May 20, 1992

I found a paper that I’d written when I was thirteen about where I’d be in ten years. It was written on an old Kaypro. I got a 98.

In ten years from now, I will be twenty-three. I can’t exactly predict my future well but these are my dreams and I will work hard to get them.

I hope to be in my sophomore year at Texas A&M majoring in Engineering – minoring in Astronomy. I’d like to be an engineer – chemical or genetic – because that’s where the money is, and I want the challenges. I would also like to be an astronomer because I’m always reaching for the stars and that’s one way to become more familiar with them.

Chemical engineering is hard, I suppose, but still a sophomore at 23? I guess I have always been slightly behind the curve, like this one time in 1st grade they put me in gifted and talented math with Mrs. Kalina and I could barely count to twenty. She went around the room and called on each one of us and we had to count aloud and I knew I was in trouble because I could barely get past 8 so I took my fat pencil and tried to write/carve the numbers into my arm so I could cheat by the time she got to me. When she saw me looking down confusedly at my scratched up arm trying to decipher if that was a “1” or an “L”, she got up and marched me to Mrs. Bucek’s room and on the way over, I said, “Is this because I don’t read well?”

Reach for the stars??? No wonder I didn’t have any friends in the 7th grade.

I doubt I’ll have a husband when I am twenty-three because that’s just too young. I’m getting married when I’m 26 to a guy with brown hair and sparkling green eyes. He’d be 6’1 which would be nicely average for my height of 5’4. And he is going to have to work, not only around the house but in a good job because I am definitely not going to support a guy who sits on his lazy butt in a chair all day watching football and guzzling beer.

Right on! Even back then I knew men were trouble! Unfortunately, I am the one who sits around in chairs all day guzzling beer. Also, I am 5’7. I remember being in 7th grade and my friend had really big feet and I wanted big feet sooooàooo badly. I wanted to be 5’4 and have a size 11 shoe. What I didn’t know was that my unattractiveness would be directionally proportional to how hard I would be to knock over.

Our home will be a Kenmore home. You know like on that one commercial when everything was nice and white.

I forgot that I don’t like to clean. I have since amended this dream to a dirt-and-junk-mail-colored home.

I love animals so I hope to have lots of them. Two dogs; full bred. They’d be a Pekinese and a German Shepherd. There’s going to be a wall aquarium with exotic fish swimming around happily along with a turtle. I also hope to have two rabbits – Skeeter and Thumper – and they’ll probably be mini-lop ear. I think they are so adorable! I also hope to have a female ferret.

Ferrets stink and I am way to cheap and lazy to own a wall aquarium. Once I bought my ex-boyfriend a turtle and an onion for Valentine’s Day and he named him Rico and he stunk up the house so my ex-boyfriend let him go in the yard and Rico got run over by a car. He kept the onion for as long as I can remember though. Good times.

Looks. I am going to have the same grey and navy blue eyes. I would like to be rich (who doesn’t?) so I can buy a wardrobe to suit all of my moods. Beachy. Elegant. Plain and wholesome. My freckles will probably disappear and return only while I’m in the sun.

Notice how I cleverly used the word “suit” and even bolded it when discussing clothing. HAHAHA I am hilarious.

I will most likely helping the environment and endangered animals. SAVE THE WHALES!!! I might be working with Greenpiece. There is one thing I’m sure of, though and it’s the three R’s: Reduce, reuse and recycle. I’ll also paint: relaxing things like mountains with snow sprinkling the top or rain forests with little endangered animals playing in the streams that would run through the trees. Things like that.

It’s funny because I don’t remember being this much of an activist when I was kid, but wound up majoring in Environmental Science and getting a job doing environmental & regulatory compliance for Africa. I like how I was so passionate about Greenpeace that I misspelled it. And apparently, I watched a little bit too much of Bob Ross growing up.

I’ll have three cars. Each, like my wardrobe, will run for each of my moods. I’ll have a jeep for the beach. An ISUZU. A regular Ford for my wholesome mood. That would be for the store and it would have to be white. I’d also have a black convertible coupe for the elegant one. That would be for the opera or a night on the town with my mom. My other two cars will be really big so that we can carpool. Very conservative. STOP POLLUTION!!!

An Isuzu?? My dream was to have an Isuzu? I’m still pissed that I haven’t gotten one yet. And wholesome! I guess that was written the year before I started wearing miniskirts and doing somersaults in front of any boy that would look in my general direction. Also, it is very conservative to own 5 cars. Very conservative.

Of course this is all a fantasy life but this is my dream. Even though I probably won’t get it, I’ll try my best and reach for the stars and once I catch them I’ll reach for the sun.

Riiiiigggghhhhht. She should have given me a double 100 for that brilliant conclusion.