I'm Alive

I'm alive.

No, seriously. I'm alive. What the hell has happened over the past two months?

Okay, so yeah, I'm still at Starbucks. But these last two-or-so months have been easily some of my darkest days. And I have no idea why.

I don't know what happened, but I guess it was seeing everyone go to school and me being "done" that took some of the wind out of my sails. It suddenly felt hard to do everything. I mean, I could get up and go to work and do a good job. But the communication wasn't really me. It was Starbucks-style communication. How are you? I'll get your latte. That sort of stuff. I didn't have to think about that kind of communication.

But for real, person-to-person communication? I found it harder and harder to talk to people. People texted asking where I was, and if I was OK. And I read them, but... I didn't reply. I don't know why I didn't. Talking to people was legitimately hard. I got anxious because I hadn't texted or communicated in so long that I thought people would be mad. So I put it off even more.

One day, I had a bad - bad  - day. I don't think I smiled all day. I worked in near silence. I didn't want to have anything to do with anybody. Dave texted me, wondering where I had gotten to. And it was easily one of the most vulnerable moments I've ever had.

Do you know how hard it is to admit you may have an issue? Holy Christ. I was literally shaking as I was texting him. Because it's VERY hard to start saying you feel depressed. You're afraid of people overreacting. Oh, you're just having a bad day, they'd say. Voices in my head. Unreal conversations with myself. Cheer up, you're just tired. People have it worse than you.

I texted another friend of mine in Halifax, who immediately gave me some kind words which made me pretty much burst into tears somewhere along Spadina. Might I add, I was walking furiously, which is what I do when I'm super stressed out.

Then I called my doctor.

What I was feeling wasn't right, but I knew that if I left it one moment longer, I would literally never tell anyone that I needed help. I left the nurse a message saying I needed to see him. And wouldn't you know it. The bastard STILL hasn't called back. Remind me to switch doctors.

I got home, and could barely hold it in. Good thing Dad is the level-headed one of the family. It wasn't pretty. I basically relegated myself to the corner of the kitchen because I didn't want to see anyone. Sat alone for the rest of the night. Cried myself to sleep that night wondering what the hell was wrong with me.

It felt like a dark cloud was over me 24/7. I had difficulty understanding people. People pointed out that I looked "sad". There were a few days where I basically just stayed home, because it was easier than going out and doing stuff. And the days where I went out and interacted with people, it was, for the record, completely fake. Sir, your change? Oh, right. Silly me.

One of my bigger "turning points" has been acknowledging this. And acknowledging that people do, in fact, live with that terrible cloud for years before they do anything about it. I'm lucky that 2 months is pretty short. But still. Depression is fucking scary.

Now, it's a little easier to talk to people. I'm starting to come around. I have my days where it feels a little pointless. Like... why? Why bother? Why bother with anything? Who cares about me? Friendship feels so fake sometimes.

But what's especially weird for me is that every single person I've spoken to about this has been immediately supportive and asked what was the matter. Those unreal conversations never happened. It's something like cognitive dissonance. Perhaps I underestimate people.

So yeah. That's where I am right now. I'm still trying to keep my head above water. I haven't posted anything on social media for days. Wondering how I can start "coming back".

But at least I'm alive.

Pocket FAILURE!

I think I figured out what was fundamentally wrong with Pocket. It's that whenever I come across an article I want to read, I, uh, you know, read it. I hate saving things for later. And if I save an article, I stick it in a bookmark. So Pocket can fall off a cliff.

In any case.

Work has been wonderful! I'm working around 40 hours/week (yikes!), I have a business debit card (double yikes!), and I have a burgeoning professional career as a sign language interpreter (triple yikes!). I am almost - almost - an adult.

But first, I must stop eating junk food and not caring about some things. Perhaps I should get a beta fish.

Pocket!

Okay. I'm going to try using Pocket.

Not really at the behest of anything in particular, but Lifehacker LOVES Pocket, I'm going to give it a whirl and see what I can save. 

Apparently the app is good for offline article reading. Sure. And I can also save other things to it, like tweets, images, and stuff. And I happen to like stuff. 

I'll see what I can come up with! 

25 Facts About Me

1. My original middle names were "Charles George". When my uncle (dad's brother) called after I was born, my dad promised him his name would "be in there somewhere". So now my middle names are "George Robert".

2. I've been to 3 continents, 9 countries, and 33 different cities around the world.

3. I am right-handed, but because most of my family is left-handed, I absorbed the lefty way to do a lot of things.

4. I'm the embodiment of tea and coffee: half-English, half-Colombian. All love.

5. I went to school for International Studies. My original thesis topic was a pan-European refugee policy as it specifically applies to the LGBT Community. Interesting push-and-pull between the affairs of the states and the EU.

6. If I hadn't gone into International Studies, my other option was Chemistry. I wanted to end up working in a lab somewhere, which probably would have led me to pharmacology.

7. I'm good with technology. I'm no computer scientist, but people still ask me to fix their computers from time to time.

8. Big fan of Macs, iPhones, iPads, and all things Apple.

9. I am obsessed with Belgium and everything about Belgium.

10. Cooking is a hobby, not a passion. I've made, like, fish and chips all the way up to fancy Piedmontese desserts (panna cotta, it was delicious, but it takes forever to make).

11. I am a GIGANTIC Simpsons nerd, and every month, I go to Classic WOOHOO! Simpsons Trivia. My team usually places in the Top 10, of around 50 teams.

12. My other unhealthy passion is junky reality TV shows. Specifically Amazing Race, Big Brother US, Big Brother Canada, Big Brother UK, Big Brother Australia, Survivor, and perhaps, like, Hell's Kitchen. One of my goals is to be on Big Brother Canada.

13. I was brought up completely irreligiously, and churches make me super uncomfortable.

14. Nothing brings me more fear than standing too close to the edge of the subway platform.

15. I love English tea. Tetley Orange Pekoe is the brand.

16. I can get lost in office supply stores for hours and hours and hours.

17. I am a freak when it comes to organizing people, places, and things. My room? Not so much! I mean, I know where everything is, yes, but it's still messy. I need a place to be messy.

18. My birthday is September 17. Virgos represent!!

19. My other huge fear is alligators. They are terrifying.

20. There are 151 Pokemon, I don't care what anyone says.

21. I was on a TV show called "Stuff" produced by TVO a long time ago. I hosted the "What's This Stuff?" interstitial. My three objects were a cow lip tattoo instrument, a thing you bang into a maple tree to get the sap, and the thing you speak into in a phone receiver.

22. On that note, I have a good memory for obscure little details, but probably couldn't tell you what happened last week.

23. I have an amazing relationship with my parents and my older brother. My family is super small, and super weird, but I love them a ton, and I wouldn't know what to do without them.

24. My friends and I have an elaborate inside joke about the word "cinnamon".

25. I can't think of #25. But I'm sure I'll blog about it when I think of it. :D

Interpreting Stuff

I'm a freelance American Sign Language-English interpreter. I graduated from my program not-too-long ago.

It's interesting how things are presented in school versus how they are in real life. There's a lot more logistical planning and chasing people than I really expected. Also, it's interesting to work with people that I know who are now looking to hire me for my services as an interpreter.

One of my upcoming gigs is pretty short (45 mins, tops), but is quite complex, and deals with things that I don't know much about. I'm doing my homework for that one. I've found out that things happen either way too slow or way too fast in the "real world". Looking back, school put me on a timeline. The test was on Friday, so you could break your study time down into manageable chunks.

Now, though? I know when my assignment is, but suddenly there are a lot of things that are out of my control. I could always rely on the profs to get back in 24 hours or so, but now? I can't rely on an outside person. I could always rely on being at the right place at the right time, but now? There's no guarantee that I'll be at the right place at the right time. 

This will wreak havoc with my sense of perfectionism and logistical-ish stuff, but y'know, I can be the interpreter that gets it done. I'm good at isolating exactly what I need. 

Not sure where this blog post is going, but I guess my point is that things are really different out in the real world than in school. In school, profs keep you on a schedule. In the real world, your success is measured by how willing you are to stick to it.

Peace'ing Out

So I'm back, y'all. Took some time off from this blog because my life pretty much exploded.

Last entry was July 3. It was a post about restaurant management and my crash course in how NOT to run a damn restaurant. And there are plenty of valid points in it. For instance, it still is a concern as to whether or not something passes snuff or not.

Well, from the time when running a restaurant was an interesting challenge to now, things have deteriorated significantly. The store manager, who was a former coworker of mine at a coffee shop, has decided that it's really not a good idea to look at how much money is coming in and going out of the store. Cheques started bouncing left, right and centre, and... I found I couldn't do it anymore. Not with him. Get someone else in the position? Sure. No problem. But him? No.

So I did what everyone else does, and applies to something they've done before. In my case, it's coffee shops. Good thing that my store manager's girlfriend happens to be a barista at a coffee shop a few doors down. Oh, whatever. It's Starbucks.

Can I say something about Starbucks? I think they are AWESOME. And I'm not saying that. Man oh man, they treat their staff so freakin' well. Not to mention all the community work and commitment to diversity and accessibility. I'm so excited to start there next week. I'm all gung ho. Love 'em.

Nothing else is coming to mind right now, beyond what I'm going to write in my very next post, so I'll cut this one short.

Yay!

Crash Course in Restaurant Management

There are SOO MANY things to think about.

Am I ordering enough? Not enough? Too much?

How much am I paying my employees? Are they happy? Do they have what they need to do the job? Am I spending too much on labour costs?

What's my overhead?

Do I have what I need to run the store legally? Provincial business licence? Municipality? Health inspections? Pest control? Heat or A/C?

Where is my money going every month?

Gah.

Tears!

So yeah. After I posted that last entry, I headed home and proceeded to ugly-cry for about 2 hours straight. I won't lie, I was upset. 

My mom then told me that the best way to be somewhere is to go. Don't worry about what you'll do when you get there. Just. Go. 

My folks also offered to match me, dollar-for-dollar. So if, by the end of the summer, I have $2000 saved up, they'll match that to make it $4000. I figure, for the first six months, I'll need €1000 per month to live. Times six months, that's €6000.

Convert that to CAD, that's $8745, and divide by 2 is $4372. So I'd need to come up with $4372. 

Let's round that off to $5000. I work roughly 35 hours per week at $11/hour. How many hours will I need? 455 hours. Divide by 35 hours per week is 13 weeks. 

So, in total. I have 13 weeks to save $5000 to move. Let's see if I can do it!

Didn't get it

I didn't get it. That was an amazing opportunity to have, and I didn't get it. 

And now I'm "just" an interpreter. About a month ago, I would have killed to be "just" an interpreter. 

When I found out, I was at work in the office, where there are no windows. The moment I step outside, it's raining like hell. I guess the world feels as shitty as I do. It's OK, world - we'll find something else. 

What a fucking depressing blog post. 

Hangin' 10 with my Mom

Today I went out for a long-ass walk with my dear old Mum. We were supposed to go shopping and pick up milk, eggs, ketchup and Mr. Clean Magic Erasers, but it turned into an epic trip of international proportions.

This morning, being Sunday, I wanted pancakes, dammit. I knew we had the pancake mix, but it turns out we were out of eggs. I had to suffer with toast. The horror.

In any case, my mom and I put together a quick shopping list: eggs, milk, Mr. Clean Magic Erasers, and a bunch of bananas. But first, we could go to lunch.

But hmmm... where to go? We could go to our usual haunts, like New Gen or somewhere close by, but instead, I suggested we go to the Astoria. My mom hadn't been there yet, but I've been a few times with various groups of friends and colleagues. Their tzatziki is ah-mah-zing, so go there right now and order some.

We were heading down to the subway, when I heard some music from a nearby park. Turns out it was some Latin American festival with vaguely religious undertones. But, we got some churros, and headed off to the Danforth.

Astoria's is such a great place. We had an amazing seat on the patio, and the portions are actually as big as your face, if your face is huge. Extra crumbly feta cheese, nice and flaky spanakopita, and deeeelish beef souvlaki.

Then, we decided to hit up another neighbourhood, and we found ourselves at Ashbridge's Bay Park, right near Woodbine Beach. My mom kept saying, "After 42 years in this city, I've never seen this place before!" Actually, the East End is quite nice. A bit less uptight than us West Enders. Had sand in our toes, we had an ice cream, and generally walked off all that tzatziki.

Woodbine Beach

And of course, now that I'm home, I'm lying here on my bed, like a beached whale, blogging about whatever I did today. I get the news about the job tomorrow, so I'll let you all know what's up with that. I'm sure I'll shriek about it on FB or something.

Night!

Smosh

Smosh typically shows up on my Youtube home page, but I usually ignored them.

Then, they did a video about some topic that piqued my interested. So I watched it, and it was pretty funny. Then I found their Smosh Libs videos, which are a riot.

But what's even more disturbing is that Anthony is only a day older than me! Almost birthday twinsies!

In conclusion, Smosh is pretty funny, so go watch them.

Birthday Smurf

Last night I ended up playing Cards Against Humanity with a room full of folks, most of whom began the night as perfect strangers.

A week or so ago, I was invited out to a get-together of sorts. The problem is, aside from my colleague, her friend, and another colleague, nobody showed up. So it was just us four, and that was just fine with us! We had dumplings in Chinatown, followed by walking aimlessly until we found ourselves at Hair of the Dog on Church St.

Fast forward, and I got an invitation to my colleague's friend's birthday party. It was at this cheap-and-cheerful Indian place near my house, again, with a group of people I really didn't know, but hey, willing to try. Being a social animal is an adult thing, right? One of them brought a small Smurf figurine holding a birthday cake, which is where "Birthday Smurf" gets its origin.

Birthday Smurf!

After dinner, we ended up getting ice cream. Mine was six dollars. When did Baskin-Robbins get so damn expensive!? The ice cream truck only costs about two bucks! After ice cream, we paid a visit to Snakes & Lattes to see if we could score a table. Unfortunately, no luck, but we did bring home a brand new pack of Cards Against Humanity, which is really the subject of this post.

I have not laughed my ass off like that in the longest time. Perhaps it was the anticipation of playing something I had only heard of up until that point, but I couldn't actually read the damn cards when it came time for me to read them. Lucky for me there were a few doozy's in the pack that reduced a few other people to happy tears too.

If this job in Europe goes through, I can't imagine life without a game so simple to play, yet is so offensive everyone. So I wonder if there's a version local to Belgium. Hmm.

The European Job

I'm currently a candidate in the running for a pretty sweet job in Europe.

I work as a freelance ASL-English interpreter. That's a fairly interesting job as it is. My colleague in the program, an Irish guy, forwarded me a job ad from this super-cool organization in Europe. It's the European Union of the Deaf (EUD), with its headquarters in Brussels! 

This is my job! Not pictured: Me. 

For those who don't know, I am obsessed with Brussels since I lived there for a time in 2007-2008, but was forced back to Canada to finish university. O, cruel Fate! Histrionics aside, I actually do love the place and the memories and friends I still have and cherish, so that's why I always make time for a visit.

The ad said "Office Administrator", which basically screams for my freakishly organized tendencies to come out and play. I was egged on by my parents to apply, and so I did. I made up a great resume, cover letter, and - and! - this being the EUD, I filmed my cover letter in sign language (ASL) and sent it off too. 

I got an answer quite quickly. I sent it off on the Thursday, and the following Monday I received an answer that they would be in touch after the deadline. The deadline came and went, and I was on the verge of getting in touch, when they drew first blood and asked me for an interview. Normally, we'd work out a time that was mutually convenient, me being six hours behind them. But, they said 12:30 in Brussels, and I didn't want to be problematic, so ... my job interview was at 6:30 in the morning over Skype. For the record, this entailed me waking up at 5:15. But I did it.

I asked when the position starts, and they said it would be by Friday. Sure, no probs. Friday comes, and I got an e-mail saying, "Whoops! We know we said Friday, but let's make it Monday. We're still talking." Today is Saturday (well, Sunday, it's 12:36 AM), so it won't be long before I find out. I have a cold sore from the anxiety.

Wish me luck!