What was the career you SHOULD have had?

Or, the extra in movies who never is seen, but you can hear their voice say something really stupid in the background.

Of my own misery.

Whatever Billy Jack was, that's what I want to do.... mystical asskicking drifter, I guess.

Yeah, but all you'd do is beat up doughy bastards, and is that worthy?

Yet another mystical asskicker... Cain from "Kung Fu." No taxes, no hassles, no rent... just drifting, kicking asses. That's the life for me.

(Did you ever hear about Carridine's drunken crashing of Gene Clark's funeral? Ask me sometime.)

Doctor? You should be in a grindcore band, Dee.

Go-go dancer, as I apparently dance like that for free....with clothes.

Jet-set journalist, as I tend to easily get the lowdown

huh? i think that's prob a bit rosy eyed

most maths ppl are only quietly eccentric

Yes, unlike those perfectly reasonable and non-rosy eyed alternate career choices of, say, Dance Commander, Dominatrix and Vigilante?

most maths ppl are only quietly eccentric

Yes, but then...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Erd%C5%91s#Biography

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ronald_graham_couple_with_erdos_1986.jpg

I was thinking more like...

http://mathematicianspictures.com/math_images/CANTOR_OCT20_G_290w_q30.jpg

WD, I think you would get very angry very quickly in mathematical academia: as far as I can tell from the outside it is very in thrall to the cult of the young, almost exclusively male genius (if you haven't shown yrself to be outstanding by 23 you may as well go and find an ice floe) - plus the idea that those who might still be in the "young genius" category can be hazed ruthlessly until they prove themselves, or sth

(I am a little short of evidence here, admittedly, and still shorter of any that I wish to explain in public)

Yes, I kind of know, and that's why it remains a ridiculous dream career and not a "I'm going back to uni now!" dream.

I mean, my other dream career would be, like ... and I know that's not going to happen, either.

http://www.successfuloffice.com/articles/tesla.gif

the career i wanted at school/uni (something vaguely chemistry related) would have paid less, been more stressful and caused me to lose my hair earlier

woulda been kidna cool though

Of course, the other career I could probably still manage to somehow achieve at this point would be...

http://www.solsticepoint.com/astrologersmemorial/blavat3.jpg

My problem is, I suspect I would be entirely TOO GOOD at that, and actually start to believe my own mysticalcrazyreligion.

the cult of the young, almost exclusively male genius

A good friend of mine is a mathematician and has mentioned numerous times that 40 is generally considered the year by which you had better have done all of your serious math by.

I could have had class. I could have been a contender. I could have been somebody. Instead of a bum...which is what I am. Let's face it.

(Real answer: as happy as I am being a grade-school teacher, I should have taken math in university instead of film/English and followed that wherever it took me.)

I sometimes wish I'd done something involving languages. But I have problems speaking foreign languages out loud, cz my mouth just doesn't make the sounds I know I need to use. Hell, it often doesn't in my first language. I find etymology and language changes interesting, but have found every "introduction to linguistics"-type book I've ever bought impenetrably dull. Still, been thinking about this lately as my 18y/o cousin got excellent A Level results and is now studying linguistics.

Think I am just jealous as A Levels were the last time I got to feel slightly clever (and his are better than mine). There is something of a trend in my father's side of the family - and I know this will be true for every other ILXor and a good percentage of everyone else - for being thought of as clever as a teenager, self-destructing slightly around 20 and then just muddling through, never working out what they want to do. I'm a decade into phase 3.

But I don't want to jynx my cousin. Maybe he can be the first in the family to make it through university without going crazy.

Ah well, that's me out, then. Better give up on the "crazy maths genius" career path and proceed straight to "bean-hating Pythagorean cult leader"

x-posts yes, that is Old Skool ILX, the confused crazy mixed up ex-teenage prodigies who stopped living and become zombies club.

Oh, well, let's not throw around words like "prodigy"! I just got the benefit of the doubt at school, where if you are inattentive and/or troublesome and can spell they think you are possibly really clever if only people could understand, whereas if you are inattentive and/or troublesome and can't spell you just get labelled "thick" and ignored.

Then you reach adulthood and remember that 99.999% of humanity actually turns out to be somewhere in the middle, all of it wondering what happened.

I sometimes wish I'd done something involving languages. But I have problems speaking foreign languages out loud, cz my mouth just doesn't make the sounds I know I need to use. Hell, it often doesn't in my first language. I find etymology and language changes interesting, but have found every "introduction to linguistics"-type book I've ever bought impenetrably dull.

Yeah, this is me, too. Would love now to have 'translator' as a career option. But despite my love of etymology I just can't get my head around other languages proper.

The real answer to this question is of course 'novelist', but seeing as I have only managed about 1k words for NaNoWriMo so far I don't think this will ever happen.

So far? It's only the 4th!

Well yeah, but I worked out you need to write about 1,500 words per day on average, and I'm thus at least 5k behind (can't be arsed to actually work this out, and estimating numbers is not my forte).

And this is with me constantly telling myself it's okay to write cliches and mundanity for NaNoWriMo, the point is to get it done. Imagine what I'm like when trying to write something I care about. (I can agonise over a single sentence for an entire day.)

(It has a little widget on the NaNoWriMo website where it computes how many you should be doing a day (1600 or thereabouts IIRC) and tells you if you're above or below.)

((Mind you, I don't personally find that remotely useful as I tend to write 10,000 words a day at the weekend and then slack the rest of the week so YMMV))

(((But perhaps we should take this to the NaNoWriMo thread)))

Should have been a computer programmer.

should have done lots of things if i didn't fuck around so much in high school and college.

kate did you see this guy who won the fields medal this year? looking fly...

http://blogg.flingly.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/flingly_front_villani.jpg

DNFTKHM

Um, HELLO?

Who is that gorgeous creature and where can I find out more about his work?!?!?

::tears up picture of previous brainy geek poster boy Brian Cox and clears new space on desk::

Cédric Villani

He even looks like this name... <3 <3 <3

here is a pretty readable summary of the work he won the fields for btw http://www.icm2010.in/wp-content/icmfiles/uploads/Cedric_Villani_profile1.pdf

OK, I'll read that at lunch because it looks pretty interesting, but seriously I am going to have to stop posting now because otherwise this is just going to turn into "thread of total abject lust" because, well, erm, LOOK AT HIM...

http://math.univ-lyon1.fr/homes-www/villani/Images/cedric.jpg

::has to lie down because her head is starting to spin and if the Directors ask why the financial analytics are late today I will just show them that and ask how I'm supposed to keep my mind on numbers::

some of the photos of him are more flattering than others. a lot of the time he just looks like a steampunk fan: http://www.daylife.com/search/photos/1/grid?q=Cedric+Villani

He looks a bit like Jeremy Irons.

a lot of the time he just looks like a steampunk fan

You say this like it's a bad thing?

What is the brooch on his jacket, that's what I want to know. It looks a lot like a triptoy I used to have which was this fun inversion pushme pullyou wire thing or perhaps it's an insect or the represenation of the magnetic fields of the polar regions, either way I kinda want one. (that goes double for the man it's attached to.)

i think it's a scale model of the giant mechanical spider from wild wild west starring will smith and kevin kline

Wish my art teaching at school hadn't been so shite and I'd been encouraged to go down a more creative path. 'Designer' looks like my ideal career now but I'm pretty much stuck in IT (wipes tears with bundles of £50 notes)

With a name like Cedric Villani, I'd be disappointed if he *didn't* dress like the bad guy in a steampunk movie.

(I keep waiting to get to the part of his thesis where he unveils his evil plan for world domination via his dastardly ultimate entropy plasma death ray, I hope I am not disappointed.)

Personal assistant to a travel/food writer. Jane and Michael Stern have a guy who, near as I can tell, handles logistics and reservations for them. They do the heavy creative lifting, he gets to go along for the sights and the meals. I want his job.

Flag designer or real-life wacky next-door neighbour

My office mate and I were just talking about this.

I like my current profession just fine, some days much more than others, but more often than not.

Like big time, don't worry/care about the day-to-day realities of life? Musician. No question. And what has kept me from taking something I'm pretty good at and making a run at doing it full-time is that I'm not willing to forgo steady income from my real job, which is being a lawyer. This, extended out, gives me pause about my current desires with my chosen profession - I don't intend to be an associate for my entire life, and would like to be in charge at some point. However, this means that it will be my responsibility to make the money to pay myself and others. So, how this is different than being a musician, in terms of regularity of income only, I'm not sure.

Totally left turn, different than where I am now path? Translator/something else dealing with languages. I surprised myself by busting out in nearly fluent French the other week, and I haven't touched it in 16 years. Some focused study, and I'm thinking I could have four at or near fluency. How this would be applied to an alternative career, I dunno.

Or a physicist. But, in my younger years, I was caught up in the "I'm not a math person" trap. Which I think stunted what may have been actual ability on my part.

Ah well. Back to the billables.

I'm still trying to figure this out, because I know it's not the one I'm in now (I hope not, anyway). Standard issue early promise derailed by anxiety/drug burnout story.

I'm too flighty to have had a real career. I did come this close to being a poor, reclusive, floundering failure of a lovelorn poet, scrounging in dumpsters and living in attic rooms, which for a long time seemed to be my natural career path. But I moved on.

Every few weeks or so, the idea that I should be on an academic career path comes niggling. In loads of ways it's exactly what would suit me best, and I've *always* gotten the best marks among my peers at school, college and Uni without too much difficulty. I have several not-great reasons for not doing it, and I'm not sure I'm making the right decision to steer clear and do something else, but I think it mainly comes down to the fact that I really cannot be arsed doing a PhD.

I wanted to be a neurologist when I left high school, but maths.

anyone ever done a career about turn? lately been considering this...just kinda seeing that journalism jobs i like are prob going to be the exception rather than the rule. things i'm considering, advertising, drama, maybe going back to university. how i'd pay for it, no idea, how friends/family might react, no idea, how weird it feels to be admitting this to self also a factor. doubting my own convictions about whether i want to change also quite present.

just think like.....i'm just short of 28, so young in career terms, i've done journalism for a place lots of people want to do it and find myself knowing whatever job i get next will just be one to tolerate, most likely, and whatever interviews i get i'll be pretending i really want the job and very adequately faking it all.

recently started acting again, something i did a lot of in school, and even tho it's very early days am really conscious that i could do that or at least try to, though like...who wouldn't want to do that for a living, part of me is like "you loser!" for thinking that.

lots of friends in the same boat but with diff careers or dreams, that thing of whether it's better to be happy with your lot and accept that jobs are boring, or whether you demand more?

was thinking heavily about this recently but a few big things happened and now everything's good - ploughing on with my current *thing* with renewed vigour and v happy for it.

im a qualified journalist too, the good thing about it is that it serves as a good grounding for all manner of careers. advertising always appealed to me, in some sense. politics too.

all the best with it though. it's hard to say which is better - the tough thing is balancing things like rent/lovelife with following your dreams. for me, both those issues are out of the equation and following my dreams (well, dreams are pretty well-established at this point) is making me more fulfilled and excited about life than i can ever remember

i was going to be an astrophysicist but had a bad run of years with pretty poor maths teachers/facilities, or so i tell myself.

Had i the choice now i'd like to take on business/economic journalism. Might well be doing a masters within a year or two, have scoped trinity and a few others out.

All my mates are in IT and doing well, which on a less idealistic level is a pull.

I used to want to be a ballerino. (what's a male dancer called?)
then a tailor,
then a GIrine
then a music writer.

now a local organisation manager

Too often for me, these thoughts descend into an envious daydream of 'WHOSE career SHOULD you have had?'

At the moment - Joe Boyd's.

Assassin

ANYthing outdoors. preferably somehow involved in river or wetlands conservation. but I'd take anything outdoors over anything indoors. It all of a sudden clicked for me like - a year ago - that that was even possible, by which point, of course, it was too late.

I guess that by the time I know enough to answer this question it will have been too late huh

lyfe

I used to want to be a park ranger but as I am an urbanite it was hard to get into those programs.

I wish I had been more self-confident, one of those people who doesn't need to study all day and night to wake up in the morning feeling like I ought to control large amounts of money. That is my fault. Maybe if I felt better about myself I could be owning a lot of real estate right about now, seems to be what the strong and self-directed super-confident people do these days is buy property.