My first job paid me $6.40 an hour\u2014 the bare minimum wage legal to pay a teenager at the time.<\/p>\n
I worked next to the food court at the mall and the food smells were torture.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cListen, I just want the potato side dish, with LOTS of hot sauce. I mean lots. No, more. Pile that bad boy on. That\u2019s only $2.50 right?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
I sunk pretty low pretty often. For minimum wage you have to work a lot of hours if you\u2019re going to pay for tuition, books and the subway.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not the one who\u2019s telling you to go to university. If you want to go to school, you\u2019re paying for all of it.\u201d So said my mother.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
I commuted from Markham to Union Station for four years and a lot of the time I couldn\u2019t afford the subway from there to St. George.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
I\u2019m not afraid to say it: I hustled.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
I asked strangers for tokens when my bank account was less than $15 and I couldn\u2019t take money out of the ATM. I rooted old British money out of my drawers and changed it to Canadian. I collected dimes and nickels and had a habit of poking around gum machines. I walked a lot and once was followed to school by a tourist who wished to sit next to me in my class. I tried to lose him over several streets, but he was a wily one and stuck with me. It wasn\u2019t a good day. And yes, in moments of hunger when I just couldn\u2019t pack enough food to last me from 9am to 9pm, I snacked on sugar packets at Union Station and survived on free samples at Laura Secord, Cinnibon and California Thai. Sometimes I shortchanged the TTC (don\u2019t worry you moralists out there. They caught me. And fined me. It was tragic. I\u2019VE LEARNED MY LESSON, OK?)<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
So, I\u2019m sitting at the computer, on my banking page, and I\u2019m about to pay off the last of my student loans. I\u2019ve been doing it bit by bit every year (I\u2019m poor, my parents are not. Hence I don\u2019t qualify for OSAP in all its glory. I have a student loan from the Bank of Montreal and I have to pay a certain amount every month I have to carry it.)<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Anyways, $700.64 and I\u2019m done.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
I can\u2019t believe all the things I\u2019ve done to earn money here for school.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve sold Swarovski tiaras to snobby 16 year olds for their birthdays. I\u2019ve braved stock rooms, climbed unstable ladders and operated an Atari computer older than I am. I am a mistress of Windex and paper towels. I\u2019ve worn aprons, thrown over-stuffed garbage bags in monster dumpsters littered with raccoons and abused my wrists with ice-cream scoops. I\u2019ve made coffee, photocopies and spreadsheets. I\u2019ve written news briefs and articles using only press releases and the Internet as my sources (and I should be lying about this.)\u00a0 To this day, I sit in a call centre under a U of T building phoning alumni asking them \u201cif\u00a0 (they)\u2019d be interested at all in joining with other alumni and making a gift towards U of T this evening?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve done this while going to school, always bitter I that I don\u2019t go to Victoria College, with their 800 different scholarships and bursaries and automatic in course scholarship for any A average.\u00a0 I hate that money for students at\u00a0U of\u00a0T isn\u2019t obvious.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
It\u2019s kind of strange looking at my bank balance now. Soon it\u2019s not going to be about paying tuition\u2026soon it\u2019s going to be about building my C.V. and being able to use buzz words like \u201capplicable to my field of interest.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
I click that I\u2019m \u2018sure\u2019 about making my payment.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
My bank account is empty again.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
I feel a little strange, wondering exactly what my financial goals are now and also wondering if U of T knows about everything I\u2019ve given it.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
-Heather<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"