And to think... It all started with a smile from a five year old boy in a little suburb in New Jersey. I had been working at a day camp for three to four year olds and five to six year olds. That year was my third year and I was the ripe old age of sixteen. My name is Belinda Mancini, an Italian, brown eyed and mousy brown haired girl from Jersey. My mother, Angelina, got me the job at the camp and I was not at all enthusastic. I wanted to work at the mall like everyone I knew. But of course my mother wanted me to work with her and children.
Angelina Mancicni grew up in an urban area of Jersey where silk was manufactured. It was a glorious city filled with wonder, power and money. Her innocent and naive childhood led her to a happy life, one that she desperately wished she could give to her daughter Belinda.
"Why do you want to be a lawyer?" Angelina asked Belinda. She looked up from her cheerios at the breakfast table made of fine mohagony wood and snottily answered, "Big money, fast lifestyle and all the fun fashion. Just look at how fabulous she looks!"
There, standing in front of Angelina stood 5 foot 9 inches, blonde haired, beautifully tanned, Cindy Georgette. A fine specimen of a working woman in the early nineties. Dressed in an impeccably cleaned suit made of a material she was sure cost more than her teacher salary. Cindy stood smiling, but knew that Angelina was frustrated. She responded by saying, "Dawwling... I have worked very hard to get where I am today. I didn't start out this successful. Years of hard work, missed opportunities and a few that worked out led me to this point." If you ever want to sit and talk about it, I am sure your mom would let you." She winked at Angelina in such a way that made her agree without actually agreeing.
At the time, law is where my interest lied, not children. Lawyers had such passion, conviction and of course really cool cars. I could not wait to become a lawyer! All those shows on tv glorifying the profession motivated me to want to become one of them. Plus the guy who lived next door was a lawyer and owned a shiny red corvette! My absolute favorite car of all time!
Anticipation was building with such verocity because working with the children was a stepping stone for better things to come. Driving to a courthouse everyday into New York City called to me in such a way I can not describe. Each day after I would arrive home from camp, I would turn on the latest episode of Law and Order discovering many aspects of the law, or so I thought.
My career plan was to work at the camp for my mother and then go on to law school in Brooklyn. I figured kids are easy. All they do is giggle, cry when they need food and occupy them with small snippets of infromation at a time. Why does my mother constantly complain? She has it so easy! Her day consists of playing games like scrabble, art projects and giving assignments out of the answer book. Little did I know that summer would change my life.
The job description was simple: Camp Counselor at Day Camp. In a small neighboring town, I would watch, assist and play with the children at Day Camp, while earning 10 dollars an hour. It would ensure spending money for the rest of the summer without the help of my parents. All in all it was a summer I would remember.
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