major update
i guess i should get started on this seeing as it's been WAY too long since i've had a chance to post and this is going to be a long entry. i would break it into a few, but i'm not sure when i'll get another opportunity to write something and i wouldn't want to leave it all half finished.
well...when i left you all last, my IP had screwed up my internet at home, i was up for a promotion at work, i had been offered another job by another agency, i was still looking for a house with my partner and..........i think that about covers it.
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okay - so i called my internet provider a few days after my service went wonky. surprise surprise, i find out they've cancelled my account. why? no one seems to know, but apparently i called in to cancel it right after i paid $170 to get the account reactivated after my credit card got stolen. yes, because that is something a logical person does right after paying a huge fucking bill. either way, the girl was very polite and apoligetic and she told me she'd have the problem solved and my internet would be back on within three business days. she also gave us a dial-up number to access the net while we were waiting for my highspeed to be corrected.
this is when i found out i do not have a dial-up modem on my computer.
after a week, with still no sight of my internet, i called again. this time the guy went through the whole system setup with me. because for some reason this could be MY fault? if the system worked for over a year set up the way it is, why would it suddenly be wrong? i dunno - but i humoured him and went through it all with him. 45 minutes later, he came to the same conclusion the first girl had: they disconnected my service for whatever ungodly reason, and it would take 3-4 business days to be reactivated. apparently the first girl HAD had the service reinstated, but not as high speed. she had it hooked back up at dial-up. moron.
so after 3 weeks of arguing and sitting on the phone and following wires and cables, my internet finally started working again. they owe me 3 months free internet now.
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i had my interview for the part-time position at the centre about 3 weeks ago. i personally thought the interview went really well. i spent the whole hour joking around with them, all of us telling stories, etc. so i came out feeling pretty positive about the position (particularly since i was the only applicant) only to find out a week later that my feedback was quite the opposite.
i got called into my supervisors office the next week because she had some serious business to discuss with me. turns out, the guy running my interview who i'd never met before was "red-flagging" me as a risk to my team. can we all say WTF?! here's me thinking my interview went stellar, when in actuality, they were pretty much bold-faced lying to me throughout the whole interview and they actually think i'm unfit to do my job!! yah, not only was i extremely angry and felt very abused, i was hurt, saddened, and it really killed any confidence in myself that i had.
they said i was negative, that i made it sound like no one at my centre knew what they were doing, that i knew how to do the manger's job better then she does, that i'm too liberal with what i share with the youth about myself and my personal life (i'm not sure how they can even make this claim from an interview...it's not like they've worked with me or seen me work, or interviewed anyone i work with or for), etc. i have NO IDEA how they got any of these conclusions from my interview. whenever i think about it, i get caught in the game of trying ot remember exactly what i said to try and pinpoint. i cannot find anything...
to top that off, i didn't even get an interview at st. leonards - after THEY called ME, asking me to apply!
so needless to say, my confidence has been completely shot and i'm basically going to work, following the code of conduct so strictly that my job now sucks, for the simple fact that i'm terrified that if i don't, i'll get fired. my supervisor said i have nothing to worry about and that this interview in no way reflects how my co-workers feel about me and is not an accurate reflection of my work at the centre. BUT, this does go on my file, so it's really going to hinder me in the future. marcie has been really helpful in the sense that she's working with me to "correct" anything that darryl (the interviewer) could potentially stick me on. she's been giving me shitloads of hours so i can learn other facets of the job and the facility, so i've actually be working 44 hours a week there, which is full time. i guess that's the silver lining?
AND - the huge "kick-me-while-i'm-down-fate" blow came when i lost my job at rogers! the company has done so poorly with sales in the last year or so that rogers is not resigning their contract with my agent. so they are closing down all the locations april 1st and i will be laid off with some type of compensation pay (which will be next to nothing). although i'm not too upset about it because i DO have another job, it's very upsetting news for my co-workers who have families and only have this job to rely on for income.
funny how when things are going TOO well, life has a way of taking you down a knotch...
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the house hunting is not going overly well. ian and i got stuck on this house that he loves and i hate. i've been to see it a few times, once on my own, and i just cannot bring myself to like anything about the layout of this house. the kitchen is SHIT and there is almost nothing we can do to change it - even talking long-term-in-the-future changes. it's so long and narrow, so much so that you cannot even open the oven the to the full door potential because it hits a wall! and we've looked at renovating and taking a portion of the wall out, but it's load-bearing...it's like the only wall in the whole main floor that's holding up the roof! so we're fucked as far as something like that goes.
and the bathroom is ridiculously tiny. no exaggeration, it's about the size of the bathroom on a coach bus or a train or something. I HATE THIS HOUSE!
the good things about it:
the masterbedroom is huge. although it's right at the front of the house and it's on a busy road, so we'll hear all the traffic all night.
the backyard is huge and gorgeous and fenced.
the basement is partially finished - they've put in a bedroom down there. and it's big and open so there is a lot of potential to do things with it.
...and that's about it.
i dont' want to settle for a house that i'm going to hate living in JUST becuase it's got a great basement and a huge backyard. this frustrates ian so much that i cannot make a decision that he's actually refusing to come see more houses with me. his logic is that he's so irritated with going through so many houses that he doesn't like, and then i don't like the ONE house that he does, that he doesn't want to do it anymore. so he wants me to go see houses alone, and then he will only come and see the ones that i like. i personally think he's just setting me up for disappointment. the market is moving so quickly here that i'm afraid once i find a house i like, in the time it takes him to get over there to look, it will sell on us. to give you an example of how quickly the market really is moving - a few weeks ago, we organized on a friday afternoon to view some houses on the monday coming up because we were going away for the weekend. some of these houses we weren't able to view sooner because they were JUST listed and showings weren't even starting until that weekend. by monday, all 6 of these houses had SOLD.
so yes, he wants to make this a two-trip thing? so what? every time i fall in love with a house, i'm going to have to wait around for him, and if he doesn't move quick enough, i'm going to lose it? and this is going to happen over and over? oh yah - sounds like LOADS OF FUN. thanks honey!
needless to say, the house hunting is not going very well. our agent was away for a week anyway, so i took a break from it and i've got a few listings i want to view now that she's home. i'm going to try and organize it to go this friday before work. here's a listing of the houses i want to see:
369391
372542
373626
375681
373330
373435
374981 - this one i'm not sure about. the owners have done a lot of work all ready and we want a place that we can really make our own.
375566
372821
373195
374707
375572
375115
376040
376029
375973
to view one of these listings (or all of them if you're really intersted) you just need to visit http://www.mls.ca and type in the number above into the "MLS search" field.
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in other news, we went to the international bike show a few weekends ago in toronto. for the whole weekend, we managed to spend less than $200. i was pretty happy about that. and we got to see all the pros ride BMX in the metro jam comp. it was pretty fucking amazing.
trooper turned 1 year old on sunday.
ian's knee is healing very well. he's up and moving around just fine now - and he's been given the go-ahead by his physiotherapist to start really pushing himself to build up the muscle that atrophied while he was unable to move around. so this makes him happy. he's been peddaling his bike around the block randomly throughout the day. this makes him happy.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
and until i can think of more to say...i think that's about it.
well...when i left you all last, my IP had screwed up my internet at home, i was up for a promotion at work, i had been offered another job by another agency, i was still looking for a house with my partner and..........i think that about covers it.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
okay - so i called my internet provider a few days after my service went wonky. surprise surprise, i find out they've cancelled my account. why? no one seems to know, but apparently i called in to cancel it right after i paid $170 to get the account reactivated after my credit card got stolen. yes, because that is something a logical person does right after paying a huge fucking bill. either way, the girl was very polite and apoligetic and she told me she'd have the problem solved and my internet would be back on within three business days. she also gave us a dial-up number to access the net while we were waiting for my highspeed to be corrected.
this is when i found out i do not have a dial-up modem on my computer.
after a week, with still no sight of my internet, i called again. this time the guy went through the whole system setup with me. because for some reason this could be MY fault? if the system worked for over a year set up the way it is, why would it suddenly be wrong? i dunno - but i humoured him and went through it all with him. 45 minutes later, he came to the same conclusion the first girl had: they disconnected my service for whatever ungodly reason, and it would take 3-4 business days to be reactivated. apparently the first girl HAD had the service reinstated, but not as high speed. she had it hooked back up at dial-up. moron.
so after 3 weeks of arguing and sitting on the phone and following wires and cables, my internet finally started working again. they owe me 3 months free internet now.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
i had my interview for the part-time position at the centre about 3 weeks ago. i personally thought the interview went really well. i spent the whole hour joking around with them, all of us telling stories, etc. so i came out feeling pretty positive about the position (particularly since i was the only applicant) only to find out a week later that my feedback was quite the opposite.
i got called into my supervisors office the next week because she had some serious business to discuss with me. turns out, the guy running my interview who i'd never met before was "red-flagging" me as a risk to my team. can we all say WTF?! here's me thinking my interview went stellar, when in actuality, they were pretty much bold-faced lying to me throughout the whole interview and they actually think i'm unfit to do my job!! yah, not only was i extremely angry and felt very abused, i was hurt, saddened, and it really killed any confidence in myself that i had.
they said i was negative, that i made it sound like no one at my centre knew what they were doing, that i knew how to do the manger's job better then she does, that i'm too liberal with what i share with the youth about myself and my personal life (i'm not sure how they can even make this claim from an interview...it's not like they've worked with me or seen me work, or interviewed anyone i work with or for), etc. i have NO IDEA how they got any of these conclusions from my interview. whenever i think about it, i get caught in the game of trying ot remember exactly what i said to try and pinpoint. i cannot find anything...
to top that off, i didn't even get an interview at st. leonards - after THEY called ME, asking me to apply!
so needless to say, my confidence has been completely shot and i'm basically going to work, following the code of conduct so strictly that my job now sucks, for the simple fact that i'm terrified that if i don't, i'll get fired. my supervisor said i have nothing to worry about and that this interview in no way reflects how my co-workers feel about me and is not an accurate reflection of my work at the centre. BUT, this does go on my file, so it's really going to hinder me in the future. marcie has been really helpful in the sense that she's working with me to "correct" anything that darryl (the interviewer) could potentially stick me on. she's been giving me shitloads of hours so i can learn other facets of the job and the facility, so i've actually be working 44 hours a week there, which is full time. i guess that's the silver lining?
AND - the huge "kick-me-while-i'm-down-fate" blow came when i lost my job at rogers! the company has done so poorly with sales in the last year or so that rogers is not resigning their contract with my agent. so they are closing down all the locations april 1st and i will be laid off with some type of compensation pay (which will be next to nothing). although i'm not too upset about it because i DO have another job, it's very upsetting news for my co-workers who have families and only have this job to rely on for income.
funny how when things are going TOO well, life has a way of taking you down a knotch...
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
the house hunting is not going overly well. ian and i got stuck on this house that he loves and i hate. i've been to see it a few times, once on my own, and i just cannot bring myself to like anything about the layout of this house. the kitchen is SHIT and there is almost nothing we can do to change it - even talking long-term-in-the-future changes. it's so long and narrow, so much so that you cannot even open the oven the to the full door potential because it hits a wall! and we've looked at renovating and taking a portion of the wall out, but it's load-bearing...it's like the only wall in the whole main floor that's holding up the roof! so we're fucked as far as something like that goes.
and the bathroom is ridiculously tiny. no exaggeration, it's about the size of the bathroom on a coach bus or a train or something. I HATE THIS HOUSE!
the good things about it:
the masterbedroom is huge. although it's right at the front of the house and it's on a busy road, so we'll hear all the traffic all night.
the backyard is huge and gorgeous and fenced.
the basement is partially finished - they've put in a bedroom down there. and it's big and open so there is a lot of potential to do things with it.
...and that's about it.
i dont' want to settle for a house that i'm going to hate living in JUST becuase it's got a great basement and a huge backyard. this frustrates ian so much that i cannot make a decision that he's actually refusing to come see more houses with me. his logic is that he's so irritated with going through so many houses that he doesn't like, and then i don't like the ONE house that he does, that he doesn't want to do it anymore. so he wants me to go see houses alone, and then he will only come and see the ones that i like. i personally think he's just setting me up for disappointment. the market is moving so quickly here that i'm afraid once i find a house i like, in the time it takes him to get over there to look, it will sell on us. to give you an example of how quickly the market really is moving - a few weeks ago, we organized on a friday afternoon to view some houses on the monday coming up because we were going away for the weekend. some of these houses we weren't able to view sooner because they were JUST listed and showings weren't even starting until that weekend. by monday, all 6 of these houses had SOLD.
so yes, he wants to make this a two-trip thing? so what? every time i fall in love with a house, i'm going to have to wait around for him, and if he doesn't move quick enough, i'm going to lose it? and this is going to happen over and over? oh yah - sounds like LOADS OF FUN. thanks honey!
needless to say, the house hunting is not going very well. our agent was away for a week anyway, so i took a break from it and i've got a few listings i want to view now that she's home. i'm going to try and organize it to go this friday before work. here's a listing of the houses i want to see:
369391
372542
373626
375681
373330
373435
374981 - this one i'm not sure about. the owners have done a lot of work all ready and we want a place that we can really make our own.
375566
372821
373195
374707
375572
375115
376040
376029
375973
to view one of these listings (or all of them if you're really intersted) you just need to visit http://www.mls.ca and type in the number above into the "MLS search" field.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
in other news, we went to the international bike show a few weekends ago in toronto. for the whole weekend, we managed to spend less than $200. i was pretty happy about that. and we got to see all the pros ride BMX in the metro jam comp. it was pretty fucking amazing.
trooper turned 1 year old on sunday.
ian's knee is healing very well. he's up and moving around just fine now - and he's been given the go-ahead by his physiotherapist to start really pushing himself to build up the muscle that atrophied while he was unable to move around. so this makes him happy. he's been peddaling his bike around the block randomly throughout the day. this makes him happy.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
and until i can think of more to say...i think that's about it.