Week 14 – List your childhood and current dream jobs

I don’t think I had any childhood dream jobs. I figured I’d grow up, study, travel, get a job, buy a house, get married, be a mum and then turn 30. Seriously!

It probably wasn’t until high school that I started thinking about potential dream jobs. It was also the time where I discovered the world of Pixar and Stars Hallow. I had fleeting moments of wanting to do animation, be in Hi-5, become a paediatrician, own an inn and have blue eyes. But they all slowly fizzled away (except I did have blue contacts I wore a few times). 

In year 7, I decided I liked numbers and design so I wanted to be an architect or a graphic designer and run my own business. For years I wanted to build a two-storey house by the beach. At the front would be the cafe facing the ocean, the back would be my architect/design studio and I would live upstairs in an awesome loft. In year 9 I took on photography as an elective and became addicted with taking shots using the concepts I learned from using the rule of thirds, shooting from different angles or playing with the focus. In year 11, I did media studies and fell in love with cinematography, video and especially editing. I also took on drama, creative writing and fiction to film, all of which helped feed into my teenage angst filled films. 

I took all my creative juices and studied Digital Arts in uni, which fuelled my love of documenting (anything) even more. But come graduation, I set aside my love of photography and film into my hobby hamper and never actively attempted to turn my creative passion into a job. It was just something I did for fun.

Travel was the other thing that I didn’t think could translate to a job, it’s just what you do on a holiday right? I remember looking at a photo my grandad took when he was Paris (when my dad was a kid). It was a classic photo, sepia tone, yellowing with age and I remember falling in love with it. It captured an essence in me to want to travel. There may have been a typewriter, part of a bed and a view out the window. The actual detail of the photo is very vague but I remember thinking how much I would love to do that, I wanted to travel anywhere and everywhere. My grandad was a university teacher who was asked to go to Paris for something and before I was born, my parents (also teachers) got to travel on scholarships to study or work. I realise now that the idea of travel and teaching has always been ingrained in my brain. But it never crossed my mind that it would be something I could actually do together.

As of literally this week, I’ve decided that to travel, teach and volunteer would be my ultimate dream job. At this stage I don’t think I’ll be a traditional teacher, but I want to teach. The best teachers I’ve met are those with the gift to inspire, cultivate passion and encourage creativity in another person. I want to do that. But I also want to continue my love of documenting life through photos, film and words as I travel in a relatively slow pace. I want to teach and I want to learn and I know that’s possible through volunteering. And although volunteering contradicts the term “job”, I’m not letting that stop me. I’m forming my dream job as I go along, it may have started with what seemed like a silly idea, but it’s developing into something so much more.

Challenge…
How can you integrate one of your dream jobs into your life right now?
I’m travelling, volunteering, taking photos, reading – all of which waters my dream job seeds.

What is on your dream job list?

This is my week fourteen list as part of Moorea Seal’s 52 Lists project.