The career conundrum

As some of you might've picked up, I'm currently working at the local library, doing what most "librarians" do: I scan books in and out of the system, order books from elsewhere that we don't have, organize them and stuff them back in their shelves. Might sound like a rather systematic and tedious job, but frankly I love it. It might have something to do with my love of books - I suspect my mom started reading to me even before I saw the light of day, she left us a rather big book collection too, and I feel that I spent way more time in the library growing up than any average kid. I also suspect that because I learned to read early, I could watch english movies with subtitles ( which I strictly wasn't allowed to watch, like Jaws at the age of 6 or 7) and learn english more quickly. But that's just my theory.

Claiming that I've wanted to be many things, might be a bit of an understatement. The first things I remember wanting to be was either a fighter pilot, a native-American Indian or a police officer. My poor eyesight and wonky corneas ruled out the first, my strictly Norwegian and Swedish ancestors quickly ruled out the second, and my innate laziness ruled out the third. Then it was the space-age. Imagine working with space launches and shuttles, or on a telescope station... Oh, I need to be a maths genius for that? No deal.

So logically I moved on to archeology. Somehow, brushing dust of old ruins, pots and pans or bones seemed unbelievably exciting to me, probably because I've always liked history, I even tried studying it, but 6 months studying it at university sapped the joy out of academic history to me - I'll stick to books and movies, thank you.

When I went to high school some years earlier, I studied medias and communications, and I loved those three years. Learning about design, photography, journalism, filming, text composition and advertising was incredibly fun, but sadly I didn't magically discover any huge talent in any of these areas - the closest would've been the journalism, but I'm not curious or interested enough for that. And I hate the idea of having to go around with a portfolio and "sell myself" like a product, I just don't have that kind of self-confidence in me.

After a month in Africa, all I wanted to do was go back and work, and my first thought was to study development and the 3rd world. Of course I didn't get in at the study I wanted, that was why I ended up with history for 6 months, and when I researched it a bit more I figured that the place I'd most likely end up after studying that, would be some Ministry of Foreign relations office, or an embassy. Swimming around in papers? No thanks.

"It doesn't have to be that hard, stop waiting for some voice from the heavens or finding your calling. You like computers, no? Well, there you go. Study computer science!" My sister said. All righty then, sounds fair enough, she's older and naturally more wise then me. I took a pre-course in mathematics (a field we've already established I'm not exactly a genius in), passed, and started. Programming with C++ was all jolly exciting, I loved the "problem solving" of it, right up until the point where I didn't understand it anymore. Then we got engineering and abstract mathematics on top of it all, and combine that with my thousandth depression, and you have a crash and burn situation. I acknowledged my limitations and left after three months.

After that I haven't tried my hand at studying, I decided I had to clear my brain out before I would be able to function at school, so since then I've been working part time and going through therapy and treatment. For a while I worked at a senior citizens home, which I believe is the political correct term. I sort of liked it, I'm a caring person, I liked helping people who need it and I felt a sense of accomplishment. "Stop fooling around, you've been nagging about going back to Africa for years, become a nurse, then you can go back. And you have plenty of options in Norway too." That was a friend of mine trying to kick some sense of direction into me. I listened, and thought I'd decided. A nurse. I didn't want to work with old people, I wanted to be in a real hospital. Then I could go back to Africa and help kids with malnutrition and AIDS, give them food and shots and do something for humanity. If everyone says "There's nothing you can do about it, why bother?", naturally nothing would ever happen. And when I came back I could specialize. Maybe the intensive care unit? Cancer? Oh, or kids! I love newborns. Maybe mid-wife? The options seemed endless, and I finally calmed down for a year, concentrating on getting better.

Then I got this job. I feel I was sort of environmentally destined to be here. My mom loved books. My sister wanted to be a librarian (but didn't become one, weirdly enough thanks to mom). I've grown up around books, partly in this very library. And for the first time I like going to work. I don't monitor the clock every 15 minutes (like now, for instance, I was finished 38 minutes ago), I don't feel the need to sit down in a quiet area every hour just to catch my breath, the people I work with has a sense of humor and actually gives me praise for the work I do. So, what does that mean? Should I become a librarian? And there I go again...