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Showing posts with label job. Show all posts
Showing posts with label job. Show all posts

Thursday, 15 March 2012

Growing up

First of all, I know that this post is a day late, but I was in a pretty bad state all day yesterday and didn't go online at all... But I didn't want to not post for a second time, so here is my post of the week!

Secondly, whatever you say, your story is much more interesting than mine!

On to my story now...

The one thing I am absolutely sure about is that I - for one - never, ever wanted to be a ballerina! I had a few girl friends who took ballet lessons, but they all started acting high and mighty after they started taking them. So, my young self associated ballet with pompousness (if such a word exists) and decided on the spot that she NEVER wanted to attend ballet lessons. Growing up, I realised that you can't judge a person just because they took ballet lessons, but then again, I was never really fascinated by ballet.

The only thing that I had ever pictured myself becoming while I was growing up was an English teacher. I always liked doing English homework and writing essays and reading books a lot more than I did with Greek homework. I seriously hated learning English grammar, so I have no idea why on earth I wanted to go to university to learn it all over again, but - to be fair - I was quite young then! I still like English, and I can teach it in an unofficial way (because I have the highest English certificate there is - from both the University of Cambridge and the University of Michigan), but I think I'm more of a "speaking and listening" kind-of person, as opposed to a "grammar-Nazi".

The idea for biological research only surfaced in my last year of school. I had always liked biology and chemistry and, during the last year od school, we did some very interesting lessons about genetics: DNA, RNA, proteins, viruses, gene therapies, animal cloning etc. All that stuff just sounded so interesting, that I pretty much decided that I wanted to do something like that... Not necessarily cure cancer or anything like that, but actively doing science-y stuff!

That was 5 years ago. Despite many frustrations I've had over certain aspects of biology, I can honestly say that I have not regretted my decision!

My advice to you? Think about doing something you think you actually like. It will make a big difference if you end up doing a job you actually like! :)




Wednesday, 29 February 2012

On the weird concept of bucket lists

First of all, I must apologise for the lateness of this post (once again). I thought I wouldn't have pressing deadlines for while, but it all came to kick me in the butt... So, yeah... Uni is hard work, let me tell you.

Anyways, this week's topic is bucket lists. First time I ever heard of a bucket list was sometime last year when a little girl who has cancer made a blog about all the things she wants to do before she dies. And people started responding to it and helping all of her wishes come true. My first question, naturally, was "why do they call it a bucket list?". I didn't really care enough to find out and hadn't really thought about the whole concept until Kate chose it as our theme this week...

Which essentially means that I do not have a bucket list of my own. So, people, I will have to think of a few things just on the spot...

Taking a cue from Anne (and in the process, stealing some of her wishes) here are some things I would like to have/do sometime in my life:


1. Own my own house with a LOT of books in every single room! And definitely a study of-sorts, where I would have even more books!

2. Travel a lot! I live on an island in Greece and I haven't been to many other places in Greece, due to the fact that you always have that extra boat trip to the mainland (which is a bit of a pain). So, I'd like to go to other parts of Greece, to all the countries in Europe and I would definitely like to at least visit one place on every single continent! One place I really want to go to is Australia! It must be weird to have snowstorms in July and wear shorts at Christmas....

3. Have a job that I actually like doing. I don't fancy getting stuck in a tedious 9-5 job. Actually, I don't mind the 9-5... I just want it to be on something I actually like doing.

4. Go to a book signing. This one might strike you as weird, but foreign (non-Greek) authors don't really come to Greece (not counting Victoria Hislop). I don't want to have a conversation with the author (I'm rather shy and not very talkative), I just want to go to one of those meetings! They sound fun!

5. Since I've already met Kate in person (and hopefully will be seeing more of her in the not too distant future!), I really, really would like to meet Anne in person! But she is so, so far away..... Someday! I promise!


That's all I can think of right now. They're not really all that interesting, but then again, I've never given the matter much thought (if any)... I'm actually rather proud of myself for coming up with these 5!

Let's see what next week has in mind for us!