I am also sorts of exhausted today. I have been pulling some ridiculously late nights coupled with ridiculously early mornings. Today, we even missed the alarm and slept in, which let to a mad dash to get W to the train. I hate rushing in the morning. It is completely off-putting and usually ends up ruining my day. It also doesn’t help that its pretty gloomy outside and there is some blasphemy talk of us getting snow on Saturday.

It does nothing for my motivation, I don’t mind admitting.

Still, yesterday was pretty fantastic. It was First Thursday and I dragged W down to Art Central with me for the First Thursday Meetup event. We had a nice, little turn out. But, I’ll be honest, I’m not 100% if I actually enjoyed First Thursday. The galleries and exhibits were, for the most part, alright. There was nothing (save a few select artists) that completely stood out to me. In fact, a lot of the stuff I had already seen before. So in that regard, it was a slight disappointment. A small part of me just feels like Art Central hasn’t been the same since QUAB left.

Still, in spite the disappointing galleries, there was a lot of great discussion and comaraderie. So that makes it a successful evening in my eyes.

In other news, my (seemingly) quarterly bout of educational/professional uncertainty has reared its ugly head again. For whatever reason, it seems like every few months I start questioning what I wanna do when I grow up. Seriously. A couple of months ago, I was so very serious about getting a business certificate because it was the pragmatic thing to do. But now, I’m not sure. Admittedly, there has been a lot of bullshit going on at my really-real job that has been seriously influencing my desire to obtain a business certificate.

I am just not sure if I am that girl, ya know? A business girl. At least not a corporate business girl. I’m just not sure I can play that particular game very well. I mean, I like my current job, I excel at it, and I think, given an opportunity, I could advance quite nicely here (with or without a business certificate). But a career?! I don’t know.

The annoying part is that I am almost desperate to have a career. Almost all of my friends and peers have careers. And I just wish I could get my shit together long enough to figure out what I want to do. Being so flighty and indecisive is really frustrating and really dumb.

Though, a bit of progress is that I think I have decided that I need to have some sort of creativity in my professional life. Much more than I have now. I have been kicking around the idea of maybe looking into graphic design a bit. It might be a nice way to merge business acumen with my creative side. But I don’t know. Mostly, I don’t know where to start.

While I am an artist, it would require a different type of edu-ma-cation than I currently have because the way you approach graphic design and the way you approach fine art are vastly different. I would certainly need a new skill set and series of tools at my disposal. But I am kinda struggling because there doesn’t appear to be any decent graphic design programs offered at most of the Calgary educational institutions.

ACAD offers a graphic design stream through their Bachelor of Design program. But I already made the decision that I can’t afford to go back to school full-time. So that’s out. I was kinda hoping to find something through continuing education. So far, the closest thing is the Master Design Certificate program through SAIT (I actually have two classes under my belt for that one). But I am concerned that it is much more introductory than I am looking for.

So I am at a loss. I feel very direction-less and a bit frustrated. I want to be someone who works for the love of their job, not to get a pay cheque. Lately, its really only about the pay cheque. It makes me sad.

ETA: SAIT also has two-year Digital Media and New Media programs. But they are both full-time. And while less than getting a degree, not sure if I could stop working for two years. Hurm.

ETA 2: Oh, this will be very helpful, methinks!