What I DON'T Want To Be When I Grow Up

Relative asks, "So Fari, what do you want to be once you're finished with UWI?"
I answer, "I honestly don't know!"

Lately I've noticed that a lot of people, my Aunt included have been asking me what I want to be when I grow up, that is, leave UWI and I have not been able to answer them. They seem to be under the delusion that I entered UWI knowing what career path I wanted to follow. The thing is I'm really spontaneous which makes me a lousy planner and I entered UWI knowing vaguely that my dream job would be one where I could speak Spanish on a daily basis, travel the world, interact with people and become a well- cultured individual. Keeping these criteria of my perfect job in mind, I've been able to decide on those jobs and/or career paths that I really have NO intention of pursuing. This blog highlights those undesirable jobs.

1) The Military: When I was eleven years old, I signed up to join the Cadet Force at my Secondary School. It was another one of those spontaneous decisions and I thought that joining up would outfit me with discipline and all those character traits the Cadets promise to help you develop. During my first meeting, I kept on mixing up my right and left feet (I've always had a problem with directions) and thus, my marching was an EPIC FAIL. The Drill Sergeant decided to stop the training session in order to embarrass me by screaming at me for my incoordination. Now, my own mother never spoke to me the way this man was speaking to me and more so, she never spat on me. Furthermore, this man's name was neither Dexter nor Emergine Parsons meaning that he had no right to speak to me that way. I told my father about it seeing that he was a Police Officer and he told me that what Mr. DS did was totally normal in the Military. Well, yours truly left the Cadet Force and vowed to NEVER, EVER, EVER join the Military. I HATE people screaming at me, I have a problem with authority, I'm a pacifist and I'm very emotional. Recently, my Dad has been preoccupied with the issue about University graduates being unable to find employment owing to lack of experience and what not. Ever since I entered UWI, he's been hinting that I could enter the Military with a First Degree and become like this semi- important person. Whilst it would be fun to boss people around, my early Cadet memory has scarred me for life and I boldly told my Dad that I had NO intention of joining ANY branch of the Military.

2) Manual Labour: There are two things that I've been sure about since the age of 13; I'm an academic and I DETEST doing any form of manual labour in the blazing sun. My Dad has always instilled a sense of pride in my brother and I, a sense of pride that included yourself and by extension your surroundings. For as long as I can remember every three weeks, on a Saturday or Sunday, my brother, my father and I would be seen outside cutting the grass, weeding, raking leaves, pruning the fig trees and caring for the plants. Now, I have no problem cleaning my yard but I must admit that I started to detest it after a while. Eventually, this hatred extended to all forms of manual labour like construction, masonry, wall scrubbing, painting... EVERYTHING. There were a lot of reasons; I hate getting dirty, I'm deathly afraid of insects, I don't like being in the sun if I can avoid it and I really like my soft hands. Unfortunately, my Grandpa always wants to rope me into odd jobs like helping him lay tiles and what not. His reasoning is that as a man you should know these things so that when you hire people to do them for you when you're older, they can't "dig out yuh eye". I suppose he's right but I prefer to learn these things at home, at least that way I can procrastinate.

3) Teaching: I have a great respect for teachers, they've helped to mould me into the young adult that I am today and they work REALLY hard, something I learned once I became an English Language Assistant. Another thing I learned from being an assistant is that I DON'T want to be a teacher. The major reasons are that I have no patience to deal with other people's children and I have a temper which is sure to manifest itself when I become impatient. I also feel that teaching is not much of a challenge for me; it bores me to the core of my being with its repetitive nature. I need to feel challenged on an everyday basis, learning new things everyday and keeping things interesting. In this way, boredom would not affect me and I would not feel the need to strangle someone. However, I have a feeling that teaching lies somewhere in my future, hopefully by then I would have had plenty interesting, challenging jobs to sustain me.

I have no idea how to conclude this blog. I suppose I'll have to settle for a resounding: TOODLES!