Anything Boys Can Do, I Can Do Better

Might as well tell you some little known stuff about myself to start out with.

Always a tomboy, I gained semi notoriety at 13 when I became the first female Boy Scout on Vancouver Island (BC) when I decided to leave Girl Guides in order to join the Venturer program. I couldn’t stand having to be “proper” and have my hands clean any more – I wanted to climb trees and repel down cliffs, canoe in the ocean and hike the west coast trail. I loved playing war games so I naturally found myself in Army Cadets at the same time.

In what seemed as a natural progression, I joined the army when I was 17. For six years I was schooled in a vast array of skills, including combat, small arms training, hand to hand combat, recce, night patrols and all sorts of in your face get real dirty fun. Driving cool stuff around. Shooting neat weapons. (I like to shoot). Sometimes it bothers me that I am a trained killer, but other times I am sure it supplies some confidence, and my experience with it certainly aids a deeper understanding of the situations in the world recently.

I am totally an outdoor creature and the army certainly fulfilled outside time for me. I have a passion for all outdoor activities – camping, hiking, climbing (was afraid of heights but I met that fear head on and found it to be not so bad after all), hunting (people/war games and I have had my hunting license since I was 14), I especially love mountain biking – I have a Specialized Rock Hopper and it usually goes everywhere with me… although I definitely prefer the open dirt trail to pavement (although stairs and cement barricades and sometimes even curbs atleast make urban riding interesting). I love speed, and am a natural driver, which is likely why I get paid so much to do it. I have driven many neat things (Army trucks, Armoured vehicles, Zambonis, huge 4x4 trucks, tractors, fast sports cars, etc etc…) and I don’t think there isn’t anything out there I couldn’t drive.

A grounds worker at the U of C dared me once to drive his tractor (as if being an attractive young girl means not having the skills to operate a tractor). You should have seen him jump up and run after me as I drove off with his tractor. Anything boys can do, I can do better…

Well its hard to sometimes think what to say about myself when a great deal of my audience knows me already so well. I will say it has taken me a few years to figure out who I am enough to be comfortable with my own femininity while at the same time being a tom boy! I am a woman. Here me roar!

I have always made my way in traditional male held careers, jobs or hobbies, but I claim them for myself as I am not an outsider trying to get in, but I am me.

“I am the invincible sword goddess”
- Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon