Homework: My Communications Toolkit

Remember what it was like to have summers off as a kid? Sunny days spent outdoors, free time to read, eating junk food by the pool - ah, those were the days. Why am I reminiscing instead of participating, you might ask? Because I've managed to triple book myself for the months of May and June. I'm collecting data for a social media research project, I've got a full-time writing job for the summer, and I'm taking a spring night class. Yes, I'm probably crazy and no, I'm not sleeping much.

My spring class is called "Professional Communication" and it's supposed to be an introduction to communicating in a professional aka business environment - the global business environment. I have a business degree. I majored in International Business. Uh, yeah. The fact that I still have to take this course is a rant-y rabbit hole for another day because this post is actually an assignment for my class. We are talking about our "communications toolkit" or rather more accurately, what we consider to be in our "communications toolkit". If you have no idea what I'm talking about, you might be one of my classmates. My interpretation of this nebulous term is basically, what sort of skills or traits make me a great communicator. So here are the tools in my kit:

1. A Notebook - I've always been a writer. I've had a secret stash of notebooks full of stories and my own private musings since the second grade. There are usually at least 2 in my bag at any one point in time. Today the count is three. I am strangely obsessed with stationary. 
2. Sass - Anyone familiar with this blog or any of my personal writing knows that I have a bit of a sassy side. I spent a couple of years trying to train myself out of it for the sake of my inexplicable desire to work in government but I'm starting to appreciate my particular brand of contrarian crankiness as an element of style. Y'all must like it too since this is my most popular post.
3. Twitter - According to my uncle, I tweet a lot. According to me, I don't tweet enough. I was a late-ish adopter of Facebook in 2007 but an early-ish adopter of Twitter in 2009. I dabble in other social media platforms but Twitter is like my right hand these days and I have 3 accounts: One for this blog, my personal account, and one for a research project I'm doing (which doesn't have any activity at this point, by design). I also live-tweet for interVivos and have had the odd paid live-tweeting gig here and there. I'm no expert, but I think I'm getting there.
4. Volunteer Cheer - I've been volunteering regularly since I was 10 years old and my mother took my sister and I to the Heart & Stroke Foundation to stuff participant packages for their Mother/Daughter Walk. I now sit on two non-profit boards: Habitat for Humanity Camrose & interVivos. Being involved with these groups reminds me that opportunities don't just fall into your lap - you have to go out and make them for yourself. They also give me a place to practice my professional skills and being a productive member of society.
5. BComm - I would be remiss if I did not at least mention my Bachelor of Commerce degree. As much as I like to rag on how much I hated getting it and how useless I think it was, it is helpful to know how to relate to sociopaths and it does provide a bit of a niche. At least I think so. I am always the person who gets sent to talk to the engineers. That's got to say something.
6. London Bridge - I spent a year living in the UK and I will reference that experience until I die of exhaustion or the people around me punch me in the face from having heard so much about it. That year was about living like I was dying and in 13 months I visited 66 different cities, drank my body weight in beer at Oktoberfest, crossed the Ha'penny bridge in Dublin on St. Patrick's Day, rode the Orient Express, and spent Halloween in Transylvannia. That trip was when I learned that the best thing to do is probably the opposite of what everyone is telling you to do. Be bold and don't look back.
7. The Tree Hallway and the Alley - these were hallways that used to exist in the old Victoria High School in Edmonton. They aren't there anymore but that school is where learned an appreciation for the fine arts just by being surrounded by them every day. Art is a language of elites and I only now understand how privileged I was to have learned it as a poor kid who had no real business being there. 
8. The old TV studio - Again, at Vic. This is where I somehow managed to gather enough confidence to pitch a story and see it through. It is completely bizarre how much I've used the ability to do a storyboard in my relatively short work history. This was scratched out on a napkin. It didn't win any awards, but it got an A.
9. This Blog - I created this blog so I could practice writing in a public sphere after years of squirreling my work away. It was a way to get my writing mojo back after years of churning out veiled bureaucratic non-speak. It wasn't even double-speak. It was non-speak. It's amazing how good a person can get at saying absolutely nothing at all. This was my conscious attempt to break that cycle and rediscover my voice as a writer.
10. TBC - I fully recognize that I'm a work in progress. Unlike my younger self, I really understand that success takes time and hard work. Patience is a virtue that I do not possess naturally so I'm working on it. Day by day. Bit by bit. And I'm learning to chill out about it. Glass of wine by glass of wine.