I wanted to be a PE teacher when I grow up.

Yes, that was what I wanted to be whenever someone asked me that question. At the time, I didn't know it, but I probably knew myself better back then than I do now - the PE part anyway was true. The teacher part, maybe not so much.. Well, maybe..

See, for the better part of my childhood, I didn't know sports existed, except maybe for the running track in elementary school until 3rd grade. Until I was about 10 years old, I had never so much as had a ball, raquet, or any other sport equipment of any kind. That was the year that I moved to the US. That was the year I learned about kickball, tetherball, four squares, dodge ball, and pilo polo (kind of like field hockey, but with nerf sticks and balls on blacktop). From there, I watched football and baseball on TV for the first time when I was 11, saw classmates playing basketball and handball in the school yard when I was 12, and heard about other girls playing in softball leagues and boys in pop warner football.

I wanted to try all of those things - they all sounded like so much fun! I would ask if I could play softball, or basketball, or football, anything.. anything. But it was "un-girl like" for me to participate in sports - I remember mom saying. Don't get me wrong, I love my mom - the difference between my mom and I is that we grew up in very different households and different times. It wasn't kosher for girls to play sports where she grew up.

Anyhoo, so back to why I got started thinking about this. Before my volleyball game last night, there was a girl about 10 yrs old hanging around the court waiting for her mom to finish playing. I had my vball with me and was shooting baskets with it. The girl looked kind of bored, so I invited her to shoot around with me. I helped her adjust her shooting form and encouraged her to try different things, like using her legs when she shoots. It was just a different experience for me. I've never really had an opportunity to do that before, other than with my sister when she was younger. On occasion, people would ask me if I ever coach basketball. I always thought they were crazy because I am of the opinion that coaches were athletes who started playing the sport when they were in kindergarten, and then at least consistently at the varsiy high school level and maybe some college - as opposed to me, who hardly played varsity as a high school senior and then only city leagues afterwards. I don't even consider myself as good, just average, you know?

But anyway, with all the thoughts that had been running through my mind lately about a career pursuit/change/whatever you want to call it, or at least how undecided I've been about it, something in my subconscience must have woken up and reminded me that I wanted to be a PE teacher at one point. And yes, I thought about going into sports therapy as far as my junior year in high school, but then found out that I had to take anatomy and dissect cadavers. The idea of cutting into dead people didn't sit well with me, so I had stopped thinking about it.

Maybe I ought to think about it...