What I really wanted to be

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Truth to tell, I didn’t always want to be a teacher. Heck, growing up with a family where nearly every person on my maternal side was a language teacher, I wanted to be anything but a teacher.

Why I eventually became a teacher is a long story, but this entry isn’t about my turning academic. It’s about what I really wanted to be when I was young. And in no order of merit, it was…

  • An opera singer. Like the late baritone Hermann Prey. My idol. I dreamt of singing the part of Figaro in Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro. In fact, when the selections from the opera play from one of our classical music CDs in the car, I’ll be singing in Italian. No clue if Ling is amused.
  • A classical pianist. Like the great Russian pianist, Vladimir Horowitz, who played only on Steinway & Sons grandpianos. I dreamt of performing Mozart piano concertos, e.g. like the really beautiful No. 22 in E Flat, at Carnegie Hall.
  • A cellist. Like Jacqueline du Pré. Of all the orchestral instruments (the piano doesn’t count), this is the instrument I love listening to the most. There’s an incredibly sexy and rich timbre to the string instrument.
  • A vigilante for The Weak and The Oppressed ™. Think, cape, mask, cowl, and jumping off roof tops. No kidding. Lucky I didn’t. Maybe reading all those comic books weren’t exclusively all beneficial.
  • A lawyer. This one was a late-adolescent thing, and it largely came because when I was in NTU and the captain for the faculty, hostel then finally University debating team, I had so many friends who’d ask why I was in Computer Engineering and not Law. Could be because I was a vicious debater who said very angry, rude, and unpleasant things when I debated. And I think my friends generally associated all those personal characteristics to lawyers.

And here’s a funny note: as recently as a few years ago, the videos of my speeches were still apparently used as training videos to teach new debaters at NTU. Or maybe those videos were used as negative exemplars to show unnecessary levels of viciousness in debates. In any case, those Indian debaters were like 8 years after I graduated and able to recognize me during alumni functions when I have no clue who they are. They all go “Mr. Yang, it’s such a pleasure to finally meet you in person” and I go “Erm, ok!”

So there you go. I really didn’t want to teach, but all that changed, well, 15 years ago. But it’s fun to think about such alternative life-paths.:)