If you are here, then its because you have watched the podcast this evening, 30th October 2021.
I have a giveaway based on my question tonight, where the winner will receive a 3 month GPU code, given I am pretty sure they are global for any use. It is unaffiliated with the site in general aside me asking lovely Nick if its OK, so anyone is allowed to join in. Given its my giveaway I would like to be able to pick the top 3 answers and roll a die to pick the winner, or maybe we ask a mod to roll the virtual die for us.
So the question is the same as mine tonight for the Panel,
Pod-Panel, we all had dreams in our youth, of what our lives would be, how we would turn out. Can you name for me in ascending order the top three things you wanted to be when you grew up, and did you ever achieve those dreams?
Given its between me and the community I reserve the right to think more fondly on those who would give a little more than just a numbered response without some fun explanation.
Oh my. I know when I was a young SuikerBrood I talked about this with my mom, lol. Anytime she asked what I wanted to become when I grow up I would say; Iād like to be at home and have three children.
So, I never made it to three āTop answersā cuz this would always be my answer. Funnily enough I didnāt achieve that at all, lol. I work a lot and donāt have children. (Though Iām 29, so not worried yet! Haha).
How old we talking? Iām going with āyoung and unawareā, hence this disparity in how thrilling these careers would be!
Train driver - was a massive train nerd as a kid and couldnāt think of anything better than riding the rails all day every day. Having spent time on trains as an adult I couldnāt think of anything worse than being the only responsible adult dealing with the general public.
Astronaut - this one actually persisted to adulthood to the point of selecting degree and some extra curricular learning. Iām not anywhere near smart enough, though, and enjoy games too much to commit the effort!
Iāll be honest, if I made a list of 3 Iād be lying, because I honestly donāt remember anything other than the first one:
I wanted to become a Formula One driver. Specifically because of Iron Chin himself, David Coulthard.
Alas, I didnāt have billionaire parents like Lance Stroll or Mazepin, so thereās that. However I do enjoy karting although my boss would disagree with this considering the last outing we had.
1 I wanted to be a chef on the cruise ship that has always been my dream and still is today but I cannot do it today because I fell in love.
2 Wanted to become a professional footballer the closest I ever got in my life was in the youth team for Gillingham FC which was my hometown club but I had to give it up due to my health at the time.
3 Work in game development on a Legend of Zelda game but I was never very good in a classroom so university to learn coding and game development never seemed like a good idea
Growing over the years, there were various things I wanted to do when I grew up, but alas I definitely went on a different path.
Until about the age of 14 I wanted to be a paleontologist (I was probably the only person in my class that could spell that out for many years lol). My love for dinosaurs was (and still is) immense. Digging up fossils, researching prehistoric life, going to remote islands to fight off genetic frog lizard abominationsā¦ it all sounded so amazing!
A little later in my teens, I started getting more interested in marine biology. Being born and raised in Minnesota, USA, there are plenty of lakes and rivers that allowed me to become more attached to this idea. I even loved the idea of going fishing and sending the catches back, but of course my family wasnāt too keen on activities like this. My last couple years of high school let me to go on a path of computer engineering, then eventually changed majors to business so I definitely strayed far away from this interest.
Lastly, and my most recent interest, has just to become professionally involved in the game industry in some way, probably more on the marketing/administrative/business side of things. I definitely have not gotten to this, but I really hope to be able to push towards this goal someday. I do a YouTube channel with a couple buddies that I hope can be a platform for me to build some more connections in the industry, or even just be able to entertain some people with similar interests. Do I plan on letting it be a long term thing? Weāll see.
Outside the channel, I currently do computer entry for an insurance company. I started there this past year and its been a huge change of pace from my previous retail/fast food/service jobs. Iām liking it there and could see myself staying for a long time, but again who knows whatāll happen.
Thanks for making this thread Cerys. Always cool to get to know the community just a little bit more. <3
Honestly not sure I had 3 unless we bend the term āyouthā a bit.
3 ??? I suppose if you count your 20ās as your youth, Iād say astrophysicist. Achieved it but was surprised to find that teaching was more and more intriguing to me and the field of astronomy specifically had become overrun with stamp collector types as I call them. Now I teach and research PER which focuses on how students learn complex concepts. I am especially interested in the overlap between game design and education design.
2 Artist: Sort of achieved it. Was portrait artist for a bit, got immediately overwhelmed and gave it up. Now I do some art sort of with my etsy shop, but it isnāt stuff I really see as art 90% of the time since most of the artwork side of things is what others I work with do beforehand. Frankly though I am happy with not doing this professionally in a more rigorous way since dabbling there made me hate it instantly.
1 Professional baseball player; achieved it but not to the level I wanted, only played a season in the Frontier League which is a semi-obscure level between A and AA (below AAA let alone majors). Got bored with the bro-dawg mentality of my teammates (GREAT guys I just never had a lot to talk to them about off the field) and was perfectly comfortable giving it up, even though I spent ~20 yrs dedicated tot he dream. Kinda strange in that regard actually. /shrugs Had I kept playing at a higher level and accomplished the full dream, Iād be rich but a radically different person in a bad way imho.
Something I now aspire to eventually do is build a studio of like minded educators who can work with game designers to make educational content that is vastly more engaging than what is on the market now. Fingers crossed!
To own a corner shop. My mate lived above his families one and it looked the dream. All the paninni stickers. All the sweets. People just walked into your house and gave you money.
To be a comic book artist.
Other than a short period of dabbling in more āfine artā at art college, the second one stuck.
And I did put out a few self published alternative comics after uni. Sold them at conventions and in a London comic shop. There wasnāt much of a market back then. While itās not my job I still do illustration and occasionally sell some, but drawing is more for me now than a career.
3. Archaeologist. Got to visit a dig locally when I was in primary school and then was obsessed by the TV Show Time Team here in the UK. Gave up that for
2 . Quantity Surveyor. Not quite sure now where that came from but it combined loads of subjects at secondary school I was good at. That was until I ruptured my Achilles Tendon playing football, I had amazing treatment and from then (aged 15) all I ever wanted to be was a
1. Physiotherapist. Qualified in 2006, 15 years in the profession this year. The last 18 months have been pretty wild working in healthcare (as you can imagine) but 90% of the time I wouldnāt change it.
I dunno I donāt think I really had a dream job as a kid, I always had more realistic expectations I guess. That said I still kinda had plans.
Engineer: I just liked the idea of creating things. I wanted to design my own airplane or car but at some point I realized there is a lot that goes into it and the āengineeringā part of it isnāt exactly hands on. I was thinking more like playing with LEGOs.
Video Game Designer: Iāve always loved video games and so it isnāt any surprise I wanted be involved in the industry somehow, but again reality hits you. I think this is a common to think āI have these cool ideas for a video game, lets go make itā To my credit I did have the idea for a Marvel fighting game before they came out (X-Men).
Financial Independence (Investing): It was early on that I knew I didnāt want to be chained to a job or be forced to work for someone else. I had always planned to somehow manage my money in such a way that it would work for me rather than me working. I havenāt really achieved this yet, but I am working on it.
Iām still quite young, so I cannot really definitively say whether Iāve achieved them or not, but I doubt that I will:
Given that I watched a lot of martial arts films in my childhood, I naturally wanted to become a martial arts film actor. I knew that there was next to no chance of this actually happening, but I liked to dream about it. Still do, actually. As a kid, I did take karate lessons, but eventually I had to quit as I had too much going on to focus on it.
Second, I wanted to be a scientist. This was when I was super young, like in elementary school or so. Being so naive back then, I thought it was always like in those images where you see them pouring chemicals and stuff, lmao. The amount of writing youāve gotta do as a scientistā¦ itās just not for me. I ended up getting steered more towards math and computer science, though. Donāt really have an interest anymore, soā¦ not happening.
I also wanted to potentially become a game developer. Connecting with what I said earlier, it was specifically my dream to direct my own martial arts-inspired video game, and it still kinda is. The thought of delivering a product that can bring joy to others excited me. The possibility is certainly still open for me (as Iām going into the field of computer science), but hmmā¦ Iām not so sure anymore. I kind of lost the motivation, to be honest. Iāll have to see.
Iāll disqualify myself from the prize because I only had two, but thatās ok because Iām getting enough MS Rewards points to subsidize my GPU sub! But I donāt think Iāve had any other dreams than these twoā¦
1) Play in the NHL:
I didnāt do anything to pursue this goal, but even up to my teens I would just fantasize about being a hockey player. How I would play, score goals, make big defensive plays, and even give postgame interviews. To achieve this goal I should have been playing in actual ice hockey leagues rather than on the streets. So this may be more of a fantasy than a dream.
2) Become Sonic Teamās lead designer for their Sonic games:
As a preteen I was completely enamored with Sonic 3. I loved the idea of designing levels for the game, more physics based gadgets for him to interact with, and so on. Designing boss fights and chase sequences. Not too long after I started playing around with making levels in DOOM and taking them to a local computer store as deathmatch levels for tournaments. Around that time I was accepted into Nintendoās Digipen school but couldnāt afford to move and attend So I started Comp Sci at my local college. Kept making levels in Half Life, made Unreal Tournament mutators, while doing my degree. Also wrote game reviews for my local paper. So Iāve sort of built my extracurriculars to get into game design. I am working on an Xbox game right now and so in some respects Iām still building towards that path. If I really want to design the next Sonic game though, I would have to hunker down for a month or two and build out a prototype of what I think of 3D Sonic game should be (physics based, exploration, etc) and submit it for SAGE (a Sonic Fangame Expo) to get peopleās attention. And then hopefully people would be like, āThis is what a 3D Sonic game should have been like, why hasnāt anyone done this before, someone hire this manā and then Sonic Team Canada is formed and Project 5onic is created and released in 2024 as āSonic 5ā. And by that time Microsoft buys SEGA so itāll be on Xbox and everyone here can play it day one on Game Pass.
This one is an interesting one. As a kid, I used to come up with business ideas. I had a whole notebook full of scribbles about them. I came up with Consumer Package Goods ideas and designs. I had big plans. Of course, there was something of an innocent naivete about me. If I didnāt differentiate my products, why would anyone buy them? But my heart was always bigger than my brain.
Flash forward to today, and so far this dream has yet to come to fruition. I guess my biggest concern is given the economy, Iām not certain I want to take the necessary risks involved in starting up a firm. 3 out of 4 startups fail. Yet, I do have aspirations on Horizon 2 or 3 as Phil Spencer likes to say, as I have a unique and disruptive idea that I want to see through. This will hopefully happen in the next 5-10 years as I build up enough of a portfolio of expertise to make it worthwhile.
Make movies.
I have a laundry list of half-finished scripts, camera tests and editing projects, but very little to my name. I did, however, edit this, so at least I got something done. www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8NOi9-rGok
A stand up comedian. It turns out Iām not very funny.
A firefighter. It turns out I just wanted to play with a hose.
In high school I really got into IT. Oddly enough I canāt even do that much on a computer now because after high school I never messed with one again.
Gonna add a fouth. I thought about being a game tester and then found out that job is actually not as fun as it sounds.
OMG! So many awesome responses. With many more dirty little details I could have ever dreamed of.
Commence Project Cerys: Social hacking.
I feel bad I was not wimsical enough with my choices, so to add a little more.
I loved space and cosmosology from ayoung age and loved learning about planets and their formation and always dreamed of being like a planetary geologist and digging up new planets to find out their history. Much too stupid though.
Aside from that I loved film and theatre and stuff and was forced into Panto one year and just spent all the time watching the lights thinking what a cool job that must be to set a scene with lights, either naturalistic or fabulous.
Finally I grew up on Batman with Adam West and Burt Ward and Eartha Kitt/Julie Newmars Catwoman was just wonderfully sassy, sarcastic, gorgeous and powerful and I just wanted to be catwoman more than anything else. Unfortunately thats not how chromosomes workā¦ UNTIL NOW!
I loved being the Hausfrau just after our youngest was born, doing all that work to make your house and family happy rather than to make someone money was so fulfulling.
No wrong answer, I still donāt really know what I want to be at 44 anyway.
As someone who has moved extensively I am envious of the feeling of being so close to somewhere for as long as 26 years, so its not all bad
A rich kids sport indeed! āI learned to drive in my parents garden!ā
I get so seasick even the thought of making food on a boat is making me queasy
Awesome sharing knowledge, an admirable job Do you have patches on your jacket elbows?
Oooo those are some amazing things to be. I went to college with a Paleontologist and I was constantly envious she got to dig stuff up I have to find your channel and sub too
now thats a good dream!
Haaa! Amazing, I used to think it would be amazing to live above a newsagents right next to school
I want to see some cool art Stef!
More digging up stuff!
I am more interested in your Physio skills though vinnie given I have a dodgy old woman knee and a herniated disc which blebs out every now and then.
Ooo thats cool too, a friend of mine loved martial arts so much he has made a career in making martial arts based films so you can still serve 1 with 3 Besides youāre young, so the world is your mollusc.
I WANT the nrXic sonic game so much
I used to go watch Ice hockey when I was a kid, I donāt like sports generally speaking, but I did enjoy waching Ice hockey since there was fighting and ica based ballet!
Those are so cool, when I was in a house share with other film types I used to spend so much time playing with light and cameras and just exercise my creative muscles. I had so many plans for lighting states and different ways of lighting a scene and hacking different lanterns. I spent a weekend just seeing how cheaply I could make a functioning dolly rig using household chemicals and it was sooo much fun. and got used in an indie film. Looked amazing.
When I was at school I swapped IT for French, since āwho the hell is going to use computers, where as french is spoken loads of placesā As it happens I speak no French and have a passing knowledge of Fotran and nothing else.
keep them coming. I may even add something else to the pot if we get lots of entries 
Do you have patches on your jacket elbows?
