Feelings

Here's a tip for ya: people interviewing you for a job never want to hear about your feelings. 


Ha!  I went for a job interview last week, which is kind of remarkable considering I was still in the throes of post-traumatic stress.  But it was a hard-won interview and even though I love love love love love my job, I'm the kind of sicko who like Lisa Simpson, likes being graded and tested and so I go on job interviews (there are fewer and fewer opportunities for assessment as you get older).  Maybe it's because I miss the rush and pressure of the restaurant biz.  Who knows?  Either way, going on job interviews is good experience - it's a good fact-finding expedition, it forces you to keep your resume and cover letter current, it's good to find out how you stack up in the marketplace, and it allows you to brush up on your interviewing skills, which are good skills to have.  They're also the skills most likely to languish forgotten in the dusty recesses of your brain.


Now I did my due diligence.  I studied up on the organization's strategic priorities, did a thorough search, read the annual report, polled people to find out what their experiences had been interviewing for similar positions and practiced answers to the questions they had been asked.  Unfortunately, everything I studied - they didn't ask me about.  And instead they focused on very concrete, job-based experiences that I hadn't studied up on, and since I don't currently have that professional experience, I had nothing to draw from.  So...I ended up starting a lot of sentences with: "I feel" which is THE WORST.  I had that out-of-body experience where you can hear yourself digging an ever-deeper hole and yet you CAN'T STOP YOURSELF FROM RAMBLING ABOUT HOW YOU "FEEL" ABOUT THE SITUATION.  Worst!  "I really feel like I'd be good for the job because of x, y, z" is a horrible spot to be in.  They don't care how you feel!  People FEEL a lot of things that aren't germane!  Basically, I bombed.  Ah well.  Live and learn.  Now I know what to do next time.


The interview was epic.  2 hours long.  45 minutes to prepare a written component and then 15 minutes to study up on the interview questions before they brought you before the panel for an oral presentation of the written component and THEN the interview began.  Yikes.


Needless to say, by the time Friday rolled around I was ready to partay.  We had the roomie and L'Armi over on Friday night for some fun ice cream and cupcake eatin' and talking late into the night.  We're trying to name their baby.  It's tough.  L'Armi loves patrician sounding "family" names and the roomie likes names like "Moonbeam."  Not quite that bad, but pretty close.  It's hard trying to find a middle ground.


Sometimes it bears repeating: I am a lucky button with wonderful, smart, funny people in my life.  This weekend bore testament to that.


Saturday we chilled and did house stuff and then had dinner at J & S's house.  She made this awesome short rib-pinto bean thing and coleslaw and I made deviled eggs and mini chocolate pudding pies and she made this banana cake with cream cheese frosting.  My favorite part of the night was playing with their daughter, L.  We were peering our their window, with our heads under the shade looking for "night penguins" and then the Big Yam toddled up in his jammies and stood watch next to us and I thought my heart was going to explode.  So best!


Then we hustled home to welcome SMckay for a sleepover!!!  I LOVE SLEEPOVERS!!!  I really, really, really do.  Not for me the sanctity of the insular nuclear family.  I would still have roommates if I could live in a house big enough to afford each family their own privacy but still allowed us to lounge around together in our pjs and eat meals together.  I just like it. It's just my style.  Maybe because I don't edit myself?  That makes it easier.  I'm willing to always let it all hang out - friends or family bearing witness to the domestic strife be damned.  That's just the way it goes, naw mean?


Anyway, hanging with SMckay was obviously the bestest.  We were talking about online dating and looking up this one site that I had read was where all the hipsters go to hook up and the Dotytron made me howl, because he woke up from his slumber on the couch to inquire, "What's going on?  Are you talking about MASH?  Are we doing MASH?"  LOL!  It just makes me laugh how he was suddenly an expert at MASH and totally wanted in (that's Mansion-Apartment-Shack-House to you).  


The next morning we took SMckay to Bonjour Brioche where we ordered a giant breakfast and then went to Lolly's to help her paint her new adorable cute house.  We painted a good chunk of the day and then broke to head to Lil' Ugmo for a post-painting takeout/Family Day hangs session.  First SMckay made us stop at Sherway to go to MAC.  It was crazy so we were circling around FOREVER trying to find a parking spot.  We saw a guy standing next to a car with his back to us, so we're like, "Sweet! Is he leaving?" only to realize that he was PEEING IN THE MALL PARKING LOT.  WHAT. THE. HELL.  Who does that?!???  We all screamed and drove away so fast, completely traumatized.  


We got Chino Loco's for dinner and then basically goofed around creeping on online dating sites and profiles and had the best time ever. I laughed so hard my tummy hurt.  The Dotytron was killing me.  We were all basically group-writing messages to various suitors.  One of them messaged us accusing us (rightly) of "creeping" on his site.  To which the Dotytron had us type back: "Who is the creep?  The creep or the creep who creeps the creep?"  There was a bit more back and forth and then we were left with the task of writing a closing message to this one guy who was a bit of a dummy dud, but a nice one.  The Dotytron's suggestion?  "One last creep.  Goodnight, sweet prince."  AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAA!!!!!!!  GOODNIGHT, SWEET PRINCE!???!!!???  I'm STILL laughing out loud about that, 2 days later.  


Monday we went to hang out with my fam-bam cuz my sis was in town with all the cousins.  She and I took the kids swimming and as we were entering the community centre, we turned around to hurry the kids and were stopped short by the overwhelming cuteness that was Miss Ramona holding the Big Yam's one hand, Little Ze holding his other hand, and also Little Big Cuz.  The four of them holding hands and walking was the CUTEST. THING. EVER.  I basically died inside.  We had dim sum lunch and then Phoenix for dinner.

The Big Yam's first dance with whipped cream straight off the beater

The Big Yam and Little Big Cuz swarming me when I pulled out a banana.  They're like banana zombies.  Instantly drop whatever they're doing and stumble over.

So in short: I basically had the awesomest Family Day weekend ever.  We had big friend laughs and love, big family laughs and love.  What more could you want?  


Today was pancake Tuesday so for dinner we had blueberry buttermilk pancakes, bacon, and a fat baby with bourbon caramel sauce and ice cream for dessert.  


Fin.

conferencing

i went to a conference today. it was okay. my chief concern was making sure that i ate enough - to that end, i spent $20 on food (nutella crepe, italian sausage, poutine, water). i also saw richie florida. he was the keynote speaker. i don't want to say he comes off a little greasy except i just did. also, i know nothing about him but i was kind of suspicious already (in the way that i'm always suspicious and mistrusting of anything i don't know about), so i was blathering to K, "what kind of credentials does he have anyway?" only to find out in the intro that he's taught at harvard, got his phd from columbia - you know, provincial colleges like that. lol! his talk was decent, but unsubstantiated by data, which he claims is in the book. now i'm going to have to read the book(s) so i can tear him a new a-hole with authority.

i also went to my first camp/unconference session...it was called WIREDcamp. it was all about how anyone who doesn't use social networking is a tool (that's their position, not mine) and how twitter is the be all and end all. i called someone a fascist. mainly for saying that use of social networking tools should be used as a base-level skill before hiring someone. i was like, ummmmm...how many of you know how to manipulate data effectively in an excel spreadsheet? and the rebuttal i got was that those skills were way more specific. how 'bout you come talk to me when oh, i don't know, INTELLECTUAL RIGOR, READING COMPREHENSION, AND THE CONCEPT OF COMPARABLE DATA becomes a base-level skill before hiring someone? how about that? you gotta crawl before you can walk, son.

i was like, you know why people hate you guys? because you act like freakin' social networking moonies. the discourse gets framed with a quasi-religious fervour that can be QUITE off-putting and alienating. also, SOCIAL NETWORKING IS ABOUT THE SOCIAL! there has to be a USE for it in your day to day work life. so yes, if you're in communications or running consultations or something, then i can see the use of it. but it shouldn't be mandatory for someone working in payroll or something - especially as it can't be demonstrated that for their WORK it's necessary or will make things easier. let people have fun on facebook on their time off, to chat with their friends. and another thing - it's one thing for twitter to exist, it's another thing to force our work flows to adapt to it for the SAKE of it. make the technology work for you, don't force your work into the technology.

also the discourse gets framed in a very antagonistic way and you know what? that's REALLY OFF-PUTTING. plus, it's hard to get into social networking for work when you work in a politically sensitive environment. social networking tools allow for the collapse between different subject positions that we assume in our lives - so work people can suddenly access stuff about me, whereas traditionally - those avenues were kept separate. at the same time, when you work in a professional environment, you have to MAINTAIN those subject positions concurrently - so you can't really be "you" if you link your job information to your profile.

i'm coming across as more negative than i actually am. i think this stuff is great, overall. wikis really helped my family plan our family vacay and it has cut down on the backlog of email convos when you're doing group projects at work. and twitter is fantastic in giving me a window into REAL TIME spats between lindsay lohan and samantha ronson. but i think the discourse is all-too-often really patronizing to people who don't use the stuff. like you HAVE to. it's a choice! remember choice? and "social networking tools" becomes this black box for a larger picture that's not being discussed - stuff like knowledge management and retention, like information management, like general media literacy. it should be part of a larger dialogue to make the base of skills in a workplace more well-rounded - so that i know how to use outlook effectively AND post on a wiki AND understand what it means to be flamebroiled on a messageboard for being an attention whore AND organize your blog reading list. it's all part of it. knowledge and information as a WHOLE, not solely through the lens of social networking tools.

[/rant]

we got rid of the dining set. yay! so all that leaves now is the bed. the bed isn't a deal-breaker - it's easy enough to take apart and move. so now we need a new dining table. i kind of want something that's expandable - as you all know, i love to entertain and frequently host large groups. i'd like it to comfortably seat 8, if at all possible. space is a bit of an issue. the easiest route for me to go would be mid-century danish style - but i don't want our whole house to be that and we already have a buffet in the dining room that's going to be like that.

really, i want something kind of rustic, solid wood, and rough hewn - maybe with industrial touches like metal legs. something like this:

from visitor parking.

from kiosk furniture and accessories.

i know we're talking tables, but these chairs (also from kiosk) are hot fiyah:



from design within reach.

but those are all at least 2 g's if not more. CRAZY! then you peep crate and barrel and you say, "damn sons...why you gotta be all sensible and shiz?" check out these beauties (on sale for $699! seats up to 8!):

terravida (new and reclaimed teak)

basque dining table (solid mango wood)

pacifica (solid teak)

drake extension table (less enamored with this guy, but it's the only one that's an extension table)

this one is a grand and a bit - but so nice! solid european white oak!

solid american walnut! over a grand, too (closer to 2).

the big sur - a little light coloured for my liking and also coming close to 2 grand.

the thing with the crate and barrel tables is that they're 99% all wood, whereas the super design-y king east ones are way more expensive AND they're particle board with veneer. so wack!

surprisingly, those school chairs i posted a while ago, are kind of cheap compared to regular dining chairs. adult sized ones average about $40 a chair and you know those mothers are built to last - plus they come in a wide range of colours. i like 'em.

okay that's enough outta me for one night.

fin.