Back to Work

Hey everyone, want to give a shot at where I've been this past Monday, Friday, and Thursday?

If you guessed "at a warehouse that distributes large containers of lubricant" congratulations! That is where I have been.

I've recently reconciled myself to the reality that I cannot sustain my way of living based purely on Direct Support Work. Therefor, I have hit up the temp agencies for the first time in two years.

Even if it's a different direction from what I've been doing, I don't want to give this recent gig a bad review.

When I came in, the office lady gave me a tour, told me the history of the company, which impressed me because she put forth a bit of extra effort to familiarize me with the place even though it wasn't task related. Tiny crew. I swear I worked with only two other people. There's one guy I saw around who was doing his own thing. Then there's a supervisor and two people in the office.

 Got to learn how to use a blowtorch. That's something that seemed really intimidating, but turns out, it's about as scary as lighting a candle. I also learned how to grind characters into metal plates. Again, seemed intimidating, but it's about as scary as writing with a pen that vibrates.

Job I had, I was vacuuming out containers (cubets), wiping them down, labeling them, putting them in cages, putting plugs into holes on the cages, and wrapping them in plastic wrap.

When describing my job to my neighbour, she noted that all I was talking about was lube, plugging holes, and vibrating pens.

But even though this was one of the best manufacturing positions I've ever been a part of, I still wanted to whine and moan.

Before resorting to temp work, I decided to try applying for any position on charityvillage.com, which is basically the Job Bank for social workers. Unfortunately, every single position required a full driver's license. After this, I tried applying at every group home, which is known to be the basic entry-level position to the developmental services, even though my old crowd refers to them as belonging to the "Old Story". I got three callbacks, but each of them rejected me based on the driver's license thing.

So now the tenuous plan is to get ongoing industrial work, hold onto at least three of my current Direct Support contracts, apply for University, and if successful, take another three year vacation doing post secondary education, pretending like I won't have to go back to factories.

Not going to lie, where I'm going right now is exactly everything I've fought to avoid. I have to give up all my daytime contracts in favour of industrial work. And I don't even know if I'm going to get ongoing work yet. So I'm gambling on my nightmare coming true, so I can continue my existence in this fashion.

And it also sucks because it's Christmas, and everyone's on vacation and wants you to be celebrating when you want to be focusing on survival and employment. And all my contracts are canceling during my time of need, because it's the holidays. So no income.

I'd say this was the worst Christmas ever, but my friend Tyler died by suicide near Christmas back in highschool, so I think that still takes it.

I got a good luck amulet recently, though. I was supporting someone last Sunday, we were waiting for the bus, some lady asks if I've got an extra bus ticket. I tell her I have a bus pass and don't use tickets, but I give her change for the bus. She tells me I really saved her and the only way she can think to repay me is by giving me the heart-shaped luck amulet that has always done her well. Found it a little odd that she would give something with an implied personal value to some random at a bus station that gave her change, so I ask her if she's got a lot of crystals. She assures me she does, then she says she wants to buy me a coffee if she sees me around.

Yo, give me odds on whether or not that chick was hitting on me. Regardless, I need the luck, so I'm putting the amulet to use, keeping it on my person.

Christmas Season

Ugggggh... I'm not too into the Christmas season this year. Having spent three months without a roommate, and therefore paying double rent in the meanwhile, I'm in a financial situation where I have to be careful how I step forward. For the past few years, I've told people to not expect anything from me, and even though I meant it when I said it, I wound up spending heavily anyway. This would kind of even out, since honestly, most Christmases I wind up receiving more than I give. This year feels a bit harder than the previous ones, though.

I've joked about how I was going to go back to my roots... Like when you're a kid, and all the adults give you whatever expensive toys you want, and you give some kind of craft in return, because it's the thought that counts. Everyone's getting paper mache from me this year!

I've joked about this enough that two of my impoverished friends actually took up this line of thinking. They're giving away drawings and paintings in lieu of nothing. So I think I might actually take up this tact, would be better than showing up empty-handed. Just need some creative avenue that might be a bit interesting. Not actually paper mache.

When I joked about this at home, my mother told me she wished I'd learned how to whittle, just because it would "suit me". I thought about how I came home with those wood carvings from Mali, how they were seen as acceptable gifts, and how the Malian craftsmen boasted at how fast they could make their sculptures. If I'd learned wood carving, that would be unlimited cheap custom-made gifts! Not going to learn that skill before Christmas, though.

We've got winter in Kitchener! Usually when I'm down in the dumps, I'll say something about how the weather represents my state of mind. So here, I might say the weather reflects the "frozen aspect of my heart" but I gotta tell you, this weather is lifting my spirits! Last year, we didn't even really seem to get a winter. It just feels right, as a Canadian, to get some snow. It might be burdensome, but it's right.

The world looks beautiful covered in billowy white snow dunes. My winter fashion is on point, too. Today I cracked out my winter coat, which was a gift from my brother two birthdays back. When I paid a complement to someone's jacket, he noted that I never pay attention to clothes, and so he found it in him to get a replica. With my coat and it's fake fur lined hood, beard, flannel, toque, and blue jeans, I looked like a creature in my element today.

Choked on a snowflake! Really enjoyed the weather today, let's hope it stays around for a bit!

Last Thursday, I got to run the WALES Group. I've done this once before. Staff were required to go to a meeting, and so they needed someone to cover. I thought I might be doing this all on my own, but they pulled in the current placement student as well as a good friend of mine, someone who did her second year placement when I was doing my first, and who shared last year of Summer Program with me. When I said I thought I would be alone running the organization, she was like "Can you imagine?" I was like, "Yeah, I was".

Day went fine. We set the place up with Christmas decorations.

My neighbour's daughter had a bake sale, and me and my roommate took a few orders. We got ours in today. I'd ordered some cronuts (croissant doughnut hybrid) and some bacon-wrapped jalapeno banditoes (jalapenos stuffed with cream cheese, wrapped in bacon) while my roommate got the Portuguese custard tarts and loaded potato soup. I think my roommate won out on wise choice selection. The cronuts were good, but they were in all honesty not much more than glazed croissants, and the Banditoes were delicious but it would have been easy enough to get some peppers, cream cheese and bacon and make my own for cheaper. The tarts he got were good (we shared everything out, so it's not like I missed out on food, just salty I didn't score the best deals). The real prize was the soup. I didn't get soup because I thought it would "Spill". But he got the dry ingredients wrapped in a layered format with instructions. Very cool. If this sale comes though again, I'll be getting some soup.

Did you know they rent video games at the library? I ran into someone at the library recently and when I asked him what he was doing, he was like "You know me Gryphon, loaded up on movies and video games". I knew that the age of book-only libraries was finished, and they were now used primarily for their resources. My local library has an Internet service, printing, photocopying, scanning, 3D Printing, virtual reality simulator, cafe, audio book, and movie selection but video games seemed to branch a bit further from the spirit of everything than I was prepared for. But yeah. they have a video game selection. And it's not like, educational video games either. It's just a random assortment of slightly older in-demand video games.