Quit Again

I quit my job again. The girl who was supposed to take half my sleep shifts quit because of stress, and so for the past two weeks I've been working full time, studying full time, and working two part-time jobs. It got to the point where I'd only be home for a few hours each day to shower and change my clothes, and stay over Friday and Saturday nights. It's a weird feeling, being paying to live at one place, and being paid to live at another.

Getting paid to sleep is pretty swell, but the time commitment alone was brutal. I'd shift on at midnight and have to get up to help with morning routines at 6:30, so I was never going to get more sleep than that. Didn't usually get to sleep through the night either, as something would usually come up. I was averaging 3-5 per day. Travel time was ridiculous, an hour to get home from work, an hour and a half to go to school. And then there were lots of awkward inbetween times where it wasn't worthwhile to go home, so you'd just float around campus or downtown. And since my classes end in the evening and my work starts at night, not much would be open to occupy my time.

But I still agreed to be put on the relief list. My last regular shift is Thurs night.

I went home to Guelph for an evening and part of a day last weekend. My birthday is tomorrow, and I won't be able to go home for it, so we celebrated last Friday and Saturday. They gave me a food processor, a cookbook, and a mask from Ghana.

It was nice to be able to use the student discount at the Greyhound again. I missed all those discounts. First time I've used one since I started. My student card is also a city bus pass, so that's another thing I don't need to buy monthly anymore.

Got my school textbooks. Since OSAP hasn't come in yet, I had to pay out of pocket. During certain times back at Conestoga, I would not have been able to do that. One thing I'm really going to miss about working full time is the ability to make casual purchases without worrying about going broke. Although I know some people with better income than me, but they manage to be poorer than me. I don't know how they do it.

I'll probably post again on my birthday.

First Week of Uni

So I had my first full week of University. I'm taking Social Statistics, Intro to Sociology, East Asian Studies, Fine Arts, and English. Social Statistics and Intro to Sociology are specific to my program, Fine Arts is because I need an art credit, East Asian Studies is because I need a culture credit, and English is because I need to show I'm literate. Some kind of school policy.

Social Statistics, Intro to Sociology, and East Asian Studies are all in the Renison building, which is like the Social Work Building, and all three are held in two rooms which are right next to each other. Fine Arts is in East Campus Hall, which is on the direct opposite side of the school. I have one day where I finish Fine Arts and then have 40 minutes before East Asian Studies starts, and I use all 40 minutes walking over. My English course is online.

The fact that we have East, West, North, and South Campus halls basically means this place is so big that we have districts.

When I first went into Social Statistics, I noted that of the approximately 35 students, I was the only male. I'm used to being in a gender minority, but in SSW, it was an 80% female-20% male ratio. Even highly female dominated courses like Personal Support Worker and Early Childhood Education would have like, four males per class. I don't mind being in a minority, but when I'm the sole example, I stop being a minority, and start being just a dude. A lone exceptionality.

I was told I'd be the only white person in East Asian Studies, but that turned out to not be true. Pretty wide diversity of nationalities. I'm definitely more of a minority in Social Statistics. Probably a room full of social workers who don't want to have to leave Renison to do their mandatory culture course.

But then when I went to Intro to Sociology, there were seven males in a class roughly the same size as Statistics. But I talked to one of them, and he was an engineer doing an elective. So maybe the other six are the same way.

Renison actually has dorm rooms on the top floors. I think that's crazy. Even during my year in the residence at Conestoga, I thought it was kind of weird that when I went to sleep, it was on school property. It was like always being in school. But this place actually has students living in the same building that they take classes in. One of my classes lets out at 9:20 PM. I'm sure there are students partying above us at that time.

Almost done my first art project. I carved a design into a board, and now we're going to make a print of it.

Despite the fact that I have to take an English course to prove that I'm literate, because I had transfer credits from both SSW and HSF, they put me in a course that's like, two years advanced. My friend was laughing at me.

At Conestoga, we had an on-campus pub called The Sanctuary that was open Tuesday and Thursday mornings (always thought it was weird to encourage drinking on a Tuesday morning in a school). At UW we have The Bombshelter, and it's at least open every day from when I step onto campus to when I leave, which is sometimes after 9:00 PM. Similarly, our Tim Horton's shut down at 7:00 PM at Conestoga, but even walking to the bus stop after 9:20, the UW location is still open. I wonder if their establishments ever close.

This school is bigger than I'm used to.

First Day of Uni

So I had my first class of University last Thursday. It was a Fine Arts course, my Academic Instructor told me I needed an arts course and a culture course for my breadth requirements. It was alright. I need to have a pattern for Tuesday, and I've already chosen one. Course will be divided evenly over three projects with an additional grade put toward sketches and showing my work. We were supposed to order some kits, but the door to the room where we were supposed to place our orders was locked, so we couldn't do that. Class let out really early.

I'd built everything up so much in my mind. I'd just finished my first sleep shift at the group home, and there was five hours between work and class. Decided it wasn't even worth it to go home. Big mistake, took less then half an hour to get to the University and spent the rest of my time getting anxious about it. Was having flashbacks to my first day of college and my first day in grade nine. First day in a new school really is a unique sensation.

After I finished the class, I felt really odd. Kind of like that deflated feeling you get after Christmas. Just the release of all that hype. I've got four new classes to attend this week, but my anxiety's not at the same level.

The day before, I went to the university to make sure that I could find all my classes and to get my student card. I thought it would be a lot harder than it was. The bulk of my classes are in a separate building called Renison, even my culture course is in there. Then each of my classes except my art one are shared between two rooms, which are next to each other.

Place makes me feel old. I support a guy who sometimes likes to go to the geology museum there, and I think I've mentioned on this blog that the place has enough resources that, if you lived on campus, you would really not have to leave for any reason. It has enough resources that it is completely self-sustaining. It's like a village where everyone is between the ages of 18-25.

So I thought it would be harder to find things than it was. I needed to find the Student Life Centre to get my WatCard. So I walked around the perimeter, assuming that such a central feature would be displayed openly. It was. Went in, found the line up. Handed in my student number and a piece of photo ID and I got my WatCard on the spot.

Then I looked up a map of the college, found out I only needed to find two locations for all my courses. Got a rough grasp of the geography of the place, wandered a bit and found everything I needed.

I'm using OSAP this time around. Ontario changed the laws so that, if you live under a certain financial bracket, they will pay your tuition and a chunk of your living expenses as a grant, meaning you don't owe them the money back.

I still don't have the money, though. At first I thought it was coming September 1st. Then I thought I remembered reading September1-6. Then when that time period closed, I called in and apparently it's "4 to 6 business days after your studies begin"... Which was September 7. So now I have to wait until potentially Thursday. Beginning to better understand old classmates complaining about OSAP not coming in.

It's funny, my brother goes to Guelph, where they have the Guelph Gryphons as their mascot. My brother's name means "Dark skinned warrior" and now I'm in Waterloo, which has the Waterloo Warriors.

Gardening Season Nearing Close

So we're coming in on the end of gardening season. To break it down, everything I grew from seed kind of sucked.  I originally tried to grow cherry tomatoes, sunflowers, zucchinis, and snow peas. The cherry tomatoes were transplants and everything else was from seed. The sunflowers and zucchinis sprouted successfully, but then something ate them. They left the cherry tomatoes and snow peas alone though, so I guess they didn't like anything established past the sprout stage, plus snow peas. Acknowledging this pattern, I went and bought more transplants, plus planted snow peas around the perimeter of my chicken wire fence and my mesh fence. I bought summer squash and red cabbage to replace the sunflowers and zucchinis, which did well. But the summer squash and surviving zucchinis crawled into the cabbage section and cast shade on them, so I now have healthy, but perhaps smaller cabbage plants then necessary. My snow peas started off well, but they weakened in later development. Don't know why, back when I was in student housing they were my strongest crop. Just got a small crop of snow peas today, which was more than I was expecting. Right now, the summer squash and zucchinis have blossomed, but I'm worried that they will drop their flowers before they produce. That's been an issue in the past. They always grow so large and lush and healthy, but what their final product is seems so random.

The cherry tomatoes were the real takeaway. They outgrew their tomato cages, then I had to tie them to stakes and they almost outgrew those. Never had such large cherry tomato plants, and I never met anyone else that has had the same success with them, either. I'm thinking that if I'm still here next year, I should try growing crops similar to cherry tomatoes. Unfortunately, other than real tomatoes, I'm lost. They're technically fruit that grows like vegetables. They seem one-of-a-kind.

My neighbor gave me a pink rose bush. I planted it in front of my unit. I didn't know what type of plant it was at the time, or how to care for it, but I figured it was worth putting in the ground and seeing what happened. I'm not a big flower guy, but it was growing so lush and healthy, I'm telling you, I thought about picking up some red and yellow roses as well. But something uprooted them. And then someone put a book shelf on them. Unfortunate.

Do you know how good I am at barbecuing now? I'm so good, I taught someone else how to do it. That's right.

My upstairs neighbour moved away. The whole neighbourhood's changing. First my friend passes, then another neighbour is evicted, then another one moves out, then another gets kicked out, then another evicted. Sorry, that story would have had a lot more impact if I could give identifying information.

Before I started the group home job, I was under $1000 in my chequing account, under $500 in savings, and I'd placed 0ver $900 on my credit card. Now that I'm going to University, I have no debt on my credit card and am up $4000 in my chequing account. Not a bad place to leave off.

You guys gonna kill me when I say this. I tried to quit my grouphome job, but they offered me sleep shifts in response. That means all I'd do is show up, sleep, and potentially manage emergency situations. That means no more dishes, no more laundry, no more lunches. I told them I'd give it a try. Another girl that tried to quit offered to take over half the shifts, which I'm glad to hand over. Still going to be crazy when I've got four direct support contracts and teach Safe Management to boot.

Solar Eclipse

I MISSED THE SOLAR ECLIPSE!!!  I hadn't heard that there was going to be one until the day before, when my neighbor told me. She said that it would last all day, and that it was so dangerous that children were not legally allowed to leave the house during it. I was super hyped. I've been around for a few lunar eclipses, but not for a solar one.

Looked it up, and turns out my neighbor was exaggerating. It was only a partial eclipse with 70% coverage, and it would last about three hours, not all day. But still a pretty amazing thing, I want to see a crescent sun. Me and the neighbor that claimed to be afraid wound up waiting for it outside, and it just never came. We watched a live feed of other people seeing it, but we didn't see it ourselves.

She was like, "Maybe it missed us?" I was like "How could it miss us? It's THE FREAKING SUN!"

And everyone else I've talked to seems to have seen it. Somehow someway, the sun managed to eclipse itself over everything in the area except for me and my neighbor.

I've returned to the Summer Program two more times. First time was Thursday of Wacky Water Week, and first activity was Four Corners Dodgeball. Dodgeball is always one of those borderline games on whether or not it's inclusive. Sometimes it makes the grade, sometimes it doesn't. The Four Corners version was pretty good, though. You start with four teams, each one holding possession of one corner of the gym. Rules are simple. If you get hit, you leave your corner and join the opposing side. If a corner runs out of members, it's out. This way, there are never people in time out, and there aren't people who lose, only corners. Keeps the competitive edge without disqualifying people.

After that, we played some water games ( example: a relay race between teams to see who could fill a bucket first) , then we played some bingo, then I had lunch with them, then left.

Then yesterday, my cousin drove me out to Camp Impeesa and we visited them during the Overnight. Turned out to be movie night, with everyone watching Harry Potter, so there wasn't a ton of interaction with the participants, but I at least got to say hi, and I seemed to know everyone there. Took my cousin on a tour of the hiking trail. Got to see the Peacehaven Trail, go on the Normandale Adventure, and visit Tree Face one more time. That camp grounds feels like home.

Unusual Shifts

Recently, I got to go work in a girls grouphome. One night, after I had shifted on at my regular place, I got a call saying that the night shifter at one of the girls homes couldn't work at that location because of a recent event. She was the only staff member there, and they asked me how many people there were at my location. Well, it was just me, so the idea was proposed that me and the other night shifter would trade places for the night.

Now, it's really common for females to work in male homes, but it's much rarer for males to work in female ones. Typical issue, the social services is flooded with women, so they can pick and choose where to put their men, so they put us where we can be "positive male role models" and where a little extra physical strength may be appreciated in an instance of physical aggression. But since the vast bulk of the workforce is female, the female-only homes are usually staffed by women only, and the male homes are mostly staffed by women as well.

Some female homes will have one male staff member, which the girls refer to as their "male staff" as if that's a job title. But at the place they were sending me, having a male staff was almost unprecedented, and I may have been the first male night shifter in their history. The whole thing was a last-minute arrangement.

Now think of these circumstances. I'm called in last minute in the dead of night. All the girls are asleep at the time of the arrangement, so there hasn't been any opportunity to let them know they're having a male night shifter for the first time. Among my night shift expectations, normally I'm supposed to do room checks to make sure no one AWOLs. Imagine how that would look, creeping into the house in the dead of night and sneaking into teenage girls rooms and looking at them while they sleep, when half of them don't even know me.

Thankfully, the evening staff was very emphatic that I was not to engage in the usual expectations. She basically told me not to do room checks, not to clean, and in an emergency, not to do any physical interventions, just call 911. Basically, just position myself in the living room and seem as not-creepy as possible so that the house isn't technically unstaffed.

First night, I didn't see anyone. Me and the other night shifter were texting back and forth, which was a pleasure. It almost felt like I wasn't working alone for once.

Then they needed me to be the night shifter at the girls place again, since the situation hadn't completely resolved. This time I encountered three of the girls. First one that saw me, a huge grin split across her face and she was like "Oooooh, who are you?" which was not the reaction I was expecting. I told her I was a substitute night shifter from the boys house. Then she wanted me to gossip about the boys there, but I told her I wasn't here to gossip and she needed to get her glass of water or watever she was doing and go back to bed, which she did.

Nice feeling to be listened to. At the boys home, I'd likely get a response like "YOU THINK YOU'RE BIG I OWN THIS HOUSE!!!".

Second girl just came and stood in front of me and stared until I introduced myself. Then she said "Are you even allowed to be here?" to which I responded that I'd been asked here by head office, so I guess so! She relaxed a bit, I apologized if I was making her uncomfortable. She said I wasn't, asked me my name again, I told her, she introduced herself and went to bed.

Girl three took a glance at me, went into the kitchen, grabbed a bowl of potato chips and went to bed. She's not allowed to have those, but since I'm scared crazy of having accusations put against me, if the girls first thought is that there's a new staff so maybe she can get some potato chips out of it, and not there's a weird guy in the house, I'm just like you go girl. Not picking up that conflict.

That morning, I got a text saying that the boys at my regular spot were all awake and throwing a riot. As soon as morning staff came in, they drove me over to the boys house so I could yell at them.

Next day the issue was resolved and I could return to my usual station. I was happy to. Girls scare me. A boy is generally more likely to try and break your nose, but a girl is more likely to make a false accusation that could damage you professionally. I'll take my chances with the boys.

Then this week, the kids went camping. For some reason, that did not mean my shift was canceled. This means that, for the first three days this week, I was looking after an empty house. I'd come in at midnight, watch the empty house until 9 AM and leave. PAid at my usual rate. Easiest money I ever made. I had some chores to do, but really, didn't even fill a night.

I got some big news! I'm GOING TO UNIVERSITY! Starting this September, University of Waterloo, doing Social Development Studies, working toward my Bachelor of Social Work. I get about a year shaved off because of my transfer credits from Social Service Worker at Conestoga, and I even get a few extra because of Human Services Foundation. I just gave my notice to Hatts Off, I;'m going to stay on their relief list. This means that I'll still have three jobs while I'm in University, haha. But definitely reduced hours and a lot more control of the schedule.

Family Get-Together

Recently my grandparents came to visit my mother and brother in Guelph, and my aunt and cousin were planning to be there as well. Unfortunately, I'm so locked in with work, it didn't seem that I would be able to make it to the get-together. However, by some quirk of fate, the entire household at the grouphome decided to go camping for three days and two of my direct support contracts went on vacation at exactly the right time. My boss gave me the option of tending to the empty group home or taking the time off, so I just took the time off.

My aunt and cousin stayed over at the Guelph location overnight, which including me made for five people in a two bedroom apartment. Probably the most people to ever stay overnight there.

I was going to stay for two days in Guelph, then come home and do such things as turn my timesheets into Extend-a-Family and visit the Summer Program again, but I kept letting time slip away and postponing things until I heard that the Hattsoff camp was getting called off a day early and I had to go back a day before I thought I would.

Makes sense the Hatsoff thing didn't go as planned, it was awkwardly timed. The week before, two of the kids were away camping, and we got a new kid a couple days before the trip. That means that two of them would be sick of camping, and the other would still be getting used to the house before setting out.

But yeah, last week we were at half capacity with only three kids in the house, and we've had an empty room for awhile now. This is the first time in a good bit that the house is full. Still, I don't make lunches anymore, since it's summer vacation and I don't have to wake the kids up for school either. So some of my duties are still diminished.

We lost two of our summer staff. Without getting into it, they chose to go a separate direction. But that means we have no morning shift, so we've been finding people to fill the morning shift, either through relief workers or getting our house staff to do overtime. We can't get our UMAB trainer to cover only two people either, so unless we hire six new workers, we have to find two new employees that are already UMAB trained.

A neighbor of mine recently got evicted. She was an older woman whose husband left her about a year ago. This overlapped with the time that I was looking for a roommate after my first batch at my current location. Unfortunately, her home was fully loaded with items. Logistically, if I'd moved in with her, there would be no place for me to even put down a mattress or store my clothes. She wasn't willing to part with any of her belongings and she was attached to where she lived. We quibbled about who'd move where, and eventually I took another roommate. Time passed, and she managed to last long enough on her own that I grew to believe she was financially secure and her need for a roommate was more due to loneliness than anything.

But then she got evicted, couldn't find anywhere else, and now she's in a homeless shelter. She left everything behind. Saw her place unloaded recently. People can judge her lifestyle, but it was still pretty depressing to see her lose everything after she fought so hard to hold onto all of it.