When I was a kid, I wanted to be a bee-keeper.
Don't ask me why, I have no rational explanation for it.
I don't like bees all that much. I don't eat honey all that much. I'm not into big white work uniforms or wooden boxes.
I quickly changed my vision to include flying jet fighters, F-14 Tomcats in particular. A few years later, I started wearing glasses and that particular dream went straight down the commode. And seeing as how my ungainly frame doesn't support exotic dancing, I've been mentally bouncing from career to career ever since.
Lately, I've been thinking more seriously (haha, right) at working in the movie industry. Writing screenplays or something along those lines. I think I'm a good writer. I'd hire me. Either that or stand up comedy. Or rapping. Maybe managing a band. In fact, the only careers that I haven't considered are those in my area of study, international business. A degree opens so many doors and frees up so much opportunity, but sometimes those opportunities just sound too goddang boring to consider.
Every day, I see hundreds of Hong Kong locals that are trying with every fiber in their being to achieve a career in something that I wouldn't think twice about passing up. It really makes me contemplate where my priorities lie, and whether or not they are of any quality. Should I suck it up and go into finance? A managerial position at a telecommunications firm? It just doesn't seem right for me. Is it a cultural difference, then? Or the fact that my university here in HK is primarily focused on business? I don't know anymore.
It's such a different academic culture here, with seemingly vast differences in goals. I'm probably just short-sighted, but it's hard to be anything different when my time here is so limited. Hong Kong is the epitomy of rat race to me. It's working to live on one end of the spectrum, and living to work on the other. Pastimes seem limited and recreation seems rare.
On a slightly different note, I'm really starting to view my time in Hong Kong as slipping by much too quickly for my liking. I've got less than a semester more, and the day I leave will be sad one. No matter how much I complain, I'm glad to be here. And glad that I don't have to compete with 400 locals for a basic corporate accounting position.
I have to agree with you. We only met for less than a dozen times and I barely got to know you. Something I have my regrets about, but that is life I would say.
ReplyDeleteThe four years I spent there is the best of my life, I got there at your age even. Damn I feel old.
But I guess your thinking is right, it's the process that makes it harder. I have a degree in something I find hard to get employment in. That said I don't have an impressive portfolio, nor grades to charm "the man".
What I am saying is just what many before me has said, know what you are good at and stick with it. If it is writing, then scribble every effing day.
I am looking forward to your first movie, hopefully under the pseudonym of "Sea Otter".
C