One of those days

I woke up this morning and our lawn was speckled with snow... wet, ugly, unwelcomed snow. I have been in denial of late, even when the mercury dropped, my hats, gloves and thick winter jackets have stayed in storage. It is October after all. In defeat, they all came out today, every last bit of winter.

Yesterday I was literally in tears I was so bored. I sat at my computer in my little cubicle, absent-mindedly refreshing my Google page because I had nothing to type into Google Search... the page refreshes, and nope, no inspiration in the last second that can fill that dang search box.

I went home at 3pm. Couldn't stand it no more. It was Pub Night for the project too, but a beer and nibbles did not warrant staying another two hours. For a contractor, it's like leaving a wad of cash on the table and walking away, but saving my sanity was priceless.

This morning, after my somewhat dissappointing start, I rock up to work at 9.30pm and I have an email. What sh*ts me more than not having work, is to receive an email for a task that takes the originator the same amount of time to complete themselves as it does for them to document the task in an email for me. I got asked to sort a spreadsheet and split it into four separate files and then send them back. It's an insult to any intelligence I have. I'm not sure whether he was feeling sorry for me an decided to throw me a bite, or whether he was being a dick and felt that sorting a spreadsheet was beyond him. Whatever the case, I've thrown work ethics out the door (onto the snow covered lawn) and I'm making Workopolis the homepage on my work PC.

Lost for words... well suitable words anyway...

It's time to revamp my resume again. My contract will unlikely be extended at the end of the year. Regardless, I have been whining about my job for some time to warrant getting off my comfortable butt to find another job.

The thing is, I now have to create room on my already borderline-unacceptably-long resume of three pages, for my latest experience. If finding white paper isn't a challenge in itself, I also have to fill this newly created space with the skills I have used and gained in the nine months.

How do you phrase nicely, that three months out of nine was sitting pretty doing absolutely nothing except web surfing and holiday planning. The most valuable skill gained was standing my ground and being heard amongst a team of overpowering analysts. My strength is my flexibility in working on constantly changing directions, if any was given at all. And the biggest challenge I overcame was throwing my values, standards and work ethics out the window when working with people who "don't give a sh*t" and just want to "get it done".

Yes, I think it is time for a change. Pity that change means filling the gap in my resume!

In search of fall

I've been in and out of Canada frequently in the last five years, and not once have I experienced a Canadian fall. This is my first year here for fall, and I was adamant to see the famous colours and jump in a pile of maple leaves.
Can you believe they have a Colour Report that is issues weekly, reporting on the percentage change in colours for each popular region in the province???

We took a road trip up north which was a nice break away from the city. I must admit, I was a little disappointed with the colours, they weren't as concentrated and magnificent as I had imagined, but that's just me with high expectations and high likelihood of disappointment. We did see some fantastic colours of scarlett red, burnt orange and bright yellow, but we found it more breathtaking seeing it from the road, rather than being in the Provincial Parks or lookouts themselves. Maybe it was just because I couldn't find a nice pile of leaves to jump in. I'll get over it.

We had a lovely drive nevertheless, I tasted elk for the first time in pot pie, passed a pumpkin patch (it looked really cool, all the Halloween pumpkins scattered over the field - wish I had a photo!), met a chipmunk and got to enjoy the last weekend of decent weather (yesterday was the first day of snow, north of the city!)

Below are some of my fave photos from the weekend:

 


 

Thanksgiving

With one American Thanksgiving up my sleeve (where I gave thanks to great sales, and great friends who were dragged around the outlet mall when sane people are in bed), my very first Canadian Thanksgiving was another sort of mad rush.

My mission was to roast a turkey, plus a three-course dinner. To add to the stress of never having cooked turkey, we invited Gord's parents over to taste my potentially screwed up Thanksgiving dinner.

I thought the hard part was cleaning and stuffing the bird, but boy was a I wrong. My turkey was baking without a hitch at 450F for half an hour before I bring it down to 350F. An ofcourse, the oven starts playing up. It won't let me press "3", "4" or "5" buttons to set the temperature! Thank god we have a second oven upstairs in our second kitchen (as you do), so we carry the bird upstairs, whacked it in the spare oven, and voila, the oven door doesn't close. The bird gets run downstairs again, we play with buttons a bit more, and finally we resort to cooking at 299F because the "2" and the "9" button was working fine (go figure). It took a bit longer to cook, and it didn't help that the bird was laid to rest breast down and needed to be flipped halfway through roasting, but it got there in the end.

Infact, it was branded the "best turkey of the season". Roasting the turkey on slow cook actually did the turkey favours… it's common for turkeys to get overcooked and dry, which is why some people brine it, or inject butter. My little Butterball overcame all that and came out nice a juicy! Although it was ready just after the main, the four of us did a good job digging into our second dinner, there weren't as much leftovers as anticipated. I once thought using the drippings to make gravy was gross, but my god it is tasty!

So here are a few pics of the star of the show...

... I mean the one hanging by the wings...


... fresh out of the dysfunctional oven


... did I say this was our second dinner?


.. and to top it off, a traditional pumpkin pie, which was surprisingly good.

Nuit Blanche

One thing about T.O. is that they love festivals. They'll close major streets down for a good party.

A much anticipated festival that I have been hearing about all year is Nuit Blanche. Dubbed as a "free all night contemporary art thing", downtown T.O. is transformed into an open air art gallery from 6pm until sunrise. Walks of all sorts come out and roam the streets, some get all dressed up like it's halloween, and others grow beards in honour of the event(namely, G and co). I had little success with my beard.

We saw a few installions, but Nuit Blanche really ended up being Nuit Bar. After each installation, we'd hop into a bar for a quick drink. It added to the charm of the art pieces. The installations were unique, but would have been more enjoyable if we had read up on the inspirations, and not have to fight a throng of enthusiasts at 2am in the morning. We ended up seeing four or five installations - out of 155, didn't even scratch the surface, but a good taster nevertheless.

Cafe de Millwood

If you haven't heard me say it a million times before, then let it be known, the coffee in North America sucks.

To prove my point, on Saturday night when I was waiting for a friend outside a Starbucks that had a line-up out the door. A girl in the line contemplated taking a gamble for a shorter wait at Second Cup across the road (which may be likened to Gloria Jeans) but was quickly discouraged by her friend with the explanation that Second Cup "lacked the prestige of Starbucks". I refrained from tapping them on the shoulder and telling them what Starbucks lacks.

In a city overladen with American franchises, G and I have been trying to hunt down a decent flat white and latte. So far, we have only found one cafe that can rival the coffees we've had recently in Sweden and Sydney. So we've decided to make a stop to this with a new purchase:



We haven't perfected it, but we're getting there. Our amateur coffees aren't too bad, but we're working on the perfect microfoam. The new purchase has also inspired me to transform an unused corner of the house into a coffee room where we can curl up with a book, and keep our travel books and photos.

Now, if only I can wake up early enough to put make-up on, let alone make a latte!

Back and bored

So after a whirlwind trip back to Sydney, I'm back at work and almost survived a whole week.

I'm meant to be changing roles and moving to a new function… that was meant to have happened during my month's absence so I can return and slide into a new and exciting job (well not so exciting, but something different nevertheless).

In the last month, not only hasn't my role changed, but the bad management and planning on this project hasn't either.

Not sure how ethical it is to use my paid contractor hours to search for a new job, but once I wake up from my post-holiday-blues, I should really start. I need something that stimulates me, rather than just execute on things that don't add value or don't make sense, and get frustrated that no-one cares except the contractors that know what their doing but don't get a say.

For the last week, I have done a maximum of 3 hours worth of work, but accomplished a great deal of other things such as:
- replied all my emails (dating back a year)
- sorted my photos
- compared turkey recipes for my first Canadian Thanksgiving
- sorted my banking
- shopped for an espresso machine
- studied for my drivers license test
- caught up with world news
- researched my next holiday (this was started the day after I got back!)
- researched and download my PR application kit (no I haven't decided to stay 'for good', I've downloaded it to win an argument with a friend, but if I am kept as bored as I am now, I will probably fill it out next week!)

I've gotten to the stage that I have ran out of things to surf for on the web! Not even shopping amuses me since I have nothing to shop for!
Hmm... perhaps a missed episode of Greys Anatomy in my little cubicle...