Plotting

I think I have a plan.

I need one, since my bakery sort of floundered and failed. Well, maybeit didn't permanently fail, but it definitely isn't getting off the ground in the near future. And I've been through several plans already--I think everyone does.

In high school, I wanted to be a botanist. I figured out before I even took any classes that I didn't want to be a modern botanist. I wanted to be a botanist in the 1800's or so. And I was fascinated with psychology, sociology, and forensic anthropology. I found out the college I was going to (I only applied to one. That was the one I wanted to go to, and that was the one I got into) offered criminology, so I went straight for that.

I spent three years working towards that degree when they got rid of the major. It got dropped down to a track in the sociology department, so I could get a degree in sociology with an emphasis on criminology.

That pissed me off. The school didn't grandfather me in on anything. I couldn't get my degree, and no matter what I did, I kept getting told that there were new gen eds that I had to take, or one I had taken didn't really count anymore. I stayed another year, but they had raised my tuition by 50%, and were raising it again. I couldn't afford it--even with a loan, finanical aid, and a job--so I basically gave the university the finger and moved my focus from finishing off the degree I couldn't have anyway to work instead on the bakery.

The bakery actually started out as an idea between a friend of mine and I. Iris had just gotten her culinary arts degree, and between the two of us, we thought it would kick ass to open a pagan tea house.

Further discussion made us decide that pagan friendly would be a much better business move than pagan oriented, because pagans in Oklahoma (despite what I've heard, I'm not going to extend the generalization) really suck at supporting pagan businesses. There was no good reason to turn away customers or turn them off by focusing on only one small market. And a tea house was nice, but we wanted fresh baked goods, and coffee, and...it grew.

At one point, Iris' boyfriend came to my place just to corner me and demand to know if I was really serious about the whole teahouse thing, because she was dead serious, and he needed to know if I would let her down or not. I assured him that I was completely serious, see all the work I'd already done for it?

He left reassured, and within a few months, she had decided to move to Seattle, and too bad that I'd done all that work for nothing.

I refused to let it be for nothing, and I worked to get it going for a year. I was actually told that I can't do it because I'm too young. A few folks have gotten pissed because that's ageism, but it isn't. You can get discriminated against for being young and no one gives a damn. You're only protected if you're old. I got hints that being both young and female made it impossible, since baking is dominated by men, and got treated badly at the convention I attended. I wasted a year and literally thousands of dollars on it, and got nowhere. The banks said I was too much of a risk, too young, and don't have enough credit.

My credit is a big stumbling block, and I didn't even get the pleasure of ruining it myself. My mom used me to get a phone, and to get water and utilities, and then had problems with the phone company. Regardless of whose side I believe--the phone company says she didn't pay them for months, and they finally sent the bill to a collection agency, and she says she cancelled the service and they kept charging her, so of course she wasn't going to pay--I still have only one thing on my credit, and that's that I got a bill sent to a collection agency. The easiest way to repair the damage is to get a credit card, use it, and always pay for it on time, but I can't get a card. I've been declined by one company, and they continue to send me
applications. Luckily, the regular payments on the college and car loans should help repair some of the damage.

So the bakery has to be set on the back burner. And if I go back for criminology, I'll have to start all over from the beginning. And, thanks in part to stuff like CSI, the New Dectives, the Forensic Files, and all the other fiction and non-fiction shows involving forensics, by the time I manage to graduate, the system has a good
chance of being flooded. Probably not as bad as English majors, but still...

So I'm going to stick with temping. The company I'm working for even offers 401-K plans, and a lot of decent benefits, as long as you stay with them for a long time. And I'm going to look into local vo-techs, and find out which ones offer culinary arts, who has the best program, and how much they cost. I might have to wait until I can pay off my car to be able to afford it, but I'm going to look into going to
vo-tech part time until I can get my culinary arts degree, because my food is fantastic, but my presentation is severely lacking. I might take some business management classes, too, just to have something prove that I know what I do.

Once I've finished that, I'll start requesting assignments from my agency outside of Oklahoma. That's one of the neat things about temping--once I've built up a good reputation with them, I can get transfered somewhere for a short term position (between one week and one month). Some people use that for vacations--you have to work full time, but you get to go nearly anywhere you like, and you're making
money while you're gone. So I can go different places, find out how friendly they are to personal cheffing and how comfortable I'll be there, and then come home for a while before trying somewhere else. And once I've found the right place, I can transfer out there permanently, and keep temping until I can get enough going as a
personal chef to support myself.

Even if I never can support myself that way, I'll still have a full time job, and if all else fails, I can start looking for something temp-to-perm. Or just keep temping until I retire.

I've been working to stay in Oklahoma, and I finally asked myself why. Even though I grew up here, I don't have any serious roots. I have four family members who mean a lot to me--parents and grandparents--and two friends. I don't even know if I'll really be seeing one of them anymore after about a year or so. So I'd like to be
able to come back and visit--Christmas, Med Faire, the occasional birthday. But really, depending on where I move, I could end up somewhere with more attachments instead of fewer.

It seems like a good plan. I'd like to end up in New Orleans, but it might not actually be right for me. I mean, I'm very taken with the place, but I've only been there once for three days. I need to try spending a little more time there before really commiting to it. But I think, if nothing else, my bakery would be really at home there.

I don't know how this will pan out, as no one really knows where they'll be in five or ten years. The best laid plans and all that. But I feel much better having some goal in mind instead of just floundering, something I feel I can actually accomplish.