Had my little talk with this VFS guy named Daniel today.

Called at three o’clock, and he picked up. There goes my theory that he was screening me. Apparently, he did not get back to me on Friday because he didn’t have my number and I hadn’t left it in any of the three voice mails I left.

Um… I am pretty sure most voice mail systems have an option where you can tell it to dial the person who left a message. Plus, it’s in their files, and Patrick has it too.

Guess he didn’t want to talk to me all that bad.

Anyhow, I got in touch with him, and I made my pitch. Told him all about my blogging 365,000 words a year, plus writing four novels, plus writing a million words in 11 months, and so on. I told him how talented I am (he snorted…. in retrospect, that was a dumb thing to say, oh well) and how it’s my disability that has kept me out of the loop and all that.

He was not too impressed. Turns out he is not actually in charge of admitting, though, so my pitch was sort of wasted on him. He’s the one who deals with the disabled people for VFS, and he pretty much just repeated the party line that without a recent education or job history it would be “very hard” for the people in admissions to have enough faith in my ability to complete the intensive one year program to admit me.

My sentences are often quite long. Not always, though.

I asked him “If the course is so intense, then what difference will it make if I take a few writing courses? It won’t me anything like the VFS course!”.

He was silent for around three seconds, then his brain reset and he said “Look, I don’t know how I can make this any clearer… ” and went on with the talking points.

That’s when I knew it would be pointless to torment the guy any further and it certainly wouldn’t help me get into VFS if I crushed him with my powerful logic muscles, so I just apologized for being difficult and told him I would be back in time for the September session with the educational requirements met.

I can’t say I am surprised, it was an extreme long shot to begin with. I don’t feel too bad about it this time because it didn’t really cost me anything this time and I didn’t get my hopes up too high.

Still, after I got off the phone, I had a pretty major stress/depression/post-freakout type reaction. But I didn’t pay it much attention. There is a great power in being able to recognize what is happening in your body and detach from it. I felt bad, but I knew it was just chemicals and simply waited for things to go back to normal.

And sure enough, about an hour and a half later, everything was calmed down. I still feel the residue of disappointment and depression it left behind, and it will take a while before I get that taste out of my mouth, but the crisis portion of the event is over, and now I am just recovering from it.

Stupid chemicals. Always wrecking my shit.

What bugs me, though, is that if I had just thought to include my number in the messages I left on Friday, I would have done a way, way better job of “pitching” myself. I was ready on Friday. All my energies were aligned, I had my mojo workin’, I had all my arguments primed and ready, and I was in the right frame of mind to turn my charm all the way up.

But that seems to be the pattern with me. Nothing ever happens when I am ready for it.

Instead, today was a day where I slept really badly, spending a lot of time unable to wake up or go to sleep fully, and when I made the phone call, I was feeling very burnt out and fragmented and null.

So I was not exactly my brightest and warmest and most charming when I made that call. Instead, I am pretty sure I came across as pedantic and whiny.

Not that it really matters… I wasn’t talking to the decision-maker anyhow.

And I suspect I never will. I am sure that I have been marked ‘difficult’ somewhere, either in their files or just by word of mouth. So I somehow doubt I will get a chance to pitch myself to them in person, on the phone, or even by email.

I would love to do it in person. Then my charm and power of personality could really kick in. I am not above getting people to do what I want them to do by power of personality. Sometimes you get get what you want simply by leaving a powerful positive impression on people, getting them to both like and respect you, and therefore happy to do what you want.

Because you are now their alpha.

That is pretty much the secret of why some people waltz through life with apparent ease. The classic example would be very good-looking people. Their beauty has such a strong effect on people that it makes said people want to do what the beautiful person wants them to do purely to make the beautiful person happy.

It also happens with people who have very strong personalities, for the same reason.

I would even go so far as to say that these factors actually make someone more “real” than others. Because these people stick out from the background, they rise above the noise of everyday life, and we have strong instincts to obey people like that.

I think I have been that sort of person all my life without knowing it, and it is high time I put it to good use.

I have hidden my power away from the world for too long.

And I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.