Friday 29 July 2011

Why I Blog - And What I Want to Be When I Grow Up

The reason I blog is I love to write. I've always loved writing. I've never been great at fiction, I remember one of my teachers in high school telling me that my short stories were more like scripts for a soap opera (I must have missed my calling). My great love has always been non-fiction.

The first non fiction I remember writing is a rather awesome piece about the wide combed shearers dispute in Australia in the 1980's. I was 9. It was just really interesting the competing views of the traditional shearers and the newer style shearers who wanted change. It was about tradition, and animal welfare but also money.

I was hoping to go into law, initially, but my work experience entirely put me off. My favourite moment on work experience at the age of 15 was saying to the solicitor who was babysitting me "you can't let your client appear like that". And he just looked at me like I was a piece of manure and said "look not everyone dresses up in a suit its fine". And I said again "really, he can't appear like that". He looked again. The guy was on a marijuana charge (in the days when it was more serious than now) and had a t-shirt with a stoned koala on it. The solicitor was horrified. I made the guy take it off, turn it around so it was back to front, and stick my cardigan on. He got off. It was then I realised I was more a practical person, and should look for another career.

My revised plan was industrial relations, I wanted to be a union advocate. I did work experience for the Tasmanian Office of Industrial Relations, it was a fabulous experience and I was given a lot of responsibility, taking minutes, meeting top players in unions in Tasmania, I was hooked. So I embarked on a degree in Human Resources and Industrial Relations. But I was a very organic, round shape in an extremely rigid square hole. There I was in tie dye trousers and long flowing hair learning about tedious stuff. I had to pass 24 subjects, and just could not, for the life of me, pass the last one. I failed Business Statistics 3 times. I gave up.

I got a distinction for my thesis, my other subjects that relied on the written word I did fine, but just could not manage business statistics. It just was not my thing. But I soldiered on, determined to work in industrial relations. I worked as a carer in a group home, and became an shop steward. I did really well, and like to think I was well respected, and as a team, we got some great things accomplished. But I just could not break into the sector, and then, then world changed. Australia took a massive step to the right and the work just went.

I've drifted in life, and once I found myself at home, being a mum, I missed using my brain, so my blog has become my outlet for writing. And I love blogging. Would I love to do more, yes. I'd love to get into writing articles. I find writing interesting and therapeutic and I love sharing ideas.

I still haven't decided what to do with my future, and feel a bit stuck. I'm thinking of returning to University to study Paediatric Nursing but a little voice in my head is not so sure.

I still, at the grand old age of 39and 1/4 I still do not know what I want to be when I grow up.

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