between the click of the light

it's reading week!

already?

yeah, i definitely needed a break. i've been swamped for too long.

i meet my internship placement tomorrow at metrolinx. y'know, just presenting myself and what i'm going to do for them over the next 6 months in front of all of the executives and department leaders. not a big deal or anything! to be clear: i'm not nervous about failing at this, i know i'm going to be fine. i'm in an excited state of nervousness.

more good news! 

i failed to mention this in my last blog post, but sometime at the end of september or early october, i received an email from my undergrad thesis advisor. she told me that my thesis was accepted to be presented at a conference in may at ryerson, the international journal of arts & sciences’ (IJAS) international conference for academic disciplines! this was super exciting! i worked so hard on my thesis at brock that i'm pretty sure it's the greatest thing i've ever done with my life.

also, i was selected as a candidate for an upcoming huffington post canada article on commitment issues, not settling down, and not wanting to buy a home in the next few years. they're doing a spotlight on generation y kids versus generation x -- and i was selected from my comments on previous huffpost articles, twitter, and my blog. i guess people are starting to notice me via social media these days and it's paying off.

more sort of.. neutral news.

i haven't started at home depot for reasons that i can't understand. i've spent a couple days commuting to them to drop off information and fill in forms. last week when i dropped in to see them, they had invited me to an orientation session the next day but failed to inform me of this until as i was leaving. well, they can't expect me to just stop everything i'm doing and come in for them. i was scheduled to go to a conference that weekend (which, i didn't end up going to) but it was also my birthday party i had been planning for a month. i mean, i was mostly concerned with the conference happenings, but still.

so after the weekend, they call me back and ask me to come in on wednesday to fill in and sign more paperwork. i say yes and wednesday morning, they call me and tell me not to come in because the manager's unavailable or something. then, i think the next day or something i call them back to set up a new time and she says that she'll have to look into my availability and see if it still fits in with what's needed. uhh, what? i'm confused. so she said i would hear from them again on friday or monday. i guess we'll see what happens tomorrow.

after all this running around and making it difficult for me with home depot being in the middle of nowhere from both school AND home, i'm leaning toward being okay if they tell me they aren't going to use me anymore. because i'm so swamped with school and now have a general idea what my internship is going to be like (time-consuming and a lot of work); i almost feel like not working is a viable option unless it's within a closer distance to me and significantly less hours than what home depot wanted. also, reading reviews of home depots everywhere just made me not want to work for them even more. i didn't read a single positive review of former employees working for any of the stores.

this reading week won't feel like a reading week because of all the work i have to do. but i'll be making time for friends and also volunteering at a seneca green conference. the week will fly by and soon i'll be back to the grind. i may also have the ability to be exempt from a course for next semester as i've already taken a very similar course in project management - environmental last year. let's hope that i can get out of it and then maybe i can put in some extra time working and not feel constantly overwhelmed or stressed out with all the things i have on my plate.

go go gadget reading week!

a long week

i had the weekend off and started back at embassy monday morning working until saturday morning. 6 shifts.

over the weekend, i relaxed and threw a party. i had fun and that's really all that matters in the long run. monday, tuesday, and wednesday, i was back working cutlery. thursday, i started earlier and was on toast for my second time ever. i guess the kid who's normally on toast was off that day. i can't say i enjoy doing it but it was okay for a change. friday, i stocked the cold buffet.

i asked for saturdays off from embassy as i talked to sport chek and they said if i can get saturdays off, they would try to schedule me for a shift on that day. unfortunately, i wasn't on the schedule at all for sport chek this week and i couldn't understand why. but i had told embassy i was working there on saturday. on wednesday, a manager asked if i could come in early on saturday for 3 hours. i agreed even though i really didn't want to -- but my terms were that i could be guaranteed the sunday off, which i did receive. by the time this morning rolled around, embassy forgot i was even coming in this morning and i just helped out where i could/sweep etc.

i had a bit of an awkward encounter with a dude at work but hopefully we can move on from it. it will be interesting to see what happens in the next few weeks and where the rumour ends up by the time i leave, but perhaps it has already hit its peak for now. i also went to brock this week and picked up my thesis finally that's all nicely bound and printed, and spent my $10 gift card from the bookstore on a sweet canteen.

i got my timetable from seneca finally! but it's not that awesome. 
mondays i have 3 classes: 10:45am-11:35am, 1:30pm-3:15pm, and 4:15pm-6:55pm.
tuesdays i have 1 class: 8:00am-9:45am which is a such a long hike for just one class.
wednesdays i have 2 classes: 8:00am-9:45am and 11:40am-1:25pm.
thursdays i have off which i'm stoked about.
fridays i have 3 classes: 10:45am-12:30pm, 12:35pm-2:20pm, and 2:25pm-3:15pm, but hopefully the last one is just going to be online like it says.
i essentially have about a 45 minute commute to school everyday.. which means for my 8ams, i'll have to leave my apartment by 7am. not looking forward to that at all.

i've started to look into furniture and things we need for the apartment and so has corey; he moves in on monday and is super stoked. next week, i only work 3 shifts at embassy which is good since i'm exhausted from this week already. i have tomorrow off to play squash. hang out, and maybe check out buskerfest. i have thursday and friday off as i'm supposed to go to peterborough to see my brother but i may bail on that if i have to work at sport chek or might go to toronto or do something else cool.