A Story About A Girl

It’s hard to keep up two blogs. I am spending most of my time on the other one and at the moment I am losing interest a little bit in this one. My life’s not all that interesting at the moment. There is stuff going on but it’s all school-related. My last post here was on my 40th birthday 6 days ago and since then not much has happened. Yesterday was Edward’s birthday. He turned 38. I can’t believe I’m 40 and he’s approaching 40! I don’t feel 40.

We’ll be celebrating his birthday today, as he worked yesterday, by going for a drive somewhere, getting ice cream then coming home and I am making him lasagna, or rather heating up a store-bought one since I have never made one and don’t want my first time to be his birthday supper in case it doesn’t turn outright. So I will buy our favorite Superstore one to heat as well as Ceasar salad and garlic bread, one of his favorite meals. Then we are going to have a movie night on Netflix and/or Amazon Prime. Looking forward to it.

I mentioned above that anything going on right now has to do with school. I am frustrated beyond belief with Athabasca University. I am still waiting for help for 2 of my 3 courses and am now stuck and can’t go on further until they reply. I complained weeks ago to them by email and still have heard nothing back from that either. It’s ridiculous and now I am so behind I doubt I’d catch up.

It’s pushed me to the decision of looking into…well, more than looking into, I started the process already… of changing schools. Before I checked into other schools I called Canada Student Loans and advised them of the situation and they told me it’s not the first complaint they have gotten. I asked about switching schools and was advised I could do it. I just needed to withdraw from Athabasca and apply to the new school. They advised me to double-check with Nova Scotia student loans first to ensure I would not be penalized by them and I did and I won’t as it’s the first time I have withdrawn from a course or program.

So started the search last week (even before my last post) for another program and school. There is nothing in my immediate area so I talked it over with my family and Eddie and after searching I found a place called Academy of Learning in Halifax. They offer a web design diploma program that covers some of what I want and they are in the process of getting a second software and web developer diploma program approved which has most of the rest of what I want to take.

So I reached out to the school and spoke to a woman there who sent me all the info. I explained the situation and she had the school’s director (owner) contact me and we did a zoom meeting and I have to say I was extremely impressed. They have both been incredibly helpful. They have been helping me sort things out and giving me advice and help with Athabasca. Sure it could be because they are a private college and just want the money from me, but honestly, I don’t think so. That’s just not the impression I got. The two of them have gone above and beyond to help me.

I finally found a phone line yesterday that was still working and managed to talk to a person over the phone at the university. I am now awaiting a supposed call back from my program advisor at Athabasca (who I didn’t even know existed because she was supposed to reach out to me within the first week and did not). I say supposed because, well nothing has gone to plan so far with Athabasca. She is supposed to discuss withdrawing from the program with me, knows my intent to withdraw, and that I plan to appeal if they say I am not getting my money back. So who knows where that’ll go.

In the meantime, I looked up reviews on the other school and they seem great. People don’t seem to have an issue getting positions with their diplomas and are satisfied with the school and after all the help and the long conversation with the program director who was awesome I am beyond sure that that’s where I want to go. I will have to spend two days in class in Halifax (2 1/2 hours away) so it means spending a few days in the city and staying somewhere overnight. I am going to ask my Aunt I think. The other 3 days I can work from home which is nice. It’s also nice to have it be a local (well within the province anyways) school. I won’t make that mistake again. So that’s school, in a nutshell, a f’*cking mess at the moment.

On top of that today (well late last night early this morning as it is after midnight) I wrote a sponsored post for Life With Kadie, I spent hours researching it and a few hours writing the post and then submitted it. They came back saying they liked the post but then asked me to not disclose it’s a sponsored post. Which is illegal in North America and probably a lot of other places and also against the influencer network’s policy. So I spent a good hour replying back and forth with the person running the campaign resulting in them asking me to delete the post. Just that nothing else.

I was a bit shocked, but at the same time, I put a lot of work into it. So I replied back asking if I was going to be paid. Their response was yes, even though you can’t follow instructions. Then they marked it to be paid. I didn’t delete the post though. I deleted the shares to social media and I made it back into a draft. Thinking about it I am thinking that because it was not a post that they provided me but one I researched and wrote and that there is nothing in the contract with them saying it’s not my property that I would just re-write parts of it removing them from it completely and post it later down the road. I am assuming it would be considered my property.

Honestly, I don’t really know the answer to that. I am just assuming, which might not be a good idea. I am going to see what I can find online about it and ask in some Facebook influencer and blogging groups and see what people say. I have never run across this before. Then again it’s only my 4th or 5th sponsored post.  Makes me mad. Kind of annoyed now. I probably should go to bed. It’s after 2 a.m. and hubby is snoring on the couch with the cat (who is also snoring).