If I could choose a talent to wake up with one day it would be graphic design. What’s more fun than being supremely great at a never-ending game of “this thing looks like that other thing”? I have a few friends who are graphic designers and I’m always impressed by the balance of idea + execution.
But if I think about an alternate career path, I nearly always consider epidemiology. I doubt I’ll actually go back to school for an MPH or an MS, but sometimes I look at online courses…and infectious disease literature for the layperson constitutes about half of my nonfiction reading.
Last year I was listening to a podcast about rapid-onset OCD in children following strep throat (I grew up with OCD, but not the type that appears suddenly or is thought to be temporary after having been triggered by an infection) and the broadcaster referred to his doctor-guest as “a pioneer in the field of PANDAS” (PANDAS being the acronym for Pediatric Autoimmune Neuropsychiatric Disorders Associated with Streptococcal Infections–I guess it’s not PANDASI because that’s less cuddle/more like something from Game of Thrones?).
A pioneer in a field of pandas! I immediately had the most vivid mental image of a tall puritan-style hat wending its way through a field of gracefully swaying panda bears. And that’s what I would draw if I were a graphic designing epidemiologist.
