noble

I was having lunch with a new acquaintance of my spouse recently. The acquaintance was a British woman, maybe in her 50s. She asked at one point what areas of nursing I was interested in, and I of course mentioned gerontology, among other things. The conversation moved on, but a little later she turned to me and said, "So, working with older people, that's something not a lot of people want to do. It's very noble of you, isn't it? Why do you want to do that?"
Luckily, I didn't say anything snippy, although I think I did say something along the lines of, "Well, it's not noble, really..." before launching into my spiel about how I've always been interested in neurology and psychiatry, and that the elderly are a great population to work with if you want to see a lot of neurological disorders. She looked nonplussed.
What makes this especially amusing to me is that she's spent her career hopping from one dangerous, war-torn country to another doing relief work of some sort. If that's not "noble," I don't know what is...
I guess I need to get used to this sort of thing. I'm hoping that actually speaking to me will subvert the expectations people have of me being a "sweetheart" or whatever. I may be a (future) nurse with a sweet face, a pleasant demeanor, and the voice of a twelve-year-old, but there will be no angel pins or stethoscope-bedecked teddy bears (with angel wings) in my house.
It's not that having a career that's good for society isn't important to me; it is. But there are a lot of careers that are good for society, and I picked nursing because I like science and I like fixing things and explaining things (and, yes, reassuring people) and because I'm pragmatic. I'll be a 3rd generation nurse. None of us planned on nursing originally, and none of us have been particularly sweet.
Frankly, the only way I'd be in this field for the nobility is if I were going to come out a duchess.