miércoles, 10 de octubre de 2012

Vocational Exam


A month ago or so,  we took a vocational exam on school. In case you don’t know, a vocational exam is supposed to let you know what you’re good at, so it’ll be easier for you to decide what you’re going to study. A guide, in few words.
I was super excited. They told us we had to be honest in the exam, so the results would be genuine and right. I did it thoroughly and with care, being absolutely serious in every single question. There are ten vocations. They figure out which is yours with a special test that was created  by a Spanish guy several years ago, really effective.
They take in count the ones who had a percentage higher than 70%. The usual for every person is to have several vocations. They tell you which and the professions you could follow. You select the ones you are interested in and they give you the info of each profession: which universities you could attend to study that profession, address of it, phone number and degree.
I got the results last Friday.
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Out of ten, I have only one vocation. With a 98%, my vocation is :
“Literary Interest” Colegio
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Oh Lord. You might think I wanted to do a flip and my victory dance, but, dear reader, I didn’t. In fact, I wanted to do all the opposite. I wanted to cry. I used all my strength to stop the tears from falling. The lady that was explaining everything looked at me worried. What’s wrong? She asked.
Of course she was confused. Before she showed me the results, she had asked me what I had in mind for my future. Creative Writing, Linguistic, Languages and Translation. I had answered. It was perfect. The results were perfect and my one and only vocation was Literary Interest.  I’ll list the professions of the vocation below and highlight the ones I ended up selecting:
  1. Library
  2. Journalism
  3. Law
  4. Education
  5. Languages
  6. Philosophy / Philology
  7. Linguistic
  8. Writer
As you see, all the things I listed to the lady before came out in the exam as professions I could follow.  What’s wrong? Why are you upset? She asked me. I swallowed my tears and looked at her embarrassed (I really hate crying in front of people). I’m sorry, I’m happy with the results. Really. I didn’t want her to think that I hated it or something, that was not the case. I was upset with myself. “I’m only good at one thing?” I kept thinking. What an useless girl I was after all. Really, I would like to know what’s upsetting you. Persisted the lady.
I took a deep breath and explained to her as best as I could what was troubling me, feeling like a pathetic, whiny girl. She scowled. I would like you to look at your personality result again, please. She told me. I nodded and read it again. Everything is in Spanish, so I’ll translate it as best as I can. Here’s what it said:
“She’s practical and anxious about doing things the way they should be done. She worries a lot about things. She’s pretty correct ( means I’m usually honorable and responsible at things).
Capable of being calm in critical moments.”
Okay… I read it again. I told her. Good. I’ll explain what this personality tells me. It tells me you’re a really calm girl that is never satisfied with herself or her work. I looked at her, my cheeks burning red. I’ve always known it’s hard for me to accept myself as I really am, thing that leads me to think that is hard for others as well, but I never believed my “emotional breakdown” had anything to do with that. I mean, it was pretty clear that I apparently was a “good for nothing”.
Well… that may be true. I just don’t understand why all my classmates have several vocations and I don’t. I know it sounds very immature of me, but it brings me me down a little that they are good at a lot of things and I’m not. I told her, resigned. What else was there to do? That was the ugly true. I was jealous of my classmates.  The thing is, Ana, that your classmates are good at several things, but you’re really good at one thing. That doesn’t mean your bad at the others, it just means you’re really really good at this one, specifically. She told me patiently. I blush just with thinking of how childish I must’ve seemed to her. But honey, don’t compare yourself with the others. You are all different and, anyways, they have to start with one career. You should be grateful. Your results are exactly what you told me you were thinking of studying. That only tells us how  right you were.
Seconds passed and my heart felt lighter. “This is what I love and I’m good at it”, I kept thinking. I thanked the lady heartily and left the office.
I’m not scared anymore, because that’s what I was, scared. I’m not disappointed either. Now, I feel more motivated, reader, because I decided that if these were the only things I was good at, I might as well be damn good.
I’ll write later.
Ana Vi

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