....at least someones getting lucky?

I have a problem. This issue has been going on for quite some time, and every time about this time of year it happens again and it lasts a few months before it goes away, but alas it travels back to haunt me. I have an infestation of epic proportions. They come back every year, and they mate like crazy breeding leaving more to return each fall. I have owls.

Not just any owls, two owls that hang out in the trees around my room window and "Who-whhooo' at each other all freaking night!! They also decide to occasionally .... get frisky? I'm guessing that these two 'old birds' have been either getting it on regularly each year, or they are new owls that live in the old nests or something because EVERY FREAKING YEAR.....I hear owls hoot after each other for like a month, followed by like three nights of what I can only imagine is chirpy owl love makin, followed by like another month of at least one month of at least one owl 'who-whooo'ing. After the first month of the incessant birds, I was starting to feel like any sleep I wanted to peacefully receive would require bigger measures. I called the handy municiple conservation officer.

BIG MISTAKE. Supposedly most owls common to this area are protected and doing anything to remove them from their habitat is illegal, or against city by-laws. Some hippy who gets their rocks off to bird calls came up with this I swear. So of course the minute I tell the conservation officer I have these little buggers having a hooting good time he of course takes down the name etc and COMES BY TO INSPECT THEM....now they are listed, tagged and being monitored becasue apparently the female is reproductively active.....shoot. Well then....that's no good. So I must be left to my own devices to entertain myself because there apparently is no getting rid of them now. And this is what I have thus far come up with: 

Late at night when these owls are....going about their business, I image what their lives must be like. Lady owl waits around a tree for the man owl to swoop by and impress her. They flirt, he calls, she calls back, they mingle, perhaps go out for a fly around town. He finally 'woos' her and rattles her feathers. She gets knocked up and lays her eggs. Man realizes "Whooowww wow woah woah woah I didn't sign up for this!!!" jumps nest and leaves when he sees three eggs in the nest. Lady owl is left to tend to the eggs and cry at night wondering how her life turned out like that......

I then wake up in the morning after finally blocking out the bloody owls with all their squawking and my my biologist side kicks in and start to question "how much common DNA to Owls and the average human male share?"

Thing I have learnt while home sick.

October for me has been the month of being sick. In fact, I cannot ever remember another time when I have been so consistently sick. I tend to be one of those people that never gets sick, or when I do, I still don't time off work or miss school. But this month? October? Has been a MESS of being sick. Ear infection followed by a sinus infection, then a nasty cold, and now? Either the stomach flu or food posioning. I can't imagine what gave me food posioning as everything I ate up until Sunday was all pretty normal, and whatever I ate at least 20 people at the same thing (officialled at a skating competition..all food is catered) and as far as I know no one else got sick. I'm hesitant to say stomach flu because a true flu has you out for weeks, and after only two days I am feeling much better.

SO while yes I have been disgustingly ill, and have had some amazing gastro-technics going on I have learned a few things. When sick on back and unable to do anything because any sudden movements induces vomitting, you start to notice the small things. So here for your reading pleasure, are a few of the things I have learned while sick.

1. There is nothing on TV during the day that is worth staying home for that cannot be watched during evening hours or through iTunes. Seriously? Soap operas? Over rated and a waste of time. They move so slow! When weekly show is on, things move quick and things happen. Soap operas? Its been 3 weeks off and on of me watching bits and pieces and as far as I'm concerned, its still the same day, and nothing new has happened. Also? Maury? Dude its time to retire, because seriously...enough is enough with the paternity tests, I fear it is you that is causing these girls to go out and have sex with multiple men and have to question the paternity just so they can get on TV, and magically hope to get a TV deal or a modelling gig out of the deal.

2. Lady GaGa? Not a good looking woman. I enjoy her music, I have her CD's. For the first time I actaully got a good look at her....She looks like a dude, and her music videos look like Madonna rip offs. While I apprecaite her music, I fear that her doing things like wearing meat dresses and machine gun boobs will inspire a whole new breed of freaky coming up the ranks. Madonna I hope you're happy you inspired this.

3. Blue Gatorade is disgusting. I have managed to lose 5 pounds in a week. Why? Well because for the last week I've barely been able to eat anythign without getting a stressed out stomach. All weekend I ran around an ice rink in the cold, and all this week I've been puking up everything I try to ingest but apple juice and gatorade. Today I mastered soda crackers. I have tried every colour of gatorade, as I have found it is gentlest on my tummy, blue has got to be the worst. As far as I'm concerned if its blue it should not taste like citrus, obvious food colour addatives? I think so. Red fruit punch? Yes! Orange orange flavoured? Win! Yellow that tastes like I imagine pee would? At least its believable! Blue citrusy fake berry thing? I think not.

4. Sex and the city was an amazing TV show. The series was amazing. For thirty minute intervals you can get lost in this magical world of a girl and her best accessories, her friends. Always up for a gab session or a cocktail, and always looking fashionable, while understanding that clothes cost money and that men can be pigs. Worst thing to happen to Sex and the City the TV show were the Sex and the City Movies. Will not deny that I have seen both of them in theatres, but after having seen a big chunk of all the episodes again on TV, I remember what sparkle they had. I also realized how retarded the movies were, and how far away from the point we have gone. While the first movie was...not bad, the second one? Terrible when compared to the series. Carrie Bradshaw and gang? Hang your fabulously quaffed heads in shame.

5. People really do stock my facebook. I post I'm back from a skating competition and everyone asks how it went, I post I'm sick and people tell me to feel better. If I wasn't at home I never would have posted these things and never would have realized that there are people out there that do pay attention to our lives. So all you poor souls getting bullied? Post it on a social network of some sort because as shocking as it may sound, people out there are keeping an eye on you, and you might find support in unlikely places. Read: Hurting yourself is not the answer, going online to express yourself might be a better outlet. As someone who hated school growing up as I never seemed to fit in, the best advice I can give anyone? Never give up, keep searching for a place where you feel comfortable (for me it was an ice rink) and know that no matter how bad things are, it gets better, because not everyone in this world is part of team douche bag.

6. Gene Simmons would go to the opening of an envelope if you paid him to. Gene Simmons family rules is on all day. I swear I have managed to see a huge whack of all the shows and the only things I have managed to conclude are that the show is staged and son Nick is too cute for his own good. I mean you would think the kids of Rocker Gene Simmons of KISS would be hellions, or typical Hollywood monsters but no they are pretty much normal. But regardless of who amazed at how normal the kids are there is no doubt in my mind that the show is staged. Gene getting locked onto the roof with no cell phone? Please. Him setting up with would be sister in law Tracy with Carot Top? Thats not the real world, thats the world of TV fantasy.

7. Ellen has still got it. I watched the same show three times today and got something different out of it each time. Shes enjoyable to watch and she loves everyone. We could all take a page out of her book. But for the record I cannot stand that Greyson Chance person. Sorry but the world does not need another Justin Beiber, we already have one, and hes Canadian so suck it US.

8. No matter how sick you are and how crappy you feel, there will always be something bigger than your issues going on, mine just happens to be a bathroom reno. Thats right all day I got to learn how loud it is to rip out a shower and dry wall from the bathroom right beside my bedroom. Oh well.


So there we are. Just a few things I have learned in the past week. Hope they help make you're lives more successful regardless I feel better for having shared them! Be kind to each other folks and stay healthy! Now bring me my soda crackers!!!

Let's make a deal.

Wow what a crazy couple of days! Lately I've been so busy that I hardly remember which day is which and where I need to be and where.....etc etc. With my new school rules in place, a bit tattered but rules none the less I find myself a little out of the loop at work.

How so you might ask? I have been ignoring the massive time sucker box.....the boob tube......the idiot box....also known as my best friend...thats right I'm talking about the TV and the many glorious shows that are provided that all start to premiere in September. Whats with that? September is probably the busiest time of year and yet they start it off by putting the TV shows we've been dying to follow up on from last season right when life gets going again?

Parents with kids, students back at school, companies getting back in buisness after summer vacations and time off. September is a hub of activity and the boob tube is there to get their cut! With so much going on in September, it makes sense for shows to start again, as people are generally looking for a way to stay in and relax, but when will they learn that the world should revolve around me damn it!!! Why not make it so that the shows premiere later but there are no breaks in showings! No stupid three weeks on new shows in Feb! Imagine a world where shows played straight through expect for xmas? What a wonderful world THAT would be. In my perfect world no TV show would be allowed to leave monster cliff hangers during the middle of final exams in April, that all come back into play when trying to get Septembers early readings accomplished.

I, in determination to keep on track with school, am devoted to ignoring as much boob tube time as possible this semester. The TV shows will still be there waiting for me after school is over. Online downloading, Itunes, and many other outlets have made this possible, so for me to waste time on TV when I could be studying (to ensure less time stressing out). What shows will I be missing most this semesters? Well just all my favourites from last season.

Glee, Grey's Anatomy, Chuck, Vampire Diaries, and Big Bang Theory are just a few. I also watch Project runway religiously but since it started before school started I figure watching it is fair game because the season is almost over.

So heres the deal! I don't whine about missing TV and no one else will whine to me about crazy breaks in regular scheduled programing, and bad plot lines and mixed reactions. I sit and play stupid at work when everyone is discussing what happened last night on Gossip girl, 90210, Greys, or survivor, and you don't ask me to get in on a pool, what predictions I have for the season, or if I have purchased last seasons DVD box set. I won't get jealous of your free time, if you don't judge me for being a shameless book geek till December. Deal? Deal.

Ode To my Procrastination...

I promised this year would be different. That this year I would try harder, and I would not get bogged down with all the crap that plauged me last year. A new degree, a new direction, a new beginning. No longer the ex-student, but now the "Ex Ex-Student". Student 2.0. Super-Student if you will. I made a few new rules to myself.

1. No more extra curricular activities (ie no more volunteering positions) that do not in some way benefit me or make me happy.

2. No leaving assignments till the last minute

3. Work my ass off because I finally have a goal. This includes no getting attached to TV shows, seeing too many movies or reading non school material books.

I have now been in school two weeks and have broken all three of my new rules. Shattered them to bits. Have broken them down into pieces, and used them to build a mosaic for which my school and work schedule have been built around. Sigh. I tried.

I have managed to take on more skating things than I should have that just stress me out and and have annoyed me, I have an assignment due that I cannot complete because I didn't get into the class till last minute and have not yet purchased the manual from the professor personally and I am totally slacking.

Currently I sit, not attempting to get my hands on a course manual, but watching "You've Got Mail" because I saw a portion of it on TV today and am dying to see the whole thing again. Not because I particularly enjoyed the film but because it is more enjoyable than writing an essay on Keats's "Ode On a Grecian Urn".

Keats has been described as one of the most romantic poets of his time, a revolutionary, who was born last and died first of tuberculosis, leaving his family and fiancée behind. He went through great suffering, died young and yet when I read his works, all I want to do is poke myself in the eye. I do not care if he looked at some urn and reveled in his own death and how he had to leave this woman he loved for his own good. All I can say to this is "Shit happens!". Get over it! Lots of people have to make tough decisions, and deal with deal and desire. Why should we care that Keats went through it? I'd rather watch Moulin Rouge. Ewan McGregor? He can sing, dance AND looks hot in a cumberbund. That? So worth breaking my rules over any day.

Spin Class Contradictions!

I don't know about you, but I am pretty freaking lazy sometimes. It tends to come and go in cycles. I'll get super gung-ho about being in shape and active, and then of course I get super over loaded with crap to do so I don't have the extra time to lace up the runners and go for a run or whatever the activity of choice may be.

My exercise buddy (the same as my running buddy, however we just rarely run anymore) and I have been slacking particularly hard these days. Shes been out with a bummed knee, and I've been having some hip/lower back issues that we're trying to sort out. Add my crazy ass school/work schedule her mommy schedule into the works and you have a recipe for chaos. So till today we hadn't gone for a run or a spin class in a couple of months I'm guessing.

We finally decided that it was time to get our asses in gear, and well I can't speak for her but generally when we go for a run, we are garunteed at least an hour of bitching time. SO I certainly have been missing the run n rag sessions. We decided pretty easily that while running might not work out we should for sure hit up a spin class.

Now we had only done one other spin class before tonight, and the instructor of that class was a real tyrant. I barely walked out of that class alive. At this point I had finished a 10K run, was running three times a week and in pretty good shape might I add, and I wanted to die. I hurt for days after (broken sit parts? I think so, I honest to god had bruised lady parts from the damn seat) and I spent the entire hour thinking "alright blond bitch I'm going to cut you if you say "this is sooo easy!!!" one more time!!! We also spent the entire first class in the back heckling, which I'm thinking did not make us too popular with the rest of the spinners. The instructor would say "Add tension!" we'd say "you're f*in insane lady!!!!!"....and so on and so on....bad students we were....

So once we decided to "get back on the bike" this time round I was praying that hitlers great granddaughter would not be teaching again. We get to class and sign in and wait. To our great surprise the blonde tyrant has been replaced by a sweet looking brunette with a cherry disposition, and while EB (exercise buddy) and I are not fooled, we are pleased with the change.

The class starts and we're off! We started with a really nice and easy warm up, complete with light stretching and a bit of spin sprinting. If you've never taken a spin class you really have no idea what you're missing! You don't really need to be able to ride a bike as all the bikes are stationary and you get a great work out! The instructor tonight was fantastic and gave a us a great go, but the whole time the class was riddled with contradictions!

I don't know about you but I don't want to hear the instructor continuously tell me to "push myself" but to not "hurt myself" and to "listen to your body"....well ok....generally to push ones self they must, ignore their screaming limbs and burning lungs and carry on. Hmmm seems fishy to me folks!

Regardless of the few "push" and "stay safe" comments the class was a success...which to celebrate EB and I promptly stopped for subway and their lard laced cookies. Yet another contradiction however I feel a necessary one. I always end up sweating out of pores I never knew I had at spin classes so the least I can do is rehydrate with a cola and pad my butt with a cookie. See the way I see it is I need to be heavier for spin because maybe the damn skinny seat won't cause my butt to hurt! Another contradiction? I think so!!

Regardless here I sit after having watched America's Got Talent (How dare America not vote for Poppycock!!!!!) And cringing at the idea of homework and dishes...sigh! I also need to do laundry, clean the cat box and make some sort of lunch to take to work tomorrow (Thursdays I get to remember what it was like to be an ex-student as I do not have class). Till next time blog-o-sphere...I'm off to hobble down the stairs....and have a date with a couple of my best buddies Advil and cold water!

The Gaslight Anthem ...Or why Price Line Can Kiss My Ass

I'm bbaaaaccccckkkkkkk! Miss me? The last half of my summer was such a whirl wind couple of months that I can't believe what I did and how I made it out alive. But alas here I am back at it and into fill swing!

So I guess the name of my blog is a little hypocritcal as I am now back at school. I'm still on waitlists and trying to figure out my crazy schedule so I'm not sure if I'm back full time or not but I'm for sure taking two classes and hopefully two more...so full time...and working 22 hours a week, and volunteering at skating competitions, my skating club, and the hospital....sooo in short I have no life. Oh well...bring that on its not like I'm not used to it! Besides if I don't keep busy what will I blog about?

My most current complaint? That Priceline are assholes. William Shatner should me ashamed of himself as he is full of himself...SHAT that is.

One of my best friends (who I love but we do not really have the same tastes) asked me a few weeks ago if I was interested in going to see some band that she thinks are "totally awesome" and that she was dying to go. In other words she needed my credit card to buy the tickets and to book a hotel. How someone could be 22 (we're not the same age) and not have ever had a credit card is beyond me. So I agreed thinking "this will be fun!"....the annoying part? I'm super cheap. This last minute 'go back to school' decision was not a cheap choice. So the idea of having to take a ferry (75 bucks one way for a car and two people), 40 bucks for a ticket, and 50ish bucks for a hotel for the night only for a couple hours was really daunting. My friend offered to pay hotel (mostly because I had no problem staying at the ferry in the car and it scares her) and I conceeded that I would go to the concert for the Gaslight Anthem (a band I had never heard of nor ever tried to listen to before).

So we bought the tickets and then when it came to booking a hotel we checked out priceline.com. Now I felt bad my friend was paying, so I didn't want to go super ritzy, and seeing as I was willing to sleep in the car I would basically sleep anywhere. So we punched in $95 into priceline and 2 stars, and figured "why not lets just try it?".

We picked a hotel that was cheap but looked clean, good reviews, claimed it had a double bed, free parking and wi-fi and breakfast included with the price. We figured that we would be out late because of the concert and that why spend a lot when we weren't really going to need it? This place was only two blocks away from the Commodore Ballroom (concert venue) So we figured why not?

Well we get to the mainland and get to the hotel and we are more than shocked to find what our 96.53 leaves little to be desired. No free parking, double bed about two inches bigger than a single, pubic hair in our sheets and that the bathroom was shared. Now granted, I went back and looked at priceline again about the shared bathroom thing and it does say it flat out. But having to park two blocks away and pay 24$ over night, after thinking that there was free parking? NOT GOOD. That brought the total cost to 120 which we could have spent on a better hotel and got free parking.

So that sucked. Granted, it was good for a laugh and it made my friend think twice about sleeping in the car at ferry terminal and now I have this wicked story to blog and whine about. But I'm still rather irked that this happened. We even told the clerk about priceline and they flat out said something along the lines of "yes we've been trying to get them to stop booking people in to our hotel because they are falsely advertising us" so there isn't a whole lot to be done.

So how was the concert? It was ok. Now don't get me wrong. I love myself a good concert. I like the noise, the lights the whole atmosphere of all these people coming together with at least one thing in common, they want to see the band. The Commodore Ballroom to date is one of my favorite venues. It's small (It has under 1000 people capacity), has 4 different wet bars to get drinks from, tons of little tables, a balcony at the back to over look if you don't want to be in the crowd, and an awesome stage. The whole place has tons of windows that all get closed when the band takes the stage, and a seriously cozy feeling to it. You don't feel like you're "watching a band play" you feel as if you are part of the show because its super easy to get within a couple metres of the stage and see the sweat on the bands face.

The main act last night happened to be Gaslight Anthem. They were ok. I had never heard of them till I got asked to go to the concert, and while I had great intentions of listening to some of their tunes before the show, life got in the way. So this whole review will be a little bias. I didn't know any of their music, didn't even recognize a single one of their own songs (they did a couple covers I liked), so this made it super hard to stay invested in the show. However, the music was pretty good. The band certinalyl looked like they loved being on stage. It didn't look like a job but more of a passion to them. Their encore lasted almost as long as their original set. It looked as if they just didn't want to leave. They did an amazing cover of "American Girl" and they looked like they just didn't want to stop singing. They ended up playing a full two hours, which these days is pretty unheard of. That having been said, I didn't love it. I mean, the crowd was great and the music was ok, but listening to something you don't know for 2 hours was too much for me. I was really tired to begin with but after two hours of 'head nodding' to beats I'd never heard really sucked the fun out of it for me.

So my bits of advice for the day? Be very careful when booking hotels online. Stick to chain brands that can be trusted and don't cheap out because you might end up with another persons pubic hair in your bed and that? NOT COOL. Second bit of advice? If you are going to go see a band, do your auditory research and save yourself some suffering and know who the band is before you go, that way the concert won't seem like the same song on repeat. Thirdly if you like The Gaslight Anthem (or you know have at least heard a couple of their songs) , then you should go check them out! The whole crowd seemed to be really loving the show and had a fantastic energy. They played a two hour gig and kept up a great pace the whole time!

Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

So, I clicked onto my blog today, thinking, 'oh I'll just make sure that everything is lookin good' (code for I want to see if any one left any comments etc). And to my shock and amazement it has been five days since I posted! Bah! When I first started my blog I got super excited and wanted to make posts like three times a day, and now, life has gotten in the way. Sigh.

So why have I been so busy? Well that would be because I took a part time job. Yup Monday morning I started my new part time career in sales. Phone sales....yup....you are now reading the blog of "Ex-student now Telemarketer".....yea I'm one of those people everyone hates. Great.

Job offers have yet to start flowing since I finished my degree. The economy is in the hole, and there are no local jobs for anyone in my field. (ugh why do I feel the need to tell everyone my reasoning on taking a job?). So, I started to cave and started applying for everything. Anything I was even some what qualified for I sent in a resume. And presto, I got a call. Just one. For a telemarketing position. They made me read a script over the phone, and presto I was hired to come in for a test run. Oh and might I add, that they will let me take other temp gigs still and they will give me a 1-5 shift mon-fri when I start school again. Um....wow huh? A company that wants to hire students.

The catch? I'm the person everyone hates. No one wants to talk to me, wants me to keep calling or wants to hear anything about anything I could possibly want to say. Everyone thinks that I'm trying to sell something that has a huge catch. When really? Well I think I may have lucked out because why yes we do want to sell you classes, we don't actually want you to pay for them. Currently the BC gov't has 15ish million dollars they want to hand out as grants to help small businesses train current employees. So say you own a trucking company. You have between 1-49 employees and you are a registured business operation for at least one year. You are eligible for a non-repayable grant for up to 5000 bucks. The catch? Um...well you do have to apply for the grant with a course already in mind, but thats where the company thats hired me comes in to save the day and say that we have a whack that are funded by the money (yea go figure).

But as luck would have it? No one gives a rat. Some guy even thought that it was all a ploy to get even more tax payers money away from the tax payers....and I mean I get it! Telemarketers suck! Well you know what sucks more? BEING ONE. No one wants to even try and listen with an open mind. And I'm not even trying to sell you something. I just want to try and get you meet with our training specialist to tell you how to apply for funding and maybe some info about the courses we offer.

I dunno, the flexibility is appealing but for whatever reason I cannot stand to waste peoples time, or piss them off. Ugh I suck at sales! I can't seem to sell myself which I think is pretty obvious as this is the only job I could get, with no sales experience, and I cannot get a job as I cannot sell myself in a resume/cover letter. So I don't know how well this is going to go at all. How my pay works is that I get paid 10 bucks an hour plus for every appointment with a sales specialist I make I get an additional 10$. I have worked 12 hours and booked only one appointment. Therefore I have made 120 dollars in wage and 10 in appointments. That means my total hourly rate has been 10.83. I could make more shoveling manure (I know this because I have).

So! Here I sit. Contemplating just how the heck I'm going to make enough money to pay my tuition by the end of September and finance my European vacation come April. Will I make it? Stay tuned.

To all my fellow British Columbians I want to wish you a very happy BC day!!! I'm heading out of town to have a pirate themed weekend family reunion, as well as am taking my computer in to be fixed in mere moments so I won't be around to wish you all a happy day off! Take care folks and I'll see you after the long weekend!