one year anniversary

i just recently passed the one year anniversary of this blog on may 30th.
and this is my 50th blog post!

where was i a year ago? i was a recent graduate looking for a summer job while living at  my parent's place in niagara falls. in those 3 months, i worked at imax theatre, margaritaville, java joe's, embassy suites, and sport chek. i also had countless interviews and sent off resumes to basically every place in niagara falls. i needed an escape. i had hit rock bottom. work was minimal. living at home was one of the worst things. i couldn't stand it.

a year passes and not a whole lot has changed. i gained more knowledge with a graduate program and plunged myself further into student debt. i moved out of my parent's place and into an apartment with my best friend in the world. i now called toronto my home. and -- up until this weekend, wouldn't have ever believed that i could live in toronto and function. this past weekend was a changing experience as i went for a short walk to use some coupons for dinner and randomly kept running into people i knew. it wasn't until the next day when i was in the wrong place at the wrong time when i truly believed i was a toronto resident -- involved in the eaton centre shooting, 7 people injured and 1 deceased.

luckily, i was above the food court when it happened and was on my way out of the mall when two ladies rushed out of a restaurant and told us to leave the mall immediately. outside, there was a gathering of over 2,000 people staring, taking pictures and videos, and stuck at a standstill on the sidewalk because of what was going on. social media has ruined lives this way -- instead of running for their lives, they're going to take a picture of it first. i didn't see anything out of the ordinary. nobody looked fearful and i didn't hear anything until we were outside. still, it's a bit scary and unreal.

i still don't have a paying job. i've taken on an unpaid internship with a longboarding company as their marketing/sustainability intern. i had my first day today and was assigned my first project to create an infographic about the benefits, exercise, costs, and carbon offsets of using a longboard. at least this gives me something to do instead of nothing. and after this article in the toronto star the next day after my interview, i was even more sold on the unpaid internship thing.

but, i'm still looking. i'm hoping somebody somewhere will eventually realize that they have the ability to pay me to do work too.

first day of grad school

today was my first day of grad school.

i had one class and it started at 8am. which meant that i needed to be up at 6am and out of my apartment before 7am in order to arrive to class on time. and that's not including the ridiculous strike traffic. i rolled out of bed and dreaded the day ahead.

i left around 6:40am and did the zombie walk to the subway. grabbed the subway easily and rode to finch where i just barely made the express bus to school. i made it to school by 7:30am. now i know that i can leave a little later tomorrow when i have to do it all again, and once again on friday. yes, i have 3 8am classes a week. this is not the grad school classes i imagined. hopefully next semester will be better.

it felt strange to be back in the classroom. i looked around and knew nobody. there was a definite age gap in my classmates. where were my TREN girls at? no where. it was depressing. the professor was late so the coordinator took over until he got there. this is when the coordinator told me to switch my one class to the other 8am on friday. i was not happy. class flew by and we didn't do much, similar to most of the first day introductions i've been in before.

i made friends with the two girls next to me who seemed to be remotely my age and i walked with the one over to admissions after class. she had the same problem as me: seneca needed 'proof of degree' from her. admissions opened at 10am and my class got out at 9:50am. the admissions lineup was all the way down the hall and almost around the corner when i got there. seeing as i had really nothing else to do today, i waited. and i waited. and i fucking waited. i waited an hour and 20 minutes to talk to someone. she told me that i needed to send a new transcript and a photocopy of my degree/confirmation of graduation and changed the expiry to the end of september. she told me not to panic. clearly, i was not in panic mode. perhaps i look panicky when i'm awake at 6am.

i headed home shortly after while talking to some of the strike people about their issues and whatnot while waiting for the bus. i like to be informed. the bus at finch going to school when i arrived at finch station had so many people waiting. i was glad to be going the opposite direction. i made it home around 12:30pm with a quick stop in at subway for lunch.

over the weekend, i saw lutzenkirchen, got drunk, and went to the eaton centre. i talked to someone at the eaton centre sport chek about possibly getting a transfer (even though i only worked 2 shifts at the niagara falls one) and she told me to call her on wednesday to figure it all out. in the meantime, i applied to various retail jobs at the mall and am waiting to hear back... if i hear back at all.

i need a good night's sleep.