A Little About My Career Choice
A common question that several people ask youths my age is "What do you want to be when you grow up?" My answer to this question is not your everyday response, and that is what I am going to talk about.
I am pursuing a career as well as a desire to work with the dead. I am aware that this freaks a lot of you people out, but it is not the dead part that appreals to me, it's the body. I would like to start out as a basic mortician balming bodies and eventually go on deep into the pathology field to be a coroner of some sort.
Why would someone want to work with dead bodies you ask. Well, I'll show you where I'm coming from. To start off, math and I don't get along at the advanced level (anything beyond advanced algebra, such as calculus). So that eliminates a lot of career choices, even though choises such as architecture do appeal to me. I am a pretty strong writer, but despise anything alse that has to do with english, such as reading. I despise history and it's relative subjects. History is the past, the past is behind us, and I feel that there is almost nothing we can gain from it physically in the sirvival race. Sure you can learn from other people's mistakes, and you can make and break records, but to me, those are petty thrills. How is history going to keep you from getting a disease, how will it cure you when you get in a car accident? I am very strong in science. I enjoy plants and animals, but animals make me too sad when they die. Plus most of them scare me off when they are alive. Plants are complicated, and there aren't that many professions in that field, and most of them aren't going to get you too far on the money scale. Well, next comes my fascination with the human body. For some odd reason, the human body is so interesting for me. I always pay attention when it comes to studying it. For me, it is appealing because it is always changing, and the medical world is very rewarding. There are several cures that are being searched for, and there are a lot of medicines to be invented. This field leaves me with options like being a nurse or a doctor. But I can't seem to bare the sight of seeing other people in pain. I would not be able to work on a body knowing that the person was crying in pain. That also eliminates being a physical therapist of any sort. Well, I could be a surgeon of some sort, but here comes the med school thing once again, and also, I would never be able to work knowing that someone's life is in my hands. The stress of knowing that if you screw up the slighest bit that you could be responsible for someone's death and possibly have a lawsuit on your hands would not mix well with me. I am semi interested in radiology, but here comes my math, ugh, and once again, watching people in pain. So, in having many intellectual discussions with my mentors, they all seem to jokingly come up with the same conclusion. Go into the mortuary field. Well, a joke at first, but it sunk in, and stuck.
Well, seriously. You get a dead body, you embalm it, dress it up a little, add the pounds of makeup to make it look real, and wala! You have money in your pocket to buy a lottery ticket at 7 Eleven that night on your way home. Okay, so I know it's not that easy, but if you think about it, they are dead, what harm could it do to you. Once you get over the chill factor in your spine and the smell, you'll be in business. There's nothing a little more makeup can't fix either. In all honesty, I would keep it in my heart as an honor to work with a persons dead body. They are gone, the soul is in Heaven, their spirits are gone, all you are left wiith is a body. And you have the responsibility to try and make it look like the soul and spirit and the life is still there. Just like if someone moved out of their house, wouldn't you be honored to make it neat and clean again and cherish it for their families to keep and be proud of. Same with a car. You are basically preserving their body, or what's left of it.
With that said, it brings me to another important thought; it's not the concept of working with dead people that appeals to me the most, more of working with the ones still alive and helping them cope with their grief. I have always been semi-interested in psychology, and this is another open door for me to work with. I enjoy helping people out and being a Christian puts a little cherry on the top as well. The loss of a loved one is probably the worst part of life, nobody wants to go through this pain, and when they are forced to do so, it is very tough. But one must keep in mind that no matter how much grief one is suffering, the world must go on, and you must try to help them focus on the good memories. The deceased probably don't want you upset about it, so therefor we must look at the ritual of a funeral as a celebration of one's life.
In conclusion, the mortuary field is clearly my interest at this point in time and I wrote this to help explain it to those who don't understand why. Basically, there are different strokes for different folks, and this is my cup of tea in life. If you have any questions or comments, or want to argue some points with me, please e-mail me, I would like to hear your opinion. Madmax@napanet.net.
In the meantime, I have a few links here to mortuary colleges across America and their webpages. Here you can find more information about the field, and a lot of articles to read as well.
Pittsburgh Institute of Mortuary Science
Gupton-Jones College of Funeral Service
The Cincinnati College of Mortuary Science
Simmons Institute of Mortuary Science
Cypress College Mortuary Science Department
Mount Ida College
