I'm Actually Attending School Now

Sup. I've started school at Pivot Point now and it's no where near as scary as I'd assumed it would be. I've made some friends (something I certainly didn't expect) and I'm not the oldest person there. I have, though, been referred to at least once as 'the white guy'. There aren't many men there, I think 6 or 7 in the whole school, though our class has three of them. Our instructor is a very well respected, experienced and talented man. He's got an amazing voice that, until I met him, I would have assumed was something that only character actors used. It's somewhat like Froggy from The Little Rascals. The last two days have been a mix of inspiration, team building and simplified Jungian psychology. I think I've introduced myself as part of a group somewhere around 20 times in the last four days.

The first day I sat alone, ready to eat lunch by myself when I got invited to sit with three of my classmates. The next day I sat alone again, but this time my classmates came and sat with me. Since it happened again today, I'm going to assume that it'll continue, which, for me, is a reassurance that I'm not as out of touch as I expected to be. Also on my first day I got a parking ticket. I had religiously fed the meter, but apparently feeding the meter isn't enough when they have a secret 2 hour parking limit and you stay for 8.

Tuition has been covered entirely by loans now that my mom and dad have co-signed my personal student loan, which is good because, honestly, I didn't really have a plan beyond that and my tuition is due on the 5th.

Tomorrow is my eight year anniversary. I don't think we have plans, but her family is coming over for dinner because the 2nd is her mom's birthday. With that, I'm off to clean, excited and energized by my new career path. Seriously.

Edit: Also, I got a manicure last night. So good.

Orientation #2

I was accepted to the Evanston school once my financial aid paperwork went through and today was orientation. Between the three incoming classes there were ~70 new students which, apparently, is quite a bit. They were a fairly unchatty crowd, but there were some older students and a handful of male students, so it was a more diverse group than the Chicago school. I look forward to starting next Tuesday, but now that it's so close, I'm nervous again. 

Additionally, I have something wrong with my right hand. It seems localized in my thumb and the adjoining muscles and tendons, but it's pretty damned painful at times. I'll be heading to a free clinic to see if I can't do something about it before I start taking classes that will be pretty demanding on my hands. 

The book thing didn't work out. I had a lot of ideas, but the math aspect was just beyond me. Now I'm past the deadline and only finished 3 of the 17 things I was supposed to make.

Disappointment Extended

I got in touch with the admissions person at the Evanston Pivot Point (which I hear is a nicer, bigger school) and they told me that the August 30th class was also now full. I'm on the waiting list, but I've been told I have a spot in the September 27th class. I have a meeting with admissions on Wednesday to hammer out the last details. 

Also, I got a freelance writing job working on a Pathfinder supplement for The Le Games. I'll be working on undead themed magic items this time. I think the next thing I pitch will be magical beauty supplies. Yeah. If that flies, I'll see if I can't post some samples here.

Disappointment Realized

Two days ago I payed off the money I apparently owed my old bank because I needed to open a new account to be able to provide bank account information for my financial aid. They were supposed to email me a receipt that night. They didn't. I called the next day, they assured me it was on it's way, that they had just started their day. I had to call again this morning. The guy emailed it in minutes and I, after dropping The Goblin off at school, headed to the bank and opened an account. Then I drove to Pivot Point and went in to see the admissions lady. I was too late. My spot wasn't just filled, it was never really open in the first place. 

Fuck.  

Now my next option is to try to get into the slightly larger class at the Evanston Academy. I called their office at 3pm and their voice mail politely informed me that they were closed and that I should call back between 9am and 5pm, Monday through Friday. I dialed the extension of the admissions lady there and left her a detailed voice mail. Unfortunately, since it's Friday, I'm willing to bet I won't hear from her until at least Monday. At this point I have a bank account I don't need, no job and no school. I'm actually worse off than I had originally thought and that's scary.

Possible Disappointment

Apparently I was supposed to get the financial aide people bank information so that they could finalize my aide payment schedule. I was not aware of this. So, I have less than a week to resolve the issue and hope that one of the people who didn't show up to orientation doesn't want to actually attend school. Otherwise I'll be waiting until the January admission. 

On the up side, if I do get to start school next Tuesday, I've met my classmates. They all seem nice. We had to tell everyone our name, how we decided on the school and our favorite movie. The favorite movie is a replacement for the old question: who is your favorite designer/artist because not enough people in the past had a favorite designer. 

My name's Lovesmasher. I decided on Pivot Point because I had it recommended to me by several friends who work in the industry. I decided to say that my favorite movie was The Fifth Element because it's fashion forward and very stylized, and to that end I told them that my favorite designer is Jean-Paul Gautier, as he did the costume design for The Fifth Element. The woman after me (who had great skin, by the way) said that her favorite movie was Twilight. I immediately regretted putting thought into my statements.

Actual Beginnings vs. Training to Begin

So, in mid July I got a letter from Pivot Point saying that I'd be required to do orientation on August 2nd (today). I put the letter on my desk and remembered easily that today was orientation. Last night I checked the letter to see what time I should show up. It didn't have a time. I had the Goblin (my SO) check. It oddly still didn't have a time. Since it was ~8pm, I decided that I'd have to go to bed early so that I could get up in time to make it there by 9am. Luckily I had a rare moment of wisdom and called before I left the house. Apparently it's at 5pm... an odd time. 


So now my nervousness isn't just present, it's sharpened into a fine edge blade. I had a nightmare last night about getting asked my first day to come up in front of the class and do some simple hair thing, braiding, I think, and I had no idea how. I'm a bit worried about that, actually. Most of my peers will be young women who, traditionally, are taught about beauty regimens by their mothers. I lack, almost entirely, any pre-knowledge regarding anything involving cosmetology. Though, I've likely dyed more hair than most of them, so I suppose that's a slight advantage. I've even got hair bleaching horror stories (that I must never tell my customers) that I can make them laugh with. 

I begin school in earnest in a week. Actually, in exactly one week, I'll have been in my first class for two minutes already. Oh god. oh god. 

I'll let you know how orientation went later. For now, back to bed.

A beginning

Hello. Forgive the terrible blog title: puns are, apparently, a great and time-honored cosmetology tradition. From 'The Cutting Edge" to "Great Lengths", a huge amount of salons commit heinous crimes against comedy and the English language. I'm Keith and I'm planning on attending cosmetology school in August. I decided to blog about my experience after my initial interview at the school that I shared with a young woman who was just finishing high school. You see, I'm not the traditional beauty school enrollee: I'm 35, white, straight and a man. It's still a couple of months off, but I'm already starting to get a bit nervous. I haven't attended school of any kind since 1996 when I failed out of my second semester of community college.

I'm not dumb, I just had a really hard time concentrating on school while working. Well, that's not entirely true. I had a really hard time concentrating on going to class. I went to school, but I spent most of my time at school the first semester working to become editor in chief of the school paper, and then the second semester becoming general manager of the radio station. I ended up with a 1.0, a GPA so shamefully low as to usually lead me to deny attending college entirely. 

So it's not like my nervousness is without merit. I genuinely could fuck it up. What adds to the whole worry thing is that I've had to take out student loans for school and I've been without work for the last 8 months. I used to work for a software company doing telephone technical support, but my attendance there, too, was lacking. Genuinely, this was because of various health problems mostly related to my insomnia, but it too lends credence to my fears. 

All in all, though, I look forward to it.