SIMPLY ELABORATE blog

Archive for the ‘career’ Category

I’ve been running around all week, so I’ve kind of neglected to post anything but I have been productive in other ways. So that’s always good.

It’s official. I’m going to be on the radio. I got my own show every Monday on CJAM from 11am until 12 pm. I’m calling it: Homegrown. Cheesy? Maybe. But I like it. And the fact that I get my own show, obviously. More information and link to listen live to be posted shortly.

I just got back from the cottage to an email and phone message from the lady who interviewed me yesterday about a job at Fern Resort. I got it. If I accept, I’m the new dining room server with the possibility to advance to “Dining Room Captain” which means management by June. So that was a plus as well. I have two weeks to decide whether I want it or not. Great. More decisions, just what I need. I’m waiting on an interview for another resort, but as of yet, they haven’t called for one, so I’m leaning towards this. The other good news is that it begins May 1st which means no waiting for shifts until June. The bad news is that I would pretty much have five days after my exams at the end of April finish to move out of my house in W, move home, repack summer clothes, see everyone and move my butt up to Orillia to start work.

They do say absence makes the heart grow fonder. I guess I’m just going to end up being in love with everybody by the time I move back to T for good.

There are these two girls that I always see at work, every shift, that are always looking to get drunk and always buy their drinks from me. For the past couple of times I’ve said to myself: “these girls cannot be 19, they are so tiny”. But I figure they’re in the place, so they have to be.

On Tuesday though, because I was so incredibly bored and really would have rather been at home studying for my midterm the next day instead of at work, I spent a lot of time talking to them, you know, “building the regular customer relationship”.

The first time, I got their names and stuff like that and asked them regular questions about whether or not they were having fun. The second time it was like old friends saying hi, and then it eventually got to them deeming I was trustworthy and the Avril Lavigne look-a-like confessing that she was actually only 17 and turning 18 in a couple of days. The Lisa Loeb look-a-like confessed to the same.

As the night progressed, my visits to them got fewer and far between because it started to get busy. But one time, I walked by them and noticed that my little tiny friend, I’ll call her Mini Avril because I can’t remember her name, was very upset. Not because she’d been slapped or found out that someone had passed on. I recognized the look on her face, as would any girl, in my opinion. She had this look as though she were going to fall apart in little pieces, crashing to the floor but she was somehow holding it in, the tears, the screams, and just hiding herself behind a pole being consoled by a friend away from the group she was with.

I had to stop. I asked her what was wrong, and she said nothing. I gave her a look and asked again. She then told me the classic boyfriend triangle problem she was having. She was upset because her ex-boyfriend and good friend (who was, incidently, also his ex-girlfriend) were flirting and “all over each other” and it got her really mad because, obviously, she was still “in love” with him.

I listened and nodded when supposed to but mostly I couldn’t believe that Mini Avril was so blind. Apparently the story went like this:

Mini Avril dated this guy for 9 months, he only cheated on her once, with her friend Mini Lisa, and then they broke up. Mini Lisa and the guy started to date. The guy, like, cheated on her 5 times. And now he’s dating one of their friends and he’s cheated on that girl with both Mini Avril and Mini-Lisa numerous times. Mini-Avril was upset because she kissed the guy last week and really wants to be with him because he is totally in love with her, after he only cheated on her once therefore he likes her the best, was ACTUALLY what she rationalized with me.

I stood there completely silent for a minute and tried to process her rationalizing and I really felt sorry for her. She actually did believe this guy loved her because he’d cheated on her the least out of all his girlfriends. I tried to tell her that maybe she and her friends should re-evaulate their friendships without even considering the guy, because obviously there are some trust issues there, and then ALL of them had to dump the guy because He’s Just Not That Into You. Although when I said the bit about He’s Just Not That Into You she kind of gave me a blank stare because I said with the sing song voice that I’ve been hearing about since these authors appeared on Oprah last September.

Then I realized that she probably hadn’t ever heard of the book due to the fact that we live in different generations and she still had hope in asshole guys.

I gave Mini Avril a kleenex and told her to smile because that guy (who look like a dirtier version of Keven Federline – if that’s even possible) was so not worth it and one day, if she stayed at home on Tuesday nights instead of drinking at places she shouldn’t be at so young, she’d realize it.

She smiled, said: “thanks, I think I will”, told me she’d see me Friday and went back to her friends.

I stood there, feeling a little bit unheard and chuckled to myself. I always thought that seventeen was the best year of my life (as thus far) but my trip down memory lane that night made me really, really happy that I am 20 and out of highschool.

Sometimes I feel as though I don’t even have a blog anymore because I’m filling my time with everything but posting for crying out loud.

Tonight’s a big night. I’m going to be on the radio. Me. Em. Whatever you’d like to call me. I’m nervous. Because I don’t know a thing about radio broadcasting because I haven’t taken that course yet. And now I’ll be on the air for 2 straight hours.

Initially it was supposed to be just me, but I figured there’s no way I can do this on my own without any prior knowledge, because I’m sorry, but one 20 minute training session doesn’t even begin to cover all the stuff I’m supposed to know about being on air.

Plus I think I said yes to doing this a little too quickly. I have to do a presentation about myself for tomorrow’s speech class and I’m not nearly as prepared as I should be (ie. I’m not). But I couldn’t turn it down.

I’m on the air in less than 2 hours. Yikes!

On another note, in addition to my brand spanking new job at RUSH, I’ve been offered the position of booking manager for my friend DJ Ruckus. So I’m continually being a busy bee.

Fun times. Busy times. Tired, tired, tired times.

As the last post of 2004 I feel as though I have to look back on my year and see how much thing’s have changed. But I wouldn’t know where to begin exactly because I feel as though EVERYTHING has changed. A lot of the times during this vacation I have caught myself doing my time honoured tradition of “remembering what I was doing this time last year” and realizing it was something completely different than what I’m doing now.

I had the car the other night, went for a drive and ended up at Square One. I walked around all the usual places I shop and didn’t buy anything, to the delight of my mother, but looked a whole lot. When I walked in the bookstore that I spent 3 years of my working life in, it was odd. They’ve renovated since I’ve been there and almost everyone I worked with has moved on as well.

I was flipping through an IN TOUCH magazine and a man who worked there came up to me and asked if I needed any help in finding something. I said no and smiled to myself because I was once that person who did the asking. Although it was funny because hardly anyone I worked with at the time really did it.

These past couple of days have been incredibly weird for me. I’ve been confused and flustered and tired. I’ve been wondering and planning for all the things in the upcoming month, and year, actually, and trying to figure out if I’m at all prepared for any of it. Sure, I have my TO-DO lists and everything all written out, but I just hope that my ability to carry out my plans stay intact.

I have increasingly found myself reverting back into a younger version of myself, back when I was fifteen and looking out into the world yet not interacting with it. I liked it but on the same level it depressed me, it left me to feel as though I couldn’t interact with it, as opposed to merely not wanting to.

Now as I can sit and look around and look back, I can see that I’m doing okay, some things needs improvement but others are A-OKAY. The new year can bring so many new things into my life, into everyone’s, or it can just bring a new date. Whatever the case, whatever the reason, time is flying. The first thing I said at the beginning of 2004 was “L, we’re going to be 20 this year! TWENTY!” she laughed at my comment and said “in 10 months hun” but the 10 months came and went, turning into 12 months passing by as we sit on another “eve” that is upon us.

There are only so many things I can hope for in the new year, not resolutions, but goals. Happiness. Acceptance. Laughter. It’s the little things that matter in the long run anyway.

Happy New Year.

I have about ten minutes before my lunch break is over. Then it’s back to the VIP station to interview people for next semester’s VIP. Oh the answers are fun and exciting, eveything is great. Not the sarcasm and the fact that my eyes are droopy and my body wants to slump on the desk and sleep forever because I’m so tired because the lack of sleep situation is really kicking in.

I slept until The O.C. last night and then proceeded to do my rounds of calling to people I haven’t talked to in a while. Which was nice, but kicked me in the ass once 1 AM came around and I realized that I only had 6 hours of sleep time before work started. It didn’t help that I was so hyper after the phone calls that I couldn’t fall asleep despite my face sinking into my pillow and I was forced to watch an Antonio Banderas movie, which kills me even to this minute that I cannot remember what the title is, not that I really care, or it’s relevant, but I want to know. It was that one when him and Melanie Griffeth meet and she falls for him, but he ends up falling for her sister (and in real life – she leaves her husband and he leaves his wife and they marry and create babies). So yay for Hollywood films and there ability to create love connections.

I get to do some of the interviews myself starting at 3. That means I get to do a whopping 3 interviews and decide if these people are sane enough to do the program myself. Which means they have to be as sane as me. Because I’m in VIP right now! Like right now! Little do they know that they are being interviewed by someone, not only, younger than them, but certainly not qualified enough to be the deciding factor in their acceptance.

Uh-oh. It’s 3 minutes to two. I have an interview at 2. I’m in the basement of the library. Interviews are at Dillon Hall. It’s now 2 minutes to two.

Shit.