Grad, Reunion, and More!

Good Morning peeps,

This may be a little long so bear with me for a bit because I want to share the exciting week I’ve had with all of you.

First, we start with the graduation. Many of you may not know that a couple of years ago I went back to school for the first time since High School. At first, my original intention was to take Legal Assistant because I wanted to do office work. Part of the issue I always struggled with living in my home city is that many jobs, even your minimum wage jobs, require you to have French. Often while they aren’t asking for that as a mandatory ability, people who are bilingual would be chosen over a unilingual person. If I had a college education, perhaps I could step over that nagging little issue… Anyways, at the time the Law Society of Upper Canada changed their rules so both the Legal Assist Program and Paralegal needed to update. The problem was that there were only two of us that enrolled in Legal Assistant. It meant that I either took a different program or went up to Paralegal where I’d be overqualified for what I wanted.

After a few months of being in the program, I ended up in a relationship with a person in the Netherlands. This lead me to take a trip to Europe for a week and a bit while I was in school. I first checked to make sure that it would be okay – that I wouldn’t have to be there for one part which required field trips and the like… So I went to Europe. And due to weird circumstances, I finished the program, minus that one week, and then moved twice. I had inevitably forgotten about the things that still needed to be done to graduate. My lovely instructor told me about the next night class where I could do the last week needed to graduate. In between packing, fretting over moving vehicles, finding a place to go, and probably the worst couple of months of my life, I finished my course.

I proudly graduated with people I didn’t know on Wednesday night. It was a long ceremony and even though certain things about it bothered the hell out of me, I felt proud that I finally did something good in my life. I just wish that people had enough sense to calm down that screaming child so that the graduates could enjoy and HEAR the keynote speaker. You won’t know this but the keynote speaker was a woman who had been talked highly of all through my course. She is a licenced Paralegal that started a group for new Paralegals to talk ‘shop’, network, and learn the inner workings of field work. Many of us looked up to Crystal Cote because she was so highly regarded amongst my peers and instructors. I wanted to really hear her speech but in the end, I was too distracted by the screaming abomination… Not only that but I was forcing down my reaction pretty hard. I was fighting the urge to run out the room. I can’t deal with screaming little ones.

 

Me – Paralegal Graduate 2017

 

The next day was busy because of another webinar I signed up for. It was 3 Creative Ways to Make Money Off Your Art put on by Jeff Goins who just released his book Real Artists Don’t Starve. I’ve already pre-ordered the book and it’s shipping early next week. I couldn’t be happier 😀 This book will hopefully help find more writing work or give me ideas to kick start myself. Anyways, Jeff Goins is a person that is really interesting and inspiring. I’ve been a viewer of his webinars before and it is the impression I get (cue cheesy song that is awesome). He’s pretty down to earth from what I can tell.

Saturday was terrifying for several reasons. Our book club meeting happened and I wasn’t that far into the book. It didn’t help that I only had the book in my possession for a couple of days. That wouldn’t have been an issue if it wasn’t for things like Grad to take up time 😉 However, later that evening I went to the CFlats 20 year Reunion Show. I was excited because I knew two of my favourite people would be performing. After purchasing the ticket, I looked at the list of CFlat members from all the years – including my year – and saw names of people I detested from back then. Panic set in. It’s been 20 years and I feel like my life would never compare to everyone else that could show up. I live a life that many people just do not understand – nor should they – but I have always felt like I hadn’t accomplished all that much. And here is this sheet of paper containing names of people I didn’t really want to see.

Fortunately for me, most of the people I hated in high school were not actually there. But the panic wasn’t over yet… After a few technical difficulties and a late start to the show, one of my friends did a solo. At one point, he came over to me so that I could sing a bit into the mic. EEEEEPP. I blanked out and felt a little embarrassed. I forgot the lyrics at that moment… But I love singing anyways. That said, he was wonderful and said to the crowd that I’ve been to every one of his shows – which is true by the way. He currently lives in California and I want him to succeed. I think he’ll have a truly successful career once he gains enough traction. In case you are wondering, his name is Jeremy Merrick, and one of his tracks can be found on Spotify. I can’t find the music anywhere else to link to which is a shame because he’s got some good stuff. This needs to be rectified.

The next couple of days were just busy writing and not a lot happened until yesterday when my family and I went to see Wonder Woman. I’m not spoiling anything here but suffice it to say, I loved it. That said, there was something we were talking about in our writing group calls that I watched unfold while watching the movie. Anyways, it had amusing parts, kick-ass combat scenes, and moments where I laughed and said, “I totally do that.” I suppose that means I’m secretly Wonder Woman? *cackles*

So! I’ve had quite an exciting week, how about you guys? What are you up to lately? Do you have interesting books to recommend? Blogs I should take a look at? Perhaps you know of a place that is looking for more writers? Let me know! I’d love to get a dialogue going with all of you 🙂

Until next time!