Miscellaneous Monday - Throwback Edition

[Meg Holbrook]

It's Monday morning here is sunny California! (86 degrees in April, what is happening right now??) Time for another Miscellaneous Monday!

I was having a random conversation with my nine-year-old this weekend about what he wanted to be when he grew up. His answer is a dentist, by the way. It got me thinking; I didn't know that I was going to be a systems administrator when I was little, I hadn't even known that was a thing! Just in time for that thought to pass, my son asked what I wanted to do when I was a kid. 

The answer will astound you... No, I didn't want to be an admin when I was a kid...

I wanted to be Belle from Beauty and the Beast. 

This is 100% the complete, unadulterated truth. I spent hours and hours of my life watching and rewatching that film. Singing at the top of my lungs the way that I suspect many annoying children shriek the themes from Frozen. My son got an enormous kick out of this answer. I am not a princess-y kind of gal these days. 

What did you want to be when you were a kid? Were you grounded in the realm of possibility like my son or a dreamer like myself? 

Comment below, bonus if I get pictures!

(Tiny baby princess Meg rockin a sweetazz perm).

[Monique vdB]

@Meg Holbrook 1. Did you see the play? 2. Did you see the live action version? 3. Did you see the Crosswalk: The Musical version? 4. What did you think of each of the above? I have many thoughts.

I wanted to be the "first female president of the United States" (sigh) and a teacher. I did end up teaching college English for about a decade! Here I am with my 8th grade teacher, Mrs. Makatura, who first taught me how to diagram a sentence:

[Meg Holbrook]

@Monique vdB:

1. Yes! I saw a play put on at the Music Circus in Sacramento last year. The music circus has a small stage, minimal staging, and is done amphitheater-style. Probably one of my favorite places to see a play. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gSlBi09kIQ

2. Yes! I was not as thrilled with the live action as I should have been, but I still thought it was pretty good. I would have liked to see a different Gaston. 

3. No :(

You still have a chance to be the first woman president. It's awesome that you felt empowered as a kid to have an aim like that. 

#nevergiveup #neverthelessshepersisted

Teaching is the best! I think that if the compensation for teachers wasn't so abominable, that's where I'd be. I used to do ABA (applied behavioral analysis) work with kiddos that have learning disabilities. I couldn't afford to raise my own family though, which is why I moved into the private sector. 

[Monique vdB]

1. I saw Les Miz at the Music Circus! I love that venue!!

2. I thought Ewan McGregor was kind of the weak point. I mean it's hard to compete with Jerry Orbach, but even so.  

3. This is hilarious and entertaining, enjoy.

Hopefully I will get a woman president in my lifetime but it definitely won't be me. 🤣 Politics seems like a nightmare!

Yeah I was adjuncting at several different schools in the Bay Area and it was a ton of work for not a ton of income. I still miss my students!

[Meg Holbrook]

I DID see the crosswalk musical! I forgot about it until I clicked through. Josh Gad though, love him so much. 

[Monique vdB]

"Who wants to do it in front of millions of people in a film… when you can do it in front of half a dozen Lyft and Uber drivers here?”

[Meg Holbrook]

He's a national treasure. 

[JoCo]

@Monique vdB Yay for sentence diagramming!

[Matt Doar]

Jacques Cousteau and then an astronaut. Ended up with a Ph.D. in building network switches, wrote three computer books and now I run Jira at a big company. Couldn't have predicted all that!

[Meg Holbrook]

I'm seeing in my head a very Steve Zissou-like Cousteau. Do you still have an interest in the great unknowns (space/deep sea)?

It's amazing to think about those spaces in relation to human life. I get that weird self-aware feeling that I'm very tiny in the scope of things when watching documentaries about space, the Mariana Trench, etc. 

You certainly have accomplished a lot in any case.

[Matt Doar]

Nice picture! An interest, always :)

[miikhy]

Such a great thread! I'd say I was aiming at both reality and dream as I wanted to become a famous Police officer (famous was important) to enforce the law and build a better world. 

Well, I'm building better workflows and enforcing custom field naming conventions, not too bad. The picture is a gift, even if at that time I might not even think about becoming anything in life :)

[Monique vdB]

My daughter wants to be an artist but NOT FAMOUS (she is very emphatic about that) so she is considering doing her work under a pseudonym. 🤣

Also that photo is amazing.

[miikhy]

Ahahah interesting opposite approach :o

[Monique vdB]

She says she doesn't want people to bother her. 😂😂😂

[miikhy]

Mouhahahaha you made my day!

[Meg Holbrook]

Awww, that LEETLE face! Were you hoping to participate on lots of harrowing high-speed chases??

I think the epitome of famous policing is when you have a theme song like Shaft. 

[Meg Holbrook]

@Monique vdB, your daughter is now my Patronus. 

[Monique vdB]

@Meg Holbrook her name is Mina, so she can be a Minacorn, and you two can poke people with your horns to keep them away from you. She'll love it. :) 

[miikhy]

That moment when you're not sure if posting that picture was a great idea :D

[Bridget]

@miikhy, born Atlassian Champion: 

[Monique vdB]

@miikhy what was it you were saying about posting that picture?

[miikhy]

There we are! Have fun 🙄

[Meg Holbrook]

We sound like a zord... 

The Mega-Minacorn... 

It's our final evolution. 

[miikhy]

Btw @Bridget we received some swag for our Company User Group here at National Bank of Canada, will fight hard to get one of those caps! Another picture will eventually follow!

[Jodi LeBlanc]

Oh my goodness @miikhy - super adorable baby pic!! 

[Karen O'Keefe]

@miikhy You win the Cutest Baby Ever award!

[Micky Caritte [Jaanga]]

Thanks :P feel free to share your picture as well :)

[Karen O'Keefe]

I'm not even sure I have any...

[AnnWorley]

I always wanted to be in a nerd rock band ^ 

[Monique vdB]

And so you joined Atlassian Support. Makes sense. 😄

[AnnWorley]

If only I could upvote your comment... :trollasateam:

[Monique vdB]

:rofl:

[Meg Holbrook]

This is an amazing picture. I love everything about it. 

[AnnWorley]

I am glad you enjoyed it, Meg. To me the unsmiling guy in the middle is hard to look at and keep a straight face.

[Jodi LeBlanc]

I love this thread @Meg Holbrook , I know it is no longer Monday but didn't get a chance to reply yesterday.  I wanted to be a veterinarian all my life, you inspired me to look back at my "School Days" portfolio last night and each year, when it asked what I wanted to be when I grew up, I chose "Vet", even though Vet was not listed in the 20 pre-filled career choices, I always wrote it in :)

I even did my BSc at University and assisted on several surgeries on cats, dogs and horses and dissected all sorts of animal cadavers.  However one day while volunteering at the Charlottetown Vet Clinic I had to put down a beautiful 15 year old pug. He looked up at me with those beautiful brown eyes and peacefully went to sleep on the table, the look of pain and sadness in the family members' face brought me to tears, and I cried for 2 weeks after that experience. I just couldn't seem to get over it.

It takes a strong individual to be able to end an animal's life, knowing it is giving the animal peace and it is for the best. Sadly my heart couldn't take it, and after that I decided to continue to love all animals unconditionally and volunteer at the Humane Society but no longer pursue my dream of becoming a veterinarian. Someday I might have a sanctuary farm for animals, perhaps in my next chapter.

***My love of animals begun at an early age with my first dog named Cuddles :)***

 However, now I am a public servant, a career I never considered in childhood, but that I love very much! Everything happens for a reason :) 

[Meg Holbrook]

What an adorable picture! Thank you for sharing your story. 

I can understand the toll that veterinary work takes on a person. My husband has been in the animal care profession his entire career. He worked at a number of local shelters and zoos and has always said that euthanasia is the most difficult part of his world. 

Fortunately, he doesn't have to perform that procedure often these days and instead maintains an outdoor colony of Rhesus Macaques for the purpose of studying autism. 

I hope someday you get your ranch. Sanctuaries that house animals from all backgrounds are truly amazing places to visit. There's one in Napa, California which is a blast to visit. 

[Monique vdB]

@Jodi LeBlanc thank you for sharing. I also have a friend who is a vet and so compassionate, but I know she has to euthanize animals as part of her job; I don't know how she does it. I hope you have lots of animal love in your life :) 

@Meg Holbrook Shambala is also a very cool place to visit, it's owned by Tippi Hedren (star of The Birds and Melanie Griffith's mom).  She was there greeting guests when we visited, but that was many years ago -- I think in 2000? 

[Meg Holbrook]

It always amazes me how many of these really cool sanctuaries are in California. Have you ever seen Lions, Tigers, and Bears in San Diego?

[Jodi LeBlanc]

Thanks @Meg Holbrook & @Monique vdB 😊 This dodo video made me really want a little sanctuary, such a peaceful lifestyle making a difference for one animal at a time: https://youtu.be/jg4hFf-zmn8 😊

[Thomas Schlegel]

This is little Thomas:

When I was a little bit older,  I wanted to be a Radio Host. I played that with a microphone and the old 60's records of my mother. Later, in the 80s then, I wanted to be a DJ, spent a lot of time on remixing songs (of course without Computer or multitrack recording), just with a simple cassette tape recorder... 

[Meg Holbrook]

Awww, baby @Thomas Schlegel!

I want to know if you still have mixtapes... and also if you got caught up in the 'fruity loops' remixing craze. 

[Thomas Schlegel]

@Meg Holbrook - the tapes are somewhere in my parent's attic. But I think it will be better to not listen to them anymore :-)

I don't know Fruity Loops, but today, I do some DJing now and then for parties and weddings using my iPad and DJ Pro - Software. Things are much easier today than in the 80's :-)

[Heth Siemer]

As a kid I knew I wanted to be one of two things: -either- the first being a Marine Ecologist who specialized in Pelagic Elasmobranch fish and Architeuthis... aka deep sea sharks and giant squids. I am still obsessed with deep sea sharks. I mean, have you seen how cute a frilled shark is?!?!

I originally went to school for this, and discovered that it is a passion... but not a skill. So then it evolved into video game design which I'm currently going to school for.

There was a phase when I was in kindergarten that I wanted nothing more than to have a job that involved a lot of buttons... then I discovered what a keyboard was... HEY at least one of my dreams -because- became a reality XD

I don't have any easily accessible kid pics... so here's a frilled shark!

UPDATE: It's weird that right now I'm labeled as a Technical Writer cause I can NOT English properly. 

UPDATE to my UPDATE: apparently using -dashes- to strike out a word doesn't work DX

[Veronique DUFOUR]

I wanted to be a chemist to discover a medicine to cure AIDS (It was sort like the covid in the news during the 80s-90s). After High School I changed to Computer Sciences and here an I since then :)