Career Expo [all the right reasons?]

I went to one yesterday.

And I have decided that the only reason people would actually go to one of these, is NOT for the most obvious reason.

A career expo, you are led to believe, is held in order for people to find out more about careers, perhaps see what degrees they need for the job of their choice, as well as to find out what's expected of them in order to excel and to be highly competitive.

I went to one with my cousins yesterday, and as far as I can tell, the only reason I went to it was for the freebies.
Yes, freebies.

The minute I walked through the door, I was handed a free bag and a form telling me I could win a Wii if I poked around the TAFEWA section long enough. Then one of my cousins and I found a Woolworth's stall where they were advertising their careers there and we instantly managed to find free cake. We then continued in a different direction where I heaped about a kilogram of pamphlets into my free bag, and found: rulers, more bags, pens, keychains, tatoos and magnets, all free of charge and readily shoved in my direction- all in order to make me come and look at their stall and what it was about.

Kind of useless really, seeing as it's done nothing to change my mind about careers, or to give me more options. Fat lot of good the career expo was.

I was also chased after with a paper bag from the Tourism Industry stall with a whole bunch of quizzes and two really disgusting lollies. If I ever decide to work in the tourism industry [and that's the only stall that's been succesful in making think about a different career] remind me never to do so in Perth. If they're only going to hand me two horrible lollies as a bribe, I'd be better off looking at a different country or even state.
I then went back to the Woolies stall where I found the free cake, and they were giving everyone surrounding the stall a free go at making eclairs and little custard pavlovas. *yum*

So basically, I went to a career expo, so I could make free pastries, and snag all kinds of useless freebies. There was even a little section where one lady was doing free manicures, and I am kicking myself for not going.

As I read what I am writing, I suddenly realise the kind of impact that South Africa has had on me. This is pretty much the sort of person that I was when I was living in Johannesburg, all thanks to my friend who taught me to *ahem* "take what you want and overcome your shyness. Everyone wants to do it, but you're just taking it a step further and actually getting what you want, which is better than just wishing you had it."

And my cousins and brother? They went for the chance to win a free Wii, although one of my cousins actually did bother trying to look for what he wanted and dragged me around with him to help.

Well, some good thing came out of this.
I now know how to take the train to university should I ever need to. [yeah, damn right I will seeing as I still can't drive yet]
My mother no longer needs to steal my personalised magnet to hold her things up on her fridge since MY magnet is meant for MY documents.
And there will now be no shortage of pens and recyclable bags in the house. Nobody has a reason to touch my pencil case and steal my pens now.

Mishy <3