Amanda Helms

3 careers I briefly considered during my childhood

Because I know my extensive fan base cares about these things.

Career 1: Archaeologist

Consideration inspired by: A general interest in ancient cultures and vague ideas of somehow discovering Atlantis.

Career option ultimately discarded due to: The realization that I would come to detest the likely poor ratio of long hours in often-arid conditions vs. awesome finds. As my sixth-grade-self succinctly informed a local news reporter, who was doing some sort of “cute middle school undertakings” human interest piece and selected my class’s archaeological dig reenactment, “It gets kind of boring because you have to keep digging in the dirt.”

Career 2: Marine biologist 

Consideration inspired by: seaQuest DSV  (which I first began watching due to the presence of Jonathan Brandis) and vague ideas of somehow discovering Atlantis while I trained a super-smart dolphin within the confines of a super-advanced submarine whose mission was pretty much like Star Trek, only underwater. Super.

Career option ultimately discarded due to: The realization that I didn’t much like any of the science courses required to become a marine biologist, and besides, there would be no time to find Atlantis when I was busy training a super-smart dolphin and fending off the romantic advances of Jonathan Brandis.

Career 3: Ventriloquist

Consideration inspired by: A love of Ronn Lucas’ special Who’s in Charge Here and also the Muppets. Even though they weren’t ventriloquists’ dummies.

Career option ultimately discarded due to: The realization that–

Um, I can’t recall, actually. But I guess it had something to do with not being able to discover Atlantis.

 

Amanda

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2 responses to “3 careers I briefly considered during my childhood”

  1. This post made me smile! I used to want to be a marine biologist too until I realized how many science classes I would have to take 🙂 One of the great things about being a writer is the freedom to explore different careers and locations through our words.

  2. I flirted with the first two, as well. I never considered ventriloquist, because I watched a lot of Twilight Zone episodes in my formative years.