When finally I had managed to slip through primary and highschool and had finished which is supposed to be the best time of once life, the question for my father was now, what to do with this girl and found out what qualifications she had. I wanted to be a make up artist for actors in a theater, do the make up for monsters, witches, or beauties, together with the costume creator. For that I thought I really had the qualification. I only had to look for an adequate school. Of course this profession was not good enough for my father as those people were workers and I had at least to be an educated employe. So I did nothing but amusing myself by going out a lot. My father certainly hoped that I would find a rich husband who could entertain me for the rest of my life. But that was the last thing I wanted to do.
School finished, what a relieve !
Finally he took me to a vocational adviser who did some tests with me and the result was that I could do anything except languages, for that I had no qualification at all.
We found a compromise. I should go to a French business school a very expensive and posh one, still in the hope to find the right husband there. It was a mixed school, the boys were mostly sons of company owners who wanted their son to take the business over, but unfortunately the son was too stupid to go to university so he had landed in my school. The best thing was, they all already owned a car, which was rather seldom in the 60th and I had the opportunity to be invited to posh parties in huge mansions or even castles. It was a very interesting time and I learned a lot about people.
Despite the fact that I had no qualifications for learning languages I learned French rather quickly and also commercial correspondence in French, typewriting and business knowledge. When I had my diploma I was hired immediately by a Belgian import-export company for leather clothes, not for my French, but for my German. I did a little bit of everything there, answering the phone, writing letters, paying the tailors and served as model when one of the models was sick. I learned to walk like a model on the catwalk and had quite some fun in my first job. When my boss started to find out if I had other qualifications for example in his bed, I quitted.
Meanwhile I had met my first big love who was an Italian too and surprisingly learned Italian rather quickly. Then I looked for a new job and found one in an American company. Now I could use my French, my German and even some Italian. With English I had no problem I had learned it for 9 years at school. First I was a little rusty but improved with the time.
I wished I could have met this vocational adviser, and tell him that despite his judgement that I had no qualifications for languages, I now worked in four. Ever since I am very suspicious about these advisers !
My father had to wait with my marriage, I enjoyed life very much. I earned good money, could afford my own apartment and bought a car ! With 23 I was free, I could do what I wanted and started traveling through Italy together with my first love and my Volkswagen.
In Italy
Again I had been a big disappointment for my father, as I hadn't found a rich husband, and had dared to learn four languages, had found a good job and didn't depend on him anymore ! That I think was the worst ! He loved to have control over everybody, and I swore to myself that I would never depend on a man !
more participants at Jenny Matlock's Alphabet Thursday
