How I Became a Librarian

I was recently reading the blog, Letters to a Young Librarian and came across a blog post about how the blogger became a librarian and realized I probably never shared my story on my blog. So without further ado, here it goes…
I didn’t learn to read at an exceptionally young age, in fact when I grew up it was more common for children to learn how to read in first grade, which I did. I don’t remember the first book I read by myself, but I do remember countless days and nights that both my parents read aloud to us. As I’ve said before, my mom read aloud to us through high school, every morning before school. My mom does say that once I started reading, she couldn’t get me to stop. We’d go to the public library fairly regularly as we grew up, made especially easy by the fact that the library was only a few short blocks from our house. Because our library was so small, we were only allowed to take out five books at a time – oh how I would agonize over which books to pick. It was there, at my public library, that I began begging the librarians to start working. Sadly, you had to be 14 years old to start volunteering and it broke my heart that I had to wait so long (7+ years).
I finally began volunteering at 14, and was offered a student page position at 15 where I worked throughout high school a few days a week and every other Saturday. The four women I worked with became surrogate moms, I even stopped by the library on prom night to show them my dress.
I don’t remember making the conscious decision to become a librarian, I was just one of those unique kids who always knew what I wanted to do. I went to college with a fairly focused goal – get to graduate school and I did, with a undergraduate degree in Information Studies from UW-Milwaukee in just three years. During that time, I worked a few days a week at my public library (taking classes online) and did an internship at another local, public library. I was then accepted into graduate school at the University of Maryland with a graduate assistantship, which made going to graduate school a reality.
I graduated Memorial Day weekend in 2008, began working in my current library on June 2nd after many applications, interviews and hard decisions, but it was the best choice I could have made and I still love what I do. It’s my passion in life and I feel so lucky to be doing something that not only makes me happy, but makes a difference in the community as well. How did you become a librarian?