What do you want to be? Part 1

The very first thing I can remember wanting to be was an archeologist, but I only wanted to be that because I didn’t know that the title for the job I wanted was paleontologist. According to The National Park Service*, archeology refers to “the scientific study of historic or prehistoric (pre-European contact) peoples, their material cultures and activities through the recovery and analysis of artifacts, inscriptions, structures, and other such remains,” while paleontology means “the study of the history of life on Earth based upon fossils preserved within rock strata or some geologic context.”
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So fossils meant dinosaurs and for me, dinosaurs were always very interesting; I loved looking at books of these giant beasts in their artist-imagined habitats. I watched a show called Dino-Riders...

​...and owned lots of dinosaur toys (which I still have today)!

I love dinosaurs! 

​​Did I want to become a paleontologist to discover what happened to them—volcanoes, asteroids, disease, a flood? In truth, no, that’s not really what I was after.

In fact, I just wanted to see a dinosaur. So when the movie Jurassic Park came out, well, my ten-year-old self’s mind was blown. Genetic engineering, creating real dinosaurs, albeit with frog DNA! Did the dinosaurs breaking out of the park scare me? No, I mean, I would engineer a better park than that.

Oh, and I read this book called The Lost Kingdom about a dinosaur in a deep jungle.

What I wanted as a kid was to see a real live dinosaur… okay, what I really wanted was to ride one.

But in the end, I realized the reality of where technology was and what the near future of paleontology looked like. Paleontology was more Alan Grant in Montana than Owen Grady working with Velociraptors. 

So alas, what I wanted to be in my career began to change as my interests shifted.
Reply with your guess what that new interest was!
Read What do you want to be? Part 2 next month.

Read Part 2

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My love for dinosaurs comes into play in The Quest for Truth. Look at the cover of Unleash and in the glossary in the back! You’ll also discover clues to what my next job goal was!
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