cannot use a phone book or read a bus timetable

Um. I frequently find bus timetables sufficiently difficult to read that I don't get buses. (Though usually the first problem is that there is no timetable.)

it's definitely far better than OK to be scared and then learn as a result

Absolutely. If you don't push your comfort zones sometimes, how do you ever grow?

big interview on Wednesday

I think I must have missed this news in the LJ I didn't catch up from while I was away! What is the interview? Best of luck with it, anyway...