Kid dreams

Hi everyone!
It's been a while since I last posted, but hopefully the first week of writtens is over, so here I am! (and I'm sorry that post is so late, I'll catch on the last one as soon as I get more time)

The first dream I can recall is actually wanting to become an archaeologist, and more specifically an egyptologist. After that I wanted to study Greek gods and civilization, and then, become a sociologist to understand people in groups and the way society works, because it seemed plain weird to me.
At some point, I wanted to be a opera soprano, (I had been singing since age 6 and already been a soloist in some concerts) but when my parents asked me if I wanted to go to a music school at the age 13, I said no, because I didn't want to leave my friends and science.
I then wanted to work on the canopy, because of the fascinating interactions between the trees and animals: the animals want to eat plants, that create poisons to protect themselves, and the animals then develop counter-poisons, and so on...
After that, my passion became the brain and artificial intelligence. It's been one of my longest dreams, trying to see if AI could actually work with a combination of computation and neurotransmitters. I learned a bit of programming at that time.

That's why I decided to chose scientific studies, actually; and since then, my interests shifted a bit: paleontologist, vulcanologist, and, of course, engineer in geology!

That's all I can remember for now...

Sharks are cute

When I was a little Sarah, maybe two or three years old, I wanted to become one of two things: a garbage (wo)man or a crane driver. At least those are the things I still remember.
I wanted to be a garbage woman because it looked like so much fun to stand on the back of the garbage truck and just drive around! At some point I noticed that garbage is pretty smelly though, and that I don't like that at all and thus that dream was over.
The crane driver ambition is easy to explain: those people we SOOOO high up in the air, how can that be not awesome? But my parents were not very supportive in that career choice and didn't send me to a crane driver school, so I had to find myself another occupation.

The next thing I remember that I wanted to become is a vet. Duh, original. It seemed pretty nice to play with kittens and puppies and bunnies all day long, but my mother, supportive as she is, told me that they bite and that you don't only treat small pets, but also horses and cows and that didn't seem so cool anymore. I was pretty scared of big animals back then (okay, let's be honest, I still have respect of them).

And then my big dream: marine biologist. I think that lasted the longest. More specifically, I wanted to become a shark scientist. I still have a huge fascination for sharks and I always want to watch shark shows on Animal Planet or Discovery Channel at my boyfriend's house (I only have cable and don't get those channels) and go to see shark at the aquarium in the city he lives in (though they are in the basement for a couple of years already because they build a new aquarium for them, so I never got to see them so far).
Anyway, I thought it would be pretty cool to travel to all those exotic places, swim with shark, study them, seems like an awesome life!
I don't really know what changed my life then eventually. I probably found out that you don't only dive in pretty places with pretty fish, but you also have to know about algae and microorganisms and stuff like that and that was something I really didn't want to. I also have a childhood TV show trauma where they were on an oil rig and were diving to the bottom of the ocean and there was a monster. I'm still panicking when I'm swimming and some plants are touching me, or, my biggest nightmare, the chains buoys are fixed with. I find that so disgusting and I always need somebody to check it out for me, if it is safe. Disgusting things wise. In retrospective, I probably would have made a very lousy marine biologist :D

I think other short dreams I had included: zoo keeper (ALL the animals!), captain of a ship and doctor (I wrote that in one of those friendship books that were so popular in the early 00's, but I'm not sure if I didn't just want to be cool).

I have to go, my cat is rioting in front of her cat door because I locked her out. She had a mouse. I don't want a mouse. I already spend an hour this morning catching a mouse that she brought and that hid behind my parents' bed. Damn you, Mischa!
Oh, the cat is inside. She broke in!? I have raised a monster cat.

DFTBA,
Sarah

Dolphin Trainers, Marine Biology and Other Pass Times

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, I'm BAAAAAAAAAAACK!

<Insert Jack Nicholson here's Johnny jokes here>

I am happy to announce to everyone that I finished my 3rd Year of University and am ready to not do any serious thinking for the next few weeks. As fellow University students you all know EXACTLY how I feel right?

I have a few blog posts to catch up on, but as for right now I'll just do the most recent topic: What I wanted to be when I grew up.

When I was really little I had one passion: Sea life. The second best day of my childhood-life was when I went to Sea World (the first best day of my childhood-life was Disney World for one specific reason but that's a completely different story). At Sea World there were dolphin shows, whale shows, Shamu, Shark Tunnels to walk through, fake helicopters to ride and ALL THE FISH YOU COULD EVER DREAM OF. It was my own personal heaven. My Mother bought me a stuffed animal penguin and the Sea World Factbook (which I still have to this day) and I spent the rest of my Florida vacation curled up with my penguin looking at the pictures of the dolphins dreaming of the day when I could go swimming with them. In my little mind, the most perfect career that could ever exist was to be a dolphin trainer. I wanted to spend the rest of my life teaching dolphins tricks and swimming with them. It was like a fairy tale.

Now my parents weren't to keen to have their Eldest Child go into Show Business, so one day as I sat there staring dreamily at the photographs and talking endlessly about the tricks I would teach my pet dolphins my parents tried to sway me. As you can guess, this didn't go over that well. Until my Dad said in exasperation. "Why don't you just be a marine biologist?"

"What's a marine biologist?"

"You're a scientist who studies ocean life."

In other words my little mind imploded with possibilities.

Now these were the days before the internet was super big (kinda hard to remember that). So I had to go to the library. My career as a Marine Biologist was off to a strong start. I knew everything about everything. I begged my parents to take me to the Zoo to see the fish. My parents had to tape every single episode on the ocean that ever aired on the Discovery Channel. I was obsessed.

So what happened?

Well it was the Discovery Channel that did me in in the end. I learned the hard way (and a super graphic one at that) that there was a darker side to Marine Biology. I wasn't all driving in boats, swimming with the dolphins and writing a few notes down on a note pad. No, the Discovery Channel taught me.... I'd be cutting dolphins open. As a sensitive little girl, that was way too much for me to comprehend. The marine biology dreams died instantaneously.

I took to something a little bit safer... history. From grades 5-10 I was convinced I was going to be a Historian. That was until I made the mistake of taking a film course and picking up my first camera.

When I look back at all the jobs I wanted as a kid I was pretty all over the map. At one point I was convinced my calling was to be a Pretzel Salesgirl at Carnivals and Fairs, I also wanted to be a Power Ranger and Batman (who doesn't want to be Batman).

It's kind of funny looking back and seeing how much I've changed. But you know. There has been one thing that has stayed constant....

I still love fish.