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Two degrees + Two professional certifications. Thirty-five years. A 4.0 GPA. Nicki Zeller on what changes when you pay for your own education — and a partial inventory of the worst art ever produced at the University of Calgary. Nicki Zeller graduated from the University of Calgary's Graphic Design and Integrated Digital Media program with a 4.0 GPA — her third post-secondary credential, and by far her best. In this episode she walks through the full financial and emotional cost of adult learning, the disasters that preceded the 4.0, and why failure hits completely differently at fifty than it did at nineteen.

Including: the portrait of her nephew that she cannot take back. The marijuana dog poster that ended up Barney purple. And a still life that her professor described, charitably, as having "interesting use of negative space."

This is a victory lap. It's also an honest accounting. Both things are true.

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🎙️ Nicole's Notes is published every Friday on cokeontherocks.ca
✍️ Read the companion blog post: cokeontherocks.ca
📩 Connect: nicole@cokeontherocks.ca

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Forget the generic Gen-X nostalgia take — this is the real one, first person, with receipts.

Ashtrays were a chore. I was babysitting a newborn at twelve for $20 a week. My brother Neil drove a truck at eleven. I was balancing a till at a bingo hall at thirteen in a room so thick with smoke it could cure a ham. And somehow, none of this was considered unusual.

In this episode of Nicole's Notes, I'm walking through my actual feral childhood — the games, the jobs, the unsupervised summers, the playground equipment that could legally reach Mach 10 — and making the case that all of it built something specific in us: self-sufficiency, self-regulation, conflict management, and the ability to get things done without calling a meeting about it first.

We grew up latchkey and feral. We turned out fine. Mostly.

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Nicole Zeller opens her private journal for the first time on the podcast. This is a four-episode Nicole's Notes series about strength, heartbreak, self-respect, and what it really costs to feel everything without running. Starts now. What happens when the thing that kept you alive starts keeping you lonely? Nicole opens the journal. Raw and uncensored.

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Nicole reads the journal entry where she stopped white-knuckling it and named what she actually needed — not rescue, but relief. Not someone stronger, but someone strong enough. The episode where self-respect stops being armour and starts being a standard.

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Heartbreak doesn't always diminish you. Sometimes it expands you. Nicole reads the journal entry where she took inventory of who she was in the middle of the pain, and found a rare diamond, a meditation on expansion, self-respect, and the broken hallelujah of loving fully.

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She'll handle it. She'll survive it. She'll carry it. She's strong. But nobody asked if she wanted to. Nicole reads the journal entry where she named the loneliness inside the competence, and the isolating shadow of being the one who always handles it.

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Nicole reads a raw journal entry written under pressure and unpacks what it actually means to be self-aware when it comes at a cost. Real strength isn't performance. And looking at your walls? That's rare. Self-awareness isn't the destination. It's the price of admission

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