the German Office Chair Race.

Because that’s a real thing.

Piece out.

Diversity (An Aside)

I’m not here to PSA at you about how racism is bad – you should know that by now.

Instead, I’m going to talk about my iTunes library’s diversity.

I grew up with country, classical, U2, Backstreet Boys, techno, reggaeton, and Disney classics.

I never saw the point in picking just one genre to claim as my own – it’d be like only ever having one flavour of ice cream.

Boring. How would you not get tired of that after a while?

The majority of the CD’s I bought for myself during my early teen years were electronic dance music, with a sprinkling of Beyoncé and pop, like Girlicious and Destiny’s Child.

Oh, and lots of Pitbull.

In early high school, I felt like I had to stay quiet about songs or genres that could bring me to tears or give me great deals of comfort around my friends, because they would judge me.

In retrospect, it’s ridiculous to worry about, since my group of friends all had their own varied tastes in music.

All the same, I was worried that knowing all of the words to a Miley Cyrus song would get me some serious shade back in grade 8.

Getting an MP3 player and later an iPod, I had more freedom in what I felt I could listen to – and my library exploded when I added everything from my dad and step mum’s music collection to my own.

Buying songs (I refuse to Torrent) individually and electronically gave me much more freedom to play with tastes and figure out what I like than buying full and physical albums. Also, iTunes has a nifty little thing that they do, in giving you a free song of the week.

Today, I have zero shame of someone going through my iPod, because every song that’s there is great in my books and that’s all that matters.

Here’s an example of my iPod shuffle:

• Follow Your Daughter Home – The Who
• Money – I Fight Dragons
• Billy Brown – Mika
• The Weasley Stomp – Nicholas Hooper
• Lean Back – Terror Squad
• Good Morning Baltimore – Original Broadway Cast
• Don’t You – Darren Criss
• Everything About You – One Direction
• Glasgow – David Guetta
• Blessed Be Your Name – Matt Redman
• Crazy in Love – Beyoncé
• The Planets: Venus, The Bringer of Peace – Holst
• Beautiful Target – B1A4
• Kenny G Non-Stop – Radio Radio
• Black Heart – Stooshe

There’s almost one of everything, but an exhaustive list of my library is unnecessary to get my point across.

I recommend every one of those songs – even just a listen.

If you have guilty pleasures, that’s okay. You don’t need to feel guilty. You’re allowed to love Metallica and Selena Gomez and Edith Piaf, all at once.

It’s your music, for your pleasure. You do you.

Jack Skellington

The CTBS (Canadian Test of Basic Skills) is about as useful as a razor scooter without wheels.

I’d like to point out the fact that the test’s name has BS in it. Take from that what you will.

My high school considered it necessary that we take the test not only in grade seven, but also in grade nine. They told us to take the test seriously, vaguely explaining it was used for universities across Canada and was supposed to matter.

Yeah, okay, sure. That totally convinced me to care.

Who wouldn’t want to spend hours on end in cold and uncomfortable chairs, working on multiple choice questions on math and English?

The test was given to us in grade nine during the week that three grades were on trips, to cover up having so many teachers missing from school during that time.

We got to waste about three hours a day on this assessment.

The only upside of this weeklong parade of scantron sheets was that you were allowed to bring a book into the auditorium/gym if you finished a section early. I brought Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.

I’m glad they decided to such show generosity for our situation.

Having a math component, but not being allowed to use calculators, merited scratch paper to be handed out to each of us to work out equations. The good news was that they weren’t picking up the scratch papers, so you could draw on them if you got bored once you finished.

The bad news was that I still had to do math.

Having finished my math test, I pulled over one of my extra sheets of scrap paper and start doodling on the back, not sure what I wanted to commit my artistic prowess to.

Having recently watched The Nightmare Before Christmas, I figured it fitting to (try to) draw Jack Skellington.

Side note, I hadn’t taken an art course since the beginning of the grade seven arts rotation, so kindly bear with the fact that it’s not spectacular.

The picture is currently living on my wall as a personal trophy for having gotten through those God forsaken standardised tests.

Piece out.

Front-Page Livin’

Royal West Academy Open House 2011, I was in the chemistry labs, doing an experiment with milk, food colouring, and dish-soap.

The set up was simple enough, and my partner and I were set up at the table closest to the door of the lab.

Throughout the night, waves of parents and prospective sixth graders made their way to our labs on the third floor, seeing a fun and vibrant experiment before making their way around the room.

A third of the way into the night, I had taken over completely – really getting into the analogy I was using to explain what was going on in the rainbow of a reaction, pumped to get these kids interested in going to my school.

After one of the rounds of visitors had seen the experiment, I noticed an average height man, chubby, with a comic-con press badge and lanyard looking over photos on his professional camera.

“Cool! You got to go to comic-con this year?” I ask him, having made my way over to where he was leaning against the wall in between shelves of beakers and test tubes.

He glances up. “Yep, I was there as press for the Gazette. I’m just taking a few shots for an article.”

“Do you want my name in case my photo is used?”

“Sure, might as well…”

 

Having left the open house (see: Mr. Wei Ding kicked us out so he could take care of his lab once all of the parents left), I wondered if maybe my picture would be part of some middle section, tiny article, that wouldn’t be seen by many people. That or it would be on a back page of the local stuff.

Honestly, I have no idea how photo placement works, so bear with my imagination and flawed understanding of such things.

 

On September 30 – a few weeks later, while waiting for the 7:12 train from Valois Bay, I get a text from my aunt saying : “You’re on the front page of the Gazette honey!”

I’m sorry, whut?

When I got to school, one of my friends found me, pulled me into the library, and shoved a copy of that morning’s paper in my face.

“Look – it’s you! You’re on the front page! Duuuuude!”

I stood by the circulation desk, reading the tiny blurb under the photo of me, mid-explanation.

Duuuuude was my exact sentiment at the time.

I knew the photographer was going to use my picture – but I had no idea that I was going to be the “school poster girl” (as one of my teachers put it) for the next little while.

Not that I was complaining about the attention.

Piece out.

HyperPost 8: StarKid Journal

Let me start off by saying that my grade 10 French class was a joke.

A singular assignment that had unnecessarily strict formatting rules was the basis for the majority of one of the competencies in French – meaning that if you didn’t follow the format but still had perfect French, you could fail that part of the course.

The rules included writing between 10-15 lines, writing on only one side of the paper, a number of lines (which remains unspecified due to the fact that each spacing was a different number of lines) skipped in between the date, the person you’re addressing, the text itself, and your signature, drawing your margins, and only being allowed to write in pen. On top of all of that, you had to decorate the first page of your Journal.

Thankfully you didn’t have to write in it everyday – only on days that we had French class.

The nice thing was that you could do whatever you wanted with that first page – so long as it was actually decorated, and not just left blank.

I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with my page – there was way too much freedom given, and I was at a loss worse than when someone asks you what you want for your birthday. I toyed with the idea of song lyrics, drawing designs, or doing a page of thoughts.

I made my decision to do the entire page in quotes from A Very Potter Musical and A Very Potter Sequel, taking from memorable lines and snippets of song lyrics, and it was totally awesome:

I think it’s safe to say that my first page was Super-mega-foxy-awesome-hot.

Piece out.

Hyperpost 6: Magic Schedules

I may not have gotten a real letter to Hogwarts, but I still managed to have a magical high school education.

The first day of school means you get your new schedule for the year. I took to colour coding mine the same day, to help me memorise my classes.

In grade 9, my friend group consisted mostly of Harry Potter fans. We decided that the courses we were enrolled in would be much more interesting if we translated them into courses (or activities) from the series.

I had done the conversion out of habit in grade 10 as well – giving me two years of magic.

The classes I was taking were converted as follows (grade 9 conversion is listed first if there were any changes between the two years):

Homeroom = Astronomy and Herbology

French = Ancient Runes

Gym = Quidditch Practice

History = History of Magic

Drama = Divination and Defence Against the Dark Arts

English = Transfiguration

Science = Potions

Maths = Defence Against the Dark Arts and Charms

Personal Orientation Project (grade 9 only) = Muggle Studies

Computers (grade 9 only) = Charms

Spanish (grade 10 only) = Divination

Ethics (grade 10 only) = Muggle Studies

We spent the year using our new class names:

“What do you have after lunch?”

“I have … Oh! I have Ancient Runes and then Potions.”

That sounds like much more fun that French and science, right?

Piece out.