The Coffeehouse

This is my last week at work, and I guess I'll tone it down a bit, but YEAY!

It's been an overall good experience, learned lots of new things, met great people, but there is such an air of bureaucracy here. I can't stand it. Is it always like this? I hope not.

This past year, I just couldn't wait to grab my degree and hit the ground running. But the problem was, to where? And now I'm finishing up this job and I've gotten some great ideas, and again, I just want to take off running. I want to do something.

None of which might be feasible at the present moment due to things I'd like to take a chainsaw to.

I tried to do those long-term goal thingy-majingys, but what if I can't wait? What if I want to do it now, and may possess the capability, just not the support?

And what if I obtain the experience and capability, but the support might never be there?

Who loves the "cached" option in search engines? I do! It makes the world go 'round.

Html Hell, is becoming a bit heavenly, if I do say so myself. There's still some weird things to sort out though. Check it out, lemme know what you think! Je voudrais le feedback, s'il vous plait.

I started my summer job on Monday, it's been quite interesting so far. Much different than last year's summer gig at the Ministry of Environment, not better, but different. Oh wait, no it is better: downtown (out exploring during my lunches), all-you-can-drink-coffee (the guys in my office are BIG COFFEE DRINKERS, yup, in all-caps, lovely people), and no robotic data-entry stuff. But, I'm the youngest person here, and there are no other students/interns on my floor as of yet, so it gets lonely. My past few days can be summed up by this oft-repeated phrase.

"Here, take these reports, look at these websites, and..y'know, read, get a feel for things."

So that's all I've been doing...reading. Which really, is no different than what I did in university, except now I'm getting paid to read (thank you responsible tax-paying Canadian citizens, special thanks to WLFG, Mona, and Omar2Cents). But it's oh-so-much harder reading government documents. Especially if you're reading simply for the sake of reading. I haven't been instructed to focus on specific issues, or look up a policy or anything you'd think a Research Analyst would do. I just read. And it's really difficult to stay focused (and dare I say, awake?) when there is no specific purpose to your reading except "getting a feel for things". To me, that's like reading the introduction/executive summary, and skimming through the remaining hundred or so pages. But I'm given two hundred-page reports to keep me occupied for the day.

Okay, I feel bad for complaining, and I think I'll stop now before I jinx myself and end up swamped with stuff to do and deadlines to meet and stuff....

..would be the title of a study done on The Coffeehouse. I am so ashamed I've turned this place into such an unworthy blog. I'm not exactly sure why summer does this to me. It's not like I'm extremely busy, just extremely lazy. Extreme laziness has come over me, procrastination, all that good stuff. Also, I want to spend every minute of my day outside, I can't stand to be in my room. If I'm at home, I'm out on the front steps or in the backyard, I can't seem to get enough of the sunlight, I feel like punching a hole in the wall to let more light in. Ideally, I would also be typing this post outside in the backyard.

So what have I been up to? Well, I did get a summer job, this time at the Ministry of Energy. Which is why I was kicked out of jury selection. "Excused" is the term they like to use, since you volunteer to "excuse" yourself, but I still think it's a kicking-out. It wasn't my fault the trial date was to fall on the first day of my job, I wanted to perfom my civic duty. Whatever, the justice system lost a loyal, open-minded, justice-loving juror. That was yesterday. I expected it to be like them John Grisham novels, or like the show The Jury, "real life drama" like the lady said in the video they showed us (I'm not kidding, she promised we'll see "real life drama unfolding in front of our eyes"), but no. No drama.

On Victoria Day, my family decided to visit the Royal Botanical Gardens in Hamilton. I'll leave it to the pictures.

Online games are addictive. Playing them is like gambling. If you win, you play again to see if you can score higher, if you lose, you play again to try and win a game or to increase your rating. I am currently addicted to Yahoo Dominos, and before that, Pyramids, Spades, Hearts, Pool, and Bejeweled (this one in particular is the devil's, I'd play for hours and when I'd blink, all I saw was jewels). Dominos is the reason I have relapsed into insomnia, and the reason why I have become so tired and sleepy at work (in addition to the fact that I really could do my job with my eyes closed). But never fear, the Coffee Club is here. Okay, this is really exciting. And wonderful. Euphoric. In each unit or office area (and there are many), they have a mini-kitchen (are you following me?) and in these kitchens, most of the units set up a Coffee Club, where for a toonie a week, you get all-you-can-drink coffee and tea, and any other goodies the Club Coordinator buys with the money. True, some workplaces get this stuff for free, but there's gotta be like a thousand people working in that building, imagine the government using taxpayers money to supply people with coffee(!!!). The toonie ensures the sustainability of the Club and thus, the well-being of the employees.

Plus, our Coffee Club Coordinator says our coffee is the best (ahm ahm!), it's got a secret ingredient, love.

Swastika, Ontario....

TELL ME that's not an anti-semitic act on the part of the Ontario government to give a whole township the name of the sign of Hitler. i see a future lawsuit as this town has the potential to promote hate and harbour the establishment of a neo-Nazi terrorist cell :p and yes, it could refer to the Hindu symbol, but we all know it doesn't for 1) it's an itty-bitty town in north-eastern Ontario and the majority of the population is probably NOT people of the Hindu faith and 2) "swastika" is now owned by others....how did we all miss this?!

so i've been applying to jobs in the government all day and they have positions in places all over Ontario and in tons of ministries and agencies. each one requires a separate four-page application and cover letter and i've so far done eleven of them...ELEVEN!! and they've all gotta be mailed out..there's a couple more i'm still going to apply for, let's just hope i get at least an interview!! i came across Swastika, ON while i was looking through the job postings and there are other weird and funky places in this province, Emo? Delhi? Espanola? L'Original? South Porcupine? Utopia (ha!) ? i think at Naming Committee meetings they do that whole thing where you take a book, close your eyes, open to a random page, and the name you choose is whatever word your finger lands on...

the library is home to a multitude of paper products. books, magazines, newspapers, maps. and there's also different types of paper. recycled (woho! although it usually does have that distinct dumpster smell, woho nonetheless!), glossy, white, coloured....y'know, paper. i was looking for a book in the philosophy section today and i came across another paper product that was available in our university library... 

yes, i pocketed it, but only because i find that man on the package so irresistible. red bandanas and suspenders are hott...:p

as soon as i found it, i knew i was in the cooler section of the library and i sat myself down and picked up a 1906 copy of "Plato's Republic" and had a good time reading a bunch of latin names like Cephalus, Polemarchus, and Thrasymachus...this was probably the only thing my latin class was good for...

maybe i should add it to my anti-stress package ;) .....

just finished watching "america's next top model".....all i can say is YIKES! this new top-model chick can stupify even george dubya with her word choices...and her teeth..eewww

i'm tired...and for a good reason other than coffee consumption, i went to work...well more like i went to university to sleep and i just happened to work in between my naps :p...good times..i didn't start work until 11 am, but ended up getting there at like 8:30 am cause that would have been the only way i could get any sort of ride to the bus station..slept, slept, slept, woke up 10-ish to look at least a little bit alive for when i go to check in with my boss, work, sleep, work.. but you know what? i deserve those naps!! i'm running around the whole 5-floors of the library trying to find about forty books that MAY be in one of three different places in the library, and if they're not there, i still hafto look for them the following week.... like last week i had to look through 13 copies of the same freakin book to find the one with the right barcode (which wasn't even there btw)...why we have 13 copies of a book CLEARLY no one wants to borrow is besides me..so after a couple of tiring searches, and when really, i just wanna kill time so that the day goes by quicker, i sneak away (teeheehee) to some unventured area of the library, open up any old book (to look like i at least fell asleep by accident) and zzzzzz..... besides, staff-people decided to bring in a whole lotta candy and baked goodies on the day i happen to be fasting..so my naps are waaaaayy justified...!

surprisingly, i am still alive and able to write...speak, not so much..i come home with a sore throat everyday and my voice is scratchy all the time (i kinda like it scratchy though! :p) you must sing every minute of these kids little lives and the moose, acorn, AND pirate song are stuck in my head ALL the time and at the SAME TIME.....okay, must go sleep now because i am brain dead....toodles

(my kids look something like this..)

since tomorrow i start my new job, i decided to practice my children skills at a picnic thingy i went to today (yes, my people go to a lot of such gatherings)..i didnt really mean for it to happen, but the organizers had some games and prizes for the little ones, and it looked like fun, then i realized "wow, this is how its gonna be like dealing with them at work"...and i must say, i think i really did make a difference in their lives..i grouped some of them into a group and turned them into the "super-cool team" and trained them to snap a "boo-yah" snap at the other team whenever i said "super-cool" ("SUPER-COOOOL!!", <snap, snap>) and i remembered most of their names!..<sigh>.. good times..

what will suck about this week is that last week i got laid off my afternoon shift...yes laid off when i havent even started yet, only because not enough people registered for it..so i'm not sure about the other weeks... cross your fingers, your toes, eyes, and teeth (major braces)...

going off to get a good night's sleep....