Well I Thought About the Army.

  Most boys and some girls at some stage go through a phase of playing armies, I guess it's something that you see on TV and in movies and think is really cool. This is just a reminder that real war can be fairly awful, there's bad food, noise, dust, lots of marching, tent erecting, gun cleaning and killing people plus your smart uniform gets all dirty and your Mum's not around to wash it for you! So the reality does not at all match up with the fantasy. This is the same with a number of childhood aspirations I eventually discovered. They seem awesome at first, then learning how to do the job is quite boring. I'll take you through a few professions that I was going to pursue as a child until effort rose it's fugly head.

Army Officer - As I found out this required going to some weird army university called Duntroon or something, I had 6 more years of school to complete at that point so the thought of doing more wasn't palatable. The army was then out, playing armies was still totally in though.

Park and Wildlife Officer - I love animals and wearing khaki shorts (even too this day) once again there was university to complete but I thought it might be easier because I knew a lot of the animals names already. Then I found out there was fencing and wooden hut building involved plus you might get posted to somewhere dusty which was kind of what I hated about the army i.e. getting my khaki shorts dirty.

Chef - This was realistically something I could do but then I figured out that someone has to do all the washing up from the cooking plus the restaurant. Would that be my job as a chef? I didn't know but I'd already washed enough dishes by the age of 10 to know I was definitely going to avoid it as a an adult. Being a Chef was too risky, think again Dan.

Astronaut - Too me this was like driving a car but in space and with rockets. I was never on board with all this going to the Moon business but shooting lasers from a safe distance at evil space aliens seemed a good way to earn a living and there was generally a uniform that was sometimes khaki. I then found out you had tone Russian or American to become an astronaut so that drew a line through that plan!

  So it was one crushing revelation after another on the career front for little Dan but then something wonderful happened, I found sport, but that's a whole different disappointing chapter.