Year in Review part 2
So let's finish this year in review that I started a while ago. Perhaps if I finish this I can write about new things in my life.
So September I went on a cruise with my family. My mother had been planning it for quite sometime as a final family vacation. The timing was rather unfortunate as I had to turn down two job offers to go but a family moment like this will probably never happen again. It was a tough choice but I think I made the right choice by going. The image of my mother’s heart breaking was just too much. Going on vacation with you parents when you are 23 is frustrating especially if the last time you went on vacation with them was in Grade 8. It my mother could have put a leash on me she would have.
Overall it was fun but weird. I really needed a drinking buddy.
Something about all of the wasted (but stunningly good) food and pollution made me uneasy about the whole thing. We did, however, visit the Cayman Islands, Jamaica, Haiti, and Mexico. It was nice to visit these places but every port was really pretty much the same as the last one and then add to that you only touch down for like 8 hours it was hard to get a sense of the culture of each place which was kind of disappointing. Jamaica probably the most unique port and was full of good vibes. I’d like to go back there someday. I won a bunch of prints on the cruise. Always a plus. The art dealer on the cruise had a lovely collection of Picasso's, Dali's, Chagall's Max', Rembrandt etchings, and a whole bunch of other things that I did not expect to see. Sadly, it was all about how much each piece was worth rather than what it was about but what do you expect from an art dealer. They did, however, screen a lost movie that Dali and Walt Disney were working on that was supposed to be in Fantasia. A moving Dali is a very pretty sight. I checked out some Mayan ruins which pleased that 8 year old that watched In Search Of on A&E regularly. The theatre on board the ship was atrocious. Pretty because of a big budget but oh so hollow. Does anyone remember Charo? She played on the cruise. She is actually a great Spanish guitar player but a terrible comedian. While on this cruise myself and Kaya had some very sexy correspondence as we tried to sort out what was going on and what to do with these feelings of ours.
I turn 24 in a hotel room in Miami while chatting with Kaya over MSN. I was supposed to work on two shows but they were cancelled. A week later Kaya and I decide that I should come visit her in Quebec. I stayed in Thetford Mines for almost two weeks. I have to say that is was probably one of the hottest vacations I have ever had and I am definitely not talking about the weather. Thetford is a very quiet place and I commend Kaya for not going completely batshit during her time there because I would have. We spent a weekend in Quebec City it was beautiful and it was really fun getting lost there. I am really glad that I went up as I believe these weeks played a huge part in making my relationship with Kaya what it is today.
After my trip to Thetford I moved into Jill Keiley’s house for a bit while renovations were being done. It was great except that the renovations were supposed to be done about a week after I moved in but unfortunately for me I was a situation where the contractors thought “Well she is out of town for awhile so we really do not need to bother with this for awhile.” When Jill moved back in December they were still not done.
So I traveled during hiring season and therefore had few options for employment when I came back. So I broke and applied to call centers. I started a new job at Convergys at the end of the month. Torture. Utter torture. The training was ok.
The renovations situation became worse as Stu, Jill’s dog, started throwing up. I have never had a dog before so this freaked me out and ended up calling my cousin at 2:30am and then suggested that it was “stress vomiting” due to his world being shaken up by having a new handler in me and really noisy contractors. Training at Convergys continued. It was easy money but hardly rewarding. I did get a Wii out of it though. I also spent a lot of time talking with Kaya and anxiously awaiting her return in December.
So in conclusion November was renovations, work, renovations, work, vomit, renovations, work, vomit, renovations, work, and Wii but there was a wonderful December brewing.
The problem with the imminent December return was that it was ¾ of the way through December which made it feel that much longer. This made work all the more tedious on top of being one of the worst jobs I ever had. The time passed and Kaya came home for 3 blissful weeks. At this point I had just about enough with Convergys and decided to change my situation and move to Vancouver! Christmas time was quite merry. I had a riot.
I bid Kaya farewell on the 8th and then moved to Vancouver on the 13th. I stayed with Meaghan Harding and Megan King in January….thank you… while I waited for my apartment to vacate. Meaghan Harding and I spent a month in blissfully unemployed but soon reached depravity status. Games of strip dice when dealing poker cards became tedious and frequent visits to a 24 hour porn store (that was never open when we got there). I hung out with Melanie Brooks, Holly Rolfe, and Laura Cameron a few times. I also became friends with Ian Penney who had moved out to Vancouver at about the same time I did. We all spent most of our free nights looking for bars that were open passed 1am. I saw the opening of Morris Panych’s Vigil at the playhouse theatre. The set design was amazing. I quickly learned that very few people who live in Vancouver are actually from Vancouver. I got my first gig in late January SM’ing the PuSh Festival cabaret, PuSh Theatre Drugs. It was very trial by fire but I made some good contacts and gained a handful of mushrooms. I was then hired at the Shadbolt Center for the Arts as an on call technician. I expected to get a shift or two out of but it ended up becoming my main source of income.
More to come...
So September I went on a cruise with my family. My mother had been planning it for quite sometime as a final family vacation. The timing was rather unfortunate as I had to turn down two job offers to go but a family moment like this will probably never happen again. It was a tough choice but I think I made the right choice by going. The image of my mother’s heart breaking was just too much. Going on vacation with you parents when you are 23 is frustrating especially if the last time you went on vacation with them was in Grade 8. It my mother could have put a leash on me she would have.
Overall it was fun but weird. I really needed a drinking buddy.
Something about all of the wasted (but stunningly good) food and pollution made me uneasy about the whole thing. We did, however, visit the Cayman Islands, Jamaica, Haiti, and Mexico. It was nice to visit these places but every port was really pretty much the same as the last one and then add to that you only touch down for like 8 hours it was hard to get a sense of the culture of each place which was kind of disappointing. Jamaica probably the most unique port and was full of good vibes. I’d like to go back there someday. I won a bunch of prints on the cruise. Always a plus. The art dealer on the cruise had a lovely collection of Picasso's, Dali's, Chagall's Max', Rembrandt etchings, and a whole bunch of other things that I did not expect to see. Sadly, it was all about how much each piece was worth rather than what it was about but what do you expect from an art dealer. They did, however, screen a lost movie that Dali and Walt Disney were working on that was supposed to be in Fantasia. A moving Dali is a very pretty sight. I checked out some Mayan ruins which pleased that 8 year old that watched In Search Of on A&E regularly. The theatre on board the ship was atrocious. Pretty because of a big budget but oh so hollow. Does anyone remember Charo? She played on the cruise. She is actually a great Spanish guitar player but a terrible comedian. While on this cruise myself and Kaya had some very sexy correspondence as we tried to sort out what was going on and what to do with these feelings of ours.
I turn 24 in a hotel room in Miami while chatting with Kaya over MSN. I was supposed to work on two shows but they were cancelled. A week later Kaya and I decide that I should come visit her in Quebec. I stayed in Thetford Mines for almost two weeks. I have to say that is was probably one of the hottest vacations I have ever had and I am definitely not talking about the weather. Thetford is a very quiet place and I commend Kaya for not going completely batshit during her time there because I would have. We spent a weekend in Quebec City it was beautiful and it was really fun getting lost there. I am really glad that I went up as I believe these weeks played a huge part in making my relationship with Kaya what it is today.
After my trip to Thetford I moved into Jill Keiley’s house for a bit while renovations were being done. It was great except that the renovations were supposed to be done about a week after I moved in but unfortunately for me I was a situation where the contractors thought “Well she is out of town for awhile so we really do not need to bother with this for awhile.” When Jill moved back in December they were still not done.
So I traveled during hiring season and therefore had few options for employment when I came back. So I broke and applied to call centers. I started a new job at Convergys at the end of the month. Torture. Utter torture. The training was ok.
The renovations situation became worse as Stu, Jill’s dog, started throwing up. I have never had a dog before so this freaked me out and ended up calling my cousin at 2:30am and then suggested that it was “stress vomiting” due to his world being shaken up by having a new handler in me and really noisy contractors. Training at Convergys continued. It was easy money but hardly rewarding. I did get a Wii out of it though. I also spent a lot of time talking with Kaya and anxiously awaiting her return in December.
So in conclusion November was renovations, work, renovations, work, vomit, renovations, work, vomit, renovations, work, and Wii but there was a wonderful December brewing.
The problem with the imminent December return was that it was ¾ of the way through December which made it feel that much longer. This made work all the more tedious on top of being one of the worst jobs I ever had. The time passed and Kaya came home for 3 blissful weeks. At this point I had just about enough with Convergys and decided to change my situation and move to Vancouver! Christmas time was quite merry. I had a riot.
I bid Kaya farewell on the 8th and then moved to Vancouver on the 13th. I stayed with Meaghan Harding and Megan King in January….thank you… while I waited for my apartment to vacate. Meaghan Harding and I spent a month in blissfully unemployed but soon reached depravity status. Games of strip dice when dealing poker cards became tedious and frequent visits to a 24 hour porn store (that was never open when we got there). I hung out with Melanie Brooks, Holly Rolfe, and Laura Cameron a few times. I also became friends with Ian Penney who had moved out to Vancouver at about the same time I did. We all spent most of our free nights looking for bars that were open passed 1am. I saw the opening of Morris Panych’s Vigil at the playhouse theatre. The set design was amazing. I quickly learned that very few people who live in Vancouver are actually from Vancouver. I got my first gig in late January SM’ing the PuSh Festival cabaret, PuSh Theatre Drugs. It was very trial by fire but I made some good contacts and gained a handful of mushrooms. I was then hired at the Shadbolt Center for the Arts as an on call technician. I expected to get a shift or two out of but it ended up becoming my main source of income.
More to come...