Gettin' Nervous

It's all starting to happen. The nerves are building. The planning is done, now it's time to swap plans for action, to get things rolling, to prove that I wasn't the problem, to remove the proverbial finger, to show any who still doubt that this - communications - is where I was meant to be - where I should have been all along.

Now it's time to put up or shut up, to shit or get off the pot.

Here's a picture.

J

Update

After the last entry I went for a little walk. The Student Union bookstore, used items, had the last book on my list though only Edition 4 - I need Edition 5. Dang!

I found my locker - actually in quite a good location, and quite close to a cozy little study area. A good size, too, and no graffiti.

Checked back in with the Co-op office. The nice lady there actually remembered me from last time! Pretty cool. I can submit my application any time but it won't be looked at until December.

I stopped by the Gauntlet - the campus paper. I will volunteer there - in such capacity as suits us both. I can proof-read, edit, opine, you name it. I take a mean statement, too, so that must count as a reporting skill.

It's starting to take shape.

J

Gettin' Excited!

You'd think I was going somewhere. Slowly, methodically and in dribs and drabs I've been getting things set up to head back to school.

I kept the courses I picked earlier in the summer; I suppose I could have watched every day for updates to the waiting lists, but even when I did check in they had never changed, so there's really only one conclusion to be drawn: none of the other kids are switching either.

I've got almost all my books. ARKY, COMS, COMS, GSTD - have dinged me nearly $800 so far. All I have left to get is POLI, which was apparently only ordered about ten days ago (was that Bookstore Admin, or the Prof's delay, do you suppose?). I checked at Chapters - they have them, but none in stock and they can't even order them right now. Hmm, sounds like a reciprocal arrangement to me.

Oh well, I've been reading the ARKY text - quite interesting. Like watching OLN or Discovery, but hosted by smart folks. I've also skimmed through the other texts - actually high-quality tomes. They aren't like most of the books of my English degree which were primarily poems and weird novels - these are texts with some pretty meaty stuff.

I've picked up my bus pass - valid September 1st. Everything starts changing a little over a week from today.

I've tidied up my office a bit. I had to empty a drawer in my filing cabinet of all the insurance crap. I won't know what kind of space I'll need until it all gets started, but if we're tidy to start with we'll mess up something pristine - we won't be organizing something that's already messy. Get my drift?

I've got to put together a to-do list now. Let's see:

Organize folders on the laptop
Put stickers on the backpack
Prepare digital tape recorder
Pens, pencils, paper
Teeth, Glass, Geritol
Get glasses polished
Visit locker
Volunteer for something
Bring standard lamp from upstairs to my office, or buy a new one
Add more items to the list - I'm sure there are more to add

Stay tuned. It ramps up now.

James

Talking it Up

As you all know, or should know by now, I'm going back to school in September, seeking a degree in Communications. This will be a second degree for me, my first being in English. My hope from this degree is that the second half of my career life will be more 'satisfactory' than the first. After all, I fell into insurance as a young man and had no intention of staying there for five years let alone 23.

But what do you do with an English degree? Being able to speak and read, to communicate well, and to quote fine poetry ("O pointy bird, O pointy-pointy, Anoint my head, Anointy-nointy") should be of some value in our world, but alas 'tis not as prized as you think. So it turns out the only thing I could have done with my hard-earned English degree, Dean's list notwithstanding, was teach or write. I became an adjuster because I had bills to pay.

I won't call that a mistake. Adjusting has been an honorable activity: it has served me well as I served it well. But now it's time for me to identify myself, to chase me down, to pin me to the ground and beat the snot out of me until I capitulate and do what I want to for a change.

Why not? I'm certainly capable. Remedial English at six taught me a few things which I have lived every day since. I'm not afraid of change (very handy), I believe in my abilities to learn, and I'm not afraid to talk myself up.

I'm not a braggart, though. In fact, in most ways I am my own harshest critic. But I know what I know and there's just no escaping it. What is it they said in Sunday school? "Don't hide your light under a bushel" - so why would I deny what I'm good at? Why would I procrastinate any longer? Now that I'm out of the insurance rut why would I waste any more time not doing what I am best suited to do?

To earn a few sheckles and help out a friend I've been driving shuttle for a high-end auto dealership for the past couple of weeks. That allows me to meet people and talk, and talk, and talk. Occasionally the subject of me has come up (okay, quite often) and I have not been shy about telling folks about my plans. This isn't exactly networking since I haven't even started classes yet let alone found my way back into the job market, but you never know what friendships and opportunities can arise from simple chitchat. So I chit, and I chat, and maybe some day it all makes a difference. At the very least it proves to me that despite more than a year out of the workforce I still have what it takes to thrive in the business world and indeed in the regular world. It's so easy to lose those people skills, but I have not.

Oh, and speaking of talking it up, if you're an employer in the Calgary area who wouldn't mind some part time help in your Communications or Public Relations department from a mature, responsible student, feel free to email me or leave a comment. If you don't mind working with a positive, upbeat, happy-to-be-here-working-hard kind of person then I certainly don't mind earning a little java money.

There. I did it. I talked me up.

J

Been a While

This project is not forgotten. I've been trying to keep myself busy, doing chores and errands and dealing with the fact that my best friend is diagnosed with prostate cancer and is not taking it all that well. It is not my plan to leave five weeks between every post, but the fact is that life sometimes gets in the way. Family is a very funny animal.

Since orientation I've been quite busy, schoolwise. Having finally calculated that my summer would not be spent - as I had hoped - doing pre-reading of all my texts, I decided to settle down and relax where I could. As of today there is a little less than five weeks before classes start. I did purchase a couple of text books, you may recall, for the Introductory course and basics of Technical Communications. I have been slowly working my way through those, and will continue to do so. I also read "Little Princes", which is the prescribed Common Reading Program book for all new students at U of C this Fall. Actually, and this came as a bit of a surprise to me because I don't habitually think about the topics it studied, I thoroughly enjoyed it. Now I am to write a short essay about it and try to win $500 worn of books.

I don't mind writing the essay, but I'm a bit conflicted: I have to look after myself, but I know that I already know how to write - so is it fair for me to try to take a prize from a high-school grad who's hoping for a good start to his/her university career? Do they even consider the age of the student when those papers are submitted? I want success like anyone else, but will everyone hate a mature student on the dais who's accepting an award for best essay? Is this all just bullshit? Perhaps I haven't got a hope in Hell of winning anyway? I don't know - conflicted.

Last week I paid my non-refundable deposit and today
I reserved a locker. I can pick up my bus pass from the 22nd of this month, then the week of the 5th to the 12th is Orientation Week. I'm going to make sure I attend that, and that I'm at my bright and breezy, jovial, smart-cracking self. I want to meet profs, get to know some students and so on.

I also need to figure out where I will volunteer. Perhaps I should chase the radio station, although youngsters' music these days - I don't know... I could volunteer at the campus newspaper quite easily, but when I picked one up and saw the F-bomb three times on page two it made me question if I wanted to do that. There are so many words to choose from in the English language - I believe it is literary laziness to go straight to the F word because you can't think of any other. Perhaps guidance is needed. Perhaps if I even so much as bring it up I'll just be the campus prick. I'll have to see what the profs say about it. As an older bloke with experience I'm pretty sure I could slide in just about anywhere.

So you see, no indolence here.

J

James m

Orientation Day

What a surreal experience - Orientation Day.

I showed up bright and early - because that's the way I am. I sat in an almost completely silent student centre, having a cup of hot water with brown grit in it, waiting for 845am, then went to the muster point and signed in. They were all ready for me - with a name tag so I would know who I am. They were very friendly, and very professional - the volunteers of the student success centre.

I took a seat in the auditorium, and this was the surreal part. I saw a couple of older folks - grey hair, etc - and determined to sit with them. It made sense to me - I presumed that they were also mature students and being older we would have a common social ground on which to meet.

Nope. They were parents of one of the other students going through orientation. We chatted a while - got along rather well, in fact - but all the while I was talking to them I was thinking, good lord, I'm more than twice as old as every other student in here! I think that's when it sunk in how very mature I will need to be for this adventure, and how hopeful I am that being so mature won't create a rift between me and the other students in my classes - I mean a rift larger than that already created by age.

I'm no ageist. I don't see any barriers whatsoever to people of different generations getting along and working well together, but I can see now that this enlightened philosophy will be sorely tested in my new environment. Over the next two years I'm going to learn more about the modern young person than I ever realized I wanted to know.

J

Walkies

For quite some time now I've been meaning to do the "dry run". You know what I mean: When I go back to school I'll be taking the train, so for scheduling purposes I need to know how long it takes to ride the rails, and to do the necessary walking at both ends. After all, I don't want to show up late for my class, do I? Well, today it finally happened and the results are in...

If I do say so myself, it was all very scientific. For the record, the weather was partly cloudy, the winds were 10-25 km/h from the southwest, humidity was about 37%. I was appropriately attired in shorts and a light shirt, with a water bottle strapped to my hip. We left the driveway at 11:56am - for the heck of it, and in the interests of scientific redundancy I didn't do this trip alone. I took Em with me - after all, he needs to know what I'm going through for the better part of the next nine months, to assuage any feeling he may have that I'm  exaggerating in the description of my efforts.

Eight minutes after we left we were at the mall, which is between us and the LRT station. It's equidistant, as I found out, because about eight minutes after that we were on the platform, boarding a train to Crowfoot.

The train happened to arrive right away, and the ride was expeditious indeed. It took us, even with all the downtown stops, about 40 minutes to get from our home station to the university. It then took us another twelve minutes or so to walk from the University station to the Student Centre at Macewan Hall. 

Thus, in perfect conditions half an hour of walking at both ends and a 40 minute train ride will get me to my classes. Add or subtract for imperfect conditions and we have our guide.

That's not bad - it's certainly not as long as when I was at York. At York I had a ten minute walk, a half-hour bus ride, a 30 minute train ride, a further 40 minutes on the bus, then at the school end I had to walk another 20-25 minutes, depending on where my class was. So, all things being equal and comparing apples to apples, it was a little further to go at York, but now of course I'm older so I think it balances out. 

Speaking of being older, I'm definitely going to get my exercise in this junket. Those who care have indicated that I should be putting more kilometers on the ol' carcass, so this fact will make them happy. I figure on a minimum one hour walk each day, six days a week, in all sorts of laborious conditions, and this should be enough to assuage the naysayers. Anyway, it should certainly help me lose some weight. I will take to wearing a pedometer, to keep an eye on how many extra kilometers the carcass is enjoying.

Let's see - I'm 220lb right now - yes I know, slightly over-ideal. On the first day of class I will begin a regimen of weighing myself and tracking the actual effect of the enforced exercise, which I have long doubted. I will earnestly and honestly report the results of this tracking to you, so that you, too, can see the positive effects of getting off the couch. This will be done with all sorts of colourful graphs and charts - I'm told this enhances the information-receiving experience.

Looked at puppies yesterday. It would be nice, but who knows?

J