ambitions.

I think you can trace your life through the answers you give to the question: "what do you want to be when you grow up?". It's something that doesn't stop getting asked until you're approximately 12; what happens then is you start to ask yourself this question.

When I was a tyke, I wanted to be a ballet teacher. I turned 10 and decided that I was going to be a detective. I turned 14 and figured that being a fighter pilot was my life calling. Then I started reading material about globalisation, about poverty - I wanted to change the world. At 16 I was going to be a journalist. At 17 I was shouldered into medical school, and now, as I face the prospect of turning 18, I know that I will be a doctor by choice.

Strange that being a schoolteacher never appealed to me though, don't statistics show that one has a high chance of becoming what their parents are? Maybe that's because it's familar ground. Maybe people are mostly too scared to venture into the wide world around them. But for others of us, we feel our personal world is too small. We want to be global citizens, chasing change. I know I do. One lives and learns, and only stops learning by choice.

As I look back, I realise that I've dismissed the prospect of being ballet teacher and/or detective, I think those were just phases. But I've never let go of my love of books and the opportunity to change the world around me, I still think I will be a journalist. And remote as it seems, I still wish that one day I'll be able to strap myself into a cockpit and lose myself in the skies. Doctor, Journalist, Flighter Pilot. Can they be one?