Friday, July 25, 2008

John Williams, Bagpipe style

More awesome stuff about downtown! Frequently, somewhere near the intersection just below my building, you can frequently hear street musicians playing. And since I'm only 6 floors up, I can usually hear them from my desk at work. A few weeks ago, it was a guy with a sax playing the Beatles and Simon & Garfunkel. Today, we got a dude in a kilt playin' the bagpipes. He started off with a bizarrely jazzy 'Scotland the Brave'... and then segued into the Star Wars theme song. It was the greatest bit of pipery I've ever heard (and believe me, I've heard a lot).

Now, this building I work in. It's not a secure building by any means. Anyone can waltz in, take the elevators up to wherever they want to go. The offices themselves are locked, though (hell, you even need a code to get into the bathrooms) so there are courtesy phones outside the doors for visitors. Well, a few weeks ago, ours disappeared. Someone called in around 10:30 one morning, and by the time the Purolator delivery dude showed up around 11, the phone was gone. The few of us who noticed just assumed it was removed for repairs or something and didn't give it a second thought; at least, not until the office manager found out and freaked out. Turns out someone decided to STEAL our phone. It still makes me laugh.

And then there's the crazies. I'm not (just) talking about the Scientology center a few blocks north. There's also the dudes who mutter to themselves; talk to themselves; argue with themselves; and scream obscenities at themselves so loud you can hear them from 3 blocks away. And my personal favorite, the Indian lady who's dressed like every other working schmuck around and doesn't seem at all unusual... until you take a look at the sheaf of papers in her hand, which turn out to have things like "WHEN YOU SLEEP IS WHEN THEY GET TO YOU" written on them in big blue marker. She holds these papers at her side, like she's just carrying around some reading material, and shuffles the messages around as she walks. It's a very unique way to deliver your message, I'll give her that.

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Oh, downtown....

I now have 2 jobs. One, in the 'burbs, at a public library, working in the circulation department. Blah blah, boring. Although last night I had one patron apparently have a heart attack and leave in an ambulance, and another lovely fellow try to tell me that public libraries shouldn't have displays about homosexuality because it was a perversion, right up there with drug addiction, and kids shouldn't be exposed to such filth. Lucky for him he was out of punching range.

The other is downtown, working for a non-profit organization that basically provides resources for other non-profit organizations. This one is not so boring. My desk is right next to a giant window; across the street from us is a big condo building, and I can pretty much always see right into their windows when they neglect to shut the curtains, which is usually. Like this afternoon. When a couple of girls were washing the windows in one of the units, presumably in preparation for moving in. Only one of the girls wasn't wearing any pants. That's right, she was washing windows in her panties on the 4th floor in full view of anyone in the surrounding buildings.

So you can see why I feel that working downtown is going to be fantastically entertaining. I have to start reporting all the crazy things I see/hear down there, because really, they're frequently too good not to share. I only wish I had some kind of secret spy camera so I could provide photographic evidence of things like Homeless Jesus, who was about 7 feet tall and walking down the street telling the story of Moses and the Jews wandering the desert like he was there (he kept referring to his brother Moishe). Or the giant brass statue laying on a flatbed truck with a couple of construction dudes sitting on it. The statue, not the truck. I should also snag a pic of the stretch of Yonge where they filmed the street fight in the Hulk. Although it's kinda depressing because Sam the Record Man is closed, the Zanzibar is actually a strip club, and there is no Apollo (they built that facade in front of a tattoo parlor and an adult movie theater). It's also about 2 blocks from where I work. Which rocks. Did I mention that already?

Monday, June 9, 2008

Re-permitted!!

So I just got my shiny new work permit in the mail - and it's good for 3 years! Should be MORE than enough time to get my permanent residency. Also it means I can finally get back to work. I've actually got 2 part-time jobs that have been waiting on this permit, so hopefully next week, I'll be nearly full-time employed!

Friday, April 11, 2008

I return...

In honor of today being the LAST DAY OF SCHOOL, I thought I'd post a little update.

Since my last post, I'd like to say I've been far too busy to update... but I'm really just lazy. All I've been doing is going to school, knitting, and tutoring a few hours a week. Still no job, but I've got some applications out and I'm hopeful. Trouble is, after May 31, I can't legally work here unless I've received a job offer before then that's for a temporary position so that I can apply for a post-graduation work permit.

Immigration is a bitch.

Come April 26th, though, I can send out my application for sponsorship (assuming I have all the pieces ready) which shouldn't take more than a few months. Why April 26th? Because in Canada, you're considered to be in a Common Law relationship after 1 full year of cohabitation, and your common law partner is eligible to sponsor you for permanent residency.

Best case scenario : U of T calls me in a week or so for an interview, then offers me the 1-year position and I get a work permit and can stay here legally while waiting for the sponsorship application to be approved.

Worst case scenario : I don't get a job, and they realize I'm still in the country after May 31st and I get deported while waiting for the sponsorship application to be approved. Not that it would be terrible, I'd just go back to San Diego and wait, but I'd miss Mark, my cats, my stuff, and Toronto. Plus, that would be kind of a major pain in the ass.

Also, the whole library school thing is on hold for now... I just don't know if I can handle 2 more years of inane bullshit assignments and homework for something I already know how to do. Maybe I'll do it part time, after I'm a resident, and see how that goes.

Monday, October 15, 2007

Oh, right, that whole school thing...

I realized I've been in school for almost 6 months now and have not blogged about it ONCE. Probably because it's pretty dull, but maybe I'll share anyway, yes?

I'm in the Library and Information Tech, Accelerated, program here at Seneca College. It's "accelerated" because they took the first 2 semesters and crammed them into one for us, so it's a one year program instead of a two-year program. It's not exactly rocket science, so that's not really as crazy as it sounds. Even condensed, the first 2 semesters worth of classes seemed pretty slow to me. I was worried that with 10+ years of library work under my belt, this would be almost entirely review and therefore incredibly dull for me. Well, it's still pretty dull, but there's also some good, useful stuff. A lot of things that I'd learned on the job, I'm starting to see more of the exact hows and whys of them. Cataloguing, primarily. Nothing has been terribly challenging so far, but it's been less dull than I had feared.

Which isn't to say there aren't many moments of extreme boredom. For instance, probably half of my blog posts have been written during classes in the computer lab (like today's, in a class on blogs of all things). In a week, though, things should get a bit more interesting, at least temporarily. One of our requirements for graduation is to complete 3 different 2-week field placements in different types of libraries, as assigned by the field placement coordinator (we don't get to choose, or there's no way I'd be going where I am for my first placement). It's unpaid, but still, it's like going back to work, and I'm looking forward to that. Even if my first placement is at a Government special library - the Ministry of Health and Long Term Care, Strategic Planning and Implementation Branch. Woo! It's downtown, too, which is both a plus (I'll have a chance to explore more of downtown) and a minus (I have to take 3 separate subways to get there). I'm going to try to keep an open mind, though - it could be much more interesting than it sounds. I hope. It starts on the 22nd, and lasts 2 weeks, so even if it sucks, it'll only suck for a little while.

I slack, therefore I am

Um, so I'm a horrible blogger. Actually, I'm just bad at correspondence of any sort. In the past week or so, I've been yelled at by 2 different people for not communicating with them at all since I've moved here. One, my old boss, who was really more like an aunt to me and I feel terrible about not keeping in touch with. The other, my sister via my mom, although honestly I've gone 6 months or so without talking to her before, so I didn't really notice that it'd been that long. Regardless, I've been chastized, and I will make it a priority to send them each a PERSONAL note before this week is out. Also, to update a bit more since there's been a lot of stuff going on that I can share.

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Cricket, anyone?

Sometimes I forget I'm in a foreign country. And then I see things like this to remind me:

"Newnham Rec will be holding tryouts for its Extramural Cricket team beginning Thursday Sept. 20 from 3 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. Selected players will compete against other colleges in Seneca's Extramural Cricket Tournament Thursday Sept. 27. "

This is from a notice posted on the electronic bulletin board for students at my school. A cricket tournament. I can't even imagine the levels of boredom that must involve. I shouldn't be as surprised as I am, though, considering that a lot of the kids in my building were playing cricket out on the front lawn during the summer. Still, it makes me chuckle, as one more reminder of Canada's British heritage.