Wait till I get my money right?

It fascinates me that students in elementary, high school, college and university are never taught how to properly manage their own money.

They’re taught how to make babies, stay fit, calculate change at the grocery store, how the French got here first, pythegorem (sp?) theory, “career management” (whatever that is), etc. But not how to manage a credit card or save for retirement.

So they may sing along to Kanye West, but after borrowing thousands of dollars from the government to pay for two to four years of post-secondary education (if they needed it), and being miseducated (or not educated at all) about money, when will any student with up to $20,000 in student loans (not to mention credit card debt) ever get their money right?

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.

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.