Back in Scotland and menial job hell

Rowan visiting our new flat.

I have a crap job to go to now eight hours a day and a never ending messy flat. I don't understand-this place seems to need cleaning tons more than anywhere else I have ever lived.

The news about New York has been shocking, though I am feeling numbed by the constant news coverage now. Didn't really have any effect on Scotland at all, except for flight cancellations. Blair says he's shoulder to shoulder with the US, making people here worry about Britain in military strikes on Afghanistan, though I'm not sure it would be such a bad thing to see the Taliban government fall.

Things are rather unexciting here. I'm happy to be back with Alan, but I hate the damn shite filing job with the Royal Bank of Scotland. It's as mindless as the damn Tim Horton's job. I haven't really met anyone here, so all my friends are people going to classes with Alan and I think that once uni starts, they are going to end up his friends really, since he'll be spending time with them and I'll be off filing shite bits of paper in binders with my brain on idle. I hated the last year of my degree but I wish I was back doing it now. Can't please me, obviously. Andrea is coming over in November though, which I am looking forward to a lot. Sounds a bit childish, but I want someone who I don't have to share with Alan! I expected to be doing tons of exciting things, but I suppose that was unrealistic since I am living here and lots of life is sort of boring and normal.

Jenny visits Edinburgh

The picture Jenny took of me on the roof of the Museum of Scotland

Things here are good, Jenny arrived on Wednesday and we've been wandering around with her. We're going up into the highlands tomorrow for a couple of days, up around Inverness.

We had a dinner party last night and the kitchen is a mess! Off to clean up.


On the way home from the Highlands, Alan's Crannog Centre

Fringe Fun

Alan having a caricature drawn at the Fringe Festival, on the Royal Mile.

I'm baaaaaack!

The Castle.



The view from Arthur's Seat.

Nothing cool happens in Bolton

I've never seen zorba the Greek, or read it in fact. Perhaps I will add it to my list, though the list has not been moving so quickly what with all the jobs. No Logo is taking me forever, interspersed with small amounts of the women travel anthology. I tried three times to read the Hobbit and never got more than 100pgs through it. Don't know why really.

Work is very, very depressing. A read a quote once that people who do menial, boring work tend to have menial boring personalities. Ha, no doubt. I keep myself sane by reading no logo on my breaks cause it makes me feel somewhat intellectual and keeps my moral outrage working, rather than stagnating like most of my brain. I don't so much mind the number of hours I am working, but that I never have a full day off. The damn people at dairy queen keep scheduling me for both evening shifts on the weekend which they weren't supposed to be doing. It is just too much to never be able to relax for a full 24 hours, so I am stuck with it this weekend but am going to ask for the Saturday after off.

Added to that is the stress of the SWAP paper work-I need to get everything organized to take down Saturday, which includes fun visits to the bank, which is hard when I work during bank hours. I feel like my mind is constantly replaying all the things I have to do, over and over, so that even when I am at home I have this constant level of stress. I am doing it all so this so I can go to Scotland.

I've heard amnesiac is supposed to be the best album of the summer. There are lots of great albums out lately-new weezer, new REM, etc. I must admit, seeing U2 was probably the highlight of my summer. It all seems downhill from here (well, until Scotland anyway).

My first promotion - a slightly better paid lackey

My friend Deb is stuck drinking American beer. We have a joke here in Canada-how is American beer like making love in a canoe? It's fucking close to water!

I just got promoted to section leader at one of my jobs and got a 65 cent raise, making me feel very guilty as it is an ice cream shop and I will be leaving at the beginning of august and not staying the whole summer. They do know I was thinking of leaving soon... Anyway, I am a big ball of guilt, having also been promoted above several employees who have been around much longer (though they are younger). The drawback to the whole thing is I am now working Monday to Friday all the time, which means I work for 13.5 hours each day, five days a week-I do have weekends off now.

As you can see from my work schedule, I don't have much of a social life. Not many exciting folks in Bolton anyway. I have my first full day off in four weeks this Sunday and I want to go shopping-not to spend my money though, I am saving for Scotland.

I am off to bed at an insanely early hour-after a quick beer and TV show.

Life of a Tim Horton's Employee

Well, life here in Bolton sucks. I work constantly and it is starting to get to me and I am rather irritable all the time. It is hard to be spending all my time doing stupid, menial jobs seven days a week (the only day off I have had in two weeks is yesterday when I went to Kingston to graduate). More annoying is all the people who hear me say how shit it all is and then tell me it's not for long. Well, it is for at least another two months and frankly that's more than long enough. Then people imply that I am about to go on a two year vacation in Scotland-I'm getting a WORK visa, for god's sake, and will probably end up with fairly crap jobs over there.

I graduated yesterday and it was ok. My parents and one set of grandparents came. I hated university so much this past year that I just wanted it over and fuck the marks. I don't intend to go on in classics anyway, though I may someday go back and do something else.

I leave on august 6th, later than I wanted but it was hard to get a flight into Scotland as opposed to London-I ended up with a flight into Glasgow. I have a friend visiting with a few days of my arrival, so I am taking some time off to relax before starting work over there. I don't think Alan will be working then either, so it will be nice to just hang out a bit.

I plan to stay for the full two years allowed by my visa, so people can visit whenever. Alan's parents want to get rid of the futon in his old room, so we are going to put it in our living room and have a place for guests to stay. I am hoping a fair number of people will come visit from Canada.

I am going to go watch a movie I rented-new Waterford girl-it's Canadian and got really fabulous reviews.

Peace and quiet

I spent the nicest day yesterday-my entire family left to go and open up the cottage. It was so quiet and peaceful the whole day. I slept in, read (Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks, now finished), ate lots of pineapple. But the nicest thing was the silence-no blaring TV or loud music or people shouting through the house. I think maybe I am one of those people who are meant to live alone.

Last Thursday I went to see the free REM concert in Toronto and to hand in my SWAP application. I was buzzing all day long-partly the excitement, partly because jenny kept me up all night talking on the phone!

I have had my hair cut, not sure if I mentioned it, and it is short-it freaks me out still whenever I comb it. But my passport photos turned out quite well :)

I start work Tuesday at Tim's, but not until Friday at dairy queen. Such an exciting week!

I have decided to start reading no logo by Naomi Klein cause I think it will be amusing to take it in to work for breaks. I am having quite the literate summer, but needed a break from fiction after having a bit of an overdose in the past three weeks. I wish there was some sort of funky book club around-I think it would be fun. I just own sooooo many unread books.

And I may be going to see a U2 concert this week.

A very Canadian job

I am now a happy, cheerful, smiling Tim Horton's employee. I feel a bit bad cause at the interview it sounded like they were hoping I would stick around for a fairly long time, ie a year, but I did imply that I was taking some time to decide what to do with my life next, ie leave and do something better. I then proceeded to apply for a part time job at Dairy Queen-because it is close to Tim's and I might as well have two shite jobs if I am going to have one. So I have an interview for that tomorrow evening. I start next week at Tim's, so one more weekend of freedom. Can't wait to start wearing that hairnet-speaking of which I am having a significant portion of my hair cut off tomorrow.

The end is nigh

I had my final exam last night and it was brilliant. A bit of a hard exam actually but I think I did fairly well and more excitedly it took me about 40 mins out of the three hours, after which my friend Jas and I went and got totally plastered at a pub on campus. We had 16.5 ounces of alcohol-I was nice and tipsy. I called Alan in spite of the fact that it was like 6 am over there, rather amusing!

My housemate Gord has turned up again after disappearing for three or four days and his girlfriend and mother not knowing where he was and calling incessantly. He will be leaving again on Saturday. I think I will have the place to myself on Monday, which will make moving out a lot smoother. Time to start packing tonight-I have been taking it easy today due to my hungover state.

More drinking and dancing tomorrow-being finished is fucking awesome! Though I don't think it will hit me that I am not coming back in September for awhile.

anyway, I am off to cook something with the remaining contents of my fridge. Should be interesting!

To formal or not to formal?

Argh-I had quite happily decided I didn't want to go to the damn formal, but now everybody is talking about going again. I know I would have fun if all my friends are there and I do have someone to go with but damn is it expensive. Right now I don't feel much like going to Ottawa either-just soooo tired and cranky. Damn research essays! Alan and I have come to the conclusion that I will be moving over to Scotland late July which means moving in with my parents for three months! I am not happy about the idea but it really makes the most sense-I totally can't afford to pay rent and save up as much as I need. I will survive it no doubt. And then I suppose I won't see them for two years-should be time to get over the mental trauma of it all. Only a week now till Alan is here!

A snapshot of me

YOUR LIVING ARRANGEMENT? three annoying guys i met when i moved in-one's a prick, one's a hermit, and one's permanently at his girlfriend's but soon to be living with my darling boyfriend, after a stint living with my PARENTS argh

WHAT BOOK ARE YOU READING NOW? Cunt, by Inga Muscio, i kid you not-third wave feminist book for essay

WHAT'S ON YOUR MOUSE PAD? a picture of my dog

FAVORITE BOARD GAME ? scrabble

FAVORITE MAGAZINE? bitch

FAVORITE SMELLS? vanilla, lavender, forest, the smell after rain

LEAST FAVORITE SMELL? cigarette smoke, my housemate's cooking

FAVORITE SOUND? dido's cd at the moment

WORST FEELING IN THE WORLD? not having the rent money!, knowing you are about to see the dentist

WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU THINK OF WHEN YOU WAKE UP IN THE MORNING? that i need to pee, i'm hungry, i'm going to be late for class, then maybe about alan

FAVORITE COLOR? blue

MANY RINGS BEFORE YOU ANSWER THE PHONE? if i don't get it by three the machine picks up, generally two

FUTURE CHILD'S NAME? kaitlin, adian, ??? not sure about the future child though-how about a future fish? that level of responsibility i could handle.

WHAT IS MOST IMPORTANT IN LIFE? Love, food, shelter, a good book

FAVORITE FOOD? something someone else cooks, presently addicted to cappacino yogurts, things that come in pastery (not pie, but dinner type things)

DO YOU SLEEP WITH A STUFFED ANIMAL? nope

CHOCOLATE OR VANILLA? chocolate

DO YOU LIKE TO DRIVE FAST? i don't drive

LIGHTNING COOL OR SCARY? cool

WHAT TYPE WAS YOUR FIRST CAR? a tonka truck

IF YOU COULD MEET ONE CELEBRITY WHO WOULD IT BE? claire daines, jude law, joe fiennes.

FAVORITE ALCOHOLIC DRINK? pimms and lemonade, chocolate martinis

WHAT IS YOUR ZODIAC SIGN? taurus

DO YOU EAT THE STEMS OF BROCCOLI? yes

IF YOU COULD HAVE ANY JOB YOU WANTED WHAT WOULD IT BE? archaeologist in some beautiful warm place

IF YOU COULD HAVE YOUR HAIR ANY WAY? actually, i like my hair, though it needs a cut-it's a bit too long right now

EVER BEEN IN LOVE? am presently

FAVORITE MOVIE? baraka or an affair to remember

WHAT'S UNDER YOUR BED? a tool box, a book of extra shampoo etc, a box full of binders/paper, my suitcase, an iron, shoe polish, and lots of dust bunnies

FAVORITE NUMBER? i have never understood why i am supposed to have one

FAVORITE SPORT TO WATCH? none-maybe the olympics for the patriotic element

Ranting and Alan in Canada

Alan came over at Christmas which was soooo wonderful. It has been a bit of a bad year, considering that a lot of my friends graduated and left last year and I live with three absolute morons. I am at Queen's and finding the year immensely boring. If I hadn't signed something saying that I would complete my forth year I might not have come back. As it is, I am such a major slacker and just don't much care about my classes. One of them is correspondence and as such I barely look at it. I am performing in a Greek play Iphigenia at Aulis for one class which should be amusing-we get to drink cocktails with umbrellas during the performance though, so if nothing else we will all get hammered. I am counting the days till graduation. I have precious little money this year and so I have a job at the law library on campus. Woo hoo-damn are they arrogant. I need to find a second job now that will last into the summer and I am soooo looking forward to that (insert sarcasm here).

Working holiday visas are frustrating. If I end up with a working holiday visa, I will only be able to work for a year out of the two so I will need to do some pub work under the table I think. I am trying to figure out how much time people actually spend working and if it is more than the advised 50% max. The visa thing is craziness-they have apparently changed it so that the two years starts from the day it is approved but of course they always say not to book your flight UNTIL it is approved. Then they say that it normally takes five days to process but you should send it in 8 weeks in advance. Then there will be two months less time on the visa. I am hoping the travel agent who informed me of this is on crack, but I somehow doubt it!

At first it was weird having Alan visit Bolton, especially having him sleep in my childhood bed!!! My parents were much cooler than I thought they would have been. We went around Toronto, down to Niagara Falls, and to Kingston.

Ranting, TMI, Photos

Snow!!! ARRGH! First it all falls down like it is trying to do all of winter in just one week and it is so cold that my nipples end up permanently concrete and then it gets warm and rains and all the damn snow melts AND the soles of my shoes suddenly decide after two years that they no longer wish to be water proof. And goddamnit, I still have an exam and an essay to go before I can do anything about it!

Plus, I have gained weight. And in just ten days there will be someone around to see me naked. I am now wishing that I had gone to the gym a lot more than just five times this term. And that I hadn't eaten so much chocolate during September. Why is it that comfort eating ends up making you feel less comfortable down the line?!?

Vent over. I am sure I will be in a much better mood once exams are over.

I am still making photo albums for my European trip after the Lunt. I have no idea how I will ever get them all done-I had no idea what an endeavor it would be. I guess considering I have owned a camera since I was in Grade 5 but never put any photos in anything resembling a well organized album, this should have come as no surprise. And I now need to buy more albums. And more of those photo corner thingies, which incidentally are costing me a small fortune.

YES, ANDREA, COME TO SCOTLAND!!! It would be a great idea. Boys with accents. Boys in kilts. Ceildh dancing. Pubs. Hogmanay. Vacations in Europe (well, perhaps not plural for me, Ms. Student-loan-repayer, but at least one!). Me. You. :)

The bastards at OSAP and my poor planning

It is turning out to be a very hard forth year. In addition to missing Alan like crazy, I have lost a large bit of my OSAP loan because it was reassessed and I am struggling with classes and a job. I now need another job on top of that which will be hard to manage. My social life is non existent-but then I can't afford to go out anyway. I am finding in my final year that after all this effort I don't really feel that my classes will lead me in the direction I want to go. I seem to have more of a historical background than an archaeological one and am not sure what to do about that now. I should have taken anthropology and geology and environmental science and chemistry along side my classics courses but it is a bit late to realize that in my graduating year.

If it weren't for Alan, I might have changed my degree and stayed a few more years. But then, I want to spend some time discovering what it is like in the real world, the one outside of university. So I do rather suspect I would do just as well to take the two years to figure out what it is I want to do in a Masters and what I need to learn in order to get to there. Because I am definitely not qualified yet.

Happy Turkey Day

Well, I have eaten more turkey dinners and leftover turkey sandwiches than any other year that I can recall.

I went to Bolton early Friday morning so I could stop at the British Consulate-the bad news is that I will have to get a working holiday visa, which will mean working under the table, and the good news is at least it is cheaper if I apply by myself and ditch SWAP.

I also bought a tight purple low cut shirt. Alan said once that he imagined that Canadian girls must dress frumpily during the winter in lots of bulky jumpers (before we started going out) and I aim to avoid filling that stereotype. Dating is such a pain in the ass-I will need to go out and buy some sexier bras before he comes across as well.

I met up with a bunch of friends in Bolton on Friday night but we couldn't go to our usual bar cause it lost its liquor license for the evening (we assume they were serving minors-shameful!).

Two days of family dinners and four loads of laundry and I am back in Kingston. My train arrived at 3 am and I caught a cold from my brother. Now doesn't the rest of the world wish they could have Thanksgiving too?

Almost Thanksgiving

Ready to be shocked-I am still feeling hungover from two nights ago. Apparently making chocolate martinis without measuring out the alcohol is an unwise decision. I am guess that as the evening went on, they got stronger and stronger. Anyway, I pretty much feel like shit.

I had two tests today and the first day of my job (library assistant) and tonight I have to give a talk on studying abroad. And do my dishes, clean my room and pack to go home for Thanksgiving. I am looking forward to free food, free laundry and free phone calls to Alan! I am sure my parents will love that!

My job seems ok, but is only 5 hours a week and that is nowhere near enough to pay the bills.

By the way, third-year-boy, I must tell you that forth year ain't much better. Not only do I have a ton of work-except in my myth and religion class, what a bird course!-but it is also getting a bit tedious. I just want the damn degree and want out. I am sure I will hate having to find a job and do something tedious and repetitive all day long next year, but at the moment working seems like heaven.

Right, well Alan has totally stood me up on MSN! So I am going to go and do one of the millions of things I need to do, and if he comes on, well, too bad.

A rather unexciting life

It is interesting to be back in Kingston, and in Canada in general, but I am more than ready to go back to Scotland. Alan and I are going to have really big phone bills this year.

He is on an excavation at the moment in the middle of nowhere so apparently they drink every night. This is interesting only because of the two hysterical drunken phone calls I have gotten.

Oops. I have just dropped a sesame seed between the keys and can't get it out. I am sure Ryan is going to love that! He's a comp sci geek, but a very lovable one. I am also living with a guy from China and a wanker named Gord who watches about 6-8 hours of TV a day. To say that he is addicted would be putting it mildly. He actually watched a documentary of the girl who played Punky Brewster yesterday. And he flips channels during commercials in Jeopardy! I hate that!!!

I had my first ever lab last week. It was fun, and my lab group giggled a lot, in spite of our lack of experience. Or perhaps because of it. Anyway, the prof was there and was very interested to hear that I am in archaeology and now stops to chat with me on my way to class.

Anyway, that's about the excitingness of my life lately. Vanessa and I did go out dancing on Thursday at the campus bar, which was fun.

I need more sleep

Dear my beautiful, sweet lesbian lover: I am afraid Alan is a bit deluded and has not yet realized the true nature of our relationship.

On a less jokey note, getting myself a visa for next year is turning out to be a royal pain in the arse. So many forms...

Alan called totally hammered last night and mumbled about: how he loved me, how he almost threw up, how he fell in a bush, and how he loves red wine. It was pretty funny. Then he called today asking if he had said anything embarrassing.

I got a work study allotment, but now have to find a job, which means lots of wasted time writing out cover letters and pretending to love clerical work, dressing up nicely and dropping off CVs. I have an interview for tomorrow, so hopefully I will just get that one. I don't care much what I do so long as the hours are flexible. And they pay me, since otherwise I will have to start eating my textbooks, cause I have no food budget (or fun budget for that matter!).

I am waiting for one of the boys to try some cleaning, but that may take a while (is hell freezing anytime soon???).

All my classes are at 8.30 till 1-2 so I am starting to suffer from sleep deprivation. Last night without thinking I decided to bake a banana bread, yum, but forgot it takes an hour to cook and it was already midnight. I am in training to talk to people about exchanges at the moment-which seems a bit odd cause all my friends just want me to shut up about Scotland. I am thinking I may be rather good at this :) Perhaps I will convince them all to date Scots and start a trend.

I am off to do my women's studies assignment, which I should have done over the weekend, but watched What's Eating Gilbert Grape instead.

The little fiddly things

I have a million things to do but they are all little fiddly things that just take up time I don't really have. I am taking a geology course this year, so have labs for the first time in my uni career. Tonight we also have a lab quiz on geological time frames. I am doing rather well with memorizing them since I only started looking at the sheet during my last class (Archean, Proterozoic, Cambrian, Ordivician, Silurian, Devonian, Carboniferous, Permian, Triassic, Jurassic,
Cretaceous, Paleogene, Neogene!). Practice makes perfect.

The correspondence course which has really annoying assignments, like interviewing women involved in the Second Wave of women's lib, or writing an essay from the viewpoint of someone of a different sexual orientation. It is interesting, but setting up an interview or finding time to think creatively...

Alan is off at field school, and rather sick (just a cold) so I have had lots of rather whiney phone calls. I'm not complaining though, cause the accent is sexy, though the affect is rather ruined by the cold. The obstacle of "I have no money to go to Scotland next year" will be dealt with by hook or by crook (a friend and I are considering selling one of our kidneys on the American black market-it pays rather well). One each of our kidneys by the way, cause looking back at that sentence, it kinda looks like Chad and I share kidneys, which is not, in fact, the case.

I am taking a course on the Iliad because it fit in my schedule and I need to come up with five questions I have always wanted answered about the Iliad by Friday which is going to be marked. Since I am only taking the course because it fit in, I don't actually have any questions. I suppose it is time to hit the library. Or to read the damn book.

My new apartment it just a delight-we have a potato bug infestation, intermittent hot water, enough dampness to require 24 hour running of the dehumidifier, a clogged sink, a $90 bill to have new phone jacks and wiring put in (the dampness is not good for them apparently), no screens on the windows, a crappy fridge, and I have a circular spot of wet carpet that won't dry no matter what I do.