Well...strange isn't actually the best word for it. Out-of-Character is more accurate. But hyperbole is what we live for, us humans, and so I'm keeping the title.
When I was about ten, I wanted to be a scientist.
Yes. ME. The girl who never wanted to take off the Disney-Store Belle dress and spent the majority of her childhood life aspiring to be a princess. I wanted to be a scientist. Which is funny considering the fact that I hated math even back then, but it's absolutely true. I don't know how I thought I would manage to dig up dinosaur bones without some sort of mathematical background, but hey. I was ten.
Specifically, I wanted to be a paleontologist. My family was going through the Kenneth Branaugh narrated "Dinosaurs" series, and I got sucked-in fascinated. I wanted to learn everything about dinosaurs. I wanted to dig up dinosaurs. I put down my Belle costume and left princesses in the dust. I started collecting dinosaur toys and learning all their fancy Latin-based names and characteristics. I watched dinosaur movies and pretended like one of my guardian angels was an allosaurus.
I'm honestly not making this up.
I'm kind of amazed by that period in my life. It seems so brave, to want to be a scientist, and specifically the kind of scientist who digs up bones in the desert. Ten-year old me didn't ever account that I probably would have fried like an egg in the unforgiving sun and ended up some vulture's dinner, but I was a very idealistic child.
It is in keeping with my character, though, that I never wanted to be a scientist of the First, Second, or Third Degree, because the Holy Trinity of Sciences does involve a lot of math, and as one of my favorite professors--Dave, of the Geology department--elaborated, science has a hierarchy. It looks like this:
-Physics!!! Discovering the secrets of the universe!
-Chemistry!! Discovering and testing the elements of the secrets of the universe!
-Biology! Where you start getting into gross squishy things.
-Geology/the rest of the digging- around-in-earth disciplines.
-Stamp Collecting.
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-Psychology.
Yeah, scientists tend to trash on psychology. It's still funny, and I'm betting you probably laughed, even though you felt bad.
I guess maybe ten-year-old-me never considered that math would factor in to digging around in the dirt looking for fossils. Maybe that was eventually what turned me off of becoming a paleontologist. I don't actually remember why. I just know that by the time I was thirteen or so, I was no longer able to name off all the dinosaurs. I started watching Lord of the Rings and thinking about boys and worrying about getting my period, because how awful does that sound can it just not happen to me?
Sorry, Me from the Past. Life's not fair sometimes and your body will win in the end.
Basically, I think around that time was when I started to realize I wanted to be a writer. Or an actor. I think I realized that being one or both of those two things would be the most fulfilling life path. Plus if I became an actor I'd get to wear a corset, and apparently that sounded like a good idea? I don't know. I was on the brink of an eating disorder when I was thirteen. Being skinny was what I dreamed about.
Actually, you know what? I've done a lot of reading as to why girls lose their more "masculine" ambitions--like being president, or a scientist, or whatever--around the age of thirteen because society presses in and imposes social norms and photoshopped magazine covers and girls start worrying more about their attractiveness than their aspirations. And eating disorders are sadly really common amongst young girls and can have an affect on the development of the body and mind.
Oooh, the bull***t of the patriarchy. Gets me every time (Hold on, don't interpret this as Hilary is blaming the patriarchy for all her life's problems and she could have been a paleontologist if she wanted to. I'm not blaming the patriarchy for causing me to lose my interest in paleontology, but I am blaming it for giving girls eating disorders and causing ridiculous gender inequality).
Hmm. Well. I may have learned something today about the psychological reason why I decided not to be a paleontologist thanks to being all conversational on the blog. Thanks, blog!
And I'm glad I'm a writer/sometimes an actor anyway. Those are great passions, and they are two disciplines that enable the person to learn about subjects like science and medicine and just the way people interact with other people. Which are all important and beautiful things.
But if I have a kid, and that kid is a daughter, I hope she follows her aspirations and if she wants to be a scientist, I will support the hell out of that. And if she's more left-brained, like me, I'll support that too.
And even if she goes through a phase where she wants to learn about paleontology and considers a trip to Vernal, UT to look at dinosaur bones "fun," I'll pull out those dinosaur toys and we'll learn together.
And then in a few years when she's a teenager I'll just embarrass her constantly. So it'll be all good.
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