Yesterday was my Dad's birthday. We went to the sports bar at his raquet club and stuffed ourselves on Nacho's and wings for lunch. He seemed really happy with this.

A very happy occurance was when Marcie called and asked if she and Frank could come up for the weekend yesterday morning. Of course I told them they're welcome anytime so they arrived last night at 11. We're looking forward to a fantastic day at the beach. Thankfully the weather cleared up. Yesterday we had a freak storm and it rained for most of the day and the power at my parents house even went out. Today has dawned bright and mostly clear although there is a hint of the coolness from the storm left over still.

Tim and Lisa are going to be heading up this afternoon to come to the beach with us and then we're going to have a big meal and lots of wine! Three Cheers for Summer at The Barons!

Well I just got home from Mid-Summer's Eve of the Arts. It was fantastic an evening of amazing food, good wine, good company, and a great art auction. I'd been trying to make it for the past number of years but this year was the first that I finally made it. It was definetily worth it. Had a very good time.

Very typical day other than that.

Almost forgot, I got a phone call today from a company that is screening for candidates for a position as Marketing Co-ordinator for a small Hotel Chain with holdings in BC, AB, & Sask. Unfortunatly as I wasn't expecting the phone call and was really surprised that I had been called in the first place I don't think I really represented myself all that well. We'll see if they call back to set up an interview time for next week. Funny isn't it just when you don't really need a job you suddenly start getting approached.

Here's a tip - Never have a Martini w/ Tequila in it. YUCK! I just got back from having a drink with a friend who's in town. We went to Vernons happening 'new place' and were absolutely amazed that the place was jammed full of cougars, wanna be cougars and a whole lot of ugly bored guys. Sad thing is that you can tell that almost everyone there parties at this place regularly as they were all doing the running hug (you know the thing where people you know, or barly know, but don't really want to acknowledge knowing, come running up to you and hug you like your long lost best friends, yeah lots of that going on in there tonight) Mental note to self 'avoid Monashee's on Tuesday nights. Seriously people, who regularly parties on a Tuesday night!?

Today was smoking hot. Hit at least 35 I believe. Thank God we remembered to water The Barons plants. He called tonight to let us know that he'd biked 120kms today and was just loving it. I personally think he's crazy but, hey he's having fun! Lucky for him the temperature where he's biking is a little more moderate within the 22-27 range so far.

Well my sister announced to me today that she's not going to go back to Calgary this fall. Now I can't actually blame her for not wanting to live in Calgary but at the same time I'm worried that this will not be good for her. She plans on staying in Vernon and pursuing her singing (which I don't think I have to tell anyone is a bit of a treacherous career path). We'll see how this actually goes though because my parents have very wisely decided to stay out of the decision making process and let Sister make up her own mind. I know she's not used to doing this as her decisions have always been facilitated by my parents doing whatever leg work needed to be done so that she could do whatever she wanted. Not this time.

I was in a very odd mood this evening and decided that I should give one of my childhood best friends a call. I havn't really talked to him for years aside from running into him in random places throughout town. The fact that I actually called this guy kind of shows the loneliness that I'm feeling here. Not that I don't have good friends here, I just wish I had more. That and the realization that many of the people I know here are in transition just like I am. I'm not sure come September how many of these people will be here. Or rather where I'll be... instability sucks.

I'm getting pretty excited because I'm going to be having guests in a while. Marcie and Frank are coming up to go on a wine tour of the Naramata Bench in August. Looking forward to seeing them and introducing them to Tim and Lisa whom I believe they will just love.

Finally, I finished Harry Potter this morning. I do believe that this one is the best to date. The ending left me stunned and very sad as one of the main characters dies. I won't ruin it for anyone who doesn't want to know but I was shocked! SHOCKED I TELL YOU!

The trip to Vancouver was uneventful. I had a good time with my Dad though so that was nice.

Today has been fun. Raph's brother and I decided that we would go and see Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I loved it. Such a great film. Jonny Depp was a really psychotic Willy Wonka but really great psychotic.

Like a million small children I rushed out today and bought the new Harry Potter as well. So far I think I'm on the 7 or 8th chapter and I'm kind of planning on finishing it tomorrow. Unlike Raphael I won't bother writing a long drawn out book review of it though as I'm sure you'll all end up reading the book eventually.

Aside from those two very exciting events I am completely and utterly broke. No I think destitute is a better word. No money of any kind. Not a great place to be in I'm hoping I hear about my EI claim soon and get some cash cause this is rediculous.

Well off to Vancouver to get my furniture. The weather is amazing and everything looks like the trip will be easy. Will get home just in time for The Baron's going away party tomorrow night.

This was the view from the house yesterday! Another amazing Okanagan Summer Day!

Feeling fine again! This virus is a bastard. One day your fine the next it's taken you out for three days at a time. Ok, enough virus talk. As you can see from the picture I posted I'm going to play around with this blogger site and see what I can do to make it that much more interesting. I'm also considering posting a picture of myself on it. We'll see.

Had a lovely dinner with the Baroness and clan. Then had a great coffee with my friend Ruth who is living in town again. Very happy she's here, helps to keep me sane. Aside from that downloaded a bunch of music today and did nothing else very productive. Rediculously tired now so I'm going to bed.

I'm so tired it's actually an effort to drive! Never experienced this before and man does it suck!

It's been a bit of a rough day. I think it's mostly because I'm tired and can't seem to be able to shake it. I think that I'll be taking a bit of time off tomorrow as well and going to sleep in as long as I can.

It kind of hit me yesterday that it has in fact been 2 years since I lived in Vernon and before that I was here for a year and prior to that it had been two years since I lived in Vernon again (does that make sense?). So I'm feeling like the 24 month kid tonight. Life's a big cycle and it seems that my cycle at this moment is determined to send me back to Vernon every two years.

You know how when your in high school and everyone is telling you that it's very important to go after your dream and don't do anything that you don't want to... well I wish that someone would have told me the truth, that life is mostly a drugery of things and events that are not pleasant and that you don't necessarily want to do but you'll have to do them anyway. I think I used to have this illusion that life is always supposed to be fun and filled with things you wanted to do and with people that you wanted to do them with. That illusion is waning. Life isn't bad and it doesn't suck it's just not what I had hoped it would be.

Yay! I've got my computer set up and I'm back online. SO very happy. The Baron gave me a new keyboard as well which is very nice but it's one of those split jobs with the eurgonomic curve which is proving to be a bit of a speed bump at this moment as this is really the first thing that I've typed with it so far and it's taking me a bit to get used to.

Had a great day today having dinner with friends in Westbank and just visiting. Really enjoyed that. I also went and helped the guys from my Dad's church to unload a truck for some new person that had just moved into town. Went to my parents house for food. Hung out with Sister, etc. All in all I think I put a LOT of kms on the car today. That's one thing about being in the Okanagan is that because I know and have friends up and down the Valley I always end up driving a lot to entertain myself. Good thing I LOVE my car.

Now I'm really tired and need to go to bed. Good Night!

Well I've firmly established myself at The Baron's and life is reasonably good. I remembered how small of a town this is today when I went for a blood test after my Dr. appointment and ended up sitting next to a guy that I knew from my first job at the A&W... yeesh. Possibly because I'm really tired I'm having somewhat mixed feelings about being back here now. Well no not so much mixed as I fully remeber why I wanted to get out of here now. Everyone my age has left. There are very few 20 somethings in the Valley. Strange how my job is bringing me to a place where there are fewer not more people.

So tired. I hate being sick. I'm so tired for so much of the day that it just sucks. At least I'm sleeping better now. I'm officially moving to The Baron's tomorrow. I dropped off my computer and a few other things there today so I'll be back online shortly with a much more stable connection. My Dad has this wireless connection in his office that hardly ever works and makes me crazy most of the time because it will never give a stable connection. I spent about an hour today trying to figure it out and I know the connection is there and working but there's a friggin software problem that I just can't seem to figure out. So frusterating.

I didn't end up going to Penticton last night. I was at a BBQ with the ball team when I realized I was too tired to see straight so it was time to go home. Instead I picked up a copy of Halle Berry's Catwoman. Not the best show I've ever seen but not deserving of the derision it got from the press and the general public.

Had an argument with The Baron about Live 8 and the fogiveness of African debt. I don't think I need to tell anyone which side either of us were on in that argument! Ended as it usually does... each of us walking away figuring that the other will come around eventually.

Sometimes Janet just infuriates me. Jade came down for the weekend and Janet needed another girl for her softball team. She asked Jade if she wanted to play and she accepted. Janet treated her like trash on and off for the entire weekend. My Mother hypothsied that Janet is jealous because I was paying more attention to Jade, for the obvious reason that she didn't know anyone else, which singled her out. Unfortunately I don't know if it is just jealousy or if it's something more given how she's acted at the past two wine festivals. I'm getting pretty tired of this.

Sorry for the long silence. This week has been somewhat of a blur. I packed all my stuff and left Vancouver on Wednesday. The drive home was good and very quick. Fortunately one of my friends from Vancouver was coming down to visit her family this weekend as well and was able to bring a carload of my stuff as well so now all that's left in Vancouver is my large furniture items.

Thursday was the beginning of Funtastic and I was designated the official score-keeper so our team 'No Balls Barred' played their first game and kicked ass. After the game the team went over to Janet's parents house and sat around on the deck and enjoyed some drinks. After a few hours of that we went up to the Army base where there was a U2 tribute band playing (they were surprisingly really good). Unfortunatly Jade (my friend from Vancouver, who's playing on the team) and I lost the rest of the team and after an hour of wandering around through 300 teams of drunken ball players we decided to leave. I called Sister and as she was on her way to the club Jade and I decided to stop in and dance a little.

Yesterday involved more ball and a feeling of complete and utter exhaustion for me. I managed to stay up for the fireworks celebrating Canada Day but that was about it.

This morning I woke with the intention of going to the teams first game but woke up extreamly dizzy. Apparently dizzyness is a byproduct of Mono. So I lay in bed and watched the room spin for a while then got up and took a gravol. Thankfully the dizzyness is almost gone now but I do have a bit of a headache.

Tonight I'm supposed to be going to party with some friends in Penticton... but at this point I'm really not sure if I'm gonna make it. If I don't start to feel a little better it's just not going to happen.

I've been staying with Mom and Dad for the weekend as The Baron has a houseful of people for some church event. I'll be moving to his place on Monday and start doing work for Dad in the office this coming week as well. It looks like for the first two months that I'll be staying in Vernon almost exclusively and working in the office. Then come September I'll be starting out on the road.

The weather this weekend has been somewhat yucky. Alternating between hot and sunny to hot and cloudy with lots of wind and now today it's going to be cold, windy and rainy. Have a Great Day! And because I missed it yesterday, HAPPY BIRTHDAY CANADA!

I forgot to mention Saturday was my last day of Call Center Hell so I'm FREE! Yay! Last day was fine but still left me exhausted.

As I'm also sure you've noticed I've changed the blog template. I was hoping to find one that reflected Summer in the Okanagan, you know all yellows, blues, and greens but alas I couldn't find a good one. I really have to learn how to create my own templates.

Some people are SO damned hard to entertain it's not even funny. My buddy from Washington State left this morning and while our visit was good I have to admit that I'm somewhat relieved that he's gone. Asking him what he'd like to didn't get any reasonable response; asking what he'd like to see was the same. It got to the point that he couldn't even decide what he wanted to eat! Personally I think the poor guy was exhausted from a lot of shit that's been going on for him at home and he just needed to escape. So I did my best to show him a reasonably good time on very little money. I think I succeeded.

This afternoon I went and had lunch with my parents as they were on their way back from Seattle where they were for the weekend. As I was driving out to Burnaby to meet them I was suddenly hit with a feeling that I was really gonna miss the hustle and bustle of the city. I love Vancouver but for too many reasons it's just best that I leave right now. Quite honestly this is the first that I've thought all that much about actually leaving. My Mom asked me today if I was excited to be going home and I quickly realized that I'm not excited. I actually don't have any feelings about leaving Vancouver. I'm somewhat indifferent. This move is just a means to an end so if it works out it works out. If it doesn't I'll move back.

Of course now that it's official that I'm leaving the get togethers and lunches are starting. You know, the 'I won't see you for so long' meetings. It's gonna be a fun week until I go. I'm planning on leaving either Wednesday or Thursday in order to be home in time for July 1st. Janet's already got the whole weekend planned and as it's Funtastic there is TONS of stuff going on in Vernon. I'm looking forward to seeing my Kelowna friends as well. Thinking back to reasons that are good about going back to the Okanagan I re-read my blog posts from August and man do I hope that this summer's gonna be as much fun as last!

Yay my old dorm friend from across the hall is coming to visit. He just called and should be here in about 10 mins! Looking forward to seeing him. He's gonna stay the weekend.

As promised here is an update on what's going on. After thinking about it for months I have finally come to the realization that I need to go back to the Valley. Honestly the way things are going currently I'm unable to keep up. The mono is insisting upon hanging around and does not seem to be getting any better. Unfortunately there is really nothing that I can do about that situation that will help it get better aside from taking a leave from my job. Actually the Mono is a pleasant excuse to go on EI which will help me live for a few weeks until I get better and get the needed rest to do so.

The realization that I was a moron for staying here fully hit me Saturday morning. I was having Martini's with Marcie on Friday night and talking about Frank's acceptance into law school. If he decides to go for it in September he'll be starting Law school, an MBA, and finishing his Certified Financial Analyst program. Well as I'm sitting there with Marcie I said to her "why is he doing all of this?" Her answer was "he wants to own a home in Vancouver someday" That really struck a nerve for me because I had to ask myself if it was really worth it to want to live in Vancouver that much. That and the fact that these guys are EVERYWHERE! Frank is not an anomaly. That and the fact that I have been sending out resumes all over the place for three months and haven't even garnered a single call back aside from the call center kinda tipped me off that I wasn't supposed to be here (ironically I got a call back from an employer today about a job!).

Personally I want to be able to afford to own a comfortable home and be able to drive a nice car. With the insane competition out there I don't see any chance of that happening in Vancouver anytime soon. That and you don't get rich or make any money working for someone else so as I dragged myself out of bed at 3:45AM in order to get to the call center in time on a Saturday morning things just started to make sense and by the time I was having my morning muffin break I was mentally already packed and ready to walk. I talked to my parents when they returned to Vancouver from their latest cruise and they were thrilled as they had been wondering when I was gonna get the picture as well and move back.

Quite honestly I'm not really happy or sad about leaving Vancouver. I'm really quite indifferent. I've had perhaps one of the most miserable years of my life here (and that's saying something!) and yet I've been happy here as well. I know that moving back to the Valley is the right decision for right now though and if it turns out that I made the wrong decision... then I'll move back. Right now I'm just looking forward to getting my energy back and getting my sleep schedule back on track.

Internet at home has been down. Will post this afternoon with a complete and full update.

'till then!

I'm leaving Vancouver. Dates to be announced.

Big news to come... I'll let you in on it by tomorrow. (Raph and Wifey you already know)

Well after my last post I went and got something to eat and rationality started to surface again. Not entirely but... I looked at the $500 bill that the BC Medical plan had sent and tried to figure out why the hell it would be so much money. Well it finally dawned on me once I called them and asked why I had a $200 balance on the account. The lady on the phone told me that it was outstanding from July-August 2004! Hmm... where was I working at that point. Yep you guessed it HBC fucked me over again! I can show you the pay stubs where they happily deducted that money but apparently it didn't go to where it was supposed to go which can now affect my credit rating. I am SO MAD I think I may go to labour relations tomorrow with my sad tale of mistreatment at the hands of "One of Canada's best employers" hopefully things will happen that way.

I've discovered a new form of hell. Let me introduce you to the 'Call Center' it's a place where people get up at un-godly hours to go and answer the phone where stupid people call in and ask rediculous questions (yes there are people that will be driving down the highway, see a truck with a phone number on it and will call in just to see what that trucks company does, I probably answer 20 or more of those a day!). Now one would ask why is that so bad. Let me tell you that repeating the same damned thing over and over and over again for 7.5 hours straight isn't all that it's cracked up to be. The turnover is so insane that I'm a Senior Agent already! Must keep plotting my escape. Maybe going home for a while to recover and try and get back on my feet isn't such a bad idea after all... I'll have to see if The Baron is interested in a house guest again this summer, as there's no way I'll move in with my parents.

At this moment I'm ready to give it all up and move home and live in my parents basement... Seriously drastic but I'm considering it. More unwanted inflated bills came in today. Money is tight... graspingly tight... can't... breath...

How does one "live large" or rather "seize the day"? I'm wondering how and what it is that I can do to make sucessful changes to my life. I wanna be sucessful, I wanna be spontaneous, I wanna be interesting. Yep, I think that sums up what I'm striving for... now if I wasn't so damned tired all the time!

Another very interesting thing was pointed out to me last Wednesday. I do everything very intentionally. Thinking back there are few things that I've ever done just because. Now I'm sure this isn't anything that's all that outrageously different but even in the relationships that I pursue there is always some ultimate reason that I do things.

Here's a short list of things that I want to do this summer.

1. Go to Salt Spring Island
2. Drink wine in Kelowna
3. Go sailing
4. Visit my friend in Victoria for the weekend
5. Go hiking with the Baron

By no means definitive but a good start I think.

I went to the Doctor today to have a mono check-up and complain that ironically I can't sleep at night and it's starting to affect my state of well being. He prescribed sleeping pills to get me back onto a regular sleep schedule as I have a nap after work and aparently it's killing my ability to sleep at night. Not good.

I bought The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Aside from that everything is pretty much normal here. Oh Mr. & Mrs. Smith is an EXCELLENT movie. I went in not expecting much but was very happily surprised. Two thumbs up from me.

Lately I have to admit that I have been thinking about wrapping up this blog in it's current incarnation.

That said life here has remained on it's leasuirely path. I've been spending the majority of my time resting. The resting has allowed me to finish Peter C. Newman's epic (700+ page) biography this afternoon, a throughougly satisfying experience. Now I'm trying to decide what my next book is going to be will it be pure fiction, a marketing book, or a book on spiritual guidance? I'm not really sure at this point still but I'm going to stop by the overpriced used book store on my way home from work tomorrow and see what I can find.

Last night I went out for the first time in about a month, with my friend the Mexican, we went to 'The Longest Yard' the new Adam Sandler - Chris Rock movie. Very funny, highly recommended if you just wanna sit and laugh.

So after the drama with my friend the other day it all came out the reason I havn't been seeing her since I moved down here is that she hates Lexi. Now that that's out things are fine. Sadly though now that I have mentioned it to a few other friends it's come out that NONE of them likes her. Not a one including my sister. This floored me because while I don't really care I was amazed that no one told me this before. Yeesh people some things just need to be said.

It would seem I'm somewhat of a radical. My radicalness is more a concept of the way that I think than in how I act (which is probably the definition of radical but I'm to lazy to look it up). I believe that having been influenced, throughout my formative teenage years, by some extremely intense personalities on both sides of many political and religious fields that I have come out of this with the ability to see both sides of a situation and weight it in my own mind before taking pieces of each argument then melding them together to form my own judgement. This judgement on a situation is generally slightly or greatly different from many of the prevailing thoughts out there. For this reason life has been somewhat lonely at times (Raphael and Matthew I really miss you two!) but at least I'm really starting to figure out why I always seem to have trouble fitting in with the mainstream train of thought, no matter how hard I try.

Deciding to have my regular Mono nap today I went to bed at 330 and woke up at 730! Oye, this is getting rediculous.

Here's a situation for you. I left a message on one of my friends phones this Friday asking her to call me back. Never heard from her. So today I get an e-mail asking if she was over-reacting because the 'tone' of my message made her afraid to call!? I'm sorry that's just my voice. So of course reacting to the message instead of responding I sent her a note saying that maybe if she'd return my calls more often I wouldn't sound so upsetting (?). Well of course her response was we need to talk about this. Um, ok. So I'm mildly confused, kind of angry and also a little hurt that my voicemail would come across so hostile a friend wouldn't call back. How frusterating.

Now I'm going to have a glass of wine and read for a while before going back to bed for what hopefully will be a better sleep than last nights was.

Since I contracted Mono I have frequently had nights of fitfull sleep. Last night I kept waking up from horrible dreams which seemed to involve all of the 'religious' people in my life. I would wake up and remember feeling angry, sad, depressed, and completely unsettled. As usual I don't remember my dreams but oddly enough two charaters stood out. My friend E from Prarie as well as my old mentor H from the Mennonite Church. At one point I woke up and kept repeating "spiritual abuse" though I don't know why; I do remember that there was a book on that topic that I had been meaning to read for quite some time. Needless to say I was actually very tired when it was time to go to work today.

Today I'm thinking about selfishness. I don't think of myself as a selfish person and I really hope that I'm not but I can honestly say that selfishness amoung people my age is my biggest piss-off. When people are so wrapped up in their own lives and just want to talk about themselves constantly (aside from in a blog where it's the audiences perogative as if whether they want to read it or not) I don't want to be around them. Now of course most people out there are under the illusion that they are the most interesting thing that's happened to mankind in at least a decade I think that's sad. There are a lot of people out there and you'll live a much richer and fuller life if you get to know some of them instead of constantly whining to anyone who'll listen about how you havn't found a boy friend or girl friend! Ok, now I'm starting to get specific and I can feel a rant coming on against a specific person so I'll stop now before any damage is done.

It's another lazy Sunday and I am again reminded why I dislike working on Sunday. I enjoy the peace and quite the day provides. I woke this morning rather late and am contempalting what I'm going to do with my afternoon. I think that sitting and reading is very much in order but I am also thinking that quite possibly reading would be better with a coffee. So now the question is do I go to a coffee shop and buy a coffee or do I go to Safeway and buy cream for the coffee that I already have at home... Ah decisions, decisions.

Daddy was in town for a few days which involved a pleasant visit. I always enjoy it when he comes down for a visit (so long as he leaves a certain someone at home...). So he just left and as has been the case the past few times that he's been down I spent WAY to much money. Well I actually needed what I bought today a new pair of Helly Hansen SHOES! I know your amazed that Helly is making shoes now, as was I, but they're very, very cool and oh so comfortable. The best thing is that they were on sale. Not by much but enough for me to be able to justify spending the money on them. As it is Sister's birthday in a few days I dragged poor Dad around looking at purses. Well after wandering all over Oakridge Mall (which was totally pointless as I knew I wanted to get her a purse from Guess?) we made our way downtown where I found a great purse and wallet. I'm very satisfied with what I got her. I hope she likes them as it'll be a bitch for her to have to return. Anyway now I'm going to go and read for a while as those little excursions wiped me out.

I woke up from a quick nap and found that I was irrationally angry! Pissed off at the world that's what I am right now. I seriously almost snapped on my naturalpath at my appointment a bit ago. Then it was all I could do to be plesant to my friend the checkout girl at Safeway.

Well as announced yesterday I have mono. What does this mean. Well as far as I can tell it means that I have an hour to two hour nap when I come home from work each day and am in bed by approximately 8 or 9. Such an exciting life I lead.

Well it's past the time when Starbucks said they'd be back to me which for all intents and purposes at the moment is fine because I really couldn't have done anything with them anyway but... this still makes me feel like a loser. I can't even get hired by Starbucks. Fuck. When am I going to escape the hell that is a call center? Now I suppose that for now it really is fine because I'm not physically capable of doing anything else but I stumble out of there everyday feeling terrible because I'm not hitting my targets. There's really not a damned thing I can do about that because although my numbers arn't bad they arn't great. Today I worked out how many calls I received that I should not have received (i.e.- Cancellations) and Areas not serviced and that was over 15% of my total calls for the day. So obviously when I keep getting calls like these how in hell am I supposed to keep my conversion rate up. Very frusterated with life in general. Really want to drop everything, move back to Kelowna and start life over.

Yep, I have Mono!

So I got a call at work today from my Dr. He wants to see me regarding the bloodwork results. I'm heading over there in half an hour and of course I'm jumping to all the worst conclusions. Freaking out!

Just to forewarn you I'm going to wallow in some self-pity here for a bit. I feel as though I've experienced way more in this last year than many people will experience in many years. I suppose this is a good thing in a way but it's really taken a tole on my self-confidence. I often wonder at my own abilities and shudder to see how they fall short of what and where I believe they should be. Ok I'm done now.

Amazingly I still feel like crap. Having a sore throat while working at a job that your on the phone talking all day for is rough. I kept spraying my throat with numbing stuff, the problem with that is that it would consistently numb my tongue which made it hard to talk. I'm supposed to hear back from the Doctor about my tests by the end of next week sometime. I'm hoping it's sooner.

Yet again it's a smokin hot day in Vancouver and I'm too tired to do anything. That and my head hurts. I may go to the beach with Peter this afternoon but quite honestly I'm not up to it. Well see how I'm feeling when he calls. Anyway that's pretty much it for the upate today.

And I thought I was just working to hard... spent the day running around getting various tests and medical advice. Started off this morning when I woke up with yet another headache, sore throat, and a nose full of snot. As I was planning on replenishing some of my vitamins anyway I called the naturalpath and made an appointment. Well after my symptoms confused the hell out of him for a good 45 mins he said that it maybe allergies to dust but that to be on the safe side I should go and see a Dr. and get a mono test. So I trudged off to the Doctor's (it's such an amazing day here I have just been walking everywhere) an he was a little more concerned after checking my glands, spleen, ears, and throat. So he did a mono swab then told me to go and get a bunch of blood test's done. Now I sit here with a headache feeling very tired and considering taking a very long nap... if only that wouldn't fuck up my sleep schedule.

Oh between Doctor and lab I went and got my hair lightened again. What can I say it wasn't blonde enough for the summer. Now it REALLY is! Yay blonde.

I finally found it! The perfect cinnamon bun! Cobs Bread! They're delightful.

Well I now have a potential major dilemma. I was asked if I would be interested in a Shift Supervisor's position when all I applied for was a position as Barista! The catch is that this is between 20 - 30 hours a week... on top of my actual bread and butter job. 60 hours a week I can handle... 70 I'm not so sure. But then I may be getting ahead of myself as well as they havn't officially offered me the posistion yet. Basically the Manager told me that she'd be willing to work around my other schedule and this job would mean more Supervisory experience on the ol' resume as well as faster advancement through the company which could possibly mean that within a few months I could ditch the full time job and work at Starbucks full time... hmm decisions, decisions.

Went to Richmond today and sprung blue. Yay it only cost $600! What the hell I'm made of $$$...

I had my first interview at Starbucks yesterday and I was immediately asked to come back today for a second interview with the Store Manager so the feeling is good... I'll let you know later tonigh.

I possibly just found the most over rated eatery in Kitsilano. The deli at Capers Market! Truly TERRIBLE! I thought that as the damned place is always packed that the food must be good or cheap (hopefully both) unfortunatly neither was the case. I spent $9 on a slice of lasangia that was uncermoniously plopped onto a plastic plate, along with some asparogas. They tossed the food into a microwave and handed it too me. Well as anyone knows microwaving lasangia takes a hell of a lot more time than the 1:00 they threw it in there for. So I was entirely dissatisfied with my cold lasangia and asparogas! I vow I will NEVER eat in there again!!

Well it's the long weekend and in typical long weekend fashion it's pouring rain intermittently. I heard on the news the other day that it's rained for the long weekend for the past 11 (or is it 7) years now. Lexi's gone camping somewhere, an experience I'm sure that I don't envy.

So I'm sitting here thinking about cinnamon buns... you know the ones. No not the ones that are just kinda sticky I'm talking about the sticky, gooey, Costco cream cheese covered ones! Mmmm, I had one on Tuesday from Terra Breads and while it was one of the kinda sticky ones it was truly good. Now I'm starting to crave the icing covered variety. I'm gonna have to go and check out Cobs breads as I hear that they create exactly that. If that doesn't work then I'll just go to the Kits Coffee company and have one of there reasonably good buns. Too bad I have to drink they're coffee too!

Off in search of a cinnamon bun.

Moving along in the theme of the day I just got a notice of a rent increase from the Landlord! What else...

Well I just got back from work and on my way I got a phone call from my Ford dealership. Seems that I bent a strut on Blue when I smoked the curb yesterday! Including all the work for that as well as the new key I got cut my total is gonna be well over $500! Argh! I swear it never rains in my world it's just an intermittent tsunami! I should really start to worry when things calm as history should have taught me that it's not gonna last. Surprisingly though I'm still in a great mood. I think it has a lot to do with the extra rest I've been giving myself lately. Lots of doing nothing, reading and going to bed early. Well I think it's time I wandered down to Starbucks (God I hope I get that job I'm really gonna need the extra cash!) and have a coffee.

OMG WHAT A DAY! So I woke up and wanted to stay in bed. Instead I went to work and hated being there cause it seemed that only a bunch of morons were calling in today. Didn't make me happy. Then I went home and collected the car as he needed to go to the shop to see about some warrenty work. Then while driving down the street I drove the poor guy into a curb which caused the rim to be skuffed and threw the alignment totally out! So I called the dealership and updated them on the the new things that needed to be done including a new key as I believe that I accidentaly threw one of mine out, including the fob! Imagine my horror when I was told that because the key contained an imobilizer chip just to replace the key would be $100! A new fob would be $40-70!!! Aaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

The good news is that I got a call from the Starbucks that I applied to for an interview. Yay!

Parents really buggin me again.

Over an out time for bed!

Love ya'll

Oh I forgot to mention this... the other night while waiting for my sister to arrive I went out for what was the most expensive drink I've ever had. While at Milestones with some friends my car was towed! OUTRAGOUS! Apparently I was parked within 5 ft of a fire hydrant. Of course I saw it but thought to myself.. Oh there's plenty of room and this is a parking spot and there's no sign or anything. Come out of the restaurant not even 30 mins later and my baby's gone! So MAD! Anyway he's back with me now but he's got a mysterious clunking sound that's happening so I'm still MAD! He's going in to visit the dealership tomorrow where they'll take care of him using all that Ford Quality Care they're always yapping about. All I know is that it better be covered by warrenty.

Happy Day! The Liberals have managed another majority government. Now as I am thrilled with the results of the vote I have to say that I am happy the opposition (the hated NDP) has been granted 30 seats as well. I recognize the value of having a strong oposition because of the attempt at balance that is needed in politics. However I do believe that the Liberals have done a more than admirable job in governing this province and returning it to it's rightful place in this country. If the lessons of the past 4 years have taught the people of the province anything I hope that it's a message of fiscal responsibility. As incredibly important as social services are there is a limit to what I find reasonable. Claims by 'certain people' about the Liberals increasing the rate of homelessness in this province are particularly ludacris when they are most assuradly getting these stats from some left-wing think tank (or Mother, as the case may be). Like anything returning to health sometimes requires tough medicine and the Liberals are the only government in the recent past who have been able to clearly see what needed to be done.

I went to the Chiropractor today because my neck has been very painful for the last few weeks. With a referral from my Kelowna boys at Okanagan Health and Performance I went to a chiropractor just down the street from my house. I'm feeling much better but poorer.

I managed to pick up a cold the other day. My typical exhausted cold, an old friend left over from my HBC days. Well he's back but I'm using my days off this week, today and Sunday to do nothing and just read, sleep and enjoy myself. This is actually the first week in a long time that I havn't had someone either from out of town or in town visiting. I love the visits but it's been almost non-stop for about 7 weeks I think. So it's nice to have a break.

To hell with finding a new hobby, I'm gonna try and get me another job! I'm hoping that I will be able to get a part-time job at one of the Starbucks in my neighbourhood. It only seems natural actually as I love coffee and have always wanted to work for this company for some reason. Resume's and applications going out shortly.

Last night was great! Had lots of fun partying with the girls at Skybar in Vancouver. I believe it was agreed on by everyone that Skybar is definetely one of the snobbiest bars ever... But then thinking about it, I think that may just be Vancouver bars in general... hell the whole fucking city's rediculous when it comes to snobbery. It's one of those weird situations where everyone bemoans the fact that it's reality but no one seems to want to do anything about it. Just the other week I was reading in the Georgia Straight and someone had written a story about how people on Vancouver transit don't look at each other, just a small example of the fact that people know it happens. Overall for a city that bills itself on being so friendly there are a lot of lonely people here. Sad thing is though it's their own damned fault for being so increadibly self-absorbed. I'm actually pretty sure that is the problem here. People are incredibly self-absorbed. It's all about looks and that's it. Overall though I can't get to down on Vancouver for this whole issue because as far as I know just about every large city is absolutely full of self-absorbed people. Thoughts anyone?

I'm waiting for my Sister to get here! I'm very excited it's the first time the fabulous red headed terror will have visited me here in Vancouver and I am expecting it to be great. I'm having a small party tomorrow night to celebrate.

I don't remember if I wrote about it previously or not but I'm going to make small mention of my Mother's day at home. I was unfortunate enough to have not realized that it was Mother's Day last Sunday and that I would be within a very short driving distance of my parents home... therefore leaving me with no excuse with which to be able to say 'Wish I was there'. Stupid I know. So I went home and it just like every time that I go home it was traumatic as hell. Having had the time to reflect upon the situation I think that I've pinpointed why visits to the family home seem to throw me for such a loop. Apparently my parents do not seem to be the main reason for the feeling of emptiness and hopelessness that I feel while there. The Okanagan has a strange draw on me in that, that's where my roots are and they run deep. The problem is that there is no nourishment for those roots. There is nothing there and especially at my parents home for me. Walking into their 'perfect' home with it's sterile feeling and its air that no one actually lives there seem to kill me. Nothing in that house reflects any part of who I am or what growing up there was like. My Mother has been systematically 'updating' everything in the past few years in this bizarre 'antique' look that she seems to favour. Even before the remodeling though the house never felt like a home. It was a place to stop on the way to friends homes that felt more like home. The Baron's aerie overlooking the lake, my old best friends home on the lake these are the places that I consider home when I return to Vernon. So understandably it's a fucked up feeling being home and yet not feeling as though that place exists.

Vancouver while a great temporary home is just that I believe. I think that within the next few years I will be home in the Okanagan building a home that actually feels like home and is able to provide what I need from it.

So after I shut the computer down last night I got to thinking... what is it that people do in their spare time? Why do I feel guilty for staying at home in the evenings during the week and watching TV, chatting, or reading? I think that it's possibly because there is this idea that if your going to meet people you must do it in your spare time while taking a class joining a team or doing some other such activity. Now part of the problem for me is that I really don't have any hobbies or sports that I enjoy so now the question is what should I join? And once I'm there how do I keep my interest up enough to go on a weekly basis?

My latest experiment was to volunteer for Gordon Campbell's re-election campaign. Quite honestly while I am still very passionate about seeing the Premier remain in office I'm just not all that excited about doing all that much more for the campaign. I have done general office work, I have done mail drops, and I have gone to a rally... I've met some nice people and all but did I really meet any new friends? No. Maybe I'm expecting to much.

My Dad last night suggested that maybe I should look for some kind of book club or wine club. I'm considering this but my impression of these types of clubs is that they are generally filled with older people, and frankly that's not really what I'm looking for.

Well, off to work.

As usual my trip to Kelowna has left me feeling unsettled and frustrated. Tim and Lisa put on an amazing dinner, no banquet is a better term, on Friday night when we arrived in town. Of course Janet was there and the whole time was great fun. Until of course Tim pulled out the 151 and INSISTED that I have some with him. Not really wanting to I protested but he poured me a shot anyway. Well I drank a shot with him and then he decided that he wanted to do another. Again I protested but drank the damned thing anyway. So now we're both feeling pretty drunk and then he gets sick! Serves him right the bastard. As he ran to the toilet he kept repeating "this isn't the way it's supposed to happen!" Sorry Tim backfired on ya.

Saturday was spent wandering aimlessly around Kelowna enjoying the sites and doing a little bit of shopping with Janet and the Russian (he came with me from Vancouver). We then got ready for the festival and I have to say that Janet and I were looking hot! Me in my new pink shirt and her in her pink dress. We proceeded to the festival where we decided that this year was not a good crop for the Okanagan in General as there were very few wines we actually enjoyed this year. Because the quality wasn't very good Janet decided to go for quantity and this proved to be the downfall. I have to say that I don't believe I will be going to the Fall Festival this year because of the way that things happen when Janet gets drunk. It's just not pleasant for anyone because of the way that she acts. We shall have to see though. Needless to say I wasn't very impressed.

Sunday saw Mother's day come and go for another year and I made the trip up to Vernon. Having no viable alternative I took the Russian with me which made things slightly uncomfortable with the family. I didn't actually notice this though until my Father told me tonight. To be fair I was fairly reluctant to bring him with me up there anyway though.

Still something about that Valley that I seem to want but once I'm there I end up despising it. I don't know what's wrong with me but there are things that seem to upset me terribly about going home and I cannot seem to be able to get over them.

So as stated at the beginning the current mood and feeling is one of frustration. Not so much with myself or anyone in particular but rather with life itself.

YAY One more sleep 'till Kelowna! Wine Festival HERE I COME! Today was yet another gorgeous day in Vancouver. One that I had a very time spending money on. I think I learned a very important lesson toay. Do not walk home along 4th Ave! Rather stick to 1st where there are no shops. On the bright side though I did find my Mother's Day gift for Mommy though. In Urban Barn, one of my favourite stores, they had these cast iron pigs with wings attached to their backs. Well they are adorable, not to mention heavy, so I had to get one for Mom. Silly me wasn't thinking that I'd have to carry it the approximatly 8 blocks up the road to get it home. By the time that I finally got home I had to lay on the floor and stretch my back! Silly pig. I also bought a new shirt from a consignment store to wear to the wine festival. It's like nothing I own already. It's pink, red and white striped but the stripes are in various directions. With my grey Kennth Cole pants it's gonna look hot! I also found a used book store and I stopped in and bought a new book as it's been far to long since I finished reading 'The Life of Pie'. The book I bought is 'How to be good' by Nick Hornby, the author of 'About a boy' and other such soon to be classics. I'm hoping that it will be really good as the author comes highly recommended.

Well as usual when things are going well I don't really have all that much to write about. The U2 concert was phenomenal. No really it was awesome. I was thrilled to have gone as the concert was seriously impressive. They played upwards of 20 songs and the production itself was amazing. Serious amounts of money were spent on this show for which I give U2 kudos.

Matthew is in town and we spent some time together yesterday. Poor guy was totally zoned cause he was SO tired. He's currently on his way over to visit now and I think we'll order pizza and visit for a while.

Work is getting better as I'm no longer at the bottom of the pile for incoming calls. Makes my day much more eventful which is nice.

Hmm, oh Janet was in town this weekend to which means that Saturday night was spent in somewhat of a stupour, if ya know what I mean, but we had fun. I'm really looking forward to visiting with her this coming weekend as we party in Kelowna at the wine festival. Also can't wait to hang out with Lisa and Hans!

Wow can I be a drama queen when I'm tired. I fully realized yesterday that I really need to stay on top of taking my supplements. I ran out of them about a month ago and I think that yesterday was a combination of being extreamly tired and not having taken my supplements for quite a while. So yes I am fine. I'm still going to be tentatively looking for a job but I'm not in the huge panic I was in yesterday.

Got word this morning that Matthew will be in town this weekend from Taiwan! YAY! Can't wait to see him. Imagine that U2 an Matthew all in the same weekend.

I'm crashing again... slowly depressingly crashing. I'm not really enjoying the job all that much. Surprisingly working in a call center kind of sucks. Who knew! There are parts about it that I don't mind but overall it's boring as hell and I keep getting my ass kicked in the statistics because I can't seem to race through calls as quickly as most of the other people. I've started looking for another job again. How depressing *sigh*. I wish I knew what I actually wanted to do.

Happily I got a slight sunburn yesterday while hanging out at Vancouver's infamous wreck beach. It was just really nice to be out in the sun for so long. No I was not naked.

More good news I found out today that I did get the time off to go to Kelowna for the wine festival in two weeks. I'm excited about that. Thank God for wine.

No he's not I just thought is seemed like a good chapter header! ;)

Life is moving along at a surprising clip. I'm constantly amazed at the things that happen to me. Take last night for instance. A racoon almost ran into the house! Because of the absolutely insanely amazing weather we've been having in Vancouver for the past week Peter, Lexi and I were sitting around drinking a bottle of my Quail's Gate Gwerts and enjoying the sun in the livingroom. We had our patio door wide open and I was telling Peter about how I had seen a racoon on Thursday night. As we chatted about it Lexi say's OMG look there it is! We stood and watched it climb down the tree across the street. The little bastard came running across the road right towards us! Lexi walked back into the house completely uninterested and Peter decided that he was going to stare down the racoon! I was starting to get a little apprehensive of this situation when the racoon stopped and stared back. I decided it would be best to walk into the house and hope the racoon and Peter didn't get into a fight as Peter was holding one of my favourite wine glasses that Raphael and Wify gave me for no apparent reason a while back!

The first week of work passed reasonably uneventfully. Well today was a little interesting one of the guys that was hired with me was fired today. It was really weird, so I called him and we hung out after I was done work and he didn't really get it. Very strange. I'm not sure how long I'm going to last at this company. Not for any reason other than the fact that working in a call center like this is bound to get boring here real soon. We'll see though. I'm think I'm going to look around a bit again. Now that the pressure is off I will be more relaxed about the whole thing.

Other than that I don't really think that I have all that much more to update all of you about. Things are reasonably good and aside from the regular money worries there's not all that much going. Oh I'm going to U2 on Friday so that's kind of exciting. I'm also trying desperately to get the next weekend off as well so that I can go the the Okanagan Wine Festival. I was able to find some friends who wanted to go with me and split the cost of gas so now that I've done that of course I have to get the time off to go. Cross your fingers for me!

I spent the day with a great assortment of friends. Ok, back up to last night. OMG I partied WAY to much. I went over to Peter's house and we polished off a bottle of wine each with Indian food. Then because we'd been listening to upbeat music all evening we were drunk enough to decide that going to the bar would be a fantastic idea so we went. I called a friend of mine that get's me into the bar free of cover and he met up with us at Peter's house. Then we went to the bar. We danced a little while then decided that we should go to the other bar for a while too. We went there and danced. Then we went back to the first bar again. By the time that it was decided we would go to a house party it was 3:30AM and I decided that it would be a better idea for Andrew to go home. I talked to Peter this morning at 11 to find that I had woken him and that he'd only been home and sleeping for 3 hours! Oye!

Today my friends from Coquitlam came into town and we spent the day wandering around downtown and then I made them supper. I met her because she is in the same Management Training program that I was in at HBC. Talking to her it's unreal how unhappy she is and I really feel bad for her. Regardless we had a great time and she wants me to help them find a place in my neighborhood cause she hates living in the Coquitlam ghetto that she's in now. I'm really excited if they do move down to Kits cause they're awesome and it'd be great to have another set of friends living in the neighborhood.

Well right now I'm exhausted because of all the events of the past day and night. My house is a disaster as Lexi isn't around to make me feel guilty for leaving things everywhere. It's amazing how things like that happen. Oh well I'll have to clean tomorrow.

Final news of the night is that I ordered a case of Quail's Gate Gwerstrameiner (sp?) yesterday. Finally got some guaranteeing that it won't be sold out on me again like last year meaning I only get one delicious bottle. (Isn't that last paragraph a beauty? Honest I'm not a red neck I do have some schooling behind my terrible writing skills)

Well my first day at work went really well. I love the culture of the new company and everyone is so young it's just amazingly refreshing. By the end of the day I was feeling a little bit overloaded from all the information they had given us and then had us play around with the software we'll be using but I felt good.

After work I went to the gas station and filled the car up because blessedly gas was down at 96.5 cent / liter! Wow, Praise OPEC. God. I'm so happy that I walk to work now!

After the gas station I went to the BC liberals Nomination Convention where I realized just how young blonde hair makes me look when I was asked if I was over 18 then handed a shirt and told to join the youth in the Balcony. How exciting. Premier Gordon Campbell gave an awesome inspiring speech and everyone was very happy. I really was extremely impressed with the Premier's speaking abilities. The man spoke intelligently for an hour seemingly off of one note card. Here's to a successful election for the BC Liberal Party!

Well I'm starting my new job today. It's a lovely morning in Vancouver so I think that I am going to walk to work today. Just the fact that I can walk is exciting to me. Feeling mildly nervous this morning though.

I stayed up way to late last night talking with Sister on the phone. It's interesting how both of us seem to have aproximately the same reaction to our parents and how crazy they make us. Mostly it's our Mother and any anger that I have bound up inside is mostly directe towards her.

Well I'm blonde again! Yeppers, after trying red and then watching it fade really quickly and getting tired of people asking me why I darkened my hair (I'm not a natural blonde anymore people!) I made an appointment with my stylist today and went back blonde. I'm going to grow my hair out again as well. It's actually kinda funky right now as there is still some red evident in there so it's kinda blonde, copper, brown right now. Fun! So I start my new job with training tomorrow. Getting a little excited!

Last night was a gong show. Happily I won't be hearing about the white couch anymore from Lexi as I took her over to a friends house an she poured red wine all over the white carpet! Sweet! Almost poetic if I do say so.

Anyway today's one of those days where it's absolutely beautiful in Vancouver. The sun is shining, the sky is blue, the air is WARM! It's great. The problem is that everyone else in Vancouver has realized this as well and they're starting to invade my neighbourhood. True I live near the beach an close to 4th Ave. so I really can't expect people not to want to be here but gee's is it crowded down here. I hear from Kits vetrans that it's bound to get worse... much, much worse. Apparently Surrey comes to visit in about a month.

So what am I doing toay to take advantage of the amazing weather? Nothing. I went for a breif walk and got tired. So I came home. Just not really interested in doing anything today. It was a big day and night last night so I don't think it's a big deal.

I hung out for a while with Peter tonight. He's going through a bit of a rough patch. The guy that he's currently in a relationship and living with is moving home to Salmon Arm. Just out of the blue he decided this after going home for the week. The poor guy is really confused and lost and Peter told me that his parents, who belong to a Baptist church, are pressuring him to come back to Salmon Arm to live with them. Peter also told me that the guy believes that Peter is possesed by the Devil and that's the reason he's done everything he has since meeting Peter. Now being no stranger to religion and messed up confusion I feel just sick about this situation. Why? Well mostly because I know that there is no way anything is going to change for this guy if he moves back in with his parents... no matter how well-meaning they are likely mis-guided. I really want to have my parents talk to these people. With the sudden depth of knowledge that they have I think that it could be good for these people in their dealings with their son. Hopefully it could stop a potential destruction of a young life and ease a huge degree of pain and suffering for the parents.

Moving on... now that I'm employed again I'm asking myself some other questions. While talking with Peter tonight I was mentioning how this job was the last thing that I ever would have thought about being excited about months ago. Imagine being employed in a call center. Me with my University Degree in Business and Associate of Arts. I'm far to highly qualified for this type of thing. So while I'm excited about a new start and a new direction I'm also mildly troubled about not having lived up to my potential. During the interview today one of the questions was "tell us about a time that you failed" The first thing that came to my mind was my last job. In my mind I failed at that job. Saying nothing of all the facts that boldly stared me in the face that it was just not the right fit for me I still feel as though I failed. And to top it off now I'm working in an entry level position that isn't even Management. Looking at it another way I used to be partially responsible for a $20 Million store... now I answer phones and try and convince people to use our service. Strangely the pay scale is almost the same as what I was making with HBC but the whole concept has just changed. Talking about this situation, with Peter, and money in general tonight I was mentioning how if I moved to a less desirable neighbourhood or sold or downgraded my wonderful car I would have SO much more money. But then of course came the flip side of that, well I'd have more money but I wouldn't get to live across the street from the beach or within walking distance of the downtown core of the city. If I sold or downgraded the car then... well I think that A. I'd just lose my mind and B. It would seem like yet another example of failure to me. If I moved or sold the car though I could possibly be able to travel and see more of the world than I already have. I could do many other things as well I'm sure. But would that bring contentment?

Question - Does responsibility consistently grow or is it something that comes in waves throughout life. Peter made the point that I've been extremely responsible for most of my life so far, finishing school, never doing anything wrong etc., did I miss out on something by growing up to fast?

I got the Job! YAY! I'm no longer unemployed. So excited I've been dancing around my house all morning! Doesn't hurt that I just downloaded a ton of wicked new songs last night. So yes I'll be working as an inbound call rep. Not all that glamourous but after the 'glamourous' position I had last and the amount of shit that went with it I don't care! The company is classified as a 'hyper-growth' company is the owner of their niche and is growing. The position is full time and from what I can see the place is made up of people under 35. Everyday is casual day and the best part! It's located on Granville Island which I can easily bike to, and with gas at 99.9 I'm very happy to leave Blue in the garage. Very happy. Now going to go to the beach as it's a spectacular day in Vancouver yet again :)

YAY! I just got called back for a second interview with a company that I interviewed with yesterday. There goes the piercing idea... for today anyway. Made my weekend. Even if I don't get it the interview process with this company has been great for my self esteem!

Rock On Baby!

Ok, I think I'm starting to lose it. Lexi is going to go and get some piercings done this afternoon (don't ask) and she made the off-hand comment that maybe I should to. While of course I stated 'no way' as soon as she said it but then while I was at the gym the thought suddenly came to me 'Why not?!'. So for some reason I'm now considering if I want to get the top of my ear pierced. First I dye my hair red then I get a piercing? Who the hell am I and why am I doing these weird things all of the sudden? While of course as I'm working out I'm thinking these things to myself and I'm furiously trying to connect the dots.

What is it that I'm trying to change and will outward appearances do it or is it something deeper within myself? While of course it's something deeper within myself but what. Is putting another hole in my head really going to do anything or change anything. Will I enjoy it or feel mildly foolish about it like my hair. I think it's possibly the image that I've portrayed for so long that I'm trying to change but now what image is it that I should be portraying. This is the current question on my mind. Who know's maybe I'll get a piercing today...

I am officially irritated. After watching The Incredibles tonight I saw a trailer for The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy! Now this in itself was enough to get me very excited and run to the computer to check out the web-site (http://hitchhikers.movies.go.com) what I found there was very, very disappointing. Zaphod only has ONE HEAD! What the HELL! So after looking over the site and the cast and characters I have to say that even though this is one of my all time favourite books I do believe that I will be skipping this movie as I'm sure it's going to be a collosal disappointment.

Well I had dinner with the Baroness. It was actually quite pleasant. We went for Indian food in a little place in my neighbourhood that I didn't even know existed before this. So it was quite nice.

Feeling like shit today. I went and volunteered at my local MLA's re-election campaign office this afternoon for a couple of hours. I figure that it's a good way of networking and meeting people who maybe able to help me at some point in this job search. That and it helped to take my mind off of the actual business of finding a job for a while.

Well I didn't get the job. They wanted someone with more experience.



Now what?



I think I'll just start applying everywhere for anything and see what sticks.

Nope the fucker isn't gonna let me post! Very irritated now that I downloaded the special program and everything. Oh well I'll try and figure it out tomorrow. Till then I'll link ya'll to my telus photo album where the pic is.

http://myphotosite.telusmobility.com/mytm/control/photosite/6049992598@telusmobility?lang=EN

Enjoy.

Ok, let's see if this works!

Oh I forgot to mention that I learned a new lesson this weekend. Never go to the hairdresser while thinking your going to try and start re-inventing yourself again. If you do and your like me your gonna come out of there with red highlights in your hair! Yeah, for some reason I was feeling adventurous and decided that copper coloured highlights would look good in my hair. So I asked her if she could do it. Well turns out she can! It's gonna take some getting used to. On the plus side it makes me look like I have a tan!

Re-inventing oneself. What does that look like exactly? I'm definetely in the mood to do so and change everything about me but how exactly? Now true I think that I've sucessfully done that this past year just with the whole coming out thing and all but now I'm wanting to change again. I'm sure this is really a desperate attempt to find myself but what insane direction is it going to take me this time? Maybe I'll start getting piercings and start smoking copious amounts of pot. Hmmm yes maybe. Maybe instead of stopping with the red highlights I should grow my hair into dreds. God I wish I knew what I wanted. I'm pretty sure actually that it's not really anything outward that is needing to change. It's all internal which makes it that much harder. Hmm I should try and figure out how to post a pic of my new red hair on here.

Well I'm back in Van and my trip home was good. Very uneventful and very quite exactly how I wanted it to be. It's odd though how every one of the books that I'm reading right now tells me that it can be traumatic to go back home for people dealing with the issues I'm dealing with and as far as I can tell they're right. Christmas was probably one of the most traumatic experiences I've ever had and from the stories that I hear from some of my friends and acquaintances I would have to say it is true... homosexuals don't like being in their childhood homes. So I was thrilled to come back here.

Today was basically a waste of a day again. Well that's how my days are feeling anyway because looking for jobs now a days is definitely not what I think it used to be. I think there's this romantic vision most people have, I think, of looking for a job involving a folded up newspaper scribbled all over in red pen at a cheap coffee joint. Now a days everything's done on the internet. Employers don't want to have anything to do with you if you walk into their office and ask to submit a resume. Most of the time it just goes straight to the receptionist who then passes it on. At least with e-mail your resume should be going to the person who is actually going to make a decision.

Being that I have been applying mostly with recruiters, which seems to be about the only option available at most job finding related web-sites, I would have thought I would have had more responses by now. True it's only the second Monday after a short week but I'm feeling a little down. I really hope that the position I met with the recruiter for last week works out. The recruiter figured the company would be calling me either today or tomorrow. Well I didn't hear from them today so that leaves tomorrow.

Tomorrow I'm going for supper with the Baroness. It's been a long time since I've seen her, indeed I believe the last time I saw her was just after Rapheal's wedding. Unfortunately the last number of times that I've seen her I've been rather tense. But having gone through some rather intense situations this last year I feel as though I maybe can relate a bit better with her now so I'm hoping that conversation during supper will be good.

Well I'm back in Van and my trip home was good. Very uneventful and very quite exactly how I wanted it to be. It's odd though how every one of the books that I'm reading right now tells me that it can be traumatic to go back home for people dealing with the issues I'm dealing with and as far as I can tell they're right. Christmas was probably one of the most traumatic experiences I've ever had and from the stories that I hear from some of my friends and acquaintances I would have to say it is true... homosexuals don't like being in their childhood homes. So I was thrilled to come back here.

Today was basically a waste of a day again. Well that's how my days are feeling anyway because looking for jobs now a days is definitely not what I think it used to be. I think there's this romantic vision most people have, I think, of looking for a job involving a folded up newspaper scribbled all over in red pen at a cheap coffee joint. Now a days everything's done on the internet. Employers don't want to have anything to do with you if you walk into their office and ask to submit a resume. Most of the time it just goes straight to the receptionist who then passes it on. At least with e-mail your resume should be going to the person who is actually going to make a decision.

Being that I have been applying mostly with recruiters, which seems to be about the only option available at most job finding related web-sites, I would have thought I would have had more responses by now. True it's only the second Monday after a short week but I'm feeling a little down. I really hope that the position I met with the recruiter for last week works out. The recruiter figured the company would be calling me either today or tomorrow. Well I didn't hear from them today so that leaves tomorrow.

Tomorrow I'm going for supper with the Baroness. It's been a long time since I've seen her, indeed I believe the last time I saw her was just after Rapheal's wedding. Unfortunately the last number of times that I've seen her I've been rather tense. But having gone through some rather intense situations this last year I feel as though I maybe can relate a bit better with her now so I'm hoping that conversation during supper will be good.

I'm preparing to go home for the weekend. Mentelly as well as physically. I think this is going to be a fairly traumatic visit. After perhaps the most intense counselling session I've ever had last night I thought I was going to die (and still kinda wish I would). Picking away at the layers that make up me has been like pulling off a scab and then finding another scab underneath. The pain is so intense I can't even believe it's there.

Day 1 finally over. Feeling very anxious and terrified that my resume is crap. Terrified of writing a cover letter. Everyone seems to have different ideas of what a resume should look like. Want to get the sucker completed ASAP so I can start distributing it. Feel like I should just dive right into the job search but really what does that mean and how is that accomplished without a proper resume. Well I think it's proper so now I'm just nit-picking it to death! Argh I hate my insecurity.

Got a phone call from the leader of the coming out of coming out group tonight. He said that they had missed me last week (after a counselling session with my counsellor on Wednesday where he asked me why I went if I didn't want to and I didn't have an answer for him so I decided not to go on Thursday) and wanted to know if the group was for me or not as I wasn't appearing very interested. I told him that I didn't think that it was and that I would happily return the book to him. So now I've been rejected once again. Ironically now that I'm an unemployed loser I may actually feel as though I would have belonged in that group (ohhh that was nasty).

For better of for worse I'm going to go home for Easter this coming weekend. I don't know if this is really the best place for me to go but I need to get out of here. I can't handle being here and all of the pressure that's going on right now. I feel as though I'm just out of the gate and life is trying to trip me and break my legs. I suppose the only thing that I have to cling to is that God is still arranging things for something bigger and better. I wish that was actually comforting.

Ok, now I'm starting to freak-out a bit! Waking up this morning it fully hit me that I don't have a job to go to. In one sense I feel like a kid again and it's Summer Vacation... the other more powerful sense is telling me to go for a swim into the Ocean and not stop. No, that's silly.

It's really strange how thinking about it now I have never gone without a job for any length of time since I was 14. True there were semesters at school where I was not working but I was in school full-time taking six courses so there wasn't much time for that. Other than that my job or schooling has been a big contributor in the way that I defined who I am. Now that, that is gone... well that's why I'm in counselling anyway, to figure out who I am and what makes me up. This is going to be great for my self-discovery.

So I'm sitting here trying to make up a to do list of tasks that will keep me busy and help accomplish my goal of getting a job. I'm thinking about going around my neighbourhood and dropping off resume's at various video stores and other types of businesses. My thinking behind this is that if I can get a part-time job that will keep me busy in the evenings as well as help me meet other people from my neighbourhood that will be a good thing. Seeing as since I moved here 10 months ago I have met very few people and know just about no one I didn't know since before I moved here.

I'm freaking out here. This really is a scary process. There is so much riding on my next moves. Thank God I only have myself to worry about.

Yes my post yesterday was serious. I really am unemployed. As is typical with me the feelings didn't surface until later in the evening and now today. Physically I feel like I've been punched in the stomach. Not pleasant, but I'm still serious when I say that I'm relieved this is over. I was given 4 weeks severance pay and then another amount for my moving costs from the Okanagan.

Well the nightmare is over. I was terminated from my job less than an hour ago. I was told that I was performing at a good level and that I was well liked by the Associates in the store but that I lacked a level of dedication that a store Manager would need to display. Ironically the last line of my termination letter was "On behalf of the Company, I would like to thank you for your service and dedication to the Hudson's Bay Company."

I don't really know what I'm feeling right now. I'm calm, relieved, upset, defeated and kinda scared. I feel as though I'm walking towards the sun at dawn. It's still dark... and will possibly be for a while but things are going to get brighter. Hopefully my next job won't involve weekends or 10+ hour days.

Last night was the night of the fucked up Zellers shoppers! Seems they all wanted to scream at a Manager. Guess who that was :S One lady insisted on speaking to the Manager when I told her she was she said no your not! I don't want to speak to another Sales Clerk I want to speak to the Manager. I said "Ma'am I know I'm the Manager, my staff know I'm the Manager and... I'm still not giving you a discount on that watch!" She huffed and she puffed... and she told me she was going to call district office and complain. I handed her a pen and said I'd get her the number! She told me she didn't have time she'd find it later. Later she calls back and was nice as pie and tried to tell me the cashier had screwed up on her receipt and charged her too much. I pulled her receipt up and told her that it looked ok to me but if she wanted she was welcome to bring everything back and we'd double check it. Needless to say we didn't see her today. Remind me sometime and I'll tell you all about the bitch with the wheelbarrow. That happend last night to! So much fun packed into one night. You can hardly imagine.

Hey, hey! Sorry to have kept you hanging with that last post. The next morning I woke up feeling much better. I'm still having some struggles though with self-esteem and just feeling low in general. I have gone to the naturalpath again just a few days ago and my mood is great though. It's interesting how sometimes your feeling great emotionally but mentally your just not all quite where your emotions dictate would be a logical place. I would assume that both mental and emotional health should be interconnected but that doesn't always seem to be the case. Regardless I'm bouncy and happy.

I finally met with the other counsellor that I wanted to try and I think I've got a match. He's an older gentleman who I just immediately felt at ease with. Really nice guy and he's expressed his willingness to walk with me through whatever comes up in the next while. I was really releaved that he is willing to muddle through things with me at the beginning at least. I don't really have any clear / set goals that I want to achieve through this counselling process aside from finding out who I am. Who is me, what are my deeply held beliefs, what makes me act and re-act the way that I do? Just talking to him already he made a very interesting observation, it's quite possible that by delving into homosexuality I was searching more for the relationships it "promised" than the physical aspects. Interesting.

Well it's Saturday morning and I just got back from the gym. I don't know if I mentioned here before or not but I've been going to the gym 6 days a week for a little over a month now. I'm loving it and it's defienetly helping me have a better outlook on life. Thanks to Janet's advice I go to the gym straigh from work now and then go home. If I go straight home with the intention of going to the gym later... well it just doesn't happen. Good thing I don't have a life anyway!

Have a Great Day! Mine's looking to be.

Weather report for wifey:

Clear Sunny approximately +12C. It's been like this for weeks now with the odd day of rain which helps settle the dust.

Man it's been a tough day. Woke-up feeling defeated and it's continued on till now. Maybe tomorrow will be better.

Really nothing new to update everyone on here. Dad came down this weekend for a visit and we had a good time. On Saturday we went dream car shopping. Stopping at the Bentley - Jaguar dealership where we drooled over one of the most beautiful Aston-Martin's I've ever seen. We made other stops at the Mercedes, Infinity, and BMW dealers as well. Then we went to my store so he could get an idea of where I am everyday. After that we came home and went shopping to pick up some things for dinner. We did a typical Kits dinner, which means we went to four different stores to get the ingredients at their best and freshest. It was a delicious dinner acompanied by an excellent bottle of Willowglen wine from Austrailia. All in all an excellent day.

Oh! I just remembered I got myself a new mobile phone on Sunday. Very excited. It's the newest Samsung available from Telus. http://www.telusmobility.com/on/pcs/handset_samsung_sch_a670.shtml
Now I'm just trying to figure out what to do with all the functions.

Anyway I'm now off to bed. I'm reading "The Life Of Pi" and it's awesome. Good night.

Well I just got back from my second time attending the coming out of homosexuality group (for lack of a better name) that I decided to start attending. Quite honestly as the car got closer and closer to the church I wanted to turn around more and more. It really took a lot to go again this week. Last week was the introduction and when I left I called my Dad and said "What the fuck am I doing there? I don't belong there! These people are all LOSERS!" Reflecting upon this statement this week though I came to the realization that any one of those LOSERS could be me in a few or more years. The fact that I'm the youngest member of this group and that I'm a not so young 25 has initially made me slightly uncomfortable with this whole situation as well but now it just sort of gives me another insight. The gay world really does seem to be one dominated by youth and glamour. With my ever advancing age I believe that although this is one of the hardest times in life to try and get out of the gay lifestyle because the constant party's, sex, and fun do have a major appeal, better sooner than later. God is this going to be tough and I honestly still have doubts an fears about it. All I know is that since I have made this decision I feel as though a major load has been lifted off of me. I don't know where the future is going to take me or what the plan for my life is but I know which road it doesn't lie down anymore.

Here's a fun one for ya'll. Today at work, as with everyday at work, our security guy managed to arrest some shoplifters. Now I have to say that this store is really unlike anything I've ever seen for the amount of theft that goes on in it, as well as the Management team taking it personally! At least once every two days we have a grab and run... ocassionally two or three in a given day. When the alert call goes out over the PA system everyone in drops everything and goes racing out the front doors in the mostly vain attempt to catch the bastard that just ran out of the store with a DVD player or a boxed DVD set. Unfortunately by the time the alarms at the door go off and we realize that this person isn't just another innocent shopper it's inevitably to late. They're gone sprinting across the parking lot. Now the fact that the sprinter has a good lead and is usually as fast as the wind doesn't seem to deter many of the males in the store from chasing after them. Most of the time it's a virtual stampede of Assocaites pouring through the door on their way out trying to catch someone. Now a few times the criminals have figured out just how stupid we really are and have worked in two's. So while their buddy is racing like the wind with a herd of furious Zellers Managers and Supervisors behind them the other one calmly collects all that they had on their list and sashays out the front doors. Of course the alarms go off but everyone able is already chasing his buddy! Score 2 points theives, 0 for Zellers. Actually one time at his old store the Manager got so furious he jumped into his truck, drove through a rose bed, over a sidewalk or two and chased some unfortunate fellow for blocks until he finally just about died from a coronary. I do believe the Manager got a stern talking to from the Police over that one. Seems he really hasn't learned though.

Anyway back to my story about the events of today. Two East Indian ladies, an old one and her daughter, came into the store and proceeded to clean out our clearance racks. Now this really isn't a big deal because it's all clearance but their total bill would have been well over $175, which tells you how much shit they managed to get into their bags at $5 a shirt. So anyway perhaps because the old one was REALLY old they didn't manage to get away fast enough and we caught them. Well it turns out they just "Forgot to pay!" So anyway being the good people we are we called the police anyway. Then because they both decided that they suddenly couldn't speak english anymore we simply got one of our people to come in and translate. This is the funny part. It turns out that our translater decided that it was time to give these two a lecture about how fortunate they were to be in this great country and that they were giving all brown people a bad name! She went on for about 45 mins until the police came. Considering the fact that they were stealing all of the clothes to take with them to India in a few days it'll be interesting to see how well things go for them at the border. Hopefully they'll never get back in!

Because I'm in the mood to tell stories tonight I'll give one last one about one of our Supervisors and her experience while testifying in court against a shoplifter she had caught. The shoplifter, not being the most intelligent person, went up to the Judge and pointed directly at the Supervisor and said "She was the one... she took me up the stairs to the office and beat the shit out of me!" Well this is entirely laughable if you just look at the Supervisor... she's mayube 5'3 and likely weighs about 130lbs. That's not the best part of the story though. The Judge looks at our Supervisor and asks is this true? To which she reply's well... we don't have a second floor in our store!

Well I've figured it out. The only thing harder than telling someone that your gay is telling them that you hate being gay, don't see a future in it, and are going to be exploring different areas of counselling to see how and if it is just a choice and way of thinking that can be reversed. To tell you the truth I'm terrified about this. Mostly I'm scared about what those close to me will say. Most of them believe that this is not something you can change and I'm not sure how supportive of this they will be. I do have to say this though that if they arn't supportive... or at least give me the benefit of the doubt... well I won't be seeing them much more. This is extremely important to me and even if it doesn't end up working out then at least I'll be sure.

Post complete.

Well Singles Awareness Day actually turned out rather well. I had lunch with Marcie and then made dinner for Lexi and my friend the Mexican. One of Lexi's friends also joined us because as luck would have it she broke up with her boyfriend yesterday. So I spent Valentines Day entertaining three beautiful single women... every mans dream... right?

I also went to visit the counsellor that my parents had found, in hopes that it would be a match, and I have to say that I was NOT impressed. Basically I just met him for a meet and greet but from the moment his secretary gave me the wrong address to the building for the third time and I therefore arrived 20 minutes late and only after the counsellor himself had called to ask if I was still coming and gave me the address once I told him that I was wandering around the fucking city of Burnaby trying to find an address I didn't know did not exist. Anyway I went in and started chatting with this guy and he basically gave me some background on himself. I was really confused actually because thinking back now I should have asked him if he was gay. The impression that I was getting from him was that he was. Actually some good did come out of the short session because I really need to examine what I want to go to counselling for. Not so much what I want to go for counselling for I guess more-so what do I want to achieve with this. What are my goals. What do I want the counselling to achieve? Thinking about this a lot lately I'm wondering what do I really want?

My Parents seem to be under the impression that I am still in the same place that I was in three years ago when I first came to them about my sexuality and they freaked out. At that point I sincerely wanted to be 'normal' but didn't know how to do it. At the point where I am now I'm wondering am I going into counselling because they want me to? They seem to believe that I can sincerely change my very base ways of thinking and the very way my thought processes work. Of course my understanding of anything like this is that I would have to fundamentally change my life in ways that I'm not sure at this point that I want to. Seriously everything would have to change if that were to be the direction I'm going to consider taking. I would very seriously have to leave Vancouver and start life again somewhere else where no one knows me. Why would I have to do something that dramatic? Well the fact that all of my Vancouver friends know and accept me this way means that it would be seriously fucked up if I were to decide to suddenly start denying who I was again and start trying to be straight. I just don't know if I can do that again.

On a happier note Grandma is coming to visit this weekend. I'm planning on spending Saturday with her. As it's my weekend off this really works out well. Too much thinking right now. I'm going to bed.

Wow, last night was amazing! I got off of work and met up with Lisa and Tim who were visiting from Kelowna. We went out for dinner at Cactus Club, then for drinks at this pretentious cougar bar called OPUS and then ended up at Celebrities and danced. The original plan was to go to Skybar but when we got there there were a number of people from Kelowna there that Lisa didn't want to see so she said "we can't go here now!" so of course the only place that didn't have a line two blocks long at that time of night was Celebrities. We walked in just in time as the line seemed to form right behind us. We had tons of fun. The fact that I worked this morning at 8 ensured that I didn't stay out all that late though. So I was home by 1... I think, and in bed shortly there after. Of course because I'd been drinking rye all night and was still just toasted I did some drunk dialing and left a message, or two...? that I'm sorta regretting now. I hope I didn't mess things up.

Tomorrow is my day off and I'm planning on sleeping and doing very little. I have a counselling appointment with a new counsellor tomorrow. Basically just a short meet and greet to see if I'm comfortable with him. We'll see. Feeling very emotional and needy right now. I think it's cause I'm so tired.

Oh just thought of a little story I thought I would share before I went to bed. Phone rings... I answer. It's my mentor for The Bay. Seems she's still having problems with a few of my ex-girls from Origins. *shock!* She needs my help to set the story straight on what one of them is telling the store Executives. Seems the little bitch is telling them that I told her not to do important parts of her job! How is that so when I spent the better part of two months trying to get them to do ANYTHING other than stand around blinking! Unreal... it makes my blood start to boil a little just to think about this lying sow and makes me more mad that I didn't pursue firing her a long time ago. I've had it with people. At least those that work for me. Enough of this benefit of the doubt shit I'm going on a rampage at my new store and I'm going to clean house. Fantastically enough my new manager is already behind me 100% on this initiative!

Yes I'm still here. Things have been going well so I havn't been in the mood to write. Yes it seems that things are starting to calm down significantly which makes me happy because I honestly couldn't have handeled another week of the drama that was going on. I've actually been working straight since Sunday as well so there really hasn't been all that much to write about that's been interesting.

Some observations about the new surroundings I find myself in at work though. I am in a store with a high population of East Indian people living nearby. In fact the largest Sihk temple in the lower mainland is right across the street, so dealing with these people on a daily basis has become second nature. I have to say that I really enjoy working with most of them. The prevailing sense I get from most of them is that they are very nice people and are very hard workers. I am consistently in awe of the language abilities members of my staff have. We have many Associates who speak up to five languages, which is absolutely invaluable, and listening to some of their life stories and places they have come from to get to Canada is always amazing. I'm working in a very multi-cultural place and perhaps experiencing Canada as so many people aroun the world believe it is but in a way I a Canadian born and raise have never experienced.

Today was a good day. Lexi, Dad and I went out for breakfast this morning at this little place I discovered two blocks away from my house. It was awesome. Then Dad and I went and hung out in Stanley Park for a bit and talked for quite a while. It was good to understand a bit better as to where he is coming from. We then went and wandered around Yaletown a bit before coming home. For dinner we went to Memphis Blues this amazing BBQ restaurant I'd heard about and really wanted to try. We ordered a platter and there were 6 different types of meat on it. That's it... just meat, oh and some beans. Amazing food. After supper we came back to the house and watched 'Man on Fire' a reasonanbly good Denzel Washington movie. Cutting the movie short we got Lexi and went to see a U2 Lazer show at the Planitarium. It was pretty cool and a good way to spend some time on a Saturday night. Coming home we finished the movie and now I'm going to bed.

I GOT U2 TICKETS! Have one extra anyone wanna come?

Ok, things are starting to look up a bit. I'm not really sure if it's because I've been seeing the naturalpath again or if it's just my situation improving but either way I'm relieved.

The Zellers that I am working in is actually really, really good. I have to say that so far I am enjoying it. The people I work with are lots of fun and I seem to fit in really well. Even the fact that it's a half-an-hour away from my house seems to be a good thing. By the time I get there in the morning I'm pumped and by the time I get home at night I'm calmer. The fact that the drive is 15 mins in town and 15 mins on the highway helps. That and the fact that I'm going early enough or late enough that there are few other cars on the road.

Speaking with my trainee counterparts we all seem to agree that we're really glad that the presentations are over. It's like something snapped right after and the stress and pressure of the past few months just disapatted.

Strangely enough after I gave my presentation my former "coach", who was sitting there, spoke up and talked about what a tough team I had and that they were all very impressed with how much hard work I had done. Um... thanks? I think... I think that after seeing the other presentations and listening to mine she may have realized what a tough time I had had in the past number of months. Sadly Pam's coach was asked by one of the Zellers Managers what exactly it was she was supposed to have accomplished during her time at The Bay and he couldn't tell us. He just sat there and blabbed a lot of nothing. I felt somewhat vindicated for her as it proved without a doubt that she had been set up for total failure.

Another interesting situation that's developed is a friend of mine had asked me to meet with a friend of his who was looking for work in cosmetics. So I met with the guy and he turned out to be absolutely perfect (well aside from the mohawk... I'm not joking) for a position in cosmetics. So I called up the old store and told them I was sending him up. Well they met him and loved him and instead of offering him a cosmeticians position they are offering him the role of Department Head. So my old mentor called me last night and wanted to ask me about him. I told her the little I knew about him and that was it I thought. Getting into my car last night though I turned on the phone and there was a message from her asking me to call her at home. I did and she asked if she could call me back later. I told her not to worry about it. She called back about an hour later apologizing for the late hour and asked if I would call her at work tomorrow. Now I'm really confused. Not sure what to expect here but could it be... maybe... an apology?

Well I just got back from my Major presentation. I now have a headache, feel like I'm going to throw up, want to cry, and quite everything. The presentation went well though! Sometimes life is just so overwhelming. I would really like to go out an get a bottle of wine and drink the whole thing. In fact I think I will.