Well, that was pretty close to a perfect weekend. We were back in the city to go see Chicago with Jude. It was great, so well done. It is such a good show and amazing that there is only one set, hardly any props or costume changes. The whole story is told through the songs and especially the dancers. That was Sat. afternoon. We went shopping downtown in the morning, a very successful trip for me. Two new pairs of shoes! And some other stuff for our holiday. Sat. night we went to eat at a Ukranian restaurant, a very good meal. Geoff made breakfast Sunday morning, Allison came over. We had a nice drive home with Dave Alvin playing all the way, then went for a long walk after we unpacked. Supper, Anne called and we had a nice long talk.
Just finished watching the first season of Castle and now off to bed. A short week at work this week, hooray. Jude, Grace and Sam are coming on Thursday and it will be nice to have company for the weekend. Hope this great weather keeps up.
Oh, and we stopped at Greenwood's on our way out of town. Geoff bought more books than I did!

Who does this remind you of?

a little jaunt to Whiterock

hello all

I had a really nice time visiting with Noreen & Dale- they are the sort of people that even after 5 yrs, you just pick up your unfinished talk. They are doing very well - still very active and enjoying the coast. They have a nice home quite close to the ocean which makes for some nice walks. We pretty much talked nonstop - all in all , it was great.
Glad to learn the quilting bee was a success and that you all had fun as usual with sisters + Grace days.
its still pretty nice here - raining today, which we aLREADY NEED BADLY, BUT WARM.
Have been out in the yard raking, etc, but too wet today
A nice surprise when I got home - Richard had shampooed every carpet and mat in the house and it looks soo good - what a guy!

Two new pairs

Bus #5

So, after we left Jude's on Sunday, while she and Grace went to hockey game, Allison and I took the #5 to her place.
I didn't have enough change, but Allison said, 'don't worry, they won't care' and the bus driver did not!
We saw Todd on the bus, so sat with him, right behind the back exit.
A little further along Jasper Ave, the bus stopped for a couple minutes. This guy, with blonde'ish hair and baseball hat went to back exit- looked outside, looked around the bus, looked outside again, looked at me, then spat outside the bus onto the sidewalk. He then looked at me again as I stared at him, kind of bewildered, then sat down. I looked at him a couple times and he saw me and looked at me menacingly, so I tried to stop looking, but I couldn't help every so often, even though I was afraid he might come over and shank me. He had that edgy look.
A little bit past downtown, this young teenage couple get on, sit behind Todd and I. They both start talking about how the 'bus smells like piss' Then said, 'maybe it's the people in front of us' We kind of laughed, but then I started worrying that somehow I did smell like that somehow. The guy kept talking, until the girl said 'oh shut up. Whew.
It was another tense moment on the story that is the #5.

Live Action Retro Gaming!

Live Action Retro Gaming!

My old boss and a couple of people I used to work with made this video for the Doritos contest. I think it is really funny, so I thought I'd share it. Also, they get contest points for people watching and rating it.

I had a good weekend. It was nice to see the aunts, as always, and seeing Mom was okay too. On Sunday, Auntie Jude took me to an Oilers game, but we also got to go to the Oilers and Sharks morning skates. It was cool to see a real NHL practice, although they did not seem to be going too hard because it was a game day. The actual game was really awesome. I did not expect too much as the Sharks were at the top of the division and the Oilers are last in the league, but Edmonton ended up winning 5-1. There were also three fights, which made it that much more exciting.

Take that Allison

I ordered new prescription sunglasses. Had to get a checkup, the doctor said I have interesting eyes from a medical point of view which is not all that reassuring.

spring is close

It's +11 outside! Lots of the snow is gone. I pruned the front apple tree yesterday, a job I always approach with trepidation because I don't really know what I'm doing. Checked on the internet and it looks as if what I did will not kill the tree. Might have been a good idea to check, then prune instead of the other way around.

My new job

I thought it might be a good idea to post about my co-op job, which is at PricewaterhouseCoopers, one of the "big four" accounting firms. I work in the tax line of service, which means I prepped T4s and T5s through February and am doing partnership and trust returns through March. April is personal tax of course, then May and June are corporate tax. After that I imagine I'll be filling in the holes as people go on holiday for the slow summer months.

Anyway, there's not much to say about it. Some days are good, some days are bad. Some days are stressful, some days everything falls into place. I bill my time out in increments of 6 minutes (.1 hrs) to clients. For co-ops, our budgeted bill-out rate is $100.75 an hour. I sure wouldn't pay $100 an hour for my services, that's for certain, but it goes to show you that some people will buy anything.

Anyway, with a strictly project-based structure, I'm doing totally different things and working on multiple accounts most days. That means that my supervisor is the manager of the job I'm working on at that time - in other words, I have multiple people to report to at once, but no permanent, direct supervisor. It's an interesting system, and one that took some getting used to.

What I do have is a mentor, or "coach", who is a good guy, straight-forward, and to the point - a good match for me. By design or not, he tends to be the manager on a lot of my projects so I've gotten to know him pretty well. He said nice things about me when my co-op advisor came to visit, which is a good thing as he's the last one to sugar-coat things if they aren't going well.

I'm pretty bad at my job, but I am learning a lot. Tax is insanely complicated and the lengths PwC and clients go to save tax never ceases to amaze me. I'm thinking about switching my major to operations management (ie. distribution management, supply-chaining, demand forecasting, production planning, quality management) because it will probably be a better fit.

Other than that, it's nice to get a cheque every two weeks (and it's also weird being on salary, doesn't matter how much I work, pay is always the same). For the spring, I'm hoping to move into East Campus Village, which is a residence composed of townhouses and apartments. It's known to be a difficult residence to get into, but I think I'll be all right.

Me

I just put up a post, having had a reflective morning after a challenging week.
Anne can you link my blog on this one?
Though of course, I know you all eagerly check it regularly.

New glasses

I got new glasses today. My prescription has gotten worse again, and the Prada glasses are looking worn. Sob. I love them. But I got 2 pairs:

These sylvia kirk ones in tortoiseshell (the sparkly is subtle)
And a pair of Prada that are quite a bit like the ones I have now.

Clinicals and Oil Kings

Scott's been nagging me to put up a post, so here we go.
I finished my first clinical just before reading week. It was longterm care, and I really enjoyed it. At first I wasn't so sure, just because I wasn't really sure what to do. Mostly, I just felt the same way I feel at the beginning of any new job. By the end I was sad to leave though. I really liked getting to know all the residents. My instructor was awesome. She has been that the facility we were at for a few years and they just love her there. She obviously loves nursing and teaching, so she was really approachable and easy to ask her questions. The rest of my group was a lot of fun too. I'm going to miss wearing scrubs.

I started my second clinical last week. It is community health, and I have heard some bad things about it. We go to a school and be a study buddy once a week. I thought that would be really easy and boring, but it turns out I am placed in a grade 1/2 split class of kids with behavioural and cognitive impairment, so they are a bit of a handful. We have to do a teaching plan involving health promotion while we're there, so I think I will do handwashing. Then another day a week we are activity directors at a seniors' lodge. I am really looking forward to this. A person can never play enough shuffle board I don't think. We have to do some home visits with people at the lodge as well. We also get to go to the Mustard Seed and serve supper one night, and get a tour of the surrounding area on another day, so I'm looking forward to that too.

Last night I went to an Oil Kings game with a few friends.Auntie Jude gave me some vouchers for regular season games, and we were running out of games, so we decided we better use them. Turns out it was fan appreciation day, so there were a lot more people there than usual, and lots more prizes handed out. Try as I might, I didn't win anything though. Whenever they were throwing things to the crowd I stood up and jumped and screamed. The one guy looked me right in the eye and I thought he would throw me a puck, and then he threw it right over my head. I was not impressed. I guess when you're older than most of the team you stop getting prizes. The highlight of the game was being on the jumbotron! Everyone beside and in front of us left, so we were an island, and then we were on the screen. It was really exciting and I waved like crazy, and my friends looked mortified. I think Oil King games are a lot more chill than Oilers games, so they are a lot of fun. It's all really family oriented, which I appreciated. They should show more Disney clips at Oilers games, if you ask me.

Reading week was really nice. Jovita pretty much lived at our place, so that was great. We watched a lot of Olympics and BBC versions of Jane Austen books. It was very relaxing, and I didn't want to come back.

March, finally

This will sound annoying to those in Alberta, but since we have not had a winter, it seems like spring would never get here. Though we haven't had any cold weather-it hasn't changed-3 or 4 degrees with low cloud for what seems like weeks on end. So now that it is 11 or 13 degrees and sun, I feel that spring is around the corner. Or if I lived in Alberta-it would qualify as spring.
I did the Patient Care Coordinator job today. One more learning adventure. this job it seems to never stop. I am constantly going 'huh, I don't know, I guess I'll have to find that out.' Or 'Who knew? I will have to file away for future reference' Or, 'I will have to look thoughtful while I desperately try to appear intelligent'
I find that I am really enjoying the work, but 5 days/week cuts into other life. On Saturday I feel like I need to vegetate to recover. If Richard were off on the weekend, I might feel more motivated, but I mostly want to take 2 1/2 hours to read the paper, have a long bath, and putter around doing nothing. Maybe clean the bathroom.
How do people with children manage working full time and looking after others?
In other news we got pedometers for work! 8029 steps so far today!