Rebellin

I’m on a roll here, confessing little gems about my past.  Here is another one that sticks out in my memory…  When I was in high school, my honors English teacher assigned us to do an essay on an influential woman in history.  We had to submit our subjects to her in advance for approval.

The influential woman I initially chose?  Marilyn Monroe.

And yes, I was denied.  So then I think I came up with Pocahontas.  Which, OK, yeah, she helped the white settlers with their relations with the local Indians/Native Americans, but that was the best I could come up with?!

My original submission just cracks me up.  It would be like my daughter wanting to write an essay on Anna Nicole Smith.  Yes, both are highly publicized, but influential so that they should be held in high regard?  Not so much.

So do any of you have good gems from your past you want to share in the comments?  You can do so anonymously, you know…

Just to finish off my thoughts on yesterday’s post, one last embarrassing tidbit…  So when I was in college, studying Marketing and dreaming of being like the ad execs on Melrose Place, I also intended to buy my entire professional wardrobe of suits from Victoria’s Secret.

Ha!  I think I just wanted to be a sexy little business woman.  Luckily, Mom swooped in to save the day yet again and helped me select an appropriate wardrobe in which to start my career at General Motors, where my expectations were put in check almost immediately.  Can I tell you how BAD it would have been for me to show up at GM world headquarters, the conservative capitol of the country, in a saucy little Victoria’s Secret get-up?!

Ah, geesh.  I’m having some troubles coming up with anything of interest to say on this site lately.  Sometimes life is just routine, and it’s hard to come up with anything truly worthy of posting.

So I thought I’d post a few embarrassing little tidbits about myself.  I was thinking lately about how skewed my impressions of the “Real World” (i.e. the working world) were when I was younger.

For instance, when I was in middle school, my Mom insisted that I take a typing class.   I remember getting all offended by this, telling her pompously, “I do not intend to be a secretary, so I don’t need to take a typing class.”

I can’t tell you how much I laugh at that now looking back.  Ever since graduating from college, I have been practically strapped to a computer for at least 40 hours a week.  And by the way, I’m damn good at typing.

So then there was this time in college when my computer did something wonky (word of the week, y’all), which was probably user error, but I THREW the keyboard across the room, and proclaimed that I hated computers and was proud to be computer illiterate.

Yes, I did that in front of my roommate and good friend, A.  Good thing I got over my aversion to computers, because if I hadn’t, I might have ended up being one of the girls that holds road signs at construction sites.  (Not that that is a BAD thing, just not my gig!)  Ha!  And to think I now work in high tech for a software company!

I also recall that one of my reasons for choosing to be a Marketing major was because I didn’t want to spend a lot of time on computers.  Oh, and because I didn’t like math.

And now for the kicker, which is more embarrassing because it was when I was in college…  I remember back when I chose Marketing as a major.  I just loved my advertising classes, and truly pictured my career to be like those of the characters on (drumroll please) Melrose Place.  I even recall thinking that I wanted to be a powerful business woman just like the character Amanda (played by Heather Locklear).

Seriously.  If I could only go back and level-set my past self.  I never pictured myself sitting in front of a computer in a cubicle, doing a lot of number crunching throughout my day.  I mean Marketing has budgets and cost reduction and customer stats…  All math…  I really think I thought I’d be sitting in a big office dreaming up funny ads and commercials.

And though my job is pretty cool, it’s not nearly as – dare I say it – ‘sexy’ as I had once imagined. 

So there you have it.  Mom was right.  And I hope to encourage my own daughter to be a bit more educated on her career choices by doing some internships and job shadowing.  You better believe she’ll be participating in Bring Your Daughter To Work Day (a brilliant program started about 15 years ago).

Ah, man, I’m still chuckling at my former ignorence.  Hope you enjoyed a good laugh at my expense!