Life Update

I can't believe where the past few months have gone.  Crazy busy plus I just got back from a trip to visit family and friends in Calgary.  The purpose of the trip was to begin taking my belongings back to Calgary as I am near graduation, only having had two work related interviews, and no job offers.  My winter gear and all other assorted accoutrements were pack to drive back to Calgary and I received a phone call asking me to come to a job offer meeting.  Yep.  A job offer and I am not finished my degree yet.  This has never happened to me before.  All those hours of volunteering, spent typing at my computer, meeting and greeting people in a new province paid off and I was being offered a job.

When I went to the interview I was ready to negotiate but the organization that wanted to hire me was not.  They had pulled out of their budget what they could and it was a take it or leave it option.  The pay is not great, in fact at my yearly review next summer I will be asking for a big raise, but the opportunity to lead this recreation organization in Manitoba will be phenomenal.  I am excited and surprised, intimidated and in awe of full-time employment.  For the record, this will be the first time in ten years I have to work over the summer.  (No sympathy from you nine readers eh?)

Wish me luck and skill and I venture forward and finish my thesis at the same time!

Cheers!

Financial Irony and Toolkits

This week I received mail from my Member of Parliament (MP) Joyce Bateman.  She is letting me know that the "our government wants to strengthen financial literacy across the country".  This sudden need for the population of Canada to become more financially literate is in part due to the increasingly large individual non-mortgage related debt load we are accruing each year.  So there is this new nifty website that you and I can use to assess our financial literacy and then decrease our individual debt load.  It appears to be well organized and have some sound advice and fun ways to determine the users financial literacy.

May I suggest an additional step to decrease the debt load for some Canadians would be for the government to offer more grants and scholarships (not based on GPA as a mark of those who are deserving), rather than hand me out more students loans (which I do appreciate), then charge me interest (which is hogwash).  Not sure how me paying interest back to the government on student loans is helpful for recent post-secondary grads and our financial debt load, but at least my financial literacy will increase in having to adjust my payments for such financial intricacies.   But, as usual, I digress.

Here is the website and I will look it over to see if my financial literacy is high enough to get out from under the load of debt I have accrued doing my master's degree:

Financial Toolkit

In other, but related news, the federal government has hired a private company to help them increase their financial literacy.  The company has been hired by the federal government to find ways for the government to decrease its spending and save money, and for these services the company is being paid $90,000 per day, $20 million in total for the entire contract.  In response I just want to say...let me introduce you to a little tool kit of which I am aware ;)......


Here is Rick Mercer's response:

December 21: Are We Gone Yet?

It is the end of the world today.

Well, maybe not.  

Most likely just a normal December solstice.

Either way I am repeating the same questions I posed to friends and family as I did several weeks ago on the day 12/12/12 near 12:12 PM.  

I Love Jezebel!

For all those people who were disgusted at the type, amount, bizarreness, and uneducated number of rape comments made during the American election, this article is for you and me!

Team Rape Lost Big Last Night

Random Photos

We all do it now that access is so much faster.
We take random photos of things we find hilarious, meaningful, interesting or crazy.
Here are a few shots I have taken over the last few months with quick explanations.
Enjoy!

Green Eggs and Ham!

Well the closest I may ever get to it.

Thanks to Stella's Cafe and Bakery and their delicious Eggs Benedict topped off with a lemon spinach sauce.  The flavour was effervescent and I loved the eggs and ham that Sam grew to love, even if he was in a house / box / train.

Learn to what?!?

How does one do that?

Thank you rideuacanoeclub.ca and the loss of letters that put a smile on my face.

Graffiti reads:

"Jesus loves me but I just want to be friends so it's awkward."

Graffiti in the washroom of the politically left wing University of Winnipeg,

located in downtown Winnipeg, Manitoba.

More graffiti that reminded me of a book I just read about blogging, Blog Theory by Jodi Dean, and how we have become a 'whatever' culture, referring to:

"The whatever blogger just wants to get something up there, to connect, to be counted, to leave her mark, to start a meme. Dean calls this “reflexive communication”: communication caught up in its own excited loops of chat. Personalization, she argues, shapes and neutralizes every act of participation by putting the focus not on a sustainable collective identity but on the giddy “look at me” moment of the Instagram and the status line. The whatever blogger is, like, fifteen, forever." - Julia Lupton, Los Angeles Review of Books.


I am like, so, like, blogging, like, forever.  Whaaaatever!

Be Careful

Be careful what you take to final exams.

Things fall out of back pockets when you sit for three hours.

Then again, it sure added some joy to the supervision part of my day.

(Psssst!  In case you can't see the yellow object, it's a condom.)

Still Too Busy?

Gargameg,

One thing you should try it out

Hold a mirror shoulder high

When you're older

Look you in the eye

When you're older

Look you in the eye

- Tsmurf

Projection Ruined This 

or

Dance to These:

Sarah Jarosz - Run Away  

Imaginary Cities - Manitoba Bossa Nova 

Mary Chapin Carpenter - I Have a Need for Solitude 

Sarah Slean - The Right Words 

Spirit of the West - Political

Dar Williams - Closer to Me 

The Swell Season - Two Tongues 

City and Colour - Sam Malone 

Gotye - Somebody I Used to Know  

Keane - My Shadow 

Sarah Slean - Set It Free

Pee in a Cup

I had a student once who thought it would be funny to pee in a cup during lunch program and walk around, table to table, showing it to other students.  Trust me, he had a list of crazy things he did that year that I can now laugh at, but back then, not so funny.

I also have a grandfather who was dying in the hospital of cancer in the mid 1980's.  The nurse delivered his pee cup just as he was finishing his breakfast.  He thought it would be funny to put his apple juice in the pee cup.  When the nurse returned, my grandfather said the cup looked too full, grabbed it, took a few sips out of it, then handed it to her.  Yep.  That was my trickster Grandpa Pilling.

This wee cartoon is for both of you and for any other person with a pee story out there.  I am sure we all have at least one.

Clueless Squirrel

During one of my neighbourhood walks this fall, I happened upon this scene.

I wondered if the squirrel had any idea that a clear, thin piece of glass was the only thing separating it from a game of cat and mouse, with an actual cat.

I wondered if the cat was thinking about all the fun chase and tag games 

it could play with the squirrel.

And then the cat became distracted and it saw me.  

But the squirrel is still clueless.

Uh...Really?

While studying in the abnormal heat of September in Assiniboine Park in Winnipeg this past fall, I took a break, went for a walk and found a place to relieve myself.  I found a port-o-pottie, a place we all dread and praise at the same time.  Better than a bush along the river I suppose.  On the door I spotted a sign.  Yep. Odd?  Weird?  or Normal?  You decide.

The saviour of my bladder.

Follow you on what? Really? Why?

Worth My Time?

Today I spent 7 hours completing government tests for potential employment positions at which I have a .0008% chance of being offered.  If I receive an offer, however remote, it could be awesome.

What is worth my time?
What is worth your time?
In getting older, I am getting more picky about my time.
Today may or may not have been worth my time.

Project Love Manitoba: Gravel Pit Swimming

A friend of mine moved to Manitoba several years ago from Nova Scotia, and is having a difficult time adjusting to a different province.  We may be one country but as many Canadians know, each province and territory has it own unique flavour, feel, natural beauties, and points of interest. Moving is one of the most stressful experiences of life (find more life event stresses here) and the adjustment requires a person to figuratively walk through several stages (there are several theories) but some identify a total of seven:

1. Dread

2. Freneticism

3. Planning

4.Waiting

5. Euphoria

6. Negotiation

7. Adjustment

(from the John Hamilton Network)

Up until the end of the Waiting Stage, you have not actually physically moved as of yet.  If it is a move that you are not really looking forward to, after you arrive, you may not experience the euphoria stage (the honeymoon portion including joy and excitement of the new) for a while.  Once the euphoria is over, you may get stuck in the Negotiation Stage, during which the realities of a new place are evident and frustration, anger or even depression might settle in for a while.  Either way, you just don't want to be in this new place.  You have created a long mental list of what you miss from your old home/city/province, and very little in your new place compares.

So far I have enjoyed many things in Winnipeg and in Manitoba.  After a trip home to see family in August, I returned to Winnipeg and felt the stings of the Negotiation Stage.  So when my friend, and another mutual friend, decided that it was time to form a plan, the I Love Manitoba Adventures, I was very interested.  The idea is to look for as many interesting and enjoyable things we can do in Winnipeg but more importantly all over the province, unique to Manitoba, then do as many as possible.  We have been able to squeeze in several adventures but the plan will be even more important as the long Manitoba winter sets in.  Last January through February we had 6 weeks of -30 to -45 degrees Celsius.  When the temperature rose to -15 degrees Celsius it felt like a spring day.  Like I said, this part of the year is going to be the harder portion.

The two adventures we have managed to squeeze in so far include a swim at a gravel pit and a trip to tube down a river, that morphed into a boat float on Lac de Bonnet.  Here are the shots we took and the commentary from the gravel pit, all of which is helping us enjoy the province in which we are currently living.

Gravel Pit Swimming

This is a gravel pit we did not swim in but a working pit Christa took me to, 

to show me she was not a fool (I had my doubts).

The actual gravel pit Christa came upon by accident one day, 

trying to make her way to a different pool of water in the distance.

The water was the aquamarine colour of lakes in BC.  Unbelievable really!

It was a hot, hot Manitoba day and the cool, refreshing water is exactly what we needed.

This is new for me.  I did not know that water collected in gravels pits (abandoned or currently being used) and that people swam in them.  At first I was very doubtful and asked a few friends about it.  They had been swimming at gravel pits for years but warned not to go near the edges as the leeches would come out to play.  What?!?  Ugh?!?  I did my best to avoid the blood sucking creatures.

In We Go

My New Favourite Saying

Found this on the '1,000,000 Pissed Off Women' page I am a part of on Facebook.

Makes me want to start singing Disney's version of Snow White, with excessive vibrato as I do when my sisters are around, 'one day my Prince will come, one day...'  Ha ha!  Love it!

All Books Are Not Created Equal

The post below may have just been qualified.  Please take the time to select books that enlighten and enlarge the mind, rather than those that reinforce stereotypes, old notions, and inequality.

Awful Library Books

PS.  Don't forget to check out the disturbing books on the website above titled I'm Black & I'm Sober, The Right Touch and Why Do People Harm Animals and Beefcake.  Yikes!

Ridiculous? or Hilarious?

I can't decide if this is the most hilarious blog I have seen in a while, the most weird, the most creative, the most bizarre, or a person with a great deal of time on their hands.  Then again, this looks like an extension of authored books, that is worth anyone's time.  Give it a peak:

My Milk Toof

Fixed It?

I have been in Ottawa enjoying the debates involved in student governance, seeing old friends, and visiting sights I dearly love.  A post about that to come later.  For now, a new website for me:


see more There I Fixed It

For more hilarity, check out:

There, I Fixed It

(A part of the Fail Blogs)

Mr. Diety

As I was trying to avoid work this past weekend I stubbled upon this.  It is so funny!  Especially for those of us who don't mind making fun of religion.  mr.diety is the brain child of Brian Dalton who was raised in as a Christian and has become an atheist after having taking a long hard look at what he had learned and how so much of it, to him, became absurd or even dangerous to believe.  He has taken his real life experiences, the research he has completed, and his inner humour to create a clueless god who lacks empathy, that not only is creating a random universe with enormous flaws but with hilarious side-kicks.  Larry, his left hand man appears to be smarter, more empathetic and much more logical than god himself.  Then there is the former flame, Lucy (a.k.a. Lucifer), who is charge of creating hell and ensuring that those who arrive are treated properly.  Let me tell you about Jesse, a delightful looking man who is god's right hand man, who has accepted the role of being Jesus, although he is constantly wanting to get out of his final demise.  It is on to season three and quite interesting, hilarious and demonstrates the absurdity of so many of the beliefs that people automatically accept without actually understanding the theoretical and logical broader consequences of these beliefs.

May I encourage you to watch.  Most entertaining and enlightening.

mr.diety blogspot

Brian Dalton About mr.diety and moral atheism

  
So far this is my favourite season 1, episode 8:

Go!!!!

Elizabeth May!!!

Green Party may get their first seat on Parliament Hill ever!!!

NDP make us proud!!!

Liberals, maybe next time more blue will be turned red.

Harper Government Government of Canada:
do not screw up health care in 2014

don't bring up gay marriage again, it's legal, leave it alone

don't revisit the abortion debate, it needs to stay legal

we don't need more cuts to corporate taxes

we need funding to organizations that represent and give voice to the poor and the oppressed

remember, Canada is not a totalitarian democracy

you are not the government

you are merely elected to listen to us, the people, as we tell you what to do

so listen this time

listen

CBC sharing the news with us

Wild Words from Wild Women

Oh to not care about what one looks like!

"I have...now reached the age where I have positively not an eyelash

 of physical vanity left: my clackers can rattle down to my flat feet 

and my wig drop off in front of the howling mob for all I care."

- Caitlin Thomas, widow of poet Dylan

MY BIRTHDAY!!!

'Tis the day of my birth!

39 years ago my mother was in pain as my father looked one in hapless wonder at the 10 pound girl that was popping out of the womb

5 times I have come close to no longer being alive or have to serious injury: meningitis at 4 months old, near drowning at around 5, jumping off the side of the pool backwards requiring 5 different sets of stitches, pulling a large set of tables and chairs on top of me at church as I was trying to use them for a good swing, having a nap in the Regina in the cold shed as no one was home.  Yep, I have been an easy one.  :)

6 is the number of countries I have lived in over the past 39 years.  15 countries I have visited on top of that.  5 provinces in which I have lived in Canada thus far.

2+1 degrees I have obtained or am currently working on.

23+2 is the size of my immediate family.  The Bates family has grown over the years and I love every one of them for different reasons.  (Note the cookie gift from sisters.)

140 posts on this blog since November 2009.  There are approximately 102 million blogs in the Internet.  Thanks to all those who have stopped by here, especially those who have made comments here or elsewhere.

4 active and delightful hobbies that occupy my time: blog stalking, ceramics, volunteering at live musical events, and photography.  I should add spending time with interesting and open-minded people in there too, 4+1.

40 more years of life to live before I am willing to slow down.

39 new, interesting, exciting, different, enjoyable, thought provoking, 

challenging, mind-boggling, wonderful, guffaw causing, outrageous things 

I am going to try this year, the last year of my 30's.  

February 2010: Luxor Temple in Egypt

Feel free to join me!  

Yippee to another incredible year!!!