Sunday, January 22, 2006

Career Day

Oh, yea! This is one of my favorite posts because it's true. Last year, I found out that Ms. May died of cancer a few years ago. This post is dedicated to her and the inspiration she gave us to be who we are right now.

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March 21, 2004

Don't believe that what you're doing now is what you have to do later. Ms. May was a professional body builder, a truck driver, and then a school teacher. I hope you don't have to not own a TV to be that diverse.

What a crock high school career day was. Val and I (who were not attached at the hip in high school although many people thought we were and even more of the male species hoped we'd somehow combine into some kind of super woman) can't even remember what career day we chose. All we really can remember is that the scary lady from Salvation Army came every year. I think it was because social work was thrown in with psychology and teaching. Anyway, the fact of the matter is that she was scary! I don't know anything about the Salvation Army besides what this lady told us and the fact that they make people ring bells for money at Christmastime (Who came up with that idea anyway?). So what she basically told us is that the Salvation Army is like a cult, er, army. Now, I don't know much about the army, but last I checked they didn't make it a provision that if you want to move up in the ranks you must marry within the army. Hmmm....I would say it's more like the Morman Church. Hey, you know what? If it works for you, great. Should it be at career day? Maybe. I mean thanks for warning me to run like the wind if I see the Salvation Army coming in my direction.

All I really know is that whatever field I wanted to go into, they never had anyone there in that field. Maybe the moral of the story should be not to follow your crazy church friends/crush into Career Day. I was sorting through my newspapers for recycling the other night and the Parade had a big article on what people make. Honestly, I don't think you can judge by what people tell you. A high school principal in PA is making $80,000. A school teacher somewhere in the Midwest is making $45,000. An adjunct professor at Notre Dame is making $6,000! What is that? And you see all these people who do four figure jobs...the adjunct (who's probably making money on books and other crap), the yoga instructor, the Toys R Us slave (actually I made five figures there, barely, but I did) and you wonder how people even manage to live. It's lives, and it's stories. You can't judge a person or a profession by a bunch of facts and figures on a page. Live your life and live it how you want because when you're done, you're the one who has to live with the regrets whether that regret is that you missed the big lights or that you took them. You're dream is yours and your alone. Don't fall into the pressure of culture to be rich and famous because rich comes in a lot of forms besides money. Famous is the face that changes a life, not the one that changes your TV channel.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Dude, I totally had Mrs May. I thought she was really awesome teacher. I had her for history and computer. Can you believe she used to be a body builder!? P.S. this is Jenelle