The Story Of My Dream - Part One
January 28, 2008 | In About |
Table of contents for Life Story
For as long as I can remember, I have wanted to work with animals. I thought about positions at Zoos, veterinarian’s offices, and with the forest/park service. Although, most of the time, that desire was wild animals. Over the years, that desire has grown to include conservation, teaching, and marine biology. But the animals started it all off.
Me on Father’s Day 1978 - Just Over 2 Years Old
The Start Of My Conservation Efforts - Elementary School
When I was in Elementary School, I did a school report on Giant Pandas. This is the first time I can remember learning about conservation and endangered species. The Giant Panda, as you are probably aware, lives naturally only in a narrow region of the world. Its habitat is being rapidly exterminated due to the spread of human settlement. This was true in the 1980s; I’m sure it’s only accelerated today.
I was a panda lover for many years after that, collecting books, stuffed animals, and other panda themed items. A few years after that paper, I wrote a short story about a panda and his friend koala who went to school together. As part of this story, the two designed a factory type farm (in a huge barrel shaped building if I recall) to grow bamboo and get it out easily for consumption. I believe the building had a spigot for the bamboo to come out. While, obviously, that won’t work, it made sense at the time and shows that even then I was thinking big for the environment.
The Teaching Bug Bites Me - Middle School
In Middle School, I had the option of signing up for a foreign language, and I chose French. I then spent the summer fantasizing about becoming a French Teacher.
Photo by lav.val
When I started actually learning French, I had a horrible time of it. Part of it was that my teacher didn’t want to be teaching French, she really wanted to be teaching Spanish, but there wasn’t a slot for a Spanish teacher at my school. Therefore, she didn’t really have her heart in the work and it didn’t help me to learn. Another reason I did poorly with language I didn’t find out until years later in a chance conversation with my mother. She explained how I’d had a difficult time learning English - I had trouble with pronunciation and possibly even word choice. Suddenly, I didn’t feel so bad about my difficulty learning a foreign language - after all, I had a tough time with my first language!
One of my weaknesses is that I am incredibly stubborn. Some might call it tenacious; however, it has led me to hold onto a bad ideal and invest a tremendous amount of energy into it when I should have just let go and focused on something else. One of these ideals I held onto was becoming a French Teacher. Although I did poorly with French I, I signed up for French II. I struggled with that as well.
At the end of my year of French II, my teacher suggested that I repeat French II. This was unacceptable to me. So, I opted to take French III. However, I barely scraped by with a C, and despite taking three years of French, I don’t know more than the very basics of the language today. So, although I finally gave up on the French portion, I still held onto the teacher portion of the dream. In fact, I haven’t given up that idea since.
My First Major Studies Towards Conservation As A Career - Drafting
My last year of Middle School, I faced choices about what studies to pursue in High School. I still had a desire to work with animals, and even if I had become a French Teacher, it didn’t quite fit the bill. These two things, combined with a presentation about elective courses in High School, sent me in a different direction.
Photo by Legozilla
Several teachers from the High School came to us to discuss, with slides if I remember correctly, the details of the list of electives we had been given to choose from. The only class I remember from the presentation was called Architectural Drafting. Suddenly, my world opened up again.
It must have been around this time that the Baltimore Zoo (now the Maryland Zoo at Baltimore), began overhauling their habitats and drastically changing how they cared for the animals. Before this, animals were in cages with concrete floors. Afterwards, the habitats were a lot larger, and designed to mimic the animals’ natural habitat as closely as possible. When I saw that I could take Architectural Drawing, I thought a bit of building houses, but then I thought about becoming a Landscape Architect. I had no idea at the time that Landscape Architects designed flower beds and driveways. Instead, I thought this was the profession that was called upon to design the natural habitats. I envisioned at life of going around the country, being part of this renaissance in zoo habitats.
Unfortunately, I discovered that in order to take the Architectural Drafting class, I would have to take two years of drafting first. I took the first year of drafting and had a wonderful teacher. (I’ll call him Mr. L. - the first letter of his last name.) He made drafting fun and I was looking forward to the next year in Drafting II.
I vividly recall when my teacher found out he was being transferred to another school. It was the end of the school year and we were goofing around, not really doing any assignments. He came into the classroom and started ripping down the displays on the bulletin boards - violently pulling down paper and shoving it into the trash can. By this time I had already signed up for the second year of drafting, thinking I would have the same teacher. Obviously, this was not to happen.
I got through the second year of drafting Ok, although I didn’t like my Drafting II teacher, Mr. M, as much as I’d liked Mr. L. As I prepared for the third year, I found out that I would not be taught by Mr. M, but by a third teacher.
Back in Middle School, when I signed up for Drafting, Mr. L taught all drafting. That was, until he was transferred to another school. I can only hope that he was moved because he was such a great teacher, but I’ll never know. What I do know is that both Mr. L. and Mr. M. told me that the third year teacher wasn’t a very good teacher. Combined with the fact that I hadn’t really enjoyed Drafting II, I choose not to continue with drafting.
And thus ended my career as a Landscape Architect.
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Thanks Cathy it’s always interesting to hear where people have come from.
Years ago now a counselor’s association ran a series in its own newspaper called, “How did I get here when I was headed somewhere else?” A very good question I think.
This series ended up having 5 parts. While I hope folks will enjoy the 5 parts on my blog, I’m not sure the same would hold true for a newspaper.
However, I do like hearing other’s stories. It helps to show the person as an individual and can often reveal areas we have in common.