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!