I was trying to make room in the filing cabinet, and I found a folder labeled School. In that folder were some test results I had no idea I’d kept. Back in college, I changed my major about six times the first year, and finally at the suggestion of my sixth advisor went to the Career Center to do some vocational testing. Here is the result of a test that is apparently called the Strong Interest Inventory of the Strong Vocational Interest Blank. It is supposed to determine which of the six vocational types (Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising, and Conventional) a person is interested in.

NONE strong interests! That seems about right.

There’s a second page that divides occupations into lists, sorting them by how similar I am to people in those occupations. I have no matches in the “very similar” category. In the “similar” category, I have six occupations: photographer, lawyer, librarian, broadcaster, public administrator, banker.

In the “moderately similar” category, I have eight occupations: advertising executive, reporter, elected public official, store manager, public relations director, social science teacher, Chamber of Commerce executive, and marketer.

In the “very dissimilar” category are ALL THE REST OF THE OCCUPATIONS. A lonnnnnnnng list. It includes all the medical professions, most of the teaching professions, all of the science and engineering professions, and also things such as forester, carpenter, mathematician, and police officer. Nopes all around.

While all of this is a little discouraging, not to mention not very helpful, there is a sense in which it is comforting to see that I have been the same all along: low interest in pretty much everything, no feeling of having various possible paths to contented employment. It’s one of the reasons I didn’t feel like I was wasting decades of career growth by having a lot of kids: I didn’t have anything I particularly wanted to do anyway.

But it makes it hard to figure out what to do as the kids get older. Surely I will not still be sitting in the house without a job after the last kid is gone? And yet, my job experiences so far are not giving me much hope. Well! Still many more occupations to attempt!

On the How Did You Choose Your College? post, Missy asked if there could be another post where people say what their major was and what job(s) they got with that. She says: “Part of the reason I think it is so hard for kids to pick majors is ‘what kind of job would that be’?”

I agree. One of Rob’s potential majors is theoretical math. Not applied math: theoretical. And definitely my question there is what kind of JOB would that be?

Also, I think it’s so interesting to see how there can be a huge gap between major and job: sometimes they are (or seem) almost completely unconnected.

So let’s talk about that today, in whatever way applies to you. For example, maybe you can say, “This was my major, and here are some of the jobs associated with that major.” Or maybe you can say, “This was my major, but this is where I ended up, because etc.” Or maybe you can say, “This was my major, and there are NO JOBS, so I went back for schooling in this other thing.” Or maybe you will want to tell what happened with someone else. Just, whatever you think applies to this discussion.

Here is what I would rather not see, if we can avoid it: fighting about whether it’s better to go with a major that is attached to a definite employment path, or whether it’s better to follow one’s heart/interests regardless of future employment possibilities. It seems clear to me that the answer to that dilemma is “Sometimes one way is better, sometimes the other way is better, and it’s super-hard to figure out in advance which way is best for an individual person and their individual interests/life.” I’d rather stick, if possible, to stories about “This major —-> this job.”

Things are not good right now, are they. I think I’m going with links.

1. The ACLU has a good article on the right to peacefully protest, but the format is annoying because you have to keep clicking to get to the next item on the list. Still, it is a good list, if you are wondering about what is allowed and what is not, maybe because you are planning to participate in a protest, or maybe because people in your Facebook feed are acting as if it’s illegal to do so, or maybe because people in your Facebook feed are acting as if protesters don’t have to follow any rules at all. (Perhaps you are extra-lucky and you have BOTH kinds of people in your Facebook feed, fighting each other as you try not to let it make you want to start digging a hole for the bomb shelter.) Know Your Rights for Peaceful Protests. Here is a PDF version that doesn’t make you click to get to the next item: PDF Know Your Rights.

2. Sometimes it is hard to know where to send money to be HELPFUL: should the money go for legal support, or for education, or for the families of people affected? Should I send money to put out current fires, or would the money be better spent on preventing future fires? I can easily end up spinning my wheels and doing nothing. When I am overwhelmed by choices but want to do SOMETHING, I like to send a check to Plan International. They’re a non-religious charity that works on the very basics of making the world better: water, food, medical care, shelter, and not getting sold into slavery.

3. Or, here is a list of charities in the Human & Civil Rights category that Charity Navigator rates 4 stars (the highest rating). But I feel a little overwhelmed even with a pared-down list like that. Too many choices. On the other hand, I find it soothing to see how many people are working on making things better.

4. This Craig Ferguson quote:
“…Ask yourself the three questions you must always ask yourself before you say anything:
1. Does this need to be said?
2. Does this need to be said by me?
3. Does this need to be said by me now?”

This item makes me wish I were more of a think-outside-the-box person:

It is a piece of hemmed cotton fabric, with a button on one end and a buttonhole on the other. A non-zero amount of work went into this item, considering it was only used to wrap around a pile of four napkins I bought on clearance for $2.98 at Target. It seems as if it could be USED for something, rather than tossed in the trash after I harvest the button.

Elizabeth tried to use it as a cat collar, with comic results.

Speaking of Elizabeth, she went to a day camp this past week and had a great time. On the last day, there was a performance/show/demonstration-type thing for parents, and the camp director got a cool high school girl to be the judge of the competitive part. Elizabeth was PISSED that at the end of the judging, everyone got the same ribbon, with the judge declaring herself unable to pick among so many wonderful competitors.

I was explaining to Pissed Elizabeth on the way home that although I too dislike the “Everyone’s a winner!” kind of thing, in this case it would have been tough to do otherwise: some kids were in their sixth year at this camp, while others were in their first; some kids were going into 8th grade and others into 2nd; etc. We talked about it for awhile, Elizabeth mostly seeing it from the campers’ point of view and me mostly seeing it from the camp director’s point of view. We agreed on the idea of doing a variety of prizes that let everyone get a ribbon (which appeared to be the goal) while still letting kids feel as if the prizes were real. Things like “Best costume,” “Most poised,” “Funniest.” You wouldn’t even need to come up with the categories ahead of time: the judge could think about each child’s performance and pick what was the best part of it and make the ribbon for that. This would be hard with a really big group, but in this case there were only six kids.

This week it’s Edward and Henry’s turn for day camp. Normally this camp is hosted by our town’s elementary school, but this year our school couldn’t do it, so we had to join with the next town over. At drop-off, I was reminded how much I dislike new/unfamiliar things. At our elementary school, I know exactly how to get there, exactly where to park, exactly where else to park if the usual parking is full, and exactly which entrances are possibilities. I know my way around the inside of the school, and I recognize/know the teachers, and I recognize a lot of the teenaged counselors. But this morning, I had to wing it. It went fine, of course it went fine, but I was surprised at just how disorienting it is.

I was describing this book to Paul and Rob, and the three of us together came up with this: that it’s like The Bourne Identity (in which someone wakes up and has to figure out who he/she is, and also why he/she seems to be well-equipped with cash and skillz) + Men in Black (in which someone is recruited into a secret government organization that fights the weird/supernatural/alien) + X-Men (in which there is a world where certain people are born with interesting abilities). I felt so pleased with us for summing it up so clearly and evocatively. Then I was looking at reviews, and basically everyone was saying the same thing. So. Well, it means there’s CONSENSUS.

(image from Amazon.com)

The Rook, by Daniel O’Malley.

I found the book extremely enjoyable, and kept wanting to go back to it. The writing was a little rough in places, and I have never liked the exposition-via-letters gimmick (NO ONE would EVER go into SO MUCH DETAIL in a letter, NO MATTER WHAT the situation was); but the former felt like first-book issues, and the latter was easy enough to go along with in this case where it seemed justified.

I love it when a character is put into a situation that would be hugely tense and upsetting for almost anyone—but then turns out to be able to handle it.

Last night I dreamed I was pregnant. SUPER vivid dream, including running my hand over my rounded tum and thinking about names. (I was thinking, “Funny how I think I am just DYING to choose a name, until I actually have to choose one.”) Seven or eight years ago, I would have woken up and cried that it wasn’t real, and maybe spent the day brooding and eating fudge. Today I woke up IMMENSELY RELIEVED that it was a dream. I mention this in case you are where I was seven or eight years ago, feeling as if you will never be able to live a happy life unless you have another baby, and wondering if that feeling will ever go away. I can offer only one anecdotal “yes, it will” data point, but here it is if it helps.

It is partly made up of sensible things: I am now older than I would like to be for a pregnancy, and the gap between my youngest and another baby would be MUCH larger than I’d like it to be, and at this point I don’t want to start again at the beginning. It is also partly because the other children have gotten older, and I’ve thought, “Ohhhhhhhhhh, wait: I wanted a lot of BABIES, but I do not necessarily want a lot of three-year-olds or a lot of fourteen-year-olds.”

But I think it is mostly that The Feeling went away. I think it is a mistake to underestimate the role biology plays in a passionate desire for children: some of it is because children are neat to have, but a lot of it is a species-benefiting biological set-up that isn’t necessarily in the individual’s best interests. I remember when I was crying about the situation to my OB/GYN (he asked during a check-up if we were planning more children, and I burst into tears), and I asked if the baby cravings ever went away, and he said, “I don’t know. I can only tell you this: that older women no longer talk to me about it.” That’s not entirely comforting: my guess is that older women stop talking about it because it’s an option that’s no longer available. But now that I am a bit older myself, I am revising that guess to include the idea that when the option is no longer available, for most of us it also stops being so appealing. Biology stands down and lets most of us stop pining.

Still, I do think we should have had a sixth child, back when Paul said no. At this point that child would be six or seven, and I think that would have been great. And also, I do think that Paul saying no to another child, when I wanted one so badly I felt I could not live a happy life without one, had a lasting, non-positive effect on our marriage. I’m not saying he could have said anything else, if he really felt that strongly about it; and maybe if he had given in to what I wanted, perhaps it would have had some detrimental effect in the other direction; and perhaps there was NO possible happy outcome from that deadlocked situation and there would have been a negative effect no matter what we’d decided. But regardless, I don’t think back to that time and think it went the way it should have, or that he was right. He has never been good at thinking ahead to the future, so I don’t feel he made a decision based on a good evaluation of the situation; and he made me feel that when it comes down to truly important decisions in our shared life, it’s his happiness over mine.