spring sprang sprung
I can't believe it's almost the end of March.... It feels like 2024 is going to be a fast year. I should make an effort to update more because I always forget what I've been up to since the last time hahaha.
Well me and amazingleigh hung out again a couple of weeks ago. We got some delicious sushi, walked around Bloor street a bit checking out book and thrift stores and then got some Starbucks. It was really fun to chat with her again about life happenings, and we are planning on meeting up when the weather is nicer and going to a patio with Bonnie and maybe Ava. Ava can be annoying when it comes to barking at other dogs/people, so I'm not sure how she'd be on a patio but we'll see.
Speaking of Ava, last weekend we got her groomed and so now she looks cute and less mop-like. Simon's OCD is getting annoying again as he's upped his medication, so his anxiety has been bad, so lately he's been all worried about Ava dying. It didn't help when he took her to the vet for her updated vaccine a couple was there putting their cat down. I hope his medication anxiety levels off soon. He's been too paranoid to work out becuase it's given him higher heart rate, which sucks because he finally joined the Community Centre with me and we were going together for a bit.
There's also been some annoying confusion with him applying for a job at my work. So he applied a couple of weeks ago when a posting for the role I do came up. So according to the bosses everyone who gets a referral gets an automatic interiew. So we were waiting for him to get the invite and this past Wednesday he got a rejection email. So Thursday I decided to bite the bullet and ask my boss about it even though I felt super awkward. My boss is very approachable, but I didn't want her to think I was questioning hiring choices, but I honestly thought maybe some weird glitch or something happened because of the way he applied (long story short, he applied through LinkedIn, should've applied through me, Katharine(bosses boss) fixed it so I'd get a referral bonus if he got hired/stayed for three months but I'm not sure him applying through LinkedIn messed it up). Jacquie (boss) emailed me and said this has been an issue for a couple other people and that Katharine was speaking with recruiting about it. So I'm not sure what's going on. Friday I was off, and he hasn't gotten an email, so I'm hoping maybe tomorrow they fix it. I'm off tomorrow too, but I told him I'd log onto my email and check it out to see if there's anything about it there.
I hope he gets at least an interview as he's had no luck at all with jobs and it's getting onto almost six months now. I get it's hard to find jobs out there, but he's not even getting called for shitty jobs. So yeah, it really is who you know when it comes to getting your foot in the door (I got into Aon miraculously without a referrral (my boss said it was because I was fantastic which was so awesome to hear), but other than one other people hired in my group of about 10, the rest were all referred by Aon employees.
Simon and I went to the ROM (Royal Ontario Museum) the Sunday before last, as my brother gave me tickets he won. I forgot it was the start of March Break, so the place was swarming with kids. Honestly, not to be a museum snob, but after experiencing so many FREE amazing museums in Scotland last year, the ROM is pretty weak for what it is and how much it costs. I guess it would be fun with kids, but not much has changed since I went a couple years ago/in my youth. But it was a fun free thing to do and it was nice to spend time with Simon.
This weekend I went to Ottawa with Laura to see this comedian Matteo Lane who I had bought tickets for back in November. Even though I've been many places in Canada, this was my first time in Ottawa. I left at 8:30am on the train and got there at 1:30pm. Laura went the night before to see some musician play there, so when I got there she was at the National Art Gallery of Canada. I met up with her, and we grabbed lunch at an Irish pub in the area. Then I decided to wander around, because by then it was 3pm and I wanted to see the gallery, but it closed at 5pm so to me it wasn't worth rushing through for a couple hours. I ended up wandering around the Byward Market, which I didn't realize was outdoors, and it was very cold that day so I wasn't feeling it. Then I walked by the Parliament building which was pretty cool to see. Our hotel was a short walk away, so I went there and chilled until she was done. We hung around a bit, then took transit to the place where Mateo was performing. He was so hilarious, and I really liked one of his openers, Tranna Wintour, who was this really funny transwoman. I'm really glad I was able to see Matteo, and even though the show was sold out, the people sitting right in front of Laura and I never ended up showing up so we had a pretty unobstructed view which was very nice. We ended up just getting some A&W for dinner on the way home, watched some Drag Race than went to sleep.
Saturday Laura woke up and felt like she was getting sick. We already had plans to do our own thing yesterday which I was grateful for as she ended up bailing early on her plans. So I went to The National Gallery of Canada on my own to view art for about three hours, then I treked to the Canadian War Museum which I liked a lot more than I was expecting to. It was honestly very fascinating, and I felt near the end I was rushing a bit, as it was almost closing, but seeing war basically from Indigenous times to now and how Canada has been involved was enlightening. It's scary how close we came to almost being Americans at certain points in time. I also had no idea that up until I think the late 40's Canadians used British passports since we were subjects of the British Empire. I wish we still somehow maintained our UK passports as well so I could easily move to Scotland haha.
Anyway, after the musuems I came back to hotel where Laura was resting. We went to get some ramen which apparently she thought her's was nasty but I liked mine so *shrug*. We watched another Drag Race episode and then the movie Bottoms which I thought was pretty stupid, and then she fell asleep around 9pm. I rewatched It Part One on my phone and then fell asleep around 12:30am. Offtopic, but speaking of media, I'm entirely addicted to this show called From, it basically is about a bunch of people stuck in a town full of creatures that are a cross between the people in the movie Smile and vampires, and a lot of other crazy stuff. It's really good. I have to stream it off a sketch website because I don't even know where it's streaming normally but not a service I use. Anyway, I recommend if you like weird horror shows. It was also filmed in Nova Scotia which is pretty rad.
The next morning I woke up around 8:15am as Laura was making no effort to be quiet at all which honestly annoyed me, but I had to get up around then anyway. We packed up our stuff, got some coffee and headed to the train station around 9:30am as our train was at 10:30am. She got back to Kingston in about two hours and I got back to Toronto in four. I booked tomorrow off to just relax, and I'm glad I did as I used today to catch up on a bit of cleaning/groceries.
Overall it was a quick but fun trip to the capital. I'm kinda glad we didn't end up moving there as it is a bit too quiet for my liking, meaning everything closes down way too early....like stores not talking about bars or shit like that. First time in my life I've seen a Tim Hortons not opened on a weekend as well. It was fun to see Laura and it sucks she got sick. I really really hope she didn't give it to me, but so far I've been feeling ok. Though I find the more I travel with people, the more I just prefer solo travel so much more. Nothing happened that was really annoying (well other than her need to always be playing music which I don't enjoy, I like quiet time in the morning), but I like doing my own thing a LOT. Plus the last two times I saw her it was in a travel setting, so I think next time it will be nice to see her here.
Oh and out of nowhere I'm going to three concerts this year. I randomly decided to get tickets to see The National with War on Drugs and Mia is going as well so I invited myself to hang with her haha. They were a decent price. Then Ayda and I bought tickets to see The Decemberists which I'm honestly not that excited about, but it'll be nice to hang out with her. Then one of my favourite bands who I never thought I'd see live ever, Pulp, is touring North America and is going to like 5 cities and Toronto is the only Canadian stop. So my lucky ass was able to snag tickets to that. It's during the week of my birthday, so I booked that week off.
This week is my last week of my stupid RIBO course. I have to book the exam, which I think I am going to aim for early May. My work gives you two study days off as well, which is good. I'm very worried about this exam as you need 75% to pass and a lot of people fail the first time they do it. It's also $300 which thankfully my work reimburses for. It's just a lot of insurance information and it's overwhelming. But I'm going to try my damn best.
I feel like I need to write a "my thoughts" entry soon, as lately it's just been what I've been doing, so probably do that this week as I have been thinking about things lately regarding my 40's/things I wanna do etc.
Anyway, that's life up until now.
Well me and amazingleigh hung out again a couple of weeks ago. We got some delicious sushi, walked around Bloor street a bit checking out book and thrift stores and then got some Starbucks. It was really fun to chat with her again about life happenings, and we are planning on meeting up when the weather is nicer and going to a patio with Bonnie and maybe Ava. Ava can be annoying when it comes to barking at other dogs/people, so I'm not sure how she'd be on a patio but we'll see.
Speaking of Ava, last weekend we got her groomed and so now she looks cute and less mop-like. Simon's OCD is getting annoying again as he's upped his medication, so his anxiety has been bad, so lately he's been all worried about Ava dying. It didn't help when he took her to the vet for her updated vaccine a couple was there putting their cat down. I hope his medication anxiety levels off soon. He's been too paranoid to work out becuase it's given him higher heart rate, which sucks because he finally joined the Community Centre with me and we were going together for a bit.
There's also been some annoying confusion with him applying for a job at my work. So he applied a couple of weeks ago when a posting for the role I do came up. So according to the bosses everyone who gets a referral gets an automatic interiew. So we were waiting for him to get the invite and this past Wednesday he got a rejection email. So Thursday I decided to bite the bullet and ask my boss about it even though I felt super awkward. My boss is very approachable, but I didn't want her to think I was questioning hiring choices, but I honestly thought maybe some weird glitch or something happened because of the way he applied (long story short, he applied through LinkedIn, should've applied through me, Katharine(bosses boss) fixed it so I'd get a referral bonus if he got hired/stayed for three months but I'm not sure him applying through LinkedIn messed it up). Jacquie (boss) emailed me and said this has been an issue for a couple other people and that Katharine was speaking with recruiting about it. So I'm not sure what's going on. Friday I was off, and he hasn't gotten an email, so I'm hoping maybe tomorrow they fix it. I'm off tomorrow too, but I told him I'd log onto my email and check it out to see if there's anything about it there.
I hope he gets at least an interview as he's had no luck at all with jobs and it's getting onto almost six months now. I get it's hard to find jobs out there, but he's not even getting called for shitty jobs. So yeah, it really is who you know when it comes to getting your foot in the door (I got into Aon miraculously without a referrral (my boss said it was because I was fantastic which was so awesome to hear), but other than one other people hired in my group of about 10, the rest were all referred by Aon employees.
Simon and I went to the ROM (Royal Ontario Museum) the Sunday before last, as my brother gave me tickets he won. I forgot it was the start of March Break, so the place was swarming with kids. Honestly, not to be a museum snob, but after experiencing so many FREE amazing museums in Scotland last year, the ROM is pretty weak for what it is and how much it costs. I guess it would be fun with kids, but not much has changed since I went a couple years ago/in my youth. But it was a fun free thing to do and it was nice to spend time with Simon.
This weekend I went to Ottawa with Laura to see this comedian Matteo Lane who I had bought tickets for back in November. Even though I've been many places in Canada, this was my first time in Ottawa. I left at 8:30am on the train and got there at 1:30pm. Laura went the night before to see some musician play there, so when I got there she was at the National Art Gallery of Canada. I met up with her, and we grabbed lunch at an Irish pub in the area. Then I decided to wander around, because by then it was 3pm and I wanted to see the gallery, but it closed at 5pm so to me it wasn't worth rushing through for a couple hours. I ended up wandering around the Byward Market, which I didn't realize was outdoors, and it was very cold that day so I wasn't feeling it. Then I walked by the Parliament building which was pretty cool to see. Our hotel was a short walk away, so I went there and chilled until she was done. We hung around a bit, then took transit to the place where Mateo was performing. He was so hilarious, and I really liked one of his openers, Tranna Wintour, who was this really funny transwoman. I'm really glad I was able to see Matteo, and even though the show was sold out, the people sitting right in front of Laura and I never ended up showing up so we had a pretty unobstructed view which was very nice. We ended up just getting some A&W for dinner on the way home, watched some Drag Race than went to sleep.
Saturday Laura woke up and felt like she was getting sick. We already had plans to do our own thing yesterday which I was grateful for as she ended up bailing early on her plans. So I went to The National Gallery of Canada on my own to view art for about three hours, then I treked to the Canadian War Museum which I liked a lot more than I was expecting to. It was honestly very fascinating, and I felt near the end I was rushing a bit, as it was almost closing, but seeing war basically from Indigenous times to now and how Canada has been involved was enlightening. It's scary how close we came to almost being Americans at certain points in time. I also had no idea that up until I think the late 40's Canadians used British passports since we were subjects of the British Empire. I wish we still somehow maintained our UK passports as well so I could easily move to Scotland haha.
Anyway, after the musuems I came back to hotel where Laura was resting. We went to get some ramen which apparently she thought her's was nasty but I liked mine so *shrug*. We watched another Drag Race episode and then the movie Bottoms which I thought was pretty stupid, and then she fell asleep around 9pm. I rewatched It Part One on my phone and then fell asleep around 12:30am. Offtopic, but speaking of media, I'm entirely addicted to this show called From, it basically is about a bunch of people stuck in a town full of creatures that are a cross between the people in the movie Smile and vampires, and a lot of other crazy stuff. It's really good. I have to stream it off a sketch website because I don't even know where it's streaming normally but not a service I use. Anyway, I recommend if you like weird horror shows. It was also filmed in Nova Scotia which is pretty rad.
The next morning I woke up around 8:15am as Laura was making no effort to be quiet at all which honestly annoyed me, but I had to get up around then anyway. We packed up our stuff, got some coffee and headed to the train station around 9:30am as our train was at 10:30am. She got back to Kingston in about two hours and I got back to Toronto in four. I booked tomorrow off to just relax, and I'm glad I did as I used today to catch up on a bit of cleaning/groceries.
Overall it was a quick but fun trip to the capital. I'm kinda glad we didn't end up moving there as it is a bit too quiet for my liking, meaning everything closes down way too early....like stores not talking about bars or shit like that. First time in my life I've seen a Tim Hortons not opened on a weekend as well. It was fun to see Laura and it sucks she got sick. I really really hope she didn't give it to me, but so far I've been feeling ok. Though I find the more I travel with people, the more I just prefer solo travel so much more. Nothing happened that was really annoying (well other than her need to always be playing music which I don't enjoy, I like quiet time in the morning), but I like doing my own thing a LOT. Plus the last two times I saw her it was in a travel setting, so I think next time it will be nice to see her here.
Oh and out of nowhere I'm going to three concerts this year. I randomly decided to get tickets to see The National with War on Drugs and Mia is going as well so I invited myself to hang with her haha. They were a decent price. Then Ayda and I bought tickets to see The Decemberists which I'm honestly not that excited about, but it'll be nice to hang out with her. Then one of my favourite bands who I never thought I'd see live ever, Pulp, is touring North America and is going to like 5 cities and Toronto is the only Canadian stop. So my lucky ass was able to snag tickets to that. It's during the week of my birthday, so I booked that week off.
This week is my last week of my stupid RIBO course. I have to book the exam, which I think I am going to aim for early May. My work gives you two study days off as well, which is good. I'm very worried about this exam as you need 75% to pass and a lot of people fail the first time they do it. It's also $300 which thankfully my work reimburses for. It's just a lot of insurance information and it's overwhelming. But I'm going to try my damn best.
I feel like I need to write a "my thoughts" entry soon, as lately it's just been what I've been doing, so probably do that this week as I have been thinking about things lately regarding my 40's/things I wanna do etc.
Anyway, that's life up until now.