This was a fun conversation at work today, it actually stemmed from two questions.

1) What did you want to be when you grew up?

2) What really weird thing did you think/do as a child?

I wanted to be a geologist. I had this weird obsession with rocks, and you know -- when you're a kid, that's all a geologist works with. I'd go to the canyon behind our house and find "pretty rocks" and collect them. My parents bought me a rock tumbler when I was a kid so I could tumble my rocks and make things from them. Whenever we'd go to Sea World or Disneyland I didn't want the Shamu shirt or the mouse ears, I wanted the piece of cardboard with different rocks glued to it, or the "Fool's Gold" they sold at Captain Kidd's World. I used to find rocks with the squiggly oil deposits in them and swear they were fossils.

A related "weird thing I thought"... I went to daycare, and we had this huge sand area with all kinds of wooden things w/ bridges and poles, vertical wooden fences to climb (think bootcamp style), 50g barrels to roll over... you name it. We were very close to some canyons that were full of a type of red rock. We saw these rocks every day and never thought twice about them. One day a kid named Mark fell off of the jungle gym and split his forehead open. Starting the next day, any time I (or anyone else... you know how kids can be) saw one of these red rocks, we really believed it was a piece of Mark's forehead, and was red because of the dried blood. We never once reasoned that - wait, Mark still has his forehead, so where did all these pieces of it come from? Or - wait, Mark's entire forehead is only the size of a sock, so how come we have boxes full of it around? I went there for about 10 years (it was my preschool, kindergarten, and then I'd go there after gradeschool until I was 11 or 12), and the entire time I was there, after that one day, the red rocks became known as "piece of Mark's forehead." "They're throwing pieces of Mark's forehead at me!" "If you throw a piece of Mark's forehead at the window it'll break." "Go get some sticks, some Water, and some pieces of Mark's forehead so we can pretend to make soup!"

And un unrelated "really weird thing"... ok, don't tell anyone, but apparently when I was like 4 or 5, whatever age you start losing your teeth, I refused to put them under my pillow. I didn't want the toothfairy to have them, I wanted to keep them so that I could string them on a necklace to wear. Wtf?!

Good Thread I love it! I wanted to be a singer like Olivia Newton John. I used to sing out in the yard all the time. Luckily we lived out in the country. I remember friends would come over and all I ever wanted to do was play singing. I still enjoy singing, but never got a career out of it...maybe some day! LOL!

I wanted to be a mom and a teacher - I became both!

I believed snow was frozen milk...for years. I probably was 8 or 9 when I learned different. I didn't see snow as a kid - just on T.V.

A nurse

A teacher

A mom

One out of 3 aint bad

Oh and skinny LOL

I wanted to be some one prestigious and famous like a great scientist or lawyer. Unfortunately I'm neither, but I'm still young so there is hope!

I wanted to be an astronaut and change my name to Crystal. WTF?

I wanted to be a missionary nurse. Then an elementary school teacher. That took me through about 3 years of college and I got a clue that school teacher was NOT a good idea. By then, neither was missionary nurse, if that gives you a clue of what my college years might have been like...ooops! So none of that panned out. It's all good now, though.

I told my little sister there was a kid who ate a mud pie, then ate watermelon and swallowed the seeds and a watermelon grew in her tummy.

My cousins and I also got her and another younger cousin to eat cat food. We told her it was Grandmama's leftover casserole and we were soooo full we couldn't eat anymore but we didn't want to hurt her feelings, could you puleeeeze help us finish it?! Took some coaxing and a nice dose of Grandmama guilt but they ate it. ewwww. We laugh about that story alot!

I always wanted to be this high powered turbo bitch lady lawyer in NYC that worked all the time and only had chinese take out in her fridge and wore high heels and a black suit with a short skirt -- I thought that was soooo glamorous!

Now that's the farthest thing from me, I am a Mom/teacher and my life is totally suburban -- just what I most despised as a pre-teen!

A funny thing I used to believe is that all new foods fell into this category called scampi (yes, as in the shrimp variety). One time my parents were eating it and I must have loved the smell of the garlic so whenever my parents tried to get me to try something new, I wouldn't eat it until they would coax me with "you'll like it, it's scampi". I just thought everything that I had never tried was called scampi! Hard to explain -- it doesn't even make sense to me now when you think of all the different things parents ask their kids to try -- how could I think they all had the same name!?!?!?!?

I wanted to be a rock star like Ziggy Stardust (a.k.a.David Bowie on fun drugs) and Debra Harry. My Mom would let me stay up late on school nights whenever rock concerts were broadcast on TV. Other than that, it wasn't so much what I wanted to BE but rather, what I wanted to DO!

I wanted to gripe-out the Wizard for lying to Dorothy (and crew) about his true identity and for sending them off to do his dirty-work (coward!).

I wanted to dig a hole straight down to China.

I wanted to be a treasure hunter and travel to the places I'd read about in Nat'l Geographic.

I wanted to go off and live with Jane Goodall and the Chimpanzees and become one of there own.

To be continued......

I wanted to be an astronaut, but they made fun of me because girls couldn't be an astronaut. So then I said I wanted to be a doctor like my Aunt, but they said that girls could only be nurses, that there was no such thing as a lady doctor. I think that was the closest I ever came to wanting to hit anyone as a child.

In school (fourth grade I believe) we had to draw a picture of what we wanted to be as an adult, and since they wouldn't let me draw a woman astronaut, or a woman doctor, I drew a picture of a beautiful woman who's job hadn't been invented yet. A job that was nothing like a nurse, or a teacher or a secretary, the only jobs they said a woman could be.

I am a security consultant. A job that didn't exsist when I was a child. And I'm beautiful. So there!

I always wanted to be this high powered turbo bitch lady lawyer in NYC that worked all the time and only had chinese take out in her fridge and wore high heels and a black suit with a short skirt -- I thought that was soooo glamorous!

Now that's the farthest thing from me, I am a Mom/teacher and my life is totally suburban -- just what I most despised as a pre-teen!

That is sooooooooooo what I ment...some high power lawyer or scientist that worked in the city and was only out for herself.

And like you, I'm the total opposite, married, settled, and a teacher (for the moment any way, I am going for senior teacher!)

From the time I was a little little girl I always said I never wanted to grow up! To this day (I'm 44 yrs old now) my mother calls me her Peter Pan child.

Now where IS that Island of Lost Boys? :ip:

I always wanted to be a teacher. We had career interviews in the 5th year of High school and my dad took the morning off to come with me (as was custom)> I walked in and said I want to teach and that's all. The guy behind the desk said fine, get your A levels and go to university...good luck. Two mins and out. Dad was miffed but hey at least I knew where I was going. I taught primary for 10yrs and then came to Greece. Now I tutor kids after school in English.

Weird things...Even though we were in middle of England I wouldn't eat fries in local restaurant because they were Chinese potatoes (10 guesses what kind of restaurant it was!!!).

Funny how so many of us wanted to be teachers. I guess it was our first role model?

a teacher

a runway model (the skinny anorexic one)

write childrens books

nurse

interior decorator

I am none of the above. (HA! espeically the modeling thing)

I wanted to be anything but my Ol 'man. He was a drunk and the most mean and abusive man I ever meet. Cold and aloof, never showing anything. He had 2 feelings Rage & Nothing. WELL.................... guess who I grew up to be ???????? Give UP ?????? You got it, my dear Old dad. It was a tuff road, with some very low bottoms. I did however surpass him, he never did drugs. So I ran the gamit on that one. BUT........ wait, it all turns out for the best. No, I did not die, I found a wonderful woman, and ended up getting Clean in NA, and have been for 25 years now. I have changed my life and now I am the softest sweetest, most compashionet man you will ever meet. Even dog love me. I love my live and all the people in it, and that is why I am losing this weight and getting to 200 lbs with the help of the band. Me and my family deserve it.

For weird things.............. Boy there are a lot, I was kind of a weird kid, still am. When driving in a car, and looking through the windshield, you can see these ray's of light caused by the street lights. The ray's came from the light to the windshield of the car. Well.... I thought they pulled the car along, or pushed till the next light could grab it. Now, when you where in the country, it was the moon and the very distant light that moved the car along. Of course....... the lights in the country where a lot stronger then the lights in the city, that is why you did not need so many of them. Even today when I am driving at night alone, and I catch one of these rays, I think of that time as a child. I don't think I have ever told anyone this, you guy's are the first. How lucky, right????

Butch

Like many folks, I wanted to do the music thing. I went to a school of the arts for high school... then I went to the University of North Texas (North Texas State University at the time) - home of the world famous jazz program - and for some weird reason I decided to be a business major. I guess it was all that "have something to fall back on" talk that the 'grownups' kept saying.

Finally, after way too many years of pounding my head against the walls of accounting, HR, and IT, I took the leap...

I'm now celebrating 4 years without a day job!! Dreams do come true if you work hard enough!!