Done.

An era has ended. It started on a sunny morning in September 1990, it ended on a snowy afternoon in December 2007. 17 years and four months. Never more than 4 months away from it. 76.6% of my life. Over. Gone. No more books. No more tests. No more group projects. No more school.

In other news, I move in 4 weeks. Leaving Edmonton for the first time on a permanent basis. So much to do. I have to find a place to live, and pack up this place. I thought I would be here for a lot longer. I'm trading in my stable life for something else. If nothing else, it will be an adventure. I haven't had nearly enough of those in my life, so it's about time I started.

Chatting online

So, I'm on this website and this guy sends me a message. He's in the target age range, so I respond. His second message consists of inviting me to talk to him on another website. Excuse me? You found me here, what's wrong with talking here? What is with this desire to switch mediums? Changing from a page load site (Nexopia, Facebook etc.) to a live chat (MSN, Yahoo) makes sense if you actually have something to say. But, when your second or third message is "Do you use MSN?" and you really don't know the person, and have nothing in common, whats the point? I'm going to add you, we'll talk for 20 minutes, and then I'll probably get distracted, conversation with falter, and I'll never talk to you again. Then I have this huge folder called Boys full people people who I have talked to once, and can not remember who they are, where I met them, or why I should care.

I had this issue twice tonight, neither conversation lasted more than 20 messages total. So, why should I add him to msn if he can't keep me entertained/be entertained by me for more than  a couple minutes?

Presentations

So, there you are, standing at the front of the class. Your throat hurts because you've had a cold for the past week. You don't trust one of your group members to talk slowly enough for your presentation to hit the minimum 20 mins. Luckily you trust your technical abilities for the video to work properly. You introduce your group, and hand the speaking off to the first person and hope for the best. Neither of your group members prepared very well, and this is worth 25% of your mark. You are so screwed.

Alright, so the presentation worked out. Next is the paper for that class. And the mini assignments, and the final exam, and the presentation for the other class, and the final, and the paper for that other class. Then it's over. Forever. And concentration can shift. From the present, to the future. To the move, and the new life.

Ah, the move. Can't wait. Change. A new start. Now I just need a place to live and a car. Then I'll be set. Move date is mid-January. Moving out of my place as soon as it sells or rents.

Life

Alright, I got all the interesting stuff out of the way, now for the boring life plan stuff.

I move to Calgary as soon as possible. I'm going to try and move over the new year, but there are too many variables right now. I have a job there, Office Manager for the Calgary branch of my current department. I will be assisting two guys with paper work, and one of them is retiring soon. I will have to brainwash myself into liking it.

The well thought out Saskatchewan plans fell through for a couple reasons. First, I did not get the land that I wanted. Someone apparently outbid me, and that was that. Also, I visited my family in Calgary and realized that I wanted to be closer to them instead. So, to Calgary I go.

I'm selling my previously discussed motorbikes. They are currently in my parents basement, but in the spring, I will hopefully have people happy to haul them away for me. I am, of course, replacing the bikes with a better one. It's going to be custom painted for me, and should be nice and fast.

While school is almost done, there is a lot that I still have to do before I can graduate. Most of this is being pushed back, as per usual. This time, instead of cleaning my house (that's being procrastinated on too), I'm reading a blog. It's highly entertaining. Some of the writings come across as being fact, but it is all her rantings and ravings. After surfing randomly for a while, I decided to start at the beginning and read her life story. I am currently just starting February 2007.

Murder

18 months ago a mom, dad and younger brother were killed. The sister and her boyfriend were arrested for their murders the next day. She was 12, he was 23. I provided evidence in the case, so I went and testified at her trial. She was 14 by the time she was tried for the murders. She looked closer to 17. She just sat there, looking disinterested. By the time I testified, the trial had been going on for three weeks already. She probably knew that she would be found guilty, and was bored of sitting in the prisoners box all day, five days a week. Nov 9 she was sentenced to four and a half years in the mental institute in Edmonton, and then another four years in a halfway house. She will be my age before she is released back into the world. She is going to have a very hard life. If she had done this when she was still 11, they could not have touched her. Her boyfriend will probably get three life sentences for the three lives he ended. Really, five lives were lost that fateful day in May 2006.

Shooting

I’ve never been a happy person, this is no secret. I’ve never been really suicidal, but I can’t say that I’ve never seriously thought about it. Recently, I had the opportunity to shoot a gun. I managed to harass and cajole my way into watching the officers in my unit do their recertification, and then they handed me the gun. Ok, so they gave me tips, and one of the officers administering the testing explained how to do everything while the other guys were doing their test. I know how to hold a handgun, and how to aim it properly, and how to pull the trigger so the bullet goes where I want it to go. Anyway, so, after an hour and a half of watching the boys shooting, and asking questions and getting well explained answers, I am told that I can go into the range area. I put on goggles and ear protection. Mike shows me how to hold the gun properly, and then hands it over. The gun is loaded with live ammunition (9mm Luger bullets). It’s a 9mm Smith and Weston standard issue RCMP service pistol, complete with the RCMP logo stamped in the side. It was weird, after all these years, having a real gun, in my hand, loaded, with 5 real bullets. It was a detached feeling. Anyway, I got over my feeling, and aimed carefully. And slowly, very very slowly, pulled the trigger. I felt a rush of air hit my goggles, and my hands snapped back a little, and there was a little hole in my target. This hole was pretty much exactly where the guys heart was. If my target had been a guy quietly standing there, waiting to be shot, I would have killed him in the one shot. I got 4 shots in the small center target, two in the arm, and the rest kind of clustered around the heart area. After all 15 shots, my arms were tired. My muscles even hurt for a few days afterwards.

It has been a while

Alright, so, the world changes quickly. An update on my last entry, we did lose the dog. About 27 hrs after the attack we put him down as there was more shaking than we had originally anticipated. It was heartbreaking, and I miss him terribly. Even now I can barely think of him without welling up.

Also, I started a new job on the Monday after that (July 16) . This caused me great joy at the beginning because I was finally back on a computer, and I was promised lots of work to do. This has since evolved into being not nearly as busy as I had hoped, and the challenge to create ways to make it seem like I'm doing work when in fact I am not. This I have truly excelled at. One of my co-workers is highly entertaining and keeps my ears full of helpful advice be it to become a cop, or to read one of the files he is working on. For some reason he seems to care about my life, something that I am not used to from people like him. My other co-workers love hearing about my personal life, and two of them know people in my life as well, which makes the stories a little more entertaining and the advice a little more relevant.

In other news I got a new toy which is much faster than my first one, and a lot of fun. I am not sure where I will store my motorbikes during the winter, but I hopefully have a month or two of snow free weather to figure this out. Leather, I have discovered, is one of my best friends as it keeps me safe and warm when all other things are against me.

School also recently started. With any luck my last day will be Dec 17, if I have bad luck, my last day will be sometime in April and I will get to curse the program for holding me back and charging me lots of money for another 4 months.  So far the one group I have is not fun. We'll see how that turns out in the long run.

The big event in my life are my future plans. Oh how it is confusing. In four days I find out for sure that the town will let me buy about an acre of land in the small town of Pelly Saskatchewan. Yes, this is a town of around 400 people, with all the basic amenities of life in town, and all the extra ones available within a hour drive on the highway. The plan has been to build the house of my dreams on this property. Yes, I have a floor plan ready and am just waiting to hear back from the builder on a cost estimate. This estimate will determine if I want to build or buy. I have put the worth somewhere around the $150,000 mark for the fully completed house, including garage. While I could buy an older house in the same town for around $60,000, my house would be bigger, customized, and on my wonderful land. The older house needs a lot of work, which would take a lot of time and effort. Of course funding for this new property and life would come from the sale of my condo downtown.  I am willing to do this because life out there is so much quieter than life here. As I sit and type I can hear the traffic on the main road, and the occasional siren reminding me that life is quickly moving around me. While sitting on the grass that is my new property I heard crickets and it was wonderful. The stars shine brightly and the world moves slowly. No stress, and little hurry. Many of you will wonder why I would like that, a year and a half ago I moved downtown to be close to school and work. After a year and a half of stress sitting in my shoulders, and hearing traffic, snow plows and sirens at any time of the day or night, I am ready to move to quieter ground. Yes, I will have to commute to work, but instead of sitting in traffic for an hour each way, I'll be driving 120 on the highway. I won't have a mortgage, or a very small one, and at 22, that is a great accomplishment. My close friends will know that I grew out of my party stage a while ago, and I'm settling into grownup life. And, as much as I thought that I was a city girl through and through, the city is driving me nuts, and I'm discovering that I'm a country kid at heart.

No, this is not a 100% concrete plan, as mentioned above, I can not move until January, maybe as late as May. A lot can change between now and then. But I like my plot of land with it's views of 10km of field and trees. Oh yeah, Saskatchewan has rolling hills, it's not as flat as people say.

Enough ranting for now, I really should do my homework that is due at midnight,

Melina

bike crash

it had rained, and i was heading to a friend's house
I was heading to his house, the setting sun glaring back at me in my side mirrors. Very distracting. I was going around 60km/hr. As I near the intersection of 104 ave and 106st I notice two pedestrians starting to cross the street. They notice me, and start to wait for me to pass. I slam on the breaks, and lean back (fearing an impact) to the right. The leaning causes my bike to lean, and my rear wheel to skid left. I go down. based on injuries, I started to role, but my left knee and hand hit the ground hard, and then I just slid back on my right side, and curled into a ball.

Vacation

yay, I'm going away for a week. I'll miss my riding buddies, and my bikes are going to be so lonely without me. I just hope one of them starts when I get back... or I'm going to be late for work that day. I'm going to visit my friend in rural Sask, so hopefully I'll de-stress nicely before I go back to the really hectic life of work and school. The good news is that in less than 4 months I'll be done with school for the foreseeable future, YAY. Can't wait to have all of my evenings back, I'm going to miss them. Hmm, gotta leave in an hour, I'm all packed though... sigh

This is why

The other option I have been looking into (and I know you don't understand why I want this at all) is small town Saskatchewan. The fact that I can buy a pretty nice house for $60k or one that needs work for $30k (or one built in 1992 with over 2100 sq feet for $245k) is a really interesting prospect. Because I work with the RCMP, I can request a transfer to one of the detachments in the area and have a job almost right away. The fact that I would not have a mortgage means that I could waitress and still put money away into savings. It would be a total change in lifestyle. But, whenever I would go out and visit my friend who lived outside the city, within an hour my shoulder muscles were totally relaxed. That never happens even when relaxing at home now. It's a different atmosphere which I really enjoy. There are three towns that have about 75,000 people in them, and many smaller towns around those bigger ones. Realistically the only thing keeping me in Edmonton right now is my school, my house and my job. School is almost over, house can be sold, and job can be transferred/a new one found. This is probably the only time in my life where I will have the freedom to just pick up and move. In a few years I will have the startings of a family, and starting that somewhere else is an option. Yes, this did start because my friend moved out there, but it's the starting reason, not the reason I've been looking into it for so long.

Tragedy

They found more swelling this afternoon.... and the shaking was worse than they originally thought... he was on a morphine drip, but there were complications with his Addisions disease... they put him on a weaker pain killer.... he was yelping randomly because of the pain.... He passed away at 9:35 tonight, less than 27 hr after he got attacked. This house is never going to be the same.

Friday the 13th

This morning one of my co-workers asked if I was suspicious and worried about today because it is Friday the 13th. I told her that it had been a pretty good day, and it had been. But overall, it was a scary scary day.

Terrifying

I've never been so scared in my life. My family was visiting some friends, these friends have three dogs, one of the dogs is very territorial. These friends didn't mention the territorial bit, they probably didn't think that we were going to bring Merly with us. So, we get there, and my dog, Merly, is sniffing around, and their dog comes running up to Merly. Merly is the most friendly dog I've ever known, he trusts everyone and everything. So, this dog comes running and Merly expects to play, except this dog grabs him by his neck and starts shaking. There's four people in my family and nothing we can do. The owner of the other dog finally manages to get his dog off. It seemed like an eternity before this happened, was probably closer to 20-30 seconds.
I've never heard a noise like the one that was coming out of my puppy. I can't even describe it. Nothing I ever want to hear again.
We finally make it to the ER Vet (after 6 on a Friday night, not much is open) and they take a look. It's just his back skin that was ripped open, so hopefully no major damage.
I can't get the image of my poor little puppy being shaken out of my head. He's only 9lbs, and this was a big Border Collie cross, she was probably 50-60lbs.
Friends only entry posted on Friday July 13, 2007, 9:23 pm

Edit:
I was just informed that the Vet called, Merly will be ok and allowed to go home tomorrow. He will have to wear a cone for a couple of weeks, but he will be fine.

Terrifying

I've never been so scared in my life. My family was visiting some friends, these friends have three dogs, one of the dogs is very territorial. These friends didn't mention the territorial bit, they probably didn't think that we were going to bring Merly with us. So, we get there, and my dog, Merly, is sniffing around, and their dog comes running up to Merly. Merly is the most friendly dog I've ever known, he trusts everyone and everything. So, this dog comes running and Merly expects to play, except this dog grabs him by his neck and starts shaking. There's four people in my family and nothing we can do. The owner of the other dog finally manages to get his dog off. It seemed like an eternity before this happened, was probably closer to 20-30 seconds.

I've never heard a noise like the one that was coming out of my puppy. I can't even describe it. Nothing I ever want to hear again.

We finally make it to the ER Vet (after 6 on a Friday night, not much is open) and they take a look. It's just his back skin that was ripped open, so hopefully no major damage.

I can't get the image of my poor little puppy being shaken out of my head. He's only 9lbs, and this was a big Border Collie cross, she was probably 50-60lbs.

Summer

Summer has arrived. Yesterday was a scorching 32 degrees, enough to make me want to sit in an air conditioned house all night. I would have been happy to stay at work, because my house does not have the wonderful thing that is air conditioning. The closest I get is fans on and windows open in the cool of night, and blinds drawn and windows closed in the heat of day. It works well, except for when it does not happen. I am currently enjoying a cool breeze after a pleasant 25 degree day.

Reading back, I was right to be sad about leaving Canada Place, my new job is boring and repetative. After my first week I stated that I would not last two months. It is now two months later, and next Monday I transfer into a new department. This time I will have my own cubicle and computer, but still be restricted to the intranet. I did make friends with my co-workers and I am sad to leave them as my new co-workers are closer to the baby-boomer generation. In other work news, I have the opportunity to try and become a Correctional Officer at the Edmonton Maximum Security Prison. While talking to the lady in charge of staffing, she realized that I had an education and put me in touch with someone who might be able to get me into the HR side of Corrections. This would likely mean that I would have to move to Grande Cache or Drumheller. I am looking into it, but nothing can happen with that until the new year. With 3 classes left, and four years of post secondary under my belt, I am not leaving anything before I get that diploma.

A noteable change in my life is that of transportation. In May I got my Class 6 license, which allows me to drive a motorbike. On June 9th I drove away from Heritage Harley driving my brand new (used from 2000) Buell Blast. It is freeing to drive a motorbike. Yes, other cars are dangerous, but I do my best to avoid them and stay alive. There are pictures to be found if you know where to look. All you car drivers should watch out for me, and my fellow bikers, we are vehicles too and hate being overlooked... mostly because it hurts us more than it hurts you.

Oh yeah, and I turned 22. It was a fairly uneventful day. I had lots of cheesecake, and a good BBQ at my parents house. There were also many messages and writings on the wall from friends. Thank you all of you.

Some of you may have heard of my cousin Petra Blundell. She had cancer five years ago, and in the fall she is running a marathon. While she has passed her goal, every little bit helps. She has been an inspiration in my life for quite some time, if you read her story on this website, you can start to understand why.

I'm off to dinner and a movie, so I have to go and suit up.

Things Change

Alright so, as you may know, in early May I put a deposit on a Honda CBR125R, a new little sport bike with remarkable pep for its size. I was deposit number 6 or 7, which would put me in the first set of bikes received. But, everything was running late, I had to buy a second set of gear so I could have proper gear for bike training because the gear that came with the bike wasn't in (even though the guys promised it would be). Then we were promised that we would get our bikes in the first few days of June. That didn't happen, the earliest I could get that bike is on June 12th. So, I had heard about Buell, and how they had a small bike that was low so us short people could ride it too. There's only one dealer in Edmonton that carries them. So, I gave them a call today when I got home from work, and they had a Blast in stock. A 2000, in perfect condition, great first owner. I sat on it and was impressed with the size, and the feel of the bike. Insurance followed quickly, and I pick it up in the morning. Hopefully the registry will open at 10 so I don't have to wait too long before I can ride. I'm just not looking forward to going back to Honda and telling them that I'm no longer interested in their bike. The morale of this story is: Don't promise more than you can keep. Also: Don't buy the first thing you see, shop around.

Work is done

This was originally written on Thurday, April 26th. I was interupted there, and lost my train of thought.

So, today was my last day of work in Canada Place. I am happy I went there. Good friends were met, good experience was had. I would have been sad to leave the girls in my unit, except I'm seeing them all on Sunday, and then I am going to a rodeo with one of them, so I will still be in touch. It is weird, I am 21 years old, and I have had ten different jobs, and this is the only one I have really felt sad leaving. It was fun, it was hard work, it was frustrating, it was enlightening.

Tablet PC

So, I have recently, quietly, come into possession of a tablet PC. While my old laptop is not quite yet dead, I felt the need to splurge, and so, a new toy for me. The touch screen is fun, surfing Nexopia has never been easier. No worrying about losing the mouse, just point and click. Writing recognition is a little sketchy, even after going through the tutorial, but that should get better as we both learn how the other works.

On the mouse issue, if I can ever get Sims installed, it will be great fun to be able to play it on long bus trips without the bulkiness of a normal laptop computer.  It is only 13", wide screen, no bigger than a text book, and lighter than most. When I saw it, I just had to have it. Lucky for me, it was on sale.

In other news,  school is over, so far, two B's. I'm mostly happy with that, though it will bring my overall average down. I'm not overly hopeful about my last class, so who knows.

Also, I'm done work on Thursday. My 90 shifts this year are up, so something new for me. I will be back at Nexopia until my papers come through for my new job.  Nexopia will be helping out with HR/Accounting stuff, they need some support there. Then off to K Division with the RCMP to work in their mail room. Should be boring, but I'll make the best of it, and work on getting a better job in the building. If I stay in the RCMP for the next 30 years, I can retire at 50 with no loss in my pension plan... this could be the start of a wonderful relationship.

Games

Oh the games that we all play. We can't say how we really feel because we don't want to hurt them. Trying to say what we really feel while not hurting them just makes things worse. The longer you play the game, the worse it is, the harder it is to quit. The game eats you up, and spits you out. Playing with multiple people at once just gets dangerous, more lies, more inconsistency, did you say that to one or the other? I want just one, and no games.

You said "Guess who's going to (cool concert)", I should have responded with "I am, my friend bought us tickets yesterday". Instead I played along like I wasn't already going. Why? I'm not sure. Because we had just met, and the concert was 7 months away, at the time I thought there was no chance of us still talking at that point.

What would you do if…

So, I was watching some HGTV show in which people buy houses. Yay, so interesting. But the couple on the last episode were looking at this huge manor from the 1600's. It was for sale for 450,000 British Pounds. They decided against buying it, I disagreed with their decision.

I was then thinking, what would I do if I managed to win (tax free) 300 million dollars? I think the first thing would be to dance around and laugh that I was finally the sibling with more money. Then what? buy a (or two or ten) new house(s). Help out friends and family. Make education funds for the children in my life. Help a charity or two. Then find a passion, and do that for a while. Finding new friends would difficult. Dating? Impossible. I have done this exercise before, but never with sums this large. It is mind blowing what you could do with all that money. Even if you kept all the money in a bank account (one of those 4% ones), you would be making 12 million dollars a year, one million dollars a month in income from interest alone. Granted, half of the interest would have to go to taxes, but conservatively, you could bring in $400,000 a month on interest, with that sum growing every month as one can not spend it all every month.

Sigh, if only it could happen.

Anyways, I should start that homework that I've been avoiding all day.

It has been a while

You're right Rob, it has been a while. This is because I have been super busy with working up to 57 hrs a week, 9 hrs of school a week and a vague attempt at a social life.

It has been many years since the last time I went to the Space and Science Centre, now Telus World of Science. Well, excpet recently. I went a couple of weeks ago with a friend, and work has decided that for a "Team Building" excersize we're going there this wednesday. They have interesting ways of building teams. A general feel of non-disclosure, segregation and not using the best people for the jobs on normal days, and then shutting down the office and taking everyone out for some fun. We'll ignore the fact that the average age in my workplace is probably over 45, so the fun will be very interesting to  watch if nothing else.

In other news, with my term at my current job almost over, I had an interview last week for a position with the RCMP. They appeared to be highly impressed with me, so with any luck I'll pass my security check and start there soon. Chances are that it will be a shitty job, but at least it's a permanent job near my house. The general feeling of that building is more friendly, even with the people walking around in handcuffs (ok, ok, I exagerate, I have not seen any of those in my few trips inside). There is a sense of people united toward a common goal. Something to strive for. It's much better than an attitude of limitless funds and wastefullness. That attitude is driving me insane, and aparently I'm in a better department for that. There are some departments in which they spend tens of thousands of dollars on meetings, this is because the department thinks that they are the most important, even though no one has ever heard of them. Anyway, enough with the ranting. I'm basically just really happy to be moving to something more permanent. Though some of you wouldn't know it, but I like to know what's going on in my life, even if it is just a vague outline. This not knowing what I'll do in 35 days when I'm out of a job has not been fun.

Anyways, I made stew yesterday, so dinner time it is.

Faith?

It has been a long time since I've considered faith at all.

Or the lack of faith in my life, or me. If I had faith I would assume the best. .. And that doesn't happen. Ever.
How the heck do you get faith? How do you practice having faith if .... you don't.. know how the hell to have faith in anything or anyone? The only thing I really have faith in is the fact that people are stupid and will fuck up.

I hate it when someone reminds me how miserable I really am.

Maybe it's... I seem to only have faith in people who are unfaithful. And for those who I could trust my life with, I'm wary of.

It's stupid.

I don't know if it's necessarily that I'm a terrible judge of character, or if I'm convinced that I'm stupid and could never get something like that right? I don't even have faith in myself. I know I can do things like finish assignments, write essays well, do basic tasks for jobs I'd get right now.

But.. in terms of having to apply myself and change, I'm convinced I'll fail.

The antonyms of faith are atheism, godlessness, disbelief, doubt, distrust and treachery. I really don't want these words to define me, but as it stands they seem to be all I have to call my own.

Even more so

So, a friend pointed out some holes in my first post, and while they are valid for normal homes, for underground homes (while they come with their own risks) fill in the holes.

Heat from the ground is also cooling from the ground. If you build it properly, the undergound house maintains a cool temperature all year round. Add some basic heating and a convection cooling system, and it should work pretty much on its own. Obviously there's more research to be done, but it's an interesting concept.

Electicity, yes, on the grid is good, both to get and send back if one can figure out a good system. I haven't done too much research on it, apart from the obvious solar panels.

There's more information here.

Crazy?

For sometime now I have wanted a change in my life. Some catalyst to make it my own. Yes, I bought a condo almost a year ago, you would think that that would be enough. I guess still being in school is making me feel like a child still. Though I do work full time, and am doing well where I am now, I don't feel sucessful. It's a state of mind, an attitude, and when that attitude is mastered and adopted fully life is good. My new idea is to get some land outside the city, probably to the North West on the way to Westlock. I don't know if I would move out there anytime soon, but it would be nice to get out of the city for camping, and build when I can or sell if I can't. It's a fairly low-risk investment. Even if the land sits mainly vacant, all I have to do is keep the weeds under control, I could probably still sell for a profit in the coming years. The prefered option is that I do something to the land, get animals, build a house, plant a garden of some variety.

The perfect picture would include the house being fairly self-sufficient by getting power from the sun and heat from the ground. Horses, cows, chickens, maybe some dogs, a husband, some kids on 25 acres of land. Not that I know how to do any of that, but I can learn. Though, who knows, maybe all of this is just because one of my good friends at work lives in a similar situation.

I was given the suggestion to just drive around, so when I have time I'm going to harass one of my friends to come drive with me, and just look at what's out there.

Who knows....

Space

I recently aquired four Stella beer glasses. They are nice, and I like Stella, but I have no clue where I'm going to put them. My cupboards are full, and so are my drawers (as in, the stuff in the cupboards can't move to drawers). Right now most of the glasses are still wrapped up in paper and are on my table. Time to clean up I suppose. That's really all that Saturday afternoons are good for anyway. I already did my seven hours of work this morning, so now it's cleaning time, then early to bed so I have a nice long day tomorrow in which to study.

New Hires

I am pleased to say that the two newest hires are almost self-sufficient in one area of the job. This means that tomorrow I am going to authorize them for overtime and hopefully they will come in on Saturday for some nice overtime work. This also means that with eight mostly fully functional team members, we will be slightly overstaffed for a short period of time. That period ends when the work load increases again. Bits of the workload have more than doubled in the four months that I have been there. The biggest issue will be in a month and a half when we will probably lose three of our members. I am not looking forward to this day. The next biggest issue will be that another two of us will leave a month later. Leaving three people to do what seven can maintain, and eight can catch up on. Hopefully more new hires will arrive before that happens.

In other news, I talked to my new team leader (he starts on Monday) that I had applied for a job at a game company. My team leader knows the Human Resource people in said game company and offered to mention my name the next time he had an opportunity to do so. Who knows, I might need to buy a car soon so I can do this new job. That would be great experience, and I would be the envy of a lot of my friends.

Overtime

Before the holidays I was doing 12 hrs of overtime per two week period, in January I was too busy to do it. But in the past two weeks I have done about 20 hrs which will be really nice to pay for the holiday shopping bill that just came in. Since I have been starting earlier in the day it's a lot easier to put in a couple hours each day, as long as I don't have to go to school early for group meetings.

Hopefully the two new girls will be able to show up on Saturday, it will be my responsibility to get them up to speed in the next three days so they are valuable enough to actually be allowed to get paid OT.

School... yes, I'm in class right now. Don't worry, it's the break. Luckily my project got pushed back a week, so I have two weeks before I have to hand in a 10 page paper on Nexopia. Then, when that one's done, I have to do another two projects, also on Nexopia. This close connection to a company makes it so that I always have to be the company contact. I didn't even want to do the group projects on Nexus, but no one else had any good companies that we could study.

New Job?

Last semester I managed to impress one of the ladies in my class. She works as HR for a construction company. I contacted her last night asking about a position that she had mentioned might be opening up. Turns out the position would be Safety Officer on one of their larger sites. The successful candidate would be required to work on site and essentially become a Journeyman Carpenter as well as a Construction Safety Officer. The trades are definately the place to be right now, and construction is one trade that is almost alway needed. I think this could be a really great opportunity, so I will pursue it a little further and see where it takes me. The worst that can happen is that I take an afternoon off work to tour a construction site and nothing comes of it.

Testing

Had my CR-04 test yesterday. There were about 200 people in the test, and only 50 people will be contacted. I'm pretty sure I did ok, but I won't know for a long time. Stupid government takes forever to find and hire its staff. It's no wonder that they can't find young people who want to join, young people don't have the patience to wait around for up to a year for a job. We like to get a new job now, and work from there. One of the guys that I work with, who is full time permanent with the government, recently got a call asking if he wanted to take a term (6 months then done) CR-02 (two levels lower than we are now) position. He applied for it two years ago. Seriously? Do you think many people who work at that level (30k/yr), who are motivated would be in the position of wanting that job two years later? Really? If I ever get into goverment HR, my goal is going to be to reduce hire time. I'd just need a Degree in something semi-relevant before they'll even listen to me. Private sector is much better at accepting equivalencies than the public sector.

Later, when I told my boss that the first new girl is a pain in the ass, she told me that her boss was impressed with my work, and they wished that they could keep me on. I would just need to be in the gov't first. Too bad that it will take forever, and I don't want to be an admin assistant forever.

I have a test for a Finance Manager on Saturday... I'll let you know how it goes.

New People at Work

Well, we got two new people today, to add to the one person that started three weeks ago. I really hope these new two are better than the previous one. We've fallen so far behind since she started. So far they look promising, they are younger and seem to be more computer literate. While my department does have a lot to learn, they seem to be catching on just fine. The biggest issue is that they aren't actually going to help no matter how good they are because with more staff, we are going to get work, that we had previously delegated out, back. We need more people... again.

Homework

What usually happens when I have homework to do is that everything else gets done first. My house is clean, I've done as much overtime at work as they will let me, I have no new Nexopia messages, my bird is entertained, etc. This time is no different. Oh well, at least my house is cleaner than it was this morning.

Single once more

So, as of last night, I'm single again. Can't say I didn't see it coming. Yes, it was a mutual breakup. So, yes, I'm ok. It will take some getting used to, but for the most part, my life won't change that much. We're still going to be friends, that's what happens when you date one of your best friends.

In other news, I'm looking for a man who is on his way to wanting to settle down.

Right, I'm supposed to be doing my paper.

Welcome

Welcome, I finally got a blog up on here (thanks Eric), we'll see what happens. Hopefully I'll be able to post on here regularily and you'll get to know the oh so interesting events in my oh so interesting life.

So, yes, tomorrow will be exciting, writting my first paper of this semester. Then getting ready for an interview. Then working on the first project that is due.

Anyway, I'm off to continue to figure out how this thing works

Future Plans

We got a new person transfer into our department this morning. She seems ok, a little older than the rest of the group, but so far so good. She came from the HR deparment of the gov't. So, we chatted, and she mentioned that she'd put in a good word for me, but she also mentioned that to move above a Human Resources Assistant (making no more than about $23/hr) you need a degree. So, here I am, surfing the MacEwan website wondering which degree I should take. I'm about halfway done an Anthopology/Ancient and Medieval History Degree, so, it would make sense to finish that, or, go to the U of A and finish a business degre with a major in HR and a minor in some random other business field (or Anthro, it's really intersting). One of the biggest issues is that I don't really want to stop working full time hours, so what ever I take would have to be long distance or night classes. I don't have an issue with night classes at all, they are what is letting me live the life I am currently living, and I love it.
The University of Lethbridge's long distance course is also an option, but I've heard that last years graduates of my course are not too impressed with it.

I don't know. This really is a wait and see kind of situation.

But, the good news is that I havne't been written off for the two RCMP positions that I applied for way back when.

Anyway, back to applying for that HR Assistant position with the gov't.