Saturday, August 12, 2006

Fall in the City
Chill'uns! Fall is a-comin'!

And I can't wait. Besides the pressures (financial and otherwise) associated with school, pretty soon it's going to be sweater weather! No more disgusting stickiness, plain tank tops, shorts or sandals...

You know how people have comfort food? I have comfort clothes. And they are all long-sleeved. There's also a certain romance to Autumn that puts a nice glaze on daily wear-and-tear.

Thursday, August 10, 2006

Oh no that ain't what I said,
Oh no that ain't what I said


Hey folks! It's been forever and about eight years, I know. I am sorry to admit that I am a bad blogger. I hope not too many people rely on this to check up on me or communicate or whatever... because I'm usually nowhere near a computer or home or anywhere like that these days.

Today's forecast: Grey skies, a look back and a look foreward, guarded calm, money worries.

Phoenix only just manages to calm my money seizures the slightest bit. My hours at work have been cut back drastically! I'm getting really anxious because it feels like this is becoming Pickering all over again... I started off with 40 hours + a week, and now, on the next schedule, I have NINETEEN hours. NINETEEN. I have the LEAST number of hours out of anyone in the store, INCLUDING the new people who can't even make drinks yet and the people who SPECIFICALLY booked time off this week.

WTF!

Next week I am working, ahem,................. Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. On Tuesday, I have a THREE hour shift. THREE hours. I almost feel insulted. You know, it wouldn't be as big a deal if I didn't have a shred of ego working at this store... I mean, what's the point in working hard and trying to be the best if you're only going to be rewarded with the shittiest shifts in the store? Two years of service = the least amount of hours possible, constantly being passed over for promotions (which is another issue altogether), and only ever either opening or closing. I'm one of the only baristas with open availability, I have the most experience out of all of them (with possibly the exception of two, who both have extremely limited availability), and again, just like in Pickering, I feel like I'm just being used for it without really being rewarded at all. UGH!

Normally it wouldn't be as bothersome but I just got my $5,325 invoice in the mail from lovely UofT, so I have a big deadline looming and a large sum of money I have to be paying off, not including books, not to mention the stress of moving into an all-new program that will probably have a much huger workload.

Davey's getting shafted in the same way... he's also only working three days next week, which is I suppose somehow good for us? I dunno... we'll see how that works out. I'd like to be able to pick up some shifts at other stores.

Anyway, as I mentioned, I'm moving into some new programs : Political Science and the Dr.David Chu Program for Asia-Pacific Studies. I really really hope that turns out well; I think it's a little more tailored to what I could see myself doing in the future: some form of diplomatic work, or something to do with international relations, or possibly even law school.

On another note, my best friend Chris just left my house yesterday. I had been staying in Whitby for a few days in a row, and luckily had a very large amount of time off in a row (yay!), and only had to return to downtown once on Monday to work a FOUR hour shift and find out about next weeks shafty schedule. Can you tell I'm bitter about that?

We spent most of the time playing video games in the basement, which was kind of nice as a change of pace from constantly running around downtown. He's one of those kids that I never really feel all that distanced from, as he pointed out. Time passes, but it doesn't especially feel like it's growing between us. We had late-night talks that were good but I kinda wish we had had more time and maybe been able to zoom around the province.

On the whole, things are going well. I never did upload those photos, but maybe I will eventually. See ya around.