The Cynical Career Counsellor Explains Your Future as

A Dancer

So kid, you want to be a dancer. Hmm--to do this, I'm going to have to start in your past--don't need to be a psychic to guess how that story goes...

You're the princess, right? Only child--or only daughter. There are photo albums full of you in little pink party dresses--applause for everything you ever did. You so wanted to be a dancer, so your parents put you in, even though most of the girls were a little older than you. You loved it--instantly. You loved the grace, the moves, the costumes, the music--you didn't even mind it when Olga snapped at you--called you a graceless cow, and said you were pathetic--what does a 7 year old know?

Time passed, and you got better--but so did the competition. You weren't expecting the back-biting and gossip to be so vicious--girls from better neighborhoods mocking your family station wagon, and wondering why you weren't going to the dance camp in France with the others.... Soon you noticed that the mean girls with the money were getting the best solos--the most time in front of the audience, yet you knew you were as good if not better than they were--but your dad didn't own a business that gave the dance company thousands of dollars worth of donations each year.

Fast forward a few years--you're one of the unlucky ones--puberty comes a little early to you, and you're carrying a little more weight--perfectly healthy, normal weight anywhere else--but it isn't good in a dance company. You probably grew a little taller than the other girls too--what are you now--five-nine? No matter, you were determined not to let it get in your way--no Olga's, or any of the other sadistic eastern european "teachers" who belittled your weight, your form, and your family's "dedication"--meaning you couldn't afford the extra classes and the summer camps--none of that was going to stop you, was it.

So here you sit--in my office, wondering if you need to go purge before that half-bagel your mother watched you eat in the car on the way here starts to digest--but that will have to wait--you need to know what's coming next.

You'll keep on dancing for another year, two tops, and then you'll attempt suicide after you don't make the company--you just don't have the body for it--even though everyone outside of dance tells you that you look great, but maybe a little thin--you go through a series of prescribed antidepressants with varying degrees of success--you try yoga, meditation, tai chi--but you're still laying awake at night hearing Olga call you a cow, over and over. Eventually you get healthy enough to go to night school to finish your high school equivalency, and you decide that if ballet wasn't for you, maybe you can still make a living with dance--you go audition for shows with cruise lines, kids travelling story theatres, and more--but you just never really developed much stage presence in all those years of prancing about on your toes and listening to abuse--you've hidden your pain and emotion for so long now you need to show them you can't.

Eventually you head to Las Vegas--you've got the looks to be a showgirl, and you tell yourself that topless doesn't cheapen you--it's just french beach attire, but somehow a bit more of your already limited self-respect is destroyed. You never quite have what it takes to make it as a front line dancer there, and varying diets and plastic surgeries just distract you from the dead end your career is heading towards. You finally wake up one day and realize that you haven't danced on a stage without a pole for three years, and the offer from "executive escorts" is beginning to sound like a viable option...

You snap out of it, pack up, and head for home. You're done with letting other people judge you, and you're going to take control of your life, and start with a symbolic action--you head back to your dance company--you're going to give Olga a piece of your mind for the hell she put you through. Problem is, you're a month too late--Olga's dead, but the company manager remembers you, and ends up offering you a teaching job--you'll work with the novice ballerinas group. You're thrilled--you can help end the cycle of self loathing among young dancers...

Unfortunately, your programming goes deeper than you ever realized--who is that chubby girl in the back row? Doesn't she realize that her thumping about on stage is distracting the real talents in the group? What are her parents thinking--they should put her in Irish dancing--they like a heavy step. You find yourself singling the girl out for criticism, along with others like her, and you sleep fine at night...

Others might not understand, but you know that somewhere, somehow, Olga is finally smiling at you, and that's all that matters.

The Cynical Career Counsellor Explains Your Future As

A Farmer
What? Oh, yeah, my 2 o'clock. Sorry--I threw my back out last night and this medication I'm taking has messed me up--makes me all paranoid and... well, nevermind--let's get on with it. So, what's your big dream? A farmer? You kidding me? This isn't 1922, you know... All right, here's what I see:

You get a loan from a bank somehow--maybe your parents can cosign, I don't know, but eventually you find a farm you like and the price seems pretty good. You don't understand why the farmer keeps giggling and clicking his heels together as you sign the purchase agreement--or why there's all these other "for sale" signs on all the other farms.

Soon you're settled into your farmhouse. It's got character--which means the wiring is bad, and there's rats--everywhere. The barn needs a new roof, and ten thousand dollars later, you're getting a little stretched for cash. No worries--that crop will take care...wait a minute--crap, they don't have hailstones that big in the city--these things are like golf balls.

So your first year is a writeoff. You somehow get the bank to loan you more, and you decide to change crops--there's good money in Canola, you hear. Problem is, there's this big company named Monsanto, and they're kind of like the genetically-modified mafia, and anyone who wants to get the good seed has to go kiss their ring, and pay big bucks. So you do, and you make a small but encouraging profit. But then the big company says you have to pay a lot more for your seed the next year. You decide not to, and plant non-GM canola. Problem is, some of the old plants' seeds got mixed in, plus some of your neighbor's stuff blew onto your land and started growing.

Monsanto science goons in black cars and suits come and check--they threaten you with all kinds of evil repercussions for using their product illegally. Soon, you're noticing strange clicks on your phone lines. Your electricity goes off for no reason, and there are these strange crop circles. Soon one of your cattle tests positive for Mad Cow disease, and then there's a quarantine. Late at night, strange lights flash quickly over your fields, and the sheep start exhibiting signs of radiation sickness. Your cell phone and other electronics start picking up strange, garbled language--like nothing from this world.

You start having strange dreams--grey alien heads with huge eyes, leaning over you while you're strapped to a table. You go for a routine checkup to get some sleeping pills, and the doctor runs some tests and x-rays--really he's a vet; no doctor will work in this god-forsaken little hole of a farm town--and he informs you of the alarming fact that you no longer have an appendix or gall bladder, and you appear to have a cow's heart beating in your chest.

Meanwhile, Monsanto's lawyers have succeeded in getting a court order to seize everything on your farm, and by the end of your third year they've auctioned off your property, and you are in a mental institution for as long as it takes for you to realize that you shouldn't talk about your dreams....

Look kid, I gotta go home. I'm kinda freaked out right now. Can we finish this tomorrow? I need to go put some bigger locks on my doors...

Take up our quarrel with the foe...

Really don't like Remembrance Day assemblies much. Hard to really explain why--the whole day is a rather awkward one--it puts me in an odd mood.

As a kid, we would sometimes go down to the cenotaph--the war memorial--for the annual Remembrance Day ceremony--I think my grandfather would be there--he fought in the first world war and was in the Legion, i recall. The main thing about the day was remembering, and in our family it was partly about my dad's brother, who I was named after. He was maybe year and a half older than my dad--he was the golden child, good looking, popular.

He was a runner--he ran the mile in under 4:10 when the world record was still over 4 minutes--and the army put him on their track team. He could've stayed at home--competing--but when his friends shipped overseas, he chose to go with them. He survived until near the end of the war--there were only a few weeks left in it when he was killed in Germany. He didn't have to be there; he had been wounded on an old knee injury and had been in hospital, but essentially checked himself out to rejoin his friends in the fighting. They didn't bury allied soldiers in Germany, so his grave is in Holland.

My dad, lying about his age, had also tried to enlist, but because of rheumatic fever was turned down. A few months after losing his only sibling, my dad's fiancée was holidaying in Wales when she was killed in a car accident. What began shortly afterwards was a journey--he left his home in Manitoba, stopping to work at various spots for a few months at a time--I think the longest he stayed in one place was maybe a year and a half. This migration steadily westward took a decade, and finally he ended up on the coast, where he settled and eventually married my mom in his mid-30s.

My mom had grown up in England--her war memories were of her brothers in the battles, and she and her family being evacuated when the Germans bombed them, coming out to see the devastation by day. Her older sister met and married a Canadian, and eventually she and two of her brothers also immigrated to Canada--where she met my dad--so, in a sense, the war also brought them together, only years later.

For my first few years teaching drama, the Remembrance Day assemblies automatically fell to me--and I created a variety of presentations; tasteful and generally short. It was only at my current school that I grew tired of the obligation--I didn't really like having to balance between those who wanted only a memorial service to honour a noble sacrifice, and those who'd have us preach the stupidity of all war and the futility of any war deaths. Plus, the very best that kids were to get as feedback from their audience was total silence.

I gave it up a few years ago, and I haven't regretted it. I'll be playing the piano for a soloist at tomorrow's assembly, and that's plenty for me. I still don't know how to feel about it all...

J.

The Cynical Career Counsellor Explains Your Future as

A Police Officer

Hey--you're the kid who won that "ride along" thing, aren't you? You must've really liked it. Okay, so you want to be a cop. Let me tell you about what you can expect.

First you'll have to decide if you want to be RCMP--which means you have to get a degree, be bilingual, and ready to move to the arctic on a moment's notice, or if you want to be a city cop, which means you get lower pay, less respect, and uglier uniforms.

I'm guessing you'll choose city cop--you don't want to live in Fly's Elbow, Saskatchewan--so you'll need to go to the justice institute--where you'll spend an inordinate amount of time learning how to shoot accurately and drive fast--things that will be an incredibly minor part of your day to day job... What they really should be spending time on is telling you how to find a good divorce lawyer, and what to do when you are falling asleep with boredom over the incredible volume of paperwork you have to complete every week--usually for things like traffic accidents and noise complaints.

Eventually you'll have the sort of action you crave, and the stress of watching a partner get wounded will haunt your nightmares for weeks. Your spouse will try to communicate with you, but you'll drift further and further apart, and your main solace will be the bottles of scotch you drain quicker and quicker, and begin to hide around the house.

When they're young, your kids will think you have the coolest job in the world, and you'll be the most popular visitor to the elementary classroom--whether it's for parent career day, where you let them see the lights and hear the siren, or if you're doing the bike safety course every spring. Unfortunately, by the time they're 14, you're an embarassment. Their friends don't want to come over to your house because they can't do things comfortably they do other places--to prove they're not "narcs", your kids go overboard proving their willingness to get into the drug/party scene, and you never get used to the embarassment of your coworkers bringing home your kids in a marked car.

You are divorced before they graduate, and they immediately bond with the new guy your wife quickly replaces you with. They grudgingly visit you at the prescribed times, and the interactions you have with them are awkward and uncomfortable. They hate the trashy cop fetishists that pursue you and you find easier to just hook up with rather than look for real relationships. You begin volunteering for overtime--working as much as you can to escape the hollowness of your life and the apathy of your children.

Eventually you make a mistake--you shoot an unarmed man in a domestic dispute. Media attention, public disgrace, and a temporary 'stress leave" end with you quietly taking early retirement--you spend your golden years as a shopping mall security guard--your kids send you a card every christmas...

The Cynical Career Counsellor Explains Your Future As

An Architect

Hmm--nice dream, kid--you see that's what it is--a dream. You see yourself as the next Frank Lloyd Wright, but let me tell you how this will really turn out.

First of all, you'll go to school and fill your head with idealistic visions of great and inspiring creations--buildings that make urban blight a thing of the past--buildings with heart, passion. Then you'll get your first job. You won't get to actually design a building--someone else is in charge of that--you get to look after all the washrooms--34 of them--in an office building. No problem, you think--your creativity will shine even there. Then your boss explains that none of your fancy marble and brass will do--it's melamine counters, and vinyl-covered drywall. You bite your tongue and go along--something you'll get to be very good at.

Time passes--you don't get to do dream houses, urban renewal, or museums--but you do get to design your own projects--strip malls. You know, the little ones with the liquor store, the 99-cent store, a payday-loan place and some no-name coffee place. Maybe a sub stop and a pet store if you're lucky--

You dream of making a difference, but there's no money in that--besides, your take on basic bland is popular. You try to sneak in your artistry and creativity--but the project managers explain that your venetian tiling is too expensive, or the engineers point out that your fancy clock tower doesn't conform to new earthquake safety standards.

Eventually you hate leaving your home, because everywhere you go your mediocre buildings mock your dreams. More and more of your clients have home drafting/design software packages and bring their ill-informed and irrelvant ideas to you--you are barely able to restrain your desire to throttle them with your bare hands...

You finally save enough money to realize your dream of designing and building your ideal home--but then your boss--who is hinting that you will be a full partner in the company if you continue to impress him--explains that his present to you for your loyal service to to bring all of his years of architectural genius and experience to the job of creating your dream home. You struggle to take control, but he won't take no for an answer. To hold on to a job you secretly despise, you end up letting him design an abomination--it gets a few curious and unenthusiastic reviews in some architectural journals, and though you loathe it, you can never move--unless you want to give up your job security, and you've invested too much in that to let it go.

The worst part is that everyone who visits your home immediately decides you could never design anything for them....