Here is a quick poll for readers who have chosen to specialize themselves in one or another area of professional practice or study. Firstly, what is the area you have chosen? What made it appealing? Has it worked out the way you expected? Secondly, what different area seems most appealing to you now (whether or not it is actually different from the one you do).
Personally, the non-policy-analysis area that appeals to me most is probably applied biological sciences. If I had the time, money, and inclination to do another university degree, the one that would probably teach me most and be most interesting would be in biology, botany, or biochemistry.
Barber : All right, I confess. I haven’t cut your hair … I hate cutting hair. I have this terrible un-un-uncontrollable fear whenever I see hair. When I was a kid I used to hate the sight of hair being cut. My mother said I was a fool! She said the only cure for it was to become a barber. So I spent FIVE GHASTLY YEARS at the Hairdressers’ Training Centre at Totnes!
(He grabs the customer’s coat and stares pathetically into his eyes)
Can you imagine what it’s like… cutting the SAME HEAD for five years?
(He lets go and stares into space.)
I didn’t want to be a barber anyway. I wanted to be… a lumberjack!
(A visonary glow suffuses his face and he begins to walk slowly out of the darkened shop.)
Leaping from tree to tree as they float down the mighty rivers of British Columbia! The Fir! The Larch! The Redwood! The mighty Scots Pine!
(He tears off his barber’s jacket to reveal a tartan shirt and lumberjack trousers underneath. The singing of a choir begins to rise up in the background…)