5 Things Nobody Says About College (Until It’s Too Late): A Response

Last week I did a response to David Wong’s 6 Reasons the System is Rigged (the name of which later got changed, but I’m sticking with the original one because bugger it all). Writing about my own personal thoughts and experience into the points on the list was so much fun that I decided to do another one for another Cracked.com article that caught my eye. This time Mr John Cheese writes about the post-secondary education situation in 5 Things Nobody Says About College (Until It’s Too Late). Every entry made me nod my head enthusiastically and cry a little for my own four years of wracking up debt, so of course I had to share with you. Be sure to check out the original article as well!

“I went to Cape Breton University and all I got was this stupid t-shirt.”

#5. The First Two Years of College Are a Repeat of High School

The first entry doesn’t apply to me as much as it might apply to some people because I took a trade, which involved a whole lot of stuff that the high school education system does not deem to be important, but even so I do have to agree that there was a lot of crossover. For instance, the degree that I took involved a four-part math program – that is, four semesters of math classes, labeled 1 through 4. I ended up opting for two semesters of Calculus because it was quicker (and thus, cheaper), but not before going through the entirety of “Math 1”, so I can definitely tell you, without exaggeration, that this was basically a repeat of high school math. I absolutely understand the need for halfway-decent math skills if you’re going into a technology-based program, but a lot of it was stuff that you literally cannot graduate high school without having done, so it definitely felt like a huge waste of time and money. And, of course, that’s the point, right? They tack on a bunch of extra courses based on stuff you should (and usually do) already know, because more money for them! It’s not evil at all. No, really. Totally on the up-and-up.

For myself, the math thing is the best example, but for a lot of my friends it was a lot more like what the title of this first entry implies: the first two years of their four-year degrees were almost entirely things they’d already done throughout high school. BA students were re-taught all the language skills they’d been practicing for years, science students had to spend a ton of time and money on the same basic concepts they’d chosen to study in high school, and the technical/engineering students spent their first several semesters doing the same old mathematics before eventually moving on to stuff they’d never seen before.

I’m not saying that college students should be immediately dropped into a shark tank of 100% brand new and confusing information, but those first few semesters really make you feel as though you’re wasting your money on stuff you spent three years learning for free.

#4. You’ll Be Forced to Take Classes That Have Nothing to Do With Anything

Even in my case, taking a trade, this was absolutely true. As near as I can figure, every single college program out there is inflated with courses that you would otherwise have absolutely no reason to take, simply because they need the program to have the “proper” number of courses and they ran out of stuff that made sense before they were finished.

The best example of this in my particular program is the two “Communications” courses I was forced to take as part of my degree: Communications 101 and Communications 201. Knowing that I took a trade based in electronics and industrial instrumentation, you might assume that my “Communications” course would probably have something to do with technical communication…phones and the internet, and stuff like that. You might assume that, but you couldn’t be further from the truth. This particular pair of courses was based on business communication. So, okay, now you’re probably thinking that it has something to do with learning how to properly communicate within a business setting, deal with customer relations, or how to appropriately commerce with employers and coworkers. Sorry, wrong again. We may have spoken about that kind of thing for a single class or two, but that wasn’t the main premise of the courses.

So what did we do in these particular courses? Well, we learned how to write a resume and a cover letter. Oh, and we were taught the proper way to use things like footnotes…that is, if by “proper” you mean “totally-ass-backwards” because our professor for these particular courses was a bit of a lunatic who liked to make things up and tell us that it was the “correct” way to do things. One notable piece of information that she imparted was that your name is the most important part of your resume (I’ll give her that one, but just wait for it…) and thus you should make it as visible as possible. Her suggestion was to make your name a font that allows it to take up the entire width of the page, and to make it bright and colorful so that it’s more noticeable. She actually told us, with a completely serious look on her face, that it would help you get hired if you made your name on your resume bright, fuchsia pink. The woman must have never actually had to apply for a job in her life.

Long story short, other than the different acceptable formats that a resume can take, these courses taught us absolutely nothing that we would ever need to know. Those two courses were $600 each. I spent three hours a week for 24 weeks and $1200 to be told that I should add bright fuchsia pink text to my resume.

#3. Failing Will Cost You Severely

It should come as no surprise that failing a college course – which you had to pay through the nose just to get into – will cost you to fail. You pay for the course before you’ve ever gone anywhere near the classroom, and that money becomes the college’s whether you pass the course or not. That’s the system, and we all know how it works.

But there’s more than just a monetary loss involved in such a failing.

Remember earlier when I mentioned that I chose to take two Calculus courses instead of four more basic math courses? I chose to do that because of the money I’d save and because I was always good at math so I figured it wouldn’t be a big deal. Unfortunately the university that I attended has the market cornered on terrible Calculus professors. There were three to choose from, one of whom was out right off the bat because of the timing of his courses. Of the two who were left, one was lazy as hell and genuinely didn’t give a rat’s ass if a single person passed his course, and the other was an evil bastard who had tenure and used that sense of security to actively attempt to fail as many of his students as possible. I had the first prof. A friend of mine had the second.

My prof never explained anything anymore than he personally felt he needed to, and never answered questions. By the end of the first semester, almost exactly half of my classmates had flunked out of the course. By the end of the second semester I literally had an anxiety attack that found me in the emergency room of the nearby hospital. It was the night before the final exam and nothing made sense to me. I’d failed a ton of the course’s homework assignments and all I could think about (while I was trying so hard to study) was how if I didn’t make at least a 70% on this exam, I was going to flunk the course. I’d never flunked anything before in my life, so the disappointment was pretty bad. That alone didn’t cause the anxiety attack though; it was a combination of the disappointment, the fact that failure would mean I’d completely wasted $600, and the knowledge that if I did fail I would have to do the whole goddamn thing over again. When you fail a college course you don’t just pick yourself up, brush yourself off, and move on with your life. If you want to continue on with your chosen program you have to take the failed course all over again, which means paying for it again, as well as trying to figure out how to fit it into the schedule – because it might fit into year 2, but there’s no time slot available for it in year 3.

My friend with the devil professor experienced this several times over. He had gone into engineering, and because of the schedule of the courses the evil prof was his only option. He failed the course three times before finally managing to weasel his way into a different prof’s course. He spent $2400 on that one course, and had to deal with a hell of a lot stress in the process.

It’s no wonder that so many college students find themselves having a breakdown at some point.

#2. The New Friends You Make Will Be Temporary

I was never the kind of person who made friends really easily. I was shy and a little odd from other peoples’ viewpoints. That got a little easier when I started college because these were people who were interested in the same things as me, headed toward the same goal as I was. My classes were not huge ones, because the trades don’t attract enormous numbers around here, but the guys in my classes became quick friends. We were buddies, for sure. My husband – who was a year behind me when we attended the same college – had his own set of classroom friends, and I became friends with many of them as well. It was a great time. We spent a couple of good years partying with friends every weekend and just generally being more social than I had ever been in my life.

You know how many of those college friends we still keep in touch with? I have, like…six of them on Facebook. Know how many of them I’ve actually seen, face-to-face over the past year? Two. And only them because it so happened that they were out on the same job with me while I was out West.

The fact of the matter is that college is a stepping stone for most people. The majority of the people you go to college with will move away after graduation (or else return to where they came from, if they moved for college). You might keep in contact with some of them, since social media is such a basic concept of life these days, but chances are you’ll never actually see most of them ever again. It’s just one of those things. Sorry.

 

#1. College Isn’t the Booze-Fueled Orgy That Movies Depict

At first I actually wanted to dispute this particular entry, but when I really thought about it I realized that, yeah…it’s true. I mean, there’s no denying that a certain amount of boozing and sexing goes on in college. That’s part of the experience. For some kids those are the only reasons to even bother going to college. But it’s not even the tiniest bit close to how movies depict it. The guys I hung around with during college loved to drink, but they saved that stuff (for the most part) for the weekends; we weren’t drowning ourselves in cheap beer in between classes and doing shots out of hot girls’ navels every evening. And I honestly don’t know anyone who drank like that, even when considering the people who were obvious party animals. As for the sex part…yeah, college is an excellent place to meet people, share experiences, try new things, and I definitely know some people who took major advantage of that. But it wasn’t a hedonistic den of sin by any stretch of the imagination. Even the guys I knew who were major dogs managed to keep it in their pants the majority of the time.

The simple fact is that college isn’t the enormous party that people imagine it is. There’s tons of fun and friends and being the biggest idiot you can be just for the hell of it, but that’s a byproduct, not the normal flow of things. College students simply are not drunk and having sex 100% of the time. To think that they would be is actually pretty foolish.

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So now that I’ve shared my side of the experience, how about you guys? What was college like for you? Did you have to put up with courses full of material you already knew, or even worse, courses that were undeniably useless to you? Did you ever fail a course, and what did it cost you? Have you managed to hang on to any of your friends from college? And be honest…how much boozing and sexing did you really do? I wanna hear about it! Please share!

It’s a Bug’s Life

I have a confession to make. I can hide it no longer. I am a Clutter-Bug.

What the hell is a Clutter-Bug, you ask? Well, what does it sound like? My life and my mind are filled with clutter. Mountains of it.

Don’t mistake me for a hoarder, although material possessions are a little bit of the problem. Physically I do have a lot of hoarder-type clutter around my house. I have an entire shelf on my bookcase that is nothing but blank notebooks I’ve never used, and there’s a whole stack of drawers in the dining room that are filled with good old fashioned junk, like rubber-band balls and dead pens. I have a bit of a hard time throwing stuff away, even when I know there’s no point in keeping them.

But the type of clutter that I’m talking about is the kind that distracts, the kind that disguises itself as disorganization and generally messiness. There are almost always clothes on my bedroom floor, for instance, even though we have a hamper in there. I leave my phone, my tablet, and my Playstation Vita wherever I happen to be when I’m finished using them. There are books on top of my headboard that I haven’t touched in weeks. There are boxes of baby clothes sitting in my hall that I simply haven’t bothered to put away, even though it would take five minutes to cart them down into the basement.

I seem to have a mental block that consistently keeps me from ever putting anything away, thus cluttering up my house. It’s an illness. A terrible, debilitating illness.

But it goes further than that, because clutter can be mental as well.

For instance, in my closet there is a huge stack of jeans taking up a good three square feet of space. None of them fit. They vary between being a size or two off to being so tiny that I would have to get liposuction and a stomach staple to ever have a chance of fitting in them again. And not only are these jeans clutter in the literal sense of taking up space and never being used, they’re clutter in the mental sense because I have to think of them every time I look at them. Every time I open my closet I see this stack of jeans and they make me miserable just for the sheer fact that I know I can’t fit into them. I know I could fit into them if I worked really hard and restricted my calories and stuck to a daily exercise regimen and completely stopped drinking anything other than water and so on and so on and so on…you see? Mental clutter.

Most people do this kind of thing to themselves to some extent, but I, my friends, am an expert. I am the Queen Clutter-Bug. May all lesser Clutter-Bugs bow before me.

Original pic via photoalbum.davison.ca

For another example, I have this habit I call “self-fulfilling failure to fulfill”. Basically, I have a mental list in my head of all the things I want to do, or need to do, and no matter how many things I am able to cross off the list I manage to add twice as many more. In this way my list is never complete, and my internal list-maker starts twitching like a drugged-up jackrabbit. It doesn’t matter if I’m working my ass off or sitting back and trying to relax, I have this never-ceasing mental clutter of half-finished to-do lists gumming up my brain.

It’s a horrifying condition for a writer because while I should be writing and working on my platform, I’m instead obsessing about a million other things. I can’t get any writing done around my husband or daughter because I’m so easily distracted by everything they say or do. I can’t get any writing done in my own bedroom because I can’t stop thinking about that basket of clothes on the floor or those damn jeans in my closet. When I do get around to writing I’m plagued by a thousand non-work-in-progress-related thoughts like whether I should be planning some blog posts in advance to give myself more time, or whether I should scrap this fan fiction stuff and just concentrate on my original work, or should I log onto Twitter and see what the other writers are doing? It’s a constant barrage of voices in my head yelling at me about everything except what I’m supposed to be writing about.

“Why aren’t you more active on Twitter? How do you expect to gain followers when you never say anything interesting?”

“Why are you focusing so much on this stupid supernatural romance stuff…it will probably just ruin your image for when the zombie horror novel is done.”

“Oh crap, did I write a blog post for tomorrow? Crap, I didn’t… Crap crap crap!”

It spirals on and on, until I have so many thoughts in my head that I can’t pick out any one particular one. And then I get very, very tired. Queen Clutter-Bug begins to slow down. She crawls into a dark spot and the other Clutter-Bugs swarm around and begin to eat her.

Original image via science.kqed.org

But there is hope! Or so I’m told. There are cures for rampant Clutter-Bug-ism, such as meditation, relaxation techniques, and – if you’re a particular kind of person – alcohol. Scour the internet and you will find a million different suggestions for calming the shouting voices in your brain, the ones that keep you from ever being calm or satisfied. There are methods, if only one chooses to seek them out.

Or if you’re like me you can find your own release; little joys that keep you from going utterly insane. How do I dispel Queen Clutter-Bug? I do things that are completely against her nature. I purposely pick something that I know is material clutter and I toss it in the trash, sighing pleasurably all the while. I snuggle up with my daughter and watch cartoons – great brain-blanking animations that somehow keep your mind from thinking about anything else. I watch B-movies with my husband – films so absurdly terrible that you can’t help but just sit and laugh the world away.

My methods may not be ideal, nor might they work at all for someone else with similar Clutter-Buginess issues. But we all must deal with our issues in our own way, and for me these things are Clutter-Bug Raid.

Which reminds me, my mile-long mental list includes spraying some Clutter-Bug Raid. Excuse me, I really must get to that ASAP.

Accountability Tuesdays – Week 26

Two things to mention before I get to the heart of the matter today. First of all, it’s week number 26! That means I’m halfway through the year! And while I’m nowhere near where I would need to be to be on track with my million word goal, I’ve written more in the past six months than in the previous 2 years combined! But more on that later.

The other thing I want to mention is that as you are reading this I am packing up my last couple of bits and bobbles from the control room at work, chucking it all in a backpack, and awaiting the bus that will return me to camp where I’ll giddily await my plane home. My last plane home. That’s not to say that I won’t end up back out in Alberta for work in a few months or so, but for now I’m heading home with nothing on the horizon except spending quality time with my family and maybe enjoying a number of alcoholic beverages from the comfort of my back deck. Look upon me and be in awe, for I am officially ON VACATION!

Okay, that’s enough of that. 🙂

Health and Body Image Goal

I’ve been a bit on the ins and outs with this goal, unfortunately, but I’m still not doing too badly. As I mentioned last week I did, in fact, drag myself to the gym and try running on the treadmill. It wasn’t ideal, but acceptable. I figured that’s what I’d do until my stomach felt better. But then my stomach felt worse. I don’t know if it’s the actual physical exertion that’s bothering me, or if it’s the camp food (which, thank god, I won’t be enjoying any more of any time soon), or if I’ve been suffering from some as-yet-diagnosed condition inherited from my sickly parents (love you guys, really :P), but I’ve hardly been able to stand leaving my room in the morning and suffering through the bus ride to work, never mind exercising on top of that. Luckily, about two days ago, my symptoms seemed to subside and I’ve felt halfway decent since then, so here’s hoping all will be well when I get home and try to run around my neighborhood again.

All that said, I’ve still been managing to eat pretty well. I’ve had a cookie here, some pop there, but for the most part I’ve been eating decent food (or as decent as it gets on camp) and not too much of it. I haven’t weighed or measured myself recently because I doubt I’ve lost anything during my refusal-to-exercise days, but I’ve recently had an unusual number of coworkers tell me that I look like I’ve lost weight, so I’m just going to go ahead and say, “Woohoo! I look like I’ve lost weight!”

Editing Goal

I have a stupid, STUPID confession to make. I did try to get some editing done this week, I swear, I really did. But when I finally took out my tablet and opened up the files I transferred there for editing purposes, I discovered something idiotic. Of the four different word-processor-ish apps I have on my tablet, none of them open rtf files. Guess what format all my files are in? After two days of searching for an Android program that DOES open rtf files (for free, because screw that, I’m not paying for an app that I only need for a week) I gave up and admitted defeat. Apparently the world of tablets and smartphones does not believe in the existence of rtf files. So the editing will have to wait for this coming week. Grr.

1,000,000 Word Goal

I have been writing like a maniac this week, mostly due to my rediscovery of 750Words.com. I don’t know what it is, but I love just typing and typing and typing and watching the word counter go up. It’s addictive. Over the course of the week I’ve written blog posts, typed out a few scenes for Returning Hope, did a couple of writing exercises, and did a little bit of free-writing (i.e. writing whatever came to my head as it came to my head). Through all of this combined I managed to once again beat my best week score with a total word count of 16556. In addition to that, I’m happy to announce that I’ve reached a yearly total so far of over 165,000. Again, it’s nowhere near where I need to be for my goal, but it’s a heck of a lot more than I normally would have written, so I’m proud. Revel in my pride! Only six months to go to try and boost that total up as high as I can!

And with that said, I plan to spend the next several hours in the lounge at camp, with my feet up, reading A Dance With Dragons, and waiting for my final flight home. See you soon, Cape Breton!

Tea-riffic…(Haha, I’m So Clever)

We all have our weaknesses, our little addictions. About a year and a half ago, while doing some shopping in Halifax with my inlaws, I discovered one of mine. I had noticed this store before, but never bothered to go inside. This time I ventured in and promptly stared in confusion at the giant wall of shiny, silver canisters plastered with labels of black, white, red, green, yellow, blue, brown, and purple. I was a little flabbergasted, I admit, but the staff were almost unbelievably helpful, and after examining a couple of the canisters and feeling more than a little silly while sniffing at them, I left the store with my first packet of David’s Tea.

Those who follow my Twitter feed know that the day I just described resulted in a bit of an addiction. A lack of the stores near where I live keeps me from spending my life savings, but a location in the Toronto airport has allowed me to pick up a pack here, a pack there whenever I’m travelling to and from work, and I managed to bully my husband into picking me up a couple of containers for Christmas this year. My addiction has been well-supplied.

As I have quite a wealth of experience with the flavors of David’s Tea at this point, I thought it was about time I share some information on what I’ve tried, what I love, and what I suggest.

(And now seems like a good time to mention that I am in no way affiliated with David’s Tea, nor are they paying me in any manner. These are just the opinions of a very satisfied customer!)

Customer Service:
This may seem like a funny thing to start with, but I really felt the need to share my level of satisfaction with the customer service at David’s Tea. I’ve only visited three different locations, but I’ve dealt with approximately ten different employees, plus a customer service rep from their website, and I’ve thus far had nothing but good experiences. I’m sure that somewhere, at some David’s Tea location, there is probably a disgrunted brat of an employee who huffs their days away, but I’ve not come across one myself. Every employee I’ve dealt with has been extremely cheery, helpful, and friendly. They’ve helped me (and my husband) pick out teas, expressed their opinions and preferences, asked about my own preferences and made suggestions based on those, encouraged me to examine and sniff the teas, offered free samples, and in general just treated me as though I was a friend. Two employees in particular (both of whom work at the Toronto Pearson Airport location) happily take the time to ask me about my day and my travel plans while scooping up my tea. It’s just very calming and refreshing to have a happy face smiling at me and treating me well while I’m picking out my purchases. I’ve dealt with enough rude, ignorant cashiers and customer service reps to be able to really appreciate the nice ones, so keep it up DT employees!

Accessories:
It may seem a little silly, but part of what makes the tea so great for me is the accessories. Two months ago I purchased one of David’s Perfect Tea Mugs and I couldn’t be happier. It’s a clear mug (so you can watch your tea steep) and a very fine mesh steeping basket. There is also a cover which doubles as a saucer to put the basket in once your tea has finished steeping. I positively love it, and the basket is wide enough that it is fairly easy to clean by hand. By comparison we also have the David’s Tea by Bodum travel mug. At first I liked this one, and I do still like it for traveling, but it has a fatal flaw…it’s a royal pain in the arse to clean. The mug itself is long and thin on the inside, and the mesh filter that is meant to push your tea leaves out of the way tends to get gunked up pretty badly. The combination of these two issues pretty much demands that it be washed by a dishwasher; by hand just isn’t going to work. Since I spend so much time out West where I have only a small sink to clean my things in, this doesn’t work well for me.

In addition to the Perfect Mug, I’ve also purchased one of their Perfect Spoons. Basically it’s just a pre-sized spoon that measures out the exact amount that most David’s Tea recipes suggest (1.5 tsp), but it is awesome in its simplicity. I make a perfect cup of tea every time with its help.

OMG, the Actual Tea:
I’ll be honest, I’m up to about 30 different varieties at this point, and I’ve loved almost all of them. That may just mean I’m a tea maniac, I’m not sure. But for the sake of sharing, I’ll talk about a few of my favorites, and one in particular that I didn’t enjoy.

It’s difficult to choose an absolute favorite, but pretty high up on the list is Amaretto. One of the teas my husband got me for Christmas, this concoction of Lapaco, almond, apricot kernels, orange blossoms, rose blossoms, and flavoring smells exactly like a bottle of Disarona Amaretto. That is to say, it smells delicious. Seriously, I could just sit there and sniff the tin. But then, I’m a little looney. As far as flavor, it is a little weaker than some of the other teas, but when brewed a little strong it also tastes quite a lot like Disarona, only hot and without the alcohol content. Depending on your preferences, that could be an upside or a downside. I’ll let you decide, but for the record, for me it’s instant love.

Also high on the list is Strawberry Rhubarb Parfait. The mix of apple, hibiscus, raisins, carrot, yogurt bits, strawberry, rhubarb, and flavoring may be a little tart for some people, but to me it’s a delicious treat that makes me feel like I’ve had dessert. The best part? If you forget about it and it gets cold, it just ends up tasting like strawberry juice!

The last one that I’ll mention (before I end up giving you a blow-by-blow of every flavor I’ve ever bought) is Dragon Pearls. I was first attracted to this green tea simply because it seemed so neat…each of the “pearls” is hand-rolled from green tea leaves scented with jasmine flowers. As the tightly rolled little balls steep, they unroll (showing you just how meticulously miniaturized they really were) and release a very soothing scent. When I actually tasted it for the first time, I melted. Green tea is not for everyone, I know, especially not without some kind of addition such as honey, but personally I find Dragon Pearls to be incredibly calming and delicious. It is the kind of tea I would enjoy with some warm biscuits and butter. (Damn it, now I’m seriously craving some biscuits and butter…)

Now, to be fair, I have tried one tea that I did not enjoy at all. That one is Super Ginger. I bought it as a trial pack of teas meant to help when you’re suffering from a variety of ills. This mixture of ginger, green rooibos, pink peppercorns, black and white pepper, and flavoring is supposed to be a soothing cold remedy, but I had a seriously difficult time forcing it down. I found the overall flavor very spicy in an unpleasant way. It may have helped burn the cold out of me, but it wasn’t worth the cringing horror I felt whenever it was time to take a gulp. Better luck next time, DT.

So there you have it: yays and nays. But mostly yays. 😛 Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a delicious hot cup of Cookie Dough tea to imbibe.

I totally forgot to title this post

A reminder: This post courtesy of Julie Jarnagin’s 101 Blog Post Ideas for Writers.

38. How the books you read as a teenager affected you

This one is a little harder than the one about books I read as a child because, although I’ve always been a reader, I read significantly less during my teenage years (which I choose to think of as “high school age”). Let me explain why.

As a younger child and a preteen, I was fairly awkward. I was smart, a little shy, and easily embarrassed. I got along perfectly well with pretty much everyone, and I had a tight-knit group of close friends, but I was not a social child, and I don’t believe I came off as someone who wanted to be social. I was the kind of kid the other kids thought of as a nerd. I wasn’t the kind of kid that got invited to parties and events (unless it was a birthday party of the type where you invite your entire class just because), and as we got a little older I was not the kind of girl who got attention from boys. But as we moved on to the teenage years of high school, I started to blossom a little. I somehow mustered up the courage to ask the boy I liked to a school dance, and from that came my first real romantic relationship. That relationship opened up my world a lot. I became exposed to things that other kids my age already had sussed out. My boyfriend introduced me to things like sports, fishing, and non-campsite camping, and I gained a bit more of a social circle which lead to parties, hanging out, and all those things that teenagers are supposed to do even though they’re not technically supposed to (*cough*booze*cough*).

The picture I’m trying to paint here is of a nerdy girl who had suddenly realized that there was other stuff to life than being nerdy. During those years things that had always been an important part of me, like reading and writing, took a bit of a back burner to all the new and exciting stuff I was experiencing.
For that reason, it’s hard for me to talk about the books that affected me as a teenager, because I find myself thinking, “What frickin’ books did I read as a teenager?”

But I wanted to be able to write a proper response to this prompt, so I thought long and hard. And then I remembered something that happened in my second year of high school. My best friend and I were taking a Sociology course, and I was in the first seat of the first row closest to the door, right up against the wall. On that wall, right next to my head, was a photocopy that our teacher had made of a newspaper article. Obviously I can’t remember the exact details of the article, but the basic idea was a story about how a bunch of “good Christian” mothers had gotten together to protest the availability of the new Harry Potter book in public schools. They scoffed at the book and called it satanistic, claiming that the author was attempting to lead their “good Christian” children away from God and into the arms of witches and devil-worshipers.

I remember reading that article during a particularly boring part of our teacher’s lecture, and the first thought that popped into my mind was, well…to be honest, the first thought that popped into my mind was that these “good Christian” moms were well and truly gone in the head. But the second thought that popped into my mind was that I totally had to read these Harry Potter books. There were three or four of them published by that point, but I’d avoided them for the dual reasons of everything I mentioned above, and the fact that the looked like kiddy books. But after having read that foolish article about closed-minded moms on an embarrassing crusade, I decided that I had to read them, and did as soon as possible. To say the least, I fell in love with them, and I absolutely struggled through the next few years as I constantly waited for the next one to be released.

If one book (or series of books, I suppose) can be attributed for bringing me back into the world of reading and writing, it would definitely be the Harry Potter series. Though I never got back into reading as much as I had before until I was well into my young adult years, Harry Potter definitely set the wheels in motion, and for that it is probably the book (or books) that most affected me during my teenage years.

Call This Help?

It appears that the only problem with pre-scheduling my posts for during the work rotation is that when I get home for my off-days I forget that I have to, you know…manually post some entries. I’d like to try and fix myself of this issue if at all possible. One of the big reasons (I suspect) that I’ve been unsuccessful with blogs and the like in the past is because I have no concept of “regular updates”, which as it turns out is a bit important.

In my defense, I had a friend visit from away for four nights, and during three of those nights we devoured a large, large amount of alcohol. A large amount. I may be recovering for another three or four nights.

But I digress. This is an overdue post that I should have made about a week ago when it was originally relevant.

About a week and a half ago there was an article in the local newspapers, detailing a rather frustrating issue with our province’s apprenticeship board. Without going into a great amount of detail, some lawyer (of course) apparently discovered that the apprenticeship board does not actually have the authority to accept work hours that were obtained in other provinces. As an overwhelming number of Nova Scotia apprentices work outside Nova Scotia (i.e. where the jobs are), this is a bit of an issue. It was a topic of much contention out on the work site. But it’s not the main point of the article that bothered me so much…what really bothered me was a quote by an apprenticeship board spokesman that stated how they were trying to help apprentices through this issue and that they were “all about” helping apprentices through to completion of their apprenticeship.

In response to this quote I wrote an emphatic FaceBook status about just how “helpful” I’ve found the apprenticeship board to be over the years. My husband then pointed out that the spokesman I was addressing was unlikely to read my FaceBook page and suggested I submit my status to the newspaper. I did so, expecting nothing to come of it, and was contacted by a family friend a few days later to let me know that he’d just read my letter.

Not the most enormous deal in the world, but pretty exciting to me since it’s technically my first real publication. 🙂 Confidence!

If anyone is interested in reading the letter that I wrote, I submit to you the link to the online version. My letter is third one down, entitled “Call this help?” and signed (obviously) Tracey Tobin.

http://thechronicleherald.ca/letters/130162-voice-of-the-people-august-27-2012

Launch of My Dreams

A reminder: This post courtesy of Julie Jarnagin’s 101 Blog Post Ideas for Writers.

24. Describe your dream launch party

Unlike the previous post, I can actually answer this one because it’s my “dream” launch party and thus does not have to make sense if I’m totally off on what a launch party is supposed to be like.

Obviously my family and friends would be there, especially my daughter because I love any excuse to show off how adorable she is. 🙂 There would be lots to drink, and even more to eat – I would want tons of treats, finger foods, sweets, everything you’ve got! There would definitely be some excellent music (stick to stuff that was produced before the turn of the millennium…I don’t care how old and un-hip that makes me sound), and I would strongly encourage dancing.

Basically what I’m describing here is a Cape Breton wedding reception, but hey…a party! 😀

30 Days of Truth – Day 20

Your views on drugs and alcohol.

All things in moderation. Well, maybe not all things, but you get my meaning.

First, alcohol:
I think everyone should, at least once, have to watch a video that someone took of them while they were drunk. Alcohol can be a fun addition to many things, but everyone should have to own up to how they act while drunk. I know, for example, that when I get too drunk I turn into a bit of a bitch. That’s not cool, so I actively try to avoid that level. Not enough people do that, I think, mainly because they refuse to believe that they really act that way. Thus, the videos. Next time someone you know is being an abusive bastard while drunk, I challenge you to take a good, long video of them and show it to them the next day.

Now, drugs:
Obviously there are lot of bad drugs out there, and I’m not saying that I promote the use of things like heroine and cocaine. That said, I’d like to see more people do their research before condemning certain drugs. Marijuana, for instance. It’s been proven, through a good deal of study, that marijuana does a hell of a lot less damage to your body than regular cigarettes, but I bet most parents would rather find their kid with a cig than a joint. Remember people, just because it’s legal doesn’t make it good, and just because it’s illegal doesn’t make it evil. Do your own research and think for yourself once in a while.

30 Days of Truth – Day 16

Someone or something you definitely could live without.

Bills?

Okay, okay, but seriously…I’m not sure if this is supposed to be something that you wish you didn’t have to deal with, or something that you wouldn’t miss if it was gone. I’m going to go with the latter and say alcohol.

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy my booze. I love going to parties with friends and getting my drink on. But if I had to give something up permanently, it wouldn’t hurt me too badly to give up alcohol. Being pregnant (and breastfeeding afterward) made me realize how unimportant alcohol is to me. There’s nothing quite like a nice cold drink, but it’s not something I’m going to pine after if I lose it.