When I Grow Up...

I still don't feel grown up. You would think being married and having two kids would make someone grown up but I still don't feel like it. Anyways...

4 Boy Dad offers up a new blogging meme that I've decided to answer. I usually don't do these but I actually found this one interesting.

1. What did you want to be when you grew up (WYGU) while you were a kid?
2. What did you want to be WYGU when you graduated from High School?
3. What (if anything) is your college degree in? (overachievers: feel free to add Graduate degrees)
4. What do you do for a living now?

Please note, this is not cynical. The purpose of this is not to disabuse youthful dreamers of said dreams. It is merely to celebrate the hilarious ways in which God steers us.

So here are my answers...

1. I was crazy about maps as a kid. My grandfather gave me his old circa 1930s atlas that I pored over for hours. I remember someone asking me what I wanted to be when I grew up and I said I wanted to be a cartographer. Boy, did I get some bizarre looks.

2. Sometime around 9th or 10th grade, I decided that I wanted to be an attorney. *pause*

Seriously. I'm not kidding.

All I thought about all through high school was being an attorney and eventually running for public office. I even spent a summer as an intern at one of the most prominent law firms in Atlanta. Somehow, doing research for a partner and falling asleep reading the mindless dreck of case studies didn't dissuade me.

3. Not surprisingly, I started college as a political science major. Duh. However a funny thing happened at the end of my freshman year. I realized that all these things I thought I wanted to do weren't really that interesting or fun. And I ended up taking a fantastic class in another major and the professor convinced me to change majors to....geography. Fancy that eh?

4. Well, I am currently in a pretty major job crisis (needing one). But that is another post for another time (once I am well past this dark moment). I have actually spent most of my working life doing maps. Not just making maps. But using maps and geographic information to help companies. I have consulted for companies like Starbucks, McDonald's, Saks 5th Avenue, and CVS on where to locate their stores. And this is done using maps.

As an aside, don't ask geography people where everything is. That is not what geography is all about. It is about understanding why things are where they are and various spatial relationships. It is much more interesting that just making maps and is more useful that most people would realize. Not that I am sensitive about the subject. :)

Now to select the next victims for this meme: Gideon Strauss, Applejack, Klaus, Tim Challies, and David Wright. Tag, you're it!

• Dignan
• Meme
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