Take a Screenshot📸: Buying my First Domain.

The first assignment? Take a screenshot, sounds simple right? Well, let me start from the beginning…

So, a quick recap, I have been thinking about this digital marketing course for a while. Everyone is talking about it, everyone is doing it and I had no idea what they were on about. Then I stumbled upon an ad claiming the full course was free. After a few back and forth with myself, I thought, free? Sign me up.

But here is the catch? Maybe not necessarily a catch, more like a pre-requisite, you have to buy a domain. When I heard that I immediately froze. In my mind it’s, there is that ‘catch’ I had been waiting for…. I would like to tell you that I closed my screen and went about my life but nope, I kept on thinking about this domain that I need to buy to enable me to participate in this course. I spent the next 24 hours thinking about it because if it’s truly free, how am I suddenly supposed to spend R800.00 just to learn, that does not sound free. But eventually I gave in, because this guy keeps on insisting that this is the only thing I will be paying for, everything else if free, he says this is the classroom where he will be teaching from, that’s not really what he said but that’s how I understood it eventually.

So, the next evening I am hovering over that “pay” button like it was a live wire, not yet truly convinced but I tell myself that chances are I was going to use that same money on something unnecessary anyway, so I took the plunge and that night? My card refused. Nothing would go through. I stared at my screen thinking, well, that’s a sign. Maybe I shouldn’t be doing this. I went to bed half convinced I just avoided getting scammed.

Fast forward to the next day, I tried it again, not sure why I tried it again, maybe it’s because this “domain thing” has occupied my brain for the past 48 hours but we can never know for sure. So, I tried it again and this time it worked, turns out the course really is free. You just need the domain so the lecturer can guide you step by step. It’s like someone giving you a free car and all you need to do is spend money fetching it. You might also think of it like someone giving you something for free and all you have to do is pay for the delivery. Sounds simple once you get past the panic.

Now back to the assignment: Take a screenshot.

How does one mess up taking a screenshot? Well, my friends, let me tell you. I did it with the attention of a goldfish. (I am not a 100% sure that’s accurate but it feels right.) The assignment asked for a screenshot right after buying my domain – a tiny proof that I had done the thing. Easy. Simple. Done.

Except after entering my card details and clicking pay, my brain decided to wander. By the time I looked back, the ‘Congratulations, you did it!’ page had vanished into the digital abyss. Screenshot? Missed.

Cue panic, because this was supposed to be the easiest assignment ever.

Plan B: Take a screenshot of the welcome email instead. Not exactly what they wanted but desperate times, my friends. Desperate times.

Funny enough, weeks later while I was rebuilding this current site and rewatching the lesson I finally heard the lecturer says that we could also take a screenshot of the welcome email. Silence, absolute silence. Turns out there was never a crisis. There was never a need for plan B. I had simply panic clicked my way past the instruction and created my own emergency. Which now that I think about it, might become a reoccurring theme in this blog. Welcome to while buffering.

Lessons Learned.

1. Panic arrives before understanding.

Half the stress came from me assuming I had already messed something up when I really just needed to reread the instructions properly.

2. Attention Spans are fragile little creatures.

One second, I was buying a domain, the next second my brain was thinking about something completely unrelated, and the screenshot was gone forever.

3. There is almost always a plan B.

The welcome email screenshot was not exactly what I intended to submit, but it still worked perfectly.

4. Starting something new feels terrifying at first.

Especially when money is involved, I spent two days convinced I was about to be scammed if I went through with this, a bit more research on my end would have alleviated my fears and searching what a domain is might have put the rest of them to sleep. Alas, we live, we learn and sometimes we panic before opening Google.