happy traveller

freeeeedooom!

In 6 and a half hours I will have finished this job and once again be unemployed. Though to be honest that's not such a daunting prospect at the moment. I'm good for money and am looking forward to relaxing and catching up on things that I haven't been able to do as I've been too busy. Have an appointment to sign up for work at the university and to volunteer at the Canadian Cancer Council. Am going to get lots of sleep and watch the dvds I haven't had time to even look at yet. And I'm going to join the gym. Yes! I mean it this time. I'm going to go shopping tonight and buy a pair of trackies and some runners. Then on Wednesday I'm going to go down to the rec centre and get a fitness pass. A monthly one as I don't know if I'll be working next week so I plan to spend that time at the gym instead doing fitness classes. I'm no longer going to be a lazy sluggy couch potato. I'm going to get rid of my winter chub and my wobbly thighs. 2009 will be the year. The year of being fit, fun and fabulous!

i can do the very easy sudoku's

Been a while.

 

Finished up at my last job and am now working for a company in North Vancouver which means I have to get up at stupid o’clock in the morning and get skytrain and then the seabus. That’s actually kind of fun – not the getting up early part, the seabus part. I say working however being on the world’s quietest reception means my days mostly consist of : arriving, turning the lights on the Christmas tree on, taking the phone off voicemail, and then settling in for 7 ½ hours of doing the crossword and sudoko puzzles in the various newspapers, reading and surfing the internet. The little old Phillipino lady who normally does this job has gone off to the Phillipines to visit her family for xmas. I honestly don’t know how she stays sane. She must have other things to do during the day. Otherwise I don’t see how you wouldn’t go bonkers from boredom. At least it’s only for about 4 more weeks. And I’m getting paid to pretty much sit around and bludge so I really shouldn’t complain.

 

Went to the Downtown Christmas parade on Sunday which was good fun. Now I feel all warm and Christmassy! I’m sure there wasn’t so many people there last time though. Just finding a place to stand where short little me could see was a trial but eventually I found one. The best part was of course when the Purdy’s truck came past and handed out free chocolates. That name is so cute. Purdy’s! It makes me think of a sweet little old granny lady. With white hair in curlers and a bag full of knitting. I’ve gone off my no sugar diet. It was a complete failure. I was all set to go but in the lead up to Christmas it’s just cruel and unusual punishment. Stuff it. I’ll start in January.  

 

Big plans for next year – mucho travel through Alaska, Southern USA, Japan and NZ and then finally heading home for Christmas and summer. The fam will be stoked! Now I just have to deal with saving enough money for it all.

suzy lets her bed do her hair

I’m my own boss today. Lot ’s of people aren’t here as Tuesday is a public holiday for which I’m so grateful. A 4 day week is much more manageable than 5 day. Last week was my first full week working since July and bloody hell was it hard. Getting up before 7am everyday. In the dark. In the rain. The purple circles under my eyes are growing. Tonight I’m going to reward myself by going to see 2 movies for $5 at the Hollywood . Good thing it’s only $5 as that’s all I have in my wallet until I’m paid on Friday. My bank account only has $30 in it. I don’t think I’ve been this poor since I first arrived in England and lived on jam sandwiches and cornflakes for a month. Tasty!

I don’t really have enough work to do for today. And I can’t surf the net because there are blockers. Admin is so boring and yet I always seem to get stuck with it. Hopefully this job will only last the 3 weeks that I’m contracted for. Then it will turn into something else or I will go somewhere else. I miss my old job in England . It was a good job. Interesting and I didn’t have to book meetings that people don’t want to come to. Went for a walk to see if there was any food up in the kitchen on level 12. Last week there was fruity danish and cookies. There wasn't anything today. Guess no one was having catered meetings.

Tropic Thunder is on tonight at the Hollywood . It’s got Robert Downey Jr in it. My new obsession. If only he wasn’t such an idiot in real life what with the drugs and booze and jail. He has pretty eyes.

who has a job?....ME!

Oh yeah! Guess who has a job starting on Monday? Moi!  It's about time too what with my funds reaching critical. Have to work on my birthday (booo!) but at least I'll be making money so that will make it not so horrible. I hope it's not too boring or hard or stressful. But if it is it's only for 3 weeks. Off to find on sale Halloween chocolate now. You know no trick or treaters came to my door last night? It was a bit disappointing actually. I don't know what I would have done if any did as I didn't have anything. Went out to a crap bar on Granville for a bit in my super pathetic costume of regular clothes and a headband with devil horns. I'll do better next year. Promise.

sometimes you make decisions...

That you wish you hadn't. I miss my snow job!!!!! I wan't to go back!!!  Here I am in Vancouver and it's rainy and expensive and I want to go back to my nice house in the mountains with my crazy housemates and messy kitchen and easy job.  But I can't!!!!! All I can do now is move on. So I'm moving on out of here I think. I'll stay until mid March, get everything in order and then take off again. After working in the worlds easiest job where I could sleep in everyday and watch tv at work I just can't go back to working in an office just yet. Just the though of it makes me bleccchhh!!! Next time I'm having an awesome time somewhere I'm going to stick there for as long as I can. None of this "oh but I already planned to go back at this time so I'm going crap". Travel is about making plans and then doing something completely different. Lesson learned now.

back to van

I went for a little trip back to Vancouver for a few days last week as I had some time off. More than I usually get. I actually missed being at the resort though! I missed my house and my crazy housemates playing Mariokart in the middle of the night and the snow and the mountains and the scenery. Not that Vancouver wasn't great, even though I got begged for change about 3 seconds after I walked out of the greyhound station. I mean literally! I walked to the skytrain and bang! Bum begging for money.  We don't have homeless beggers up here.  I'm heading back to Vancouver permanently in the middle of February and on one hand I'll be happy to go back to the city but on the other I'll be devastated to leave all my friends here and my cushy job and lazy lifestyle. It's like being on a nice long holiday with a little bit of work thrown in. Now that the Christmas and New Years rush is over it's really nice and bludgey. Last night I worked 3-11pm and barely did anything. I just listened to music and read my book and occasionally answered the phone.  But I have to get back to real life I guess.  Too much to see and do so I can't stay in one place too long no matter how much I like it. Only have until June 1 then I'm off to England. 

snowboarding yeah!!

MERRY BELATED CHRISTMAS AND NEW YEAR!!

Well the internet has been on and off  here for the past few weeks so I haven't had a chance to send out any news. Apparently we have the most snow here at my ski resort than any other ski resort in BC. I can believe that because my house is just about buried! We had a big storm a couple of weeks ago that caused the highway to close and heaps of people got stuck and had to stay at the lodge including a guy that was driving along and a rock went though his windscreen so he had to drive 20kms here in the snow and wind with his head sticking out the window as he couldn't see through the windscreen.

We got so much snow that we had to close the ski hill for a couple of days (yes it was closed because there was too much snow!) and heaps of trees fell down all over the place including one that fell on my house in the middle of the night which I somehow managed to sleep though. I don't know how because it was a really big tree and apparently the whole house shook and there is now a hole in the roof  (but not through to the inside). It also knocked off the chimney and now the heating doesn't work properly in my side of the house. But that's ok because we just cranked it up in the middle section of the house and it's warm enough.

I went snowboarding the other week too and it was so cool! I went on the novice hill and fell down so many times including two really spectacular falls. It took a few days to recover afterwards. It was the best day!  I was going to go on my day off just before Christmas but decided I didn't want to be in pain for Christmas so went snowshoeing down by the river instead which was very beautiful. On Christmas eve I went up to the ski hill because they were having hot chocolate and cookies and about 20 or so staff were skiing down the hill in the night with flares. It looked so cool. It was snowing like crazy and all you could see were these glowing spinning lights coming down the hill. There was also lanterns that the guests made that were really good that were strung up at the base with candles in them and Santa skiied down the mountain too and gave presents to the little kids (and the not so little kids too : ) ). Didn't do much for Christmas as I was working. It was a lovely day for Christmas though with a blue sky and heaps of sun and lots of new snow up at the hill.  New Years was pretty fun with fireworks and drunkeness as usual.

Today I went back up snowboarding and actually went up to the top in the chairlift and went down the proper trail! It was AWESOME! I love snowboarding. I didn't even get hurt so much this time as there was so much powder. Fell down getting off the chairlift both times which was funny. Also fell heaps on the way down but that was expected really. I am able to go backwards and frontwards and sideways now though! Go me! At the end of the day I also went tubing which was pretty fun. It's much easier to get back up to the top again as well as you just sit in your tube and get pulled up. Not like the bunny hill where you have to use the handle tow which goes all up and down and wonky. I am so proud though that today I didn't fall while being pulled up at all. Just as well because if I'd had to walk up a bunch of times I don't think I would have been able to snowboard for so long. My knees were burning as it was going down the trail the second time. I'm going to be sore tomorrow! But Happy! Fingers are now freezing off. Time to go home for hot soup and pizza.

SNOWWWWWWW!!!!

I'm so psyched!! I'm going to the snow!! I got a job at a resort about 3 hours from Vancouver! Snowwww!!! I've only ever seen snow a few times in my whole life so bear with me here while I try to contain myself. I'm sure I'll be sick of the stuff after a few days but right now I'm bouncing around with excitement! I start in December so will have a pretty, pretty white Christmas! At the moment I'm having a pretty Autumn with lovely coloured piles of leaves everywhere. And Tuesday  is Halloween! I've never had a Halloween before. I hope it will be fun! I'm invited to a party tonight so really need to get off the internet. I spend way too much time running around trying to find free net. I miss my computer so much!

office work is futile

Wow, so it's been a while. I guess because I have been so busy running around the world (well the USA and Canada anyway, though we know those yanks like to think of themselves as the world : ) just kidding guys!) that I've barely had time to scratch myself.

Trek was pretty amazing. Spent 21 days travelling from New York to LA in a little van with 14 people! Went to Niagara Falls, Cedar Point, Chicago, Yellowstone, the Badlands, Grand Teton, Jackson Hole, Nevada, South Dakota, Yosemite, sea kayaking in Monteray, Lake Tahoe, San Francisco, Malibu, LA, Universal Studios and Disneyland. Probably a bunch of other places I can't remember now. Hung out for a week in Santa Monica. Didn't see anyone famous. Well except for Nicole Ritchie at Disneyland. Rich bitch didn't even have to wait in line to get on Thunder Mountain. So unfair.  And no she didn't look that thin.

Now I'm in Vancouver, Canada! Seriously awesome city (except for that East Hastings St. I mean seriously? WTF??). Haven't seen anyone famous here yet either but I figure it's only a matter of time. Have been doing temp work for the last couple of weeks and just landed a job as a file clerk at an insurance company. I used to work in a office. Maybe it's because I'm on the outside coming in and just temporary that I can now see the utter futility of office work. Filing? Who gives a crap. Really. You take the files off peoples desks and put them back and get more files and put them on peoples desks and take the other files and put them back. Oh my god I'm falling over with boredom just thinking about it. I can't believe I'm going to be doing this for a month. I don't understand how people can do this for years. It's just so useless. They are files! In 10 years who's going to care if you put a file back on shelf. Who's going to care in 10 days? In 10 minutes? Haven't these people heard of automation? We have these newfangled doohickeys now called computers. So much easier. sigh! And I can't take that job as a tv extra now because I have to work all week. Very sad. Maybe next year after I get back from my snow job (if I get it *crossing fingers*!)

countdown

It was my last day of work today and I somehow managed to keep my intense urge to blubber and bawl my eyes out under control until I was in my car on the way home (though that wasn't so great either as bombing along at 80kms an hour  in the dark with blurry vision  was pretty bloody hard). I've recently realised that even though last year I felt somewhat adrift in my working life, this year it was like I found new purpose. Everything seemed more interesting and I finally felt like I was fitting in and belonging. So now on one hand I feel like I've made a huge mistake because I've given it up and I'm going to miss it all so much. My job, my awesome colleagues and my steady paycheck! But at the same time I know that it could turn out to be once of the best things I've done and be absolutely fantastic as I will be off seeing the world and having amazing experiences (I hope!).  And there will always be other jobs. Though the thought of enduring interviews and rejection and being the new girl again just makes me nauseous.  I have only 7 days to go before I leave the comfort of my home where I've lived all my life.  The longest I've ever been away was a month.  I don't know how I'm going to cope with this. I guess I'll find out soon.