Ten years

She alternates between wondering where she should go to buy plasters and trying to ignore the pain from the blisters on her feet from her high heeled shoes as she makes her way to the coffee shop to buy her coffee before going up to the office. She can't wait to kick off her shoes and she doesn't care that her office is "open concept" and it's too bad that they don't have cubicles in offices anymore.

As she's lining up, she tries not to think about what her colleague said to her, or what she thinks she should think about what her colleague said, because she should try not to think about work before she goes in to work. Maybe she could think about all the people ahead of her in the queue. She wonders if they enjoyed work.

Did she dream of growing up to work in an office? Being an executive executive?

No, she wanted to be a ballet dancer.

She was closest to becoming a ballet dancer when they were evaluating her options if her grades couldn't get her into any Junior College. She remembers her mother talking to her ballet teacher about the good ballet schools in Australia and how she could be recommended to gain entrance into one. But, she did get good enough grades to get herself into JC and eventually, to the local university where she got a degree in business administration.

She was sixteen then. Ten years after that, at twenty-six, she dreams of how happier she might be if she did worse in her O-levels, ten years ago.