Setting Sails and Eyes on Success

Picture courtesy of Beholder Images

"Setting Sail" was the theme of the PR graduation banquet. It was a time for going our separate ways, for testing new waters, and embarking on professional careers, but not until after some schmoozing, good-hearted jokes and dancing.

Our teachers put us afloat, sending us off with good wishes after sharing the stories of our past two years: staying up late working on assignments, making up excuses for late assignments, getting together to discuss how we were going to handle PR crises and presenting speeches. We rehashed some of the PR bloopers that happened over our six week co-op placements: trying to barter at Dollerama over supplies, driving through a park to get out of a chained parking lot after a magazine launch, having a dog rub it's hindquarters on you while interviewing a client at the Humane Society or having to clean out a barn as part of the less glamourous "PR" tasks.

Monique was my pricelessly perfect date with her polished manners, looking absolutely fabulous in her pink dress and being sure to liven things up on the dance floor. She agreed to rescue me after another date realized her schedule didn't match but I should have asked her in the first place!

Even though she is several years my junior and her training is not in taking questions, she managed amazingly well. When meeting the head of the Alumni association, she even jumped in sometimes to answer questions for me, quite assured that I was "going to be so successful in whatever [I did]." This threw the listener for a loop and they jokingly asked her: "have you already got the job for him too?" She could make even the most unfeeling creature fall in love. She explained her background working on a pirate ship off the coast of Mexico and explained she was there to "lighten the mood" amidst too much business talk. After talking to her for a few moments, he looked at me and said "she's a keeper."

So, we had a few drinks and listened to speeches written by teachers and fellow students. We had to laugh (at least those of us who understood the inside jokes) through a trash talk roast, pegging everyone's stereotype in the class and giving them a playful jab. There were short jokes about our teacher not reaching the microphone: "was this set up for a midget?", remarks about the nerd who is obsessed with Zehr's/Electronics/Loblaws, the overly outgoing Drew who was "most likely" to come out of his shell, the pregnant girl who is "just lying about being pregnant to cover up the winter weight" and me, the "tough guy" for my speech about how I "love" to fight -it's my favorite way to relieve post-exam stress. Yes, we are a sarcastic, cruel bunch. We all know each other a little too well.

To help us navigate in the future and remember where we came from, we recieved a compass with the college logo and a framed picture of our class. Things started wrapping up early around 1am. I handed out contact cards and assured everyone I'd keep in touch. That won't be hard, after all, we are in communications.

It will be interesting to see what happens to us. Some of us will go on to influence government, to support charities and not-for-profit foundations, some will entertain, some will critique, some will lead corporations and others will write speeches. Our teacher who wrote her own speech got past the point where she had scripted that she would cry. Having it written down made it avoidable. However, just because there weren't tears it felt like she was no less proud of us.

We don't have all the time in the world together so we've got to make the most of it. Thanks to everyone's hard work, we did. In a reminder to continue doing so, one student cited James Dean: "dream as if you'll live forever, live as if you'll die today."

This is a picture showing how my hair was before I cut it off. Today I am done school, I feel a mix of sadness and happiness and anticipation. I will be back to writing cover letters and thinking about the movie Capote, which I just saw. The weather outside is cool and rainy. My dog has pollen all over her making me conclude she went running through flowers. Life goes on as it always does. New hairs sprout, flowers bloom and things change but never forever.

PS-HAPPY EARTH DAY!!

Filed in Personal Diegesis