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...