Switching Gears. Starting Again.

After being cooped up in the house for about a week with Flu-Like Symptoms, I’m anxious to get outside for some networking and Vitamin D. That’s one thing I love about Toronto–there’s always something free to do in the area. The 25th of this month is Third Tuesday in Toronto, a meet up of pr professionals and social media enthusiasts who want to learn more about social media. I can’t wait to go. Hopefully I’ll be done with this flu by then, if not I’ll probably spend the night in a hospital rather than meeting anyone at Third Tuesday.

 

Speaking of days, I can’t believe May is nearly over already. 2009 is almost half done.  In a few months, I’ll be leaving my overnight job to study Corporate Communications at Seneca College. After doing the fitness show in April I realized that public relations is where I want to go, so I’m going there starting September. Granted I could have done all of this last year, but who knows? That idea only invites a lot of ’shoulda, coulda, woulda’ thinking and I don’t have time for that.

 

As far as the competition went, it was a mini-disaster. But I had fun, so “that’s the most important part” I guess.  For a while I thought I had to try again, to sort of ‘make-up’ for this blunder, but I changed my mind. I do what I want and what I want to do is corporate communications. So putting my time and money in to competing as a fitness model doesn’t make any sense. To be honest I’d feel much more comfortable competing if I knew everything else in my life was in order; mainly my career.

 

Random P(R)ost

The more I research PR and communications, the more excited I get about doing PR as a career. I kind of feel silly for it because part of me thinks if I was really meant to work in PR, I would know it already… but then I think: how could I have possibly known I was meant to work in PR?

In a couple hours I’m going to Scarborough for a photo shoot and interview for an article I’m writing on Jenny and Diane Paty, sisters who are also band leaders at Caribana (carnival in Toronto). But right now I’m finding myself reading as much about what PR is as possible. Luckily, so much information is available on the internet. Nearly all my questions about the program I’ve applied to (find out in a week!) and working in PR have been answered by more visits to Centennial’s blogs. On the program blog, there are articles just on what the grads are doing–all of it is very exciting and makes me giddy about the opportunities and possibilities.

But I can’t ignore this anxious, excited feeling I have writing the Caribana story for Sway magazine. I feel scared because I worry about the whole thing falling apart (I’m writing two stories) and then I would have let a lot of people down. I also worry about damaging whatever little reputation I have. From what I’ve read about public relations and communications, the whole job is about ‘being responsible’; writing press releases, organizing events, creating communications plans (don’t really know what that means), all of it amounts to huge responsibility, and, I worry, huge chances for failure. It’s the total opposite of an environment like a call centre where a team of people are responsible for reaching certain goals.

So it’s all scary. And I’m tempted to just run away–leave everything behind and go hide in a call centre where if I make a mistake, the ‘team’ can cover it up. But I will not. I’m working on changing my mind in to going towards what scares me rather than running away from it. If you hide from what scares you, you’ll always be running scared. On the other hand if you go for what scares you, you grow as a person. I’d rather run on a treadmill then run away from what I really want because I’m scared… So for me it’s all about very deep breaths and going for what keeps me up at night.

Maybe cutting back on the caffeine would help?

Seeing Things

Random thought… today my Starbucks cup said:
“Failure’s hard, but success is far more dangerous. If you’re successful at the wrong thing, the mix of praise and money and opportunity can lock you in forever.” Interesting. I always thought success only comes to people who are doing the right thing. But then I look at the job I have now and understand my Starbucks warning. I’ve been successful in customer service, and I feel like I’m trapped.

So a lot of things have been happening since I last wrote. Going to the testing session was a test of my patience. The first streetcar I got on was out of service. The driver told me to get on another streetcar which, apparently, wasn’t going to go where I needed it to, so I had to get on a third streetcar. By this time, I was upset because I had an idea that I might be late for the 2:30 testing appointment. While walking up the street, a bar sign that said ‘Everything’s going to be alright’ caught my attention while I was busy working myself up in to a huff. I ignored it, thinking the sign wasn’t for me because that would just be too corny.

I got to the appointment 45 minutes late. I imagined being turned away by a secretary, and him or her telling me with a condescending tone that I would have to reschedule for the next two weeks because I was too late. I got so worked up two tears streamed down my face on the bus. But when I got to the appointment, I met Gary Schlee who surprised me by saying he had read my blog! It turns out that the actual testing hadn’t started when I got there, so once again, there was nothing to worry about. York even came through for me and sent my transcript to Centennial in three days (as opposed to the five to fifteen they warned me about). I hate to say it, but everything did work out…

On Monday I went back to York to finish up some last minute things and I met up with the associate editor of Sway magazine and Canadian Immigrant. She told me about a story idea for Sway that I could do and I snatched it up like the last bag of brown rice at No Frills. This is my first chance to get paid for writing–I can now officially say I’m a “freelance writer”. Goosebumps. So needless to say, I’ve been a bit busy. I haven’t had a chance to do grocery shopping or any of that other important stuff. Nevertheless, things, in fact, are alright. I’m trying really hard to stay away from any Ace is Base references about seeing signs and having my eyes opened.

PR Poetry

Tomorrow is testing day. I was reading ‘A Fine Balance’ by Rohinton Mistry today and I got to the part where Maneck meets the proofreader on the train. Maneck compliments him by saying he talks like a poet and the proofreader says:

And why shouldn’t I? For twenty-four years, the triumphs and tragedies of our country quickened my breath, making my pulse sing with joy or quiver with sorrow. In twenty-four years of proofreading, flocks of words flew into my head through the windows of my soul. Some of them stayed on and built nests in there. Why should I not speak like a poet, with a commonwealth of language at my disposal, constantly invigorated by new arrivals?

I thought to myself: that’s what I need for tomorrow: a ‘commonwealth of language’. If I could write like the proofreader in Mistry’s book, I wouldn’t be worrying nearly as much. Then it made me wonder: is it possible to lose an ‘aptitude for writing’ (the main requirement for entry in to The Program)? If someone who had such an aptitude stopped reading for a month, would they have less of an aptitude? And is it possible to ‘cram aptitude’? Could I finish Mistry’s book tonight, and then absorb more aptitude for writing because I put more ‘language at my disposal’? I guess the best thing is to just do it rather than sitting here writing about it. Then again, if this is what I’m going to be doing tomorrow I might as well do more of it, right?

I don’t think public relations and communications is about being able to speak like a poet. It’s about saying what needs to be said clearly. Especially after reading Gary Schlee’s blog post on news releases (FYI I also found (through Gary’s blog) a blog by PR student Megan Ramsay, where she debunks PR myths… an industry newbie must read). So it looks like I won’t need to perform scribal gymnastics to get in to The Program. I’ll just have to say it plain.

I’m getting closer?

I always worry excessively.

I’ve paid York the $165.02 I owe them for tuition. Today I called their “student services” department and spoke to a representative who tried to rush me off the phone. She told me as soon as York gets their payment, they can send my transcript over to Centennial. I even called the library at York to see if the $55 I owe them is causing me a problem. Luckily it is not, so I didn’t have to worry so much.

I have an admission session on Wednesday at Centennial and I figure by that time, the college should also have my transcript. I don’t see why they wouldn’t… unless I do something silly.

I contacted Gary Schlee, the current (soon-to-be past) Program Coordinator, who told me the sessions are usually held every other Wednesday. That made me wonder: if they had a session a week before last week Wednesday, they could have filled up the seats in the program by the time my session comes around. I want to know details: how many seats are left? How many people have applied? etc. But then I realize that all this worrying is useless.

Then I worry about the testing session: what if I don’t have an ‘aptitude for writing’ (one of the requirements for the program), and I’ve been fooling myself for 20 years? I worry about ‘brushing up’ on my writing skills (thank you, wordpress), if I have the right writing samples, who else (if anyone) is going to be in the session with me, will the faculty stop looking at applications once seats are filled or will they be picking the ‘best’ candidates?

After so much worry, the question is no longer whether or not it is useless to worry–it becomes one of faith. I’m not talking about religious faith (although you could make the argument that I am), I’m just talking about faith in trusting yourself to deal with what happens or doesn’t happen. There’s a kind of emotional release (insert whatever analogy you will here) when you decide to ‘let it go’ after you’ve had a build-up of worry. Sometimes I kind of enjoy worrying until I can’t anymore and just forgetting about all of it. I wonder if that’s crazy.

Have you had your PR today?

Everyone could use some practice in basic PR. The more I take the TTC, the more I realize that. It’s no wonder that Canadians are experts in online dating–especially in Toronto. We’re too busy ignoring everybody in public.

So have we officially realized that Canadian’s can be rude, and American’s very friendly? A friend of mine who recently moved to Florida said she’s tired of saying ‘hi’ to every stranger that crosses her path. And it seems more Canadian women are going south to find men because, and I’m summarizing here, American men seem to have more ‘game’.

Dating is all about communications and public relations. But have we (Canadians) become so wrapped up in sending out a visual message that we’ve forgotten about just talking to people? The ground has finally thawed up here–it’s about time we thaw out too.