Q and A: Hypothetical actions

In the space of just one morning, I have already whacked myself in the face with not one, but two heavy objects. First, a gust of wind blew my door into my chin when I got into my car. Later, I misjudged how much room I needed to get through a doorway, and one of the large mailing tubes I was carrying smacked me in the cheek. Unfortunately, I bruise really easily — “like a peach!” (anyone?) — but I haven’t checked a mirror yet to assess the damage. Face bruises are kind of high on my list of bad omens.

I need no second bidding to enter the land of fun possibilities and what-ifs, thanks to another lovely installment of Q and A.

Anna asked:

If you could trade places with anyone for one day who would it be and why?

My silly choice would be someone like Reese Witherspoon or Natalie Portman, because I love how they manage to avoid all of the stupid celebrity trappings like gossip, mug shots, and car chases while simultaneously being incredibly fashionable and career-savvy. I’m so curious how their everyday lives are. Maybe it’s more accurate to say that I’d like to observe them, in a non-scary way, than be them.

My lazy choice would be a dog with good owners, because seriously — that is the life, people.

However, I am currently struggling with the question of graduate school, and how it relates to potential but not guaranteed job growth, the financial consequences of taking out additional loans, and the investment of time and energy, so I am more inclined to make a boring choice. I would like to trade places with a pharmaceutical regulatory writer, so that I could get a glimpse into the career I think I want to pursue, and thereby have more insight into this grad school issue. Alternatively, I would like to trade places with someone who currently has whatever my dream job happens to be, so I can just figure that out already.

Operation Pink Herring asked:

If you could go back in time and change one thing you did, what would it be?

There are a handful of stupid, disrespectful, or downright awful things I did to my parents during my short-lived, yet fiery, teenage rebellious stage. I would like to go back to my seventeen-year-old self and prevent those events, if only to alleviate the annoying obviousness to my twentysomething self that, oh, I was such an idiot.

Also, for the sake of having a specific choice, I would not have run for student council in high school. It was such an overachiever thing to do, to run for vice president and president of my class, but that extra-curricular activity was the bane of my existence. My class was completely unmotivated to support car washes, buy carnation messages at Valentine’s Day, or dress up for Spirit Week, but they were totally on board with complaining about how lame our prom was. Plus, no one ever told me that the class president is responsible for planning reunions. Where was that in the contract? It doesn’t make sense for me to plan anything from 250 miles away, so I blindly assume that someone else will pull something together. I simply refuse to be in the reunion equivalent situation of rigging up a freaking balloon arch 45 minutes before the photographer gets there with his shiny fringe backdrop.

Previously: Lent