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!