Smart Phones and Career Days

Yesterday when I woke up, my phone was dead. I mean, it had been plugged into the charger all night but it won’t turn on and is apparently…..just dead. I googled all of the different things I could try and nothing has worked so I think I’m going to have to get a new phone. We always buy our phones outright and do a month to month (cheap) plan so there’s no insurance or anything to fall back on. We have the extra money right now but it’s such a pain to have to shop for a phone and make a quick decision and then wait for it to ship (because we usually buy online) and then get it activated. In the meantime I feel pretty lost because….technology. I hate feeling so disconnected – especially from my kids. There’s something comforting about knowing that they can contact me whenever they need something.

The last couple of years I have done career day at my son’s middle school. I am an event decorator (think full scale events like weddings, corporate parties, etc.) so it’s a career that appeals to the more creative kids and I feel like that’s an area that is really overlooked. So generally how it works is I set up a small display in a classroom and then small groups of kids come in and listen to me do a short talk about what I do, what kind of skills are needed, what kind of education applies to my career, etc.  I’m always happy to do it and talking to groups doesn’t make me nervous. So this year the high school contacted me and asked me to participate in their college and career day and I agreed. Except I didn’t realize that it’s a very different format – more like a trade show where you set up a table and the kids walk around. I find it harder to engage kids and I’m kind of at a loss as to how to approach this. The person organizing it said it’s best if you can provide some sort of demonstration to draw the kids in but I’m coming up blank. Most of what we do is so involved that it’s difficult to demonstrate – I can’t very well hang fabric from a ceiling or put up a 30′ backdrop. I could do something with centerpieces but I’m just not feeling it. Unfortunately it’s the day after tomorrow so I don’t have much more time to think about it. Then they emailed me to confirm and I asked how many kids (I was thinking it was just juniors and seniors) and I was told it’s the entire high school that participates – so, around 850 kids. I don’t really anticipate being able to effectively communicate to many kids in this type of situation so it feels kind of like a waste of time. I guess part of it is just my anxiety at doing something different, not knowing exactly how it’s going to work out. And part of me is at a loss as to what to do.