Tuesday, January 30, 2007

Six Feet Under and Education

I got Mr. Jazz the five seasons of Six Feet Under for Christmas, and we recently started watching them (ok, ok, I sorta got it for me too). I have fallen under the spell. It's a great show.

And it reminded me that for the longest time I wanted to be an embalmer. Yes, seriously. The whole idea of fixing up dead people so they'd "last" was totally fascinating to me - still is actually, even though I think it's sort of pointless and I'll get rid of my own body in a much more expeditious fashion by giving it to a med school for the kids to work on.

I think one of the main reasons I never did go to school to learn the job, was that I was afraid it would scare people off. I never did have the knack of making too many friends, so I could imagine being at a party, someone asks what I do, I answer and they just sorta smile weakly and wander off to chat with a more "normal" person. I was desperate enough back then to not want to be seen as a wierdo, though the shock value of such a job... wow! (insert evil cackle)

So instead I went to university and got a BA in translation - rather than studying medieval history, which I loved with a passion bacause translation was much more sensible if I actualy wanted to be able to eat and have a roof over my head. I came to Montreal to study Germain at McGill and freelanced until I realized just how mind numbingly boring a job it is. And stopped school - not really knowing what the point of another pretty much useless BA would be.

And I ended up working in a jewlery shop and they took me to their office as a secretary and somehow or other I ended up working as a secret... oops Administrative Assistant* in one office or another since.

Moral of the story: Just go ahead and embalm the fuckers.


* A perfect case of giving someone a title so they can actually feel good about their jobs.

6 comments:

Ian Lidster said...

Hey -- somebody has to embalm, I guess, and there is always a client base. Meanwhile, you have been tagged, so if you want to check my blog and take part, please feel welcome to do so.
Cheers,
Ian

Jazz said...

Yep Ian, you never run out of clients... Is that the 6 weird things meme that's going around? Oh well, I guess I have at least one now! LOL

ticknart said...

I knew this girl who was going to school to be a mortician. She said her goal in life was to make the dead pretty.

I always liked that about her.

Malnurtured Snay said...

Did you get the complete series box set? Because that's a sick and awesome design for it.

choochoo said...

You know, loads of people have been fixing up deads so that they'd last (or for other reasons) without being embalmers. Go with your dreams!

Jazz said...

Ticknart - making the dead pretty. I like that...

Snay - Yep the box set. And de design is indeed awesome, plus you get tow CDs of the show's music.

Chooch - Go with your dreams... yeah well, you live and fuck up and learn.