Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion what do you do?

I am part of a parents forum (specific to my city) and there was a really interesting post about what everyone's occupation was...so I thought I would ask here too! I don't know why but it has always interested me. I think you can instantly learn a lot about someone by knowing what they do all day long!

I know many won't feel comfortable answering and that, of course, is fine!


I'll start...


I am an Elementary School Keacher and a k-12 Special Education Teacher. I have never taught Elementary School (although that was my training). I have taught Special Ed and High School Math and English. I am currently looking at going back to school (YAY!!!) with a final goal of teaching in a university. Who knows if it will ever happen though!

Your turn!

I'm a confused soul who doesn't know what to be when I grow up :-) I have a degree in Foreign Languages with a minor in Political Theory. I spent several years as a political consultant. Then 6 more teaching middle school and two as a high school vice principal. I now substitute teach, blog and work as a Doula!

I've been training child/teen actors since '96. Returning to writing, I published girls' monologs with a co. that sells to English-speaking schools around the world. I'm currently developing a two-act. Sometimes I'm an office temp; sometimes I have an acting gig; I work with an off-off NYC theatre.

I taught college English (mostly freshman comp, but some lit courses, too) for 5 years at a Big 10 university while working on my Ph.D. in literature. When the teaching contract ran out, I worked at a "dumb job" in risk management for a couple of years to pay the rent while I churned away at my dissertation, but decided that life in the Ivory Towers of academia just wasn't for me. I left ABD (all but dissertation) and went into nonprofit/corporate training for a while. Then I had kids and became a SAHM.

After my 2nd son was born, I was feeling trapped and bored and needed to do something with my brain, but I wasn't ready to leave my new baby in daycare for another "dumb job" either. I was really craving a career that mattered to me.

To make a long story short, I stumbled across an historical figure--a Norsewoman in Iceland 1000 years ago--who captured my imagination. I started trying to find out more about her, couldn't, and decided that the only way to know her better was to write a novel about her life. As I was planning, I realized that it's more than one novel: it's a series about her whole family.

I finished a draft of the first book in the series this summer, and it's with a freelance editor (still...). I'm hoping to revise and publish within the next year, sooner if possible.

Add to that my career as a homeschooling mom and a full-time poster on this forum, and it's no wonder my house is such a mess!

I'm an artist. Masters in Fine Art in photography. I make paintings and sell them. I also make graphics and help my husband make photographs. We sell them on microstock sites like shutterstock.

I am a consultant. I help hedge funds anticipate and react to market risks.

I used to be a Financial Advisor. I've worked in New York and Chicago. I became SAHM when first was born.

Currently I believe my job title would be: Professional Pain in the Arse.

Here are my references:

1. (Elementary school whose name must not be spoken) elementary school principal.

2. First daughter's third grade teacher.

3. Second daugher's kindergarten teacher.

4. Any customer service rep I've had the occasion to talk to by phone in the last 12 months.

5. Generally anyone who annoys me for any reason.

Notice to potential employers: I am a very diligent Pain in the Arse and take my position very seriously. I am a hard worker and will work for cheap. Sometimes I will work as a Pain in the Arse for free, just for the sport of it.

oh, everyone sounds so ... multi-tasked. I'm envious, actually. I stopped actively practicing as a home birth midwife a year after DS1 was born, then we moved, and DS2 came along, and I've been SAHMing ever since. We're part homeschooling DS9 and DS6 is busy busy busy and so am I, mostly.

Kriston, I am looking for that "spark" to ignite my brain (your research sounds fascinating! I have a minor in Danish)but right now am just accumulating knowledge, I suppose.

My degree was in accounting, but I only worked as an accounting analyst for one year before being laid off. I also worked in finance and payroll, but my favorite job was my last one--an executive assistant for a developmental disabilities council. I loved that job because I got to meet a lot of wonderful people, many of whom had disabilities or were parents of children with developmental disabilities.

Now I homeschool my son who is twice exceptional and much smarter than I ever was but his dyspraxia causes difficulty with writing. While I relied heavily on my superior notetaking skills in school and at work, he has to learn to work around difficulties with writing so he relies more on his superior memory and he types most of his work. Math is more of a problem because typing won't solve this problem. He has to double check any numbers that he writes to make sure that 2 is really a 2 and not a backwards 5 and this slows him down. So far, he has been able to compensate by doing as much mental math as possible and writing only what is absolutely necessary to find the answer which totally goes against any "show your work" requirement. Aleks lets him move on if he gets the right answers and it doesn't matter so much how he got them.

The mother of two of my son's gifted friends is a special ed teacher. She is one of the few people who really gets that a child can be both gifted and have a disability. She also understands why I have to homeschool. I have noticed that my son really seems to enjoy talking to her. He also enjoys talking to his piano and voice teacher who used to do quiz bowl and debate. She encourages him in academics but she also understands that dyspraxia makes it harder for him to do some things in piano. I wish there were more people like them. Sensitive kids like my son need to feel accepted for their gifts as well as disabilities. I am hoping that his musical theater teacher will finally get that it is not okay to yell at kids or make unkind remarks when my son has a little more difficulty than the others learning difficult dance routines. He does learn them, he just has to work a lot harder than the others to do it and he will never be able to learn new dances at the last minute.

I wish I could educate our educators in my state's public schools and anyone else that works with kids about twice exceptional kids.

[quote=incogneato]I used to be a Financial Advisor.


See that I knew we had a lot in common! And the pain in arse job, sounds like nice work if you can get it although I might have trouble getting hired because surely I am over qualified ;-)