The fatigue of success

The better-than-expected grade led to me squeaking onto the Dean's List for the term. How about that. And it only took three weeks after taking the final to get the grade, the Thursday before this term's classes started, the first week of which has just concluded. I was literally trembling when I logged into my school account to view the grade, not knowing whether it was the end, or another beginning. 

My loan funds came through "sooner than expected" in posting to my account, but no one can tell me when a check was cut, or when it was mailed - only that it was "requested" on the 4th, so practically speaking I am up the same creek that I have been ever since I started in this program. I am very lucky that my landlord is understanding with the late rent.

I've become accustomed to poor performance from my university bureaucracy and keep reminding myself that no one grows up dreaming of working in a school's financial aid office. I won't ever claim to be the best and brightest of anything, but I work hard, get results and make this fact obvious to others. Repeatedly and at numerous points, incompetence has trumped "quick" results and curt indifference has usually been the norm in my dealings with the lead sled which attached itself to the sports car of a program that I am working through. I just need these last dollars to arrive and I will never have to deal with these fuck-ups ever again.

I am trying to go full-speed with the start of the term but the physical release of the stress of uncertainty over the finance grade has not yet abated. I have been unable to get myself out of the mud and back into the cranking swing, as I have weighed myself down with the additional responsibilities of informational interviews and preparing an entry for Canada's Next Top Ad Exec, even as I try to broaden my focus beyond being an account executive at an ad agency and position myself as a "strategic brand advisor" which I feel would split the difference. So much is so exciting, but so much is just so much: while about a hundred other students attend a winter getaway weekend, I try to relax and fire up my engines to really begin to work hard.

I have replaced the constant worry over failing the class and program expulsion with fear of not finding a job in time and going really broke before I graduate. Knock down one domino and the next one appears. How can I change this perception? As my aunt said, it takes a special person to live with this kind of uncertainty, and I intend to remain that person.

Last fall was no fluke. I must continue to build.