so long, sweet summer

i don't want to go back to school.

i've finished 6 years of post-secondary education. i'm tired of it. grad school the first time around was a joke. actually, it was worse than a joke. i spent a god awful amount of money on what felt like nothing -- nothing that really stuck in my head after april.

i guess i have every right to be tired of school and not have any motivation to get through another fucking year. i figured that maybe this summer -- the one where i couldn't land a job -- would be the summer that follows into september where i don't have to head back to school for something. i just want a job i can be content with and preferably isn't shitty, like working retail. 6 years of school should at least allow me to be able to function in my field of study. as long as i'm getting some moneys, i'll just get you coffee and watch your kids. whatever. i want the real world experience that i lack. i want the real world experience i was supposed to get during my internship in the second semester of grad school; except what i got was developing a 40 page research project that they threw out the moment we walked away. at least i can truly justify my anger.

i haven't had an interview since sometime in the beginning of july when i figured i had nailed that internship with the marketing place. i did nail it; it came down to me and two others. except somebody else got hired over me. still, it's nice to know that i was considered, i suppose. on friday, i had 2 interviews. one with tourism ontario and one with global village. i feel like the lady at tourism ontario was pretty impressed with me. the interview went on for quite awhile and it sounded like a lot of things i could do, given the right circumstances. the global village interview also went pretty well, i think. they didn't have anyone even remotely interested in environment-related things and figured they should probably start.

there's a recruitment/temp agency that's been calling me lately too, but every time i return the call, i never get who i'm supposed to talk to and it's a never-ending cycle of phone tag. she "just wants to talk about my resume"... whatever that means. i've applied to a couple of jobs through that agency but none of them were anything i was that crazy interested in doing. i have an interview with them on wednesday. i also sort of had an in with a retail store that i went to see today, but apparently showed up too late. they clearly saw me standing there quite confused and they didn't even bother to come over to the door and tell me what's up. whatever. i'm better off. i should have just slept through my alarm instead of getting up and trekking over there. i also wasted a bunch of my time applying for a ryerson job only to hear back instantly that applicants were preferred to be ryerson students. for the amount of things i do for both ryerson and u of t, i may as well be an enrolled student. fuck.

the good news is that i'm going to get some money this week. i signed up and was randomly selected to participate in a focus group with seneca. they give me some moneys that will cover a fair amount of food and beer for a couple of weeks. i'm stoked on that. remember that job i was hired at back in april? and then they told me may? and june? and july? and for canada day, they got in touch with me and asked if i was available to work -- but i wasn't. well, they contacted me again for this saturday. and this time, i'm free all day. so, here's hoping something happens with that.

so what am i doing with my time, then? well, applying to jobs takes up a good portion of my day. i've been doing volunteer work with u of t and i'm an official orientation leader of frosh week in september. my longboarding internship is still kicking around and i'm working on things for that. and i did go home to visit for about a week in august. i hadn't been home in a couple of months and had a  lot of stuff to do while i was home. last week, i also found out that my kitty's feline diabetes reversed and now he's back to being healthy. that was super exciting news, and i'm really happy about that.

such a baby.

yep... same old life, really. if i end up going back to school, i start on september 4. with an 8am. because seneca is terrible, amongst other things. but that won't stop me from trying to find a job.

i could do a lot of things if i had some money

"i'm really enjoying not having a job." 

yes, i fucking said it. i'm enjoying not working, besides the fact that i'm running low on money. the truth is that i'm so busy doing things outside of the job hunt (like volunteering, my unpaid internship, hanging out and enjoying the summer, and so on) even though i try to spend a few hours a day sending out resumes to these potential jobs.

the interview i had on thursday with the marketing firm went much better than i expected. i was so discouraged from wednesday's ridiculous interview that i forgot what it was like to talk to a real human being (and a recent graduate like myself) about getting a job and experience working. the lady interviewing me was so incredibly personable. she reminded me of what i try to be most days. we talked for a good half hour and the firm does a bunch of neat sustainability things. i'm hoping i can land this one because i feel as though i can be a definite asset to their small team. it seems like a good fit for me. fingers crossed.

in the meantime, i've been pretty busy working on internship projects that are taking up some of my time. i've been completing research on the benefits of longboarding: specifically, carbon offsetting, time/distance saved, and exercise. what started out as something i thought i could enjoy quickly spun into something i realized wasn't the best idea. there were so many different sections to observe and information to discover and transfer knowledge. it was some difficult research. but once it was over, i moved onto the calculation end of things.

just the word 'calculations' and i immediately fell into the fetal position. you mean to tell me i'm going to have to use math? oh, fuck.

this is where i spent a couple of days just staring at what i had to do on google docs and screaming 'fuck' at the top of my lungs. i was so lost. okay, so maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration. but still. i didn't know what i was supposed to do. none of the things we had discussed previous to when i tried to do the calculations was making any sense and i had forgot a bunch of the things i was supposed to remember, ha.

with the help of a few friends, eventually i found my direction and kept on with it. surely, this was the most half-assed project i had completed to date. or so i thought. upon the deadline and meeting, i was praised for my continuous efforts and perfection. apparently it was exactly what he wanted and needed for the infographic. SUCCESS! mama's still got it.

since i didn't want to look at calculations or the benefits of longboarding anymore for at least awhile (and the lack of graphic design interns to work with me on creating and designing the infographic) i moved onto the newest project of the week: blogging! finally, something i know i can do well and not get bored halfway through. i sent off a list of topics i'm considering writing about with any and all the freedoms i want (including the freedom to hipsterize and swear as much as i see fit, depending on what i'm talking about).

knowing that i have a keen sense for writing and keeping the attention of the internet, and that once upon a time i was actually PAID to blog as part of a job (i know, i had a job once, can you believe that?) i figure this will be a great week.

hopefully i'll hear from the marketing firm too and i'll be paid to do other things soon again too.

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.