Tuesday 12 June 2012

It's Been A While.....

The Departure Lounge 
Obviously, I've been spending far too much time enjoying myself and not nearly enough time considering how much people have been missing my updates and my extremely talented style of writing. I will do my best to go back to regularly posting but I'll use this one as a bit of a round up of the last 2 months of my time here.

  • I passed my official 6 month mark of working in the hostel by....TA DA!...moving in. Circumstances (personal and financial) led me to bite the bullet and give up my privacy and space to move into the staff room. I now share my living quarters with 140 other people, live a whole 40 seconds away from where I work and have a bar in my back garden. Could be worse ;)
  • Reunited after 6 years!
  • I had a visit from an old friend who I first met over 6 years ago in South Africa. It was the first time that me Mick and Viv had been together since we met in Cape Town so it was quite an emotional reunion. It was one of those things where you wonder if it would be awkward after so much time away from each other but lo and behold, it was like we'd seen each other weeks previous rather than years. Spent a lovely couple of days together, along with Mick's partner Conall. Far too short a time together. Looking forward to getting some more visitors before the end of the year!!
  • I finally managed to do something touristy (apart from Steamwhistle) and visit the Art Gallery of Ontario. It was nice and all but I'm really not a gallery type of person. It's just a load of paintings at the end of the day and most of them weren't even that nice. There was a bathroom sink stuck on the wall at one point, that was vaguely interesting. You were supposed to focus on the negative space around the sink. Random.
  • I took up (and subsequently quit) a second job at a Call Centre. Not being one of those really annoying losers who calls at dinner time asking if you would like to switch phone/internet provider or if you want to answer a 30 minute survey on your consumer behaviour habits. No, I participated in what is known as 'business to business guided voicemail messaging'. Sounds way more complicated than it is. I would turn up for 4 hours, dial a load of numbers, usually navigate some sort of automated receptionist to press play and leave a voicemail in the contact's mailbox. Boom. Some new type of direct marketing, we'll see how well it does. 
  • I stage managed a concert for the Irish Choral Society of Canada, it was my second ever paying gig as a stage manager - I wasn't even expecting that! It was a beautiful concert based on an Irish Immigrants tale of coming to Canada and the adjustments that need to be made, obstacles to overcome, all told through a variety of musical pieces performed by the choir interspersed with recitations by the 'immigrant'. It was lovely. They even let me do the light design which was pretty special.
Just to briefly mention some other bits and pieces that will require their own posts (hopefully not too far in the future) - going to see 'Bring It On' the Musical; Medieval Times; Wine Tasting Olympics at the Plummer Chalet, the start of Threesome Thursdays (not what you think!) the end of Karaoke Fridays. So much to tell, so little time.....

Moral of the Story - don't leave it too long between blog updates. Your head will be MELTED with all the stuff you're trying to remember. Then again, if I wasn't out doing all these things, there would be nothing for me to post about now would there?