Prompt # 38 - When I Grow Up I Want To Be . . .

Prompt # 38 - When I Grow Up I Want To Be . . . 

The only thing I was ever good at was school. My career dreams seemed to be just to be able to keep going to school and then to university. Because I loved art and buildings, houses, I enrolled in Interior Design at the University of Manitoba Fort Garry campus in Winnipeg. Because I had no training in art, and because I learned very quickly that they accepted 120 students in first year and only graduated 40 in fourth year, expecting 80 of us to fail, I switched after three weeks to the Faculty of Arts. For four years I studied only subjects I loved including English, French, history, and geology (with intro courses in political science, psychology, and linguistics).

After teaching for ten years, I went back and did my Masters in English. My thesis The Indian, the 'Other,' In the Canadian Quest For Identity: Four Prairie Novels Of the 1970s is available online. Ever since completing my MA I've considered myself a writer. I've worked on contracts or in careers which have been great sources for characters and stories.

I still love art and houses. I collect mission oak furniture and art from artist friends. Visitors say my house reminds them of a museum. I would rather they said it is like an art gallery. Whatever. I am surrounded by objects I've collected and love.

Still Life. Art, "Plate Tectonics," by my friend Carol Hurst. Sweetgrass braids, gifts from friends at home. Medalta lamp. Green and purple rocks including obsidian and Malachite. Atop Mission Oak dresser.

Of course, one of the things I did learn in ID is the difference between decoration and design.