Me? Career Day? Huh.

Earlier this month the super boss of the whole office got an email asking if he could send a photographer or at least a researcher to talk at Career Day at Rosario Castellanos Elementary School on the southwest side. The request was then filtered down until it got a yes from me (the reigning "employee of the quarter", i might add).

I arrived at the school right around lunch time and I was greeted by some kids who were told to carry all my stuff for me...pretty sweet. So my lackeys and I went off into the library where there were pans and pans of what looked like the best Mexican food I had seen in weeks (Hah! Sorry, I eat a lot of Mexican food). I fixed a small plate and headed for a seat when I immediately recognized our local NBC morning weatherman, Andy Avalos. I smiled, he smiled and said hi and then I shuffled to the table behind him because I felt silly.

After lunch (where we were even offered homemade flan but I had no room to eat a bite) I was led to my classroom. There were three sessions of kids, so three presentations I was supposed to do, each lasting 30 minutes. I had no idea what my angle was going to be. I figured, "I'm a talker, I'll come up with it on the fly."

So there I am in the middle of talking about my basic stuff like what I do, where I grew up, blah blah, and I'm thinking, "I'm supposed to advise these kids on what it's like to be a photo researcher? I'm supposed to be a model of a career path when I tend to meander through school touching on 4 different majors and being forced to finally just pick something due to a lack of time, a career largely based on meeting a hilarious guy at my Kinko's who's parents happened to own a photo researching business...this is all supposed to inspire kids?"

Huh.

And then I realized my angle...it was so clear to me. I spoke, "You know, some of you will just know what you want to do in life. Someone here might really want to be a doctor, someone here might really want to open their own restaurant, or be a basketball player. My best friend knew in college she wanted to be a photographer and that's exactly what she did. I've never been that person. As a kid I loved art, I loved music, theatre, cooking...and that's pretty much what I still love today. I've never found it easy to decide which of those things I've wanted to concentrate on. I know there will be some of you out there who will feel that way too...that you're interested in a lot of things and you're good at them. I think the best advice I can give you is that it's ok. It's ok to not know what you want to do. You don't necessarily have to choose one career that you're going to be in for the next 50 years. Keep your eyes and ears open, keep yourself learning along the way, and try to keep learning about the things you love. It's ok to figure it out as you go."

And there we had it, that was my angle, the girl who, to them, looked like she had this awesome career working with photographers in this cool company downtown but who really made a lot of detours (especially in college...sorry Mom) but still ended up doing pretty well for herself.

The funny part is I still don't know what I want to be when I grow up.