So there I was thinking I was doing something totally out of character taking chemistry... but it turns out my mother once wanted to be a chemist! She so enjoyed it in high school (where she'd done four years of it; German
Gymnasium is serious business) that she considered majoring in it in college. Various intervening events deflected her from this path, however, so she wound up trying pharmacy, and then switching to languages. Were I not now exploring chemistry myself, I might never have known!