January 23rd, 2010
When I grow up
When I was younger, I had an ambition. I wanted to be a policewoman. This cleverly-crafted ambition was born after weeks of watching a TVB police show, after days of thinking it over while I was on the throne doing my business, while I was trying to fall asleep, while teachers were talking in class. It was my first ambition ever and I had spent most of my waking moments thinking and thinking about it.
I had everything perfectly sorted out and for the 8 year old me, that was a HUGE deal. I had envisioned it all in my head. Me in a uniform, me catching the bad wolves, me marrying another policeman, me settling down in a nice 2 bedroom apartment with him where we plot our next big catch together. We would be the most respected police couple in the office and we would both lead our own departments and solve big cases together. We were going to be so perfect.
I had been thinking about my ambition because my teacher told us to think about it so we could all present it in class. She was going to ask each of us to stand up and ask what we wanted to be when we grow up. Needless to say, I was so proud of my whole story of being a tough policewoman and marrying a policeman and catching thugs together. I was in an all-girls school and I knew all the other girls, in perfect meek voices would say,
“I want to be a doctor and save dying people!” “I want to be a lawyer and defend the weak!” “I want to be a nun like Mother Theresa!” (I was in a Convent school, so that’s perfectly possible)
A policewoman, wow, no one would ever think of that! Everyone would look up at me with admiring eyes and give me a standing ovation for sure! Breaking the societal norm, doing a job nobody wants, being a hero.
And then came the moment of glory. It was the night before my big presentation and I was talking to my parents about it. I had never told anyone about this before so I was excited and could barely catch my breath when I saw them coming through the door. I lived with my grandparents at the time and my parents only visited once every few weeks and I had been waiting all 2 weeks to tell them this!
“GUESS WHAT?? I know my ambition! I want to be a policewoman and catch bad people and marry a policeman and–”
My parents looked at me with admiring eyes and I knew they were impressed! Then they stifled a laughter and looked at my other relatives who all gathered around me. After some time, an outspoken aunt looked at me apologetically and said, “but dear, I think you are a little too fat to run after the thieves!”
a little too fat to run after the thieves
Those words broke my obese heart into a million pieces. Sure, I was a leeetle fat.
But surely, there are fat policewomen out there! I don’t have to run, I could shoot them down with my amazingly accurate shots!
That night I laid in bed tossing and turning and thinking this carefully over and over again. If even my own blood-related relatives laughed at me, what about my friends in school? Standing ovation, or a big HAHA with fingers pointing at me and hands over stomachs laughing their heads off?
The next day when I was called in class, I stood up and said “When I grow up, I want to be a doctor!” The teacher gave an approving smile and nodded in optimism, despite already having heard the same thing from 20 other students.
I sat back down with hardly an ovation, and continued doing my homework. I hated the thought of having ambitions ever since.
The moral of the story is not that you shouldn’t shoot down dreams of young kids and shatter their hopes for the future because that was my first realization that I was fat and was in need of a serious rethinking about my meal intakes (the fact that I only started doing that only 4 years later from that day is a different matter altogether wtf).
The moral of the story is..after 13 years, maybe it’s time to rethink this whole ambition thing. It’s not just about having a profession I want to cater my life goals around, but more of knowing what kind of person I want to be. Who do I want to serve in my life, what will make my 30 years of work life most happy, what will enrich my learning experience, money and comfort or self-actualization and personal fulfillment?
Maybe it’s way too early to think about the next 30 years, but too early is better than not realizing that these are important issues I want to tackle first before looking for an internship/job/grad school. Long story short, this is probably just an excuse for me to not start looking for an internship yet hehehhohohhaha wtf
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torpui torpui oh la la
i wanted to be a traffic cop. think about it, we could have married when we were kids wtf.
stop slacking ah, holidays almost over edi and you haven’t done anythingggg hehehohohaha.
Have you seen the Randy Paush(?) speech on Childhood dreams?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji5_MqicxSo
Young you is so cute! Cant resist!
the day b4 the teacher goin to ask wat’s our ambition, i was tinkin of being a doctor, a nurse, a scientist & god-knows-wat-else-in-my-damn-long-list. But then i just change to stewardess cause the rest was so lame n i’m sure there wun b other ppl who hv the same with mine. hahaha… no 1 noes wat’s stewardess do back then except me. wtf.
When i was young, my ambition is to be a teacher. i dint know why, guess i was just following my fellow class mates.. lol..
i was chubby too when i was a kid.. my brother always call me fatty.. even until now.. =__=”"
baz: i thought u wanted to be a postman!
my ambition when i was primary 3 was to be a nurse/teacher. then when i enter primary 5 or 6 like that i said i want to be a piano teacher which is so ridiculous cos all i know how to play is organ but not piano wtf. Not only that, i only know how to play Mary had a little lamb and London Bridge is falling down wtf.
That’s cute. I wanted to be a kindy teacher..
Your aunt is so mean! If I were you I would’ve cried on the spot. I had that ambition too after watching armed reaction. hahah
Haha I can still remember my 1st ambition vividly. I wanted to be a nurse….until my dad told me dat i had to wipe d patients’ ass! So much for wanting to help doctors to save lives…
haha ambition is either a sweet or bitter pill at times. yet its always gd to have one, still first thingy always is to appriciate yourself and then decide on your goal. no matter wat we do ,,we always will contribute to d success of the world moving along yea. haha i always wanted to be dat bus driver dat with the old school 4 by 4 big gear they kinda move around n d swtich to open d doors haha,, use to lock my self in the bathroom,,get a round tub ( stering whell) n stick the plunger(gear) by the side n go woohoo!!
Actually it’s quite true, sometimes simple words does affect a kid while growing up. It sorta creates a phobia. I used to love playing badminton but my mum laughed at the way I played so I never picked up the racket or any sports since then. Each time I have this feeling that she’s gonna say something just to humiliate me. To make things worse, she replay the scene again and again in front of relatives. Now she still wonder why I don’t play any sports.
i used to be fat and called baby elephant and all those nasty name.. when i m thirteen i started to grow vertically and stopped horizontally. now, those who called me baby elephant wont even look me in the eye…
is dat u?? :O
totally different!!
haha.. i hv the same ambition too when i was small.. and imagining myself catching ppl at school..(undercover at school) hahaha..
that wasn’t you, just some max photoshop effect!
it’s never too early to start thinking
^ I hate that
wow that’s so harsh man! Being fat was never fun huh. (Only during mealtimes) I know I know
write a post with u in a policewoman costume & sexc cat-eye makeup!
Tell us how u slim down pleaseeee… T.T
when i was a kid, my mother could not afford to send me to kindergarten so i only started learning how to write and read in Std 1. i remember this one time when i was 5, my cousin had this toy computer that would show you a picture of something and you’d have to spell it.
after waiting ages before the fat ass got bored of it, i held it and it said, ‘re-fri-ge-ra-tor’. and i just looked up at my aunts and uncles and said, ‘i don’t know how to play.’
then when one of them told me to press ‘R’ and i didn’t know which one that was since i don’t know the alphabet, and they all laughed at me in disbelief.
ever since then, i’ve been terrified of being laughed at for being stupid. i know i wasn’t exactly stupid, i didn’t even have the opportunity to learn since my mother is a single mother and she had two jobs. but i’m secretly happy the pain they caused made me study like a mad person while their kids just turned out fat and bratty.
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