...a city bus driver. Laugh, if you must, but it's the truth. I think it was inspired by the "Wheels on the Bus" song. I mean, come on. Who wouldn't want to make the doors go open and shut, open and shut, open and shut? Especially when the wipers go swish, swish, swish, and the money on the bus goes clink, clink, clink? However, upon realizing that I may eventually get tired of the babies going, "Wah, wah, wah" and the mommies saying, "Shush, shush, shush" all through the town, I changed career paths.
Next, it was on to paleontology. That's right. I was, and still am, a dino-lover. At the ripe age of five, I knew pretty much everything there was to know about the Mesozoic era and the Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous periods within it. I knew about Apatosaurus (also known as Brontosaurus) and Brachiosaurus, which are both sauropods. That's a fancy way of saying they all have long necks and are REALLY big. As some of my dearest friends know, I am still a fanatic. (By the way, my sincere apologies go out to them for being around me and having to listen to me when I have recently watched a Discovery Channel special on any new findings related to the Dinos.) Yet, my career choice was not to be digging in the dirt, but under the sea.
Yes, I had decided to become a marine biologist. In the sixth grade, I even made my own business card in a technology class. It was blue, had a porpoise graphic, and said "Dr. Allyson Felt, Marine Biologist" in wavy font. I'm pretty sure my dad still has one hanging from his fridge. Embarrassing. Yet, I set my mind to my chosen career and began working at the Henry Doorly Zoo...in the gift shop. Not exactly diving with the sharks, but I just KNEW that somehow, my time there would be useful in my life quest to work with marine mammals. I plastered dolphins and whales onto everything I owned, watched Animal Planet obsessively whenever I could, and did almost every school science paper on something related to the anatomy of coral reefs, or the differences between a sea lion and a seal. Let me tell you... Elephant seals are some crazy creatures.
With as much time and effort as I put into that career choice (including putting some hours in at various science camps) in the middle of high school, I had a change of heart. I didn't know what I was going to do, but I loved acting. I participated in several community-theater group plays, with leading roles. Albeit, these roles were not exactly Broadway level performances, but they got me some great practice. And I had always loved acting. I'd done school plays, and even did work on a children's show as an extra once. That being said, the show never finished production, but I also chalked that up to good practice. Then my junior year of high school, I attended a women's convention and one of the speakers was a reporter/anchor for an Omaha news station. Then I knew. I wanted to be a reporter. Look out, Diane Sawyer, here I come.
Conveniently, I attended a Red Letter day at UNL (which means a day for you to go visit the university, look around, and see some of the colleges). I looked at Criminal Justice (mostly because of the show CSI, no joke) and Journalism. I fell in love with the J-School, as they so affectionately called it, and resigned myself to becoming a world correspondent for Dateline. I wanted to travel the world, reporting news from the far reaches of the globe. I wanted to be independent, never settle down, and essentially roam the planet in search of the next story.
And three and a half years later, here I sit, recently graduated, recently engaged, recently accepted to... law school? And though law school is a far cry from city bus driver, I can't imagine my life going any other direction right now. Isn't it weird how that happens? I bet if everyone took a second to look back at their life, they are definitely not on the same path they set out on five, ten, or fifteen years ago.Which leads me to my next question... what could possibly happen in the next five, ten, or fifteen years that I am not expecting?
It's kind of exciting when you stop and think about it.
I guess this post kind of goes along with the last one. In order to look ahead, you have to look back and see how you have ended up at this point in life. Where has life taken you? Where will it lead you next?
I have just one thing to say to those questions:
Come on, life. Show me what you've got.
Allyson
