Daily Prompt: Money for Nothing

If you’re like most of us, you need to earn money by working for a living. Describe your ultimate job. If you’re in your dream job, tell us all about it — what is it that you love? What fulfills you? If you’re not in your dream job, describe for us what your ultimate job would be.

Well, this dream job has changed so many times over the years.

When I was a kid, I wanted to be a Pilot. Then for the next 20 or so years I just wanted to be a dancer. As I got older I thought about working in I.T. but that was soon short lived. I thought about becoming a massage therapist. At the moment I have full-time job, but it doesn’t fulfil me. I am however in the process of looking at potential study of a course which I can do through work, which will give me an internationally recognised certification. That could then take me further study, and potentially a much more interesting kind of role.

Truth be told, I never went to university (college). When I finished high-school I went to TAFE to study I.T. but it became a really boring course as there was no actual challenge to any of the tasks we had to complete. But the worst part was that we weren’t allowed to get ahead of the rest of the class. Granted, I could have quite easily finished the entire course content in about two weeks, but the coordinators said no, as it would be unfair to the others in the class. Instead, I decided to take on a Cert III course as well in I.T. and that was slightly more interesting in concept. However, I became involved in a musical theatre production and missed, all-up, about three months of classes. At the end of the year, I still managed to hand in all my assignments etc all at once, and they refused to accept it for marking – so although I did complete all assessable tasks, and handed them in. They refused to accept and acknowledge it. Bastards. I normally would have fought it to be upheld, but I didn’t because I didn’t know any better so essentially I flunked out of the course. Which is even worse.

But that was so many years ago, and it’s now 2014, and well, let’s face it, I’m 31 and I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up. I lack focus and direction. Part of me dreams about becoming a writer, and then being a special guest on shows like Kathy or Chelsea Lately. Or perhaps writing a novel or two. Or becoming a massage therapist. Part of me still wants to go back and study I.T. – but I think that’s only because I see it as unfinished business.

Ideally, I just want to be paid money for doing not very much.

But then I think, maybe it’s the location? Maybe I need to go live somewhere else? Maybe I need to be amongst the hustle and bustle of a place like L.A. or New York perhaps? But in order to do that, one requires a substantial amount of cash to get themselves set up over there, and you can only get cash from a job… and I have a job, it’s just not my ideal job, but hey, it’s paying my bills. So I guess that just gives me more time to dream…

 

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Daily Prompt: All It’s Cracked Up to Be

Tell us about a time when everything actually turned out exactly as you’d hoped.

Most of the time I live in my head. By saying that, I mean that I will always envisage something happening a certain way; a specific chain of events, but the reality is never anything like the way I see it or anticipate it actually happening.

Time after time after time I’d plan for something to go one way, and then when it would not turn out at all how I had anticipated, I would find myself feeling so upset. The more it happened, the more I stopped trying to make plans and predictions.

On the flip side, there are those rare occasions where I can plan for something to happen, and it actually ends up turning out even better than I had planned which is awesome.

…note, emphasis on the rare part.

Given previous experience, it’s actually hard for me to write about a situation that actually went to plan… experiencing so much disappointment during my life, I can’t recall many moments where things actually went my way for a change.

Perhaps this is part of the reason why I’ve become so jaded?

I think that one of the key moments in my life where, for once, things actually went my way was when I decided to move to Melbourne.

I had a waste year after finishing year 12. I was enrolled in an I.T. course, which I just couldn’t really be bothered with. It was nothing like what I had been told it would be, and it was more like Computers 101 for Monkeys… and even then, I think the monkeys would have made better progress compared to the other people in the course. I completed about 3 months worth of work in the first week, but I couldn’t advance myself like that because it was ‘unfair’ to the rest of the class.

So I spent that year bored out of my mind, and in the end, it just fell by the wayside because I decided to spend more of my time focusing on my dancing.

Towards the end of the that year, I came to the conclusion that I couldn’t stay in this hick town any longer. There was nothing here for me. I couldn’t see myself achieving anything if I stayed. I just couldn’t do it. I decided that if I wanted to do anything with my life, I needed to leave. I needed to move to a capital city and do something.

All I wanted to do was dance, and the only way I’d be able to pursue that sort of career was to move interstate and attend a full-time dance school… the only way you can attend a school like that is to audition, so I bit the bullet and forced myself to travel interstate to audition for a few different schools. This is something that I’ve already blogged about…

I ended up auditioning for 4 different dance schools and looked at 3 different universities, and one by one I kept getting rejected, and in true fashion, every rejection just cut away another small piece of my soul and it just made me feel more and more useless.

One day I got a letter from a school in Melbourne offering me a spot, and I actually thought it was a joke… I even called the school to double check with them if they were serious or not.

I was so shocked, I didn’t really know how to react. I was excited and terrified all at once. I broke the news to my mum and she was so happy for me. She knew how I’d been feeling and had always supported my dancing pursuits.

The last couple of months went by in a bit of a blur. I remember the day I left, I caught the train to Melbourne, and I’d spent the morning with my best friend. Actually, I’d pretty much spent every day with my best friend. We were inseparable. She was the one person (apart from mum) that I was going to miss the most.

The day I was leaving, she came over to my place for breakfast, then we went back to her place and she gave me a small present. I opened it and just cried. She just got me. She was my soul mate, and I was hers. We packed up my bags into her car and she drove me down to the train station… and then sure enough, some of my friends turned up at the station to say goodbye. They brought me a giant card and gift, and told me to open it on the train.

We said our good-byes and they were all crying.

…I cried all the way to Melbourne… which is a 6.5hr journey.

My cousin met me at the station and took me back to her place – I was going to be staying with them for a couple of months. It just didn’t seem real. It felt as though it was some kind of dream.

The very first day of school was so intimidating and terrifying and I quickly realised that I was so far down the ladder in terms of experience and technique, however, I quickly ascertained that I was able to hold my own amongst all these bitches.

I knew that this new venture was going to be tough. I knew it was going to be exhausting. I knew that at some point I was going to hate it… and I was right, but regardless of the fact, I still loved it. This was what I was meant to be doing the previous year, but I was simply too uncertain and shy. Within the first two months I was put into the more advanced course, and I was the one who was regularly becoming a class captain, or a rehearsal leader, or supervising the juniors… and I loved it!!

 

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2014/01/15/daily-prompt-perfect/