In the seventh grade, I attended a school that wanted kids to get a well-rounded education by connecting their present educational choices to careers that might be possible for them in the future. Always more of a "screw the directions, let's just wing it!" sort of girl, I chose mine based on which one had the coolest name. The class was called "Trial and Error", but I had no idea that it was about the law because the onset of adolescent hormones made me an absolute moron.
Spring of that year brought our classroom mock trial, and because I needed the extra credit- I was a frequent and uncreative class skipper- I volunteered to be the court reporter. As far as I knew, this meant only that I needed to employ my note-taking skills, which had somehow survived teenage stupidity, and turn in a report at the end of the trial. Easy-peasy.
Day of the mock trial came and I went to school. Because I was dealing with some seriously unaddressed issues of attention deficit, I had been reading a Calvin and Hobbes book under the desk when the teacher had stated that part of the grade for this trial would be based upon dressing professionally- particularly since we were going to an actual court room to let our drama play out (DUN-DUN!) The day of the trial arrived and I wore what I normally wore to school- and it being 1995, it was, of course, ridiculously inappropriate to wear this outfit ANYWHERE, least of all a court of law. My tie-dyed t-shirt with a peace sign over a long-sleeved henley, jeans with giant holes at the knees fashioned by a boxcutter so that you could see the long underwear underneath, and of course my fake Doc Martens spoke to my obvious fandom of Nirvana and Soundgarden but did not endear my carefully dressed peers to me. The court photographer- a middle school closet case by the name of Paaa-aaaul was horrified and told me that I was going to mess up all of his wide angle shots of the judge and attorneys. Already a master of language, I told Paul to blow it out his own ass.
What saved me from getting an F in the class- and having the book thrown at me in court- was my ability to take notes extremely fast combined with an already-developed ability to tell a hell of a story given that there was a computer involved. Despite dressing like a refugee of the year 1969, the summary paper that I wrote up after the trial earned me an A- from a teacher that absolutely loathed me. I hung that paper on the wall and right next my grade I wrote, "This is how you make bitches whine." This was sadly prescient of what would become my attitude toward authority in adulthood.
Through a course of extraordinary events that I will describe some other day, I ended up a very young college freshman. I was about 14 years old when I started attending my local university, and within a year, it was requisite that I start looking for a major that would fit "what I want to do with the rest of my life". Knowing what I do now about post-collegiate life and the applicability of anyone's major to their actual profession, I must add the following to my obviously sardonic quotation marks- HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAA! Okay, I am done.
After a series of failed majors (theater, sociology, history, music for about 10 minutes), I decided that my future was in art. Unfortunately, at 15 one does not realize the marketable (yet still starving) areas of art that could lead to actual job skills, so I did not take any classes in photography, digital design, or even metalsmithing. Nope, I focused on the weaving.
Seeing as I have already used this blog to sing of my longtime love for the fiber arts, I will not bore with a repetition of sentiment for whoosh-whoosh-bang-bang. I will state that, barring the apocalypse coming tomorrow and marking its arrival with the sudden spontaneous combustion of all woven natural fibers, there will never be much of a high demand for that which earned me my BFA. Please do not take this wrong- I have found a way to make plenty of money off of my craft- over the last 10 years I have made about $5,000-$6,000 off of my art. That's nothing to sniff at, in terms of supplementary income, however, seeing as my total financial needs have equated to more than $525 per year, it became necessary for me to become skilled in an actually marketable field.
I chose my masters degree based on the following information presented to me: it was free. As a member of the Chickasaw Tribe of Oklahoma, I was privy to a grant that would pay for my books, tuition, and housing so that I could become trained as an elementary school teacher before I turned 23. To me, this was a pretty sweet deal and gave me a direction that I had not had since my afternoons watching Reading Rainbow. Side note: Before moving on, I should point out that not only did I carry a 3.99 GPA in graduate school representing both my local Native community and my Tribe very well, but since leaving school, I have consistently worked in jobs that benefit the American Indian/Alaska Native community on both local and national levels. When people complain to me about their not getting it "easy like the Indians do", I always make sure to explain that the underlying expectation when you take scholarships that are allotted to Native youth is that you represent yourself as a Native/Tribal person well, and always give back to your community in any way that you can. Thus endeth rant.
After graduate school, I moved to Portland and got a job in the Indian Education office of my local school district. Although I loved planning family fun nights where traditional (and not-so-traditional) crafts were taught, working with urban Native kids to learn more about tribal cultures from around the country, as well as substitute teaching in the program's all-Native Montessori pre-school, it did not take me long to realize that I hated education for the people in charge. After a fairly explosive life-/career-changing event, I parted ways with the district, and on my last day honked as I drove by the administrative offices and when I was sure my boss was looking out her window, flipped her the bird.
My haste to get out of the school district led me to my current employers, albeit at an administrative support level. At my interview, they kept asking me, "You have a lot of education to want to be an assistant. Are you sure you want to do this?" I told them, "Oh yes! I have always wanted to enter the non-profit sector, and I feel this would be a wonderful opportunity for me to come in on a ground level!" because no one is impressed by, "Look I am 25 and I have no idea what the hell I want to do, but I can't stay with my current job, and this seems as good as anything- plus you guys offer dental."
Over the next two years, I worked strategically and sought to work with those who seemed on their way out, and whose job I thought I could swoop in to perform. My first attempt was a failure as I did not recognize that when lazy people have a high-paying job, they will hold onto it for years upon end if they are given the opportunity. This one was given the opportunity. My second positioning led to more success- the event manager in the office was surprised when I asked to be her administrative support because she and I absolutely hated working with each other. It took about a half hour of me convincing her that I really liked planning events (true), thought that there was a lot that she could teach me (half-true), and wanted to get out of my current department (GOSPEL TRUTH) and was willing to put away resentment if she could. She still hated me, but she had no administrative support and our yearly annual conference was just three months away so she did not have much choice.
The event planner/manager eventually left her position and over the course of the following year and and a half, I was able to prove to the higher-ups that if they would but listen to the words of ABBA and take a chance on me, it might pay off. I was hired as the Event Manager of my company about a year ago and have loved nearly every day since. In my job I get to work with people in Tribal, Urban, and non-Native communities; negotiate with non-profit, for-profit, Tribal, and government entities; learn more about web publishing, digital networking, and graphic design programs; and on top of everything else, take part in the awesome perks that include free trips, free stuff, and free meals. I have probably consumed the equivalent of whole cow's worth of free steak since taking this job, and while the Portlandian in me is shameful, the rest of me just wants to know if you can get potatoes on the side.
Recently I met a girl that was a dancer. For her living. Seriously. She was a part of some local ballet company and has been since graduating from the high school in "Fame" or wherever it is that dancers train. Anyway, after the requisite request from me that she stand about five feet away from me at all times so that I did not look like such a caveman in comparison, I told her that I really admired anyone that was able to get to do what they love professionally and that, to me, they are among the luckiest types of people in this world. She asked how I felt about my job, and I said, "I am the second luckiest type of person- I love what I do." It took externalizing it to realize that I truly meant that.
There is no way for me to sell the satisfaction I get from my job on any sort of kid's television programming. Planning culturally appropriate training events for child welfare personnel/administrators/tribal leaders simply does not translate to the crudely drawn illustrated answer for the question of "What do you want to be when you grow up?" It does make me happy though, and if there is one thing that I did know that I wanted to be when I grew up, it's that. Besides- Reading Rainbow failed to mention that tiger tango was just a small element of my career aspiration of 1989, and that the analysis of giant cat scat was much more common to the job description. Curse you, LeVar Burton.
1 comment:
Well if it makes you feel better, I wanted to be a bird when i grew up at that age.
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