Financial Planning

So the guy last night was all right. It was REALLY funny, being as aware as I am now about different sales techniques, to mentally dissect his presentation and identify the different components of it. :) He wasn't bad, although he could use a little enthusiasm. You could also tell where he was getting uncomfortable using his baiting questions on his friends. I'd say Ryan handled them swimmingly, so no one got their feelings hurt. It's just that, with me, when I'm in a situation like that and trying to sell to someone I know well, you just have to throw those scripts and stuff out the window (actually, I try to throw them out the window all the time--they just aren't me, for the most part). You have to act like a normal person, as if all you were doing was telling them they "gotta" see this new movie that's come out, it's so great, blah blah blah.

I think I neglected to mention last post that I am selling Mary Kay for a living while in school. That would make the above paragraph make a little more sense, wouldn't it?

Got an email this week from school--a few of the other students just received HUGE prizes for their writing in this new award program that just began in 2004. How awesome is that!?! Like thousands of dollars in cash prizes. I'd workshopped with a couple of them during the residency last month and I must, say, well deserved. It's part of what makes me so excited to be a student at New England College. I'm surrounded by the most awesome, talented people.

Okay--back to writing. Dang paper. ;)

5,278

...is the number of blogs I have on various sites throughout the internet. Free ones, of course. Livejournal, opendiary, blah de blah de blah....I've just never been good at keeping them, but since I'm home more now and basically live in front of the computer, maybe this time around I'll do better. Plus it seems this is the medium used by most of my friends and acquaintances.

So for anyone who's surfing right now and actually bothering to read this, let me tell you about me. I'm 25 years old, married with no kids and no ideas about kids (however, am auntie to a very precious 2-year-old with zen-like brilliance....I mean the 2-year-old is brilliant, not my auntie skills) but currently living with two cats which is close enough to having kids; I'm in graduate school to finish up my MFA in poetry, and am currently not working at a J.O.B. (journey of the broke) and happy about it! So that's me in a nutshell. I read a lot. I write a lot. Now that I'm not working a job I'll be auditioning for shows again now I have the energy and time to do so....yeah.

My husband of about 4-5 months works for a newspaper. He also dabbles in writing and film directing (of which I wish he'd do more, because he's very good at it). We went to college together, which is how we met originally, about 8 or 9 years ago. Somehow we didn't manage to date until 2001, after I'd just graduated and he'd been graduated for quite some time. We're working on a family website, since our families are kind of spread out over the state, so look for a link to that when it's done, i.e. when I get the time to learn Dreamweaver.

Ugh. This financial advisor guy is coming over tonight to tell us about consolidating loans. I owe quite a bit still from school, and together we have a fair amount of credit card debt, and this guy's a buddy of Ryan's so we're giving him a shot, to at least hear what he suggests. I just don't have a whole lot of trust in the entire idea of debt consolidation companies....because clearly their money has to come from somewhere and it's probably going to be us, if we go that route--thereby making us think we're saving by consolidating, but really we're not. I don't know. I guess that's why I'm willing to hear him out--like I said, he's a friend, not a shark or anything. He'll be fair.

On a happy note, I have painted my nails hot pink. :) So if the financial stuff gets irritating, at least I'll be able to look at my hands and be happy! LOL

Okay, back to reading for school. I have a short paper due next week that I cannot put off any longer if I want to have time to edit it later. Signing out!