Do you enjoy your job as a paralegal?

I'm 16 and enjoy drawing and animals, what job should i get?

• Hey :) I turned sixteen in august and i want to find a job and figure out what i'm going to do with my life. I want to do something i'll enjoy, because I really don't like the job i have right now (fire and water damage cleanup), and i don't want to spend my entire life cleaning up mold and stuff. I really enjoy drawing. I've doodled on the bulletins in church as far back as i can remember and i think i'm okay at it. I've recently gotten into manga and anime and stuff, and I'm learning how to draw in that sort of style. I think it would be great to get a job involving that sort of thing. I'm really into books, mostly fantasy. i'm really picky about it though, and most fantasy now is horrible -terrible writing, and full of erotic stuff- so I've reverted to reading juvenile fiction, which is mostly better anyway (there's some great J-fic books out there). I don't have the patience to write my own books, but i would enjoy being an book editor or something, I've always been very picky about grammar and things like that. I've always loved animals, but the only pets I've been able to get are a pair of gerbils (Aravis and Scheherazade) because I need to pay all the expenses myself, but i've always wanted a dog, and a ferret, guinea pigs, and a lot of other stuff. I wouldn't want to be a veterinarian, because I'm really freaked out by broken bones, but i would enjoy grooming dogs or something like that. so all in all, something creative and enjoyable would be good. a lot to ask, but whatever. aim high. Jobs I'm considering: manga artist, illustrator, book editor, dog groomer, cattle rancher, librarian, (other stuff i'm probably forgetting) Jobs i would never do: veterinarian, physical therapist, teacher, bus driver, (a lot of other stuff) Thanks in advance for any advice :) P.S. I can't drive yet and my family only has two vans between seven people, four of them adults with jobs, so any ideas for jobs I could do from home would be very nice indeed :)

• Answer:

  Okay here's the deal, you sound like your very into art, that's a good thing. Take it from me though, I attended art college, and getting a job in an art related field is insanely difficult right now. That is not to say, you cannot pursue it, but you don't necessarily need to attend school. Also, I know anime and manga is really big right now but the market is saturated beyond belief, and in school my teachers hated it (it seemed every student didn't want to draw anything different). I went to school with an anime style so I know, in fact I got tore up once by some teachers over it! I draw differently now, but not the same as when I entered school. Work on your art as a hobby, recreation-ally, with no pressure. Out of the choices you outlined, being a book editor sounds like the best choice, and you'd probably enjoy it very much. You can still be creative and fulfill your love of books at the same time. Also do some research into everything else you mentioned. I do not know how difficult it would be to be successful at the non-art related things, but I just had to give you a heads up.