Dream Jobs

Every kid gets asked from the time they can talk what they want to be when they grow up. Usually, their answer to this question doesn't become real until somewhere around their sophomore or junior year in college. I however, was lucky enough to figure out what I wanted to do with my life much earlier. All of my life, I can only remember having two answers to this question when adults would ask me. Before 4th grade I remember telling people that I wanted to work at McDonalds. This desire stemmed from two things: number one, as a kid, I just wasn't all that aware of what jobs were out there and the only people I saw at work were the ones who gave me my McNuggets when we would go to McDonalds. Number two, those people at McDonald's were responsible for bringing me and millions of other kids their Happy Meals, who could ever want a more noble job than making millions of children happy? I'm sure this dream scared my Mom out of her mind, but she never downplayed my dream, only smiled and nodded when she heard my response. Then in 4th grade, my answer changed. That year I decided that I wanted to be a teacher. I don't really remember why this desire hit me so hard, maybe it had to do with the hours of "School" that my siblings and I would play at home, but I remember thinking that there was no other job I'd rather do. Fast forward to 9th grade, when I was in my first Biology class at Skyview Junior High. I had the crazyiest, quirkiest, smartest biology teacher I have ever met: Mr. McCarty. The guy was insane. He wore 5 different shirts (one for every day of the week), wore the same grey zip-up sweatshirt every day, and smiled like a goof ball for the whole class period every day. I loved him. His class was fascinating to me. I remember how much I loved going to that class, how I loved the millions of dissections we got to do (I now wonder how he had enough money to allow us to do 10+ dissections in one year), and most of all, I loved listening to his lectures where he would almost explode with excitement as he explained the basics of biology. From that year on, my decision was made. I was going to be a biology teacher, and I was going to be just like Mr. McCarty.

Right around this time I was also realizing how important sports were becoming in my life. I was playing basketball, volleyball and softball and loving every minute. I was always a little different from the rest of my peers though, I loved not only playing sports, but also learning about strategy. I watched my coaches very closely throughout the years and kept track of what separated the ones I would have done anything for from the ones who I felt were unfair and demeaning. By the end of high school I had a complete picture of what my dream job would look like some day. I would teach High School Biology and coach at the same high school I taught at.

Fast forward another 9 years and I am currently employed as a high school biology teacher and I am the JV girls basketball coach at the same school. I also have the opportunity to be the assistant coach for the BYU women's rugby team. Not too many people can say that they have their dream job, the one that they have said they wanted since they were a kid. I count myself lucky to have been able to have the opportunities given to me to be able to work towards my dream. Even better yet, I have my dream job and it is still my dream! I love getting to work with "my kids" and teaching them not only about biology but how to be good people and how to better their lives. I love getting up and going to work and making a fool of myself in front of my students in an attempt to get them to care about mitosis or ecology or genetics. At this point in my life, there's nothing else I'd rather do than what I'm doing right now. I'm living the dream! ;)