birthday musings

i don't really have much to muse about, but i've got 25 minutes to kill
before the online jeopardy test begins. yup, i'm an uber-nerd, working
my birthday plans around taking a test for a quiz show. but it'll
totally be worth it when i beat ken jennings' record as all time
jeopardy champ and undeniable trivia guru.

so my birthday has been pretty good so far. both my mom and dad called
and sang me happy birthday this morning, as per long standing
tradition. i had a nice walk to work. i had a good day for calls. i was
taken out for a couple of beers after work. and now i'm waiting
anxiously for the jeopardy test. alex trebek is looking right at me as
the clock counts down. 18:00 minutes to go, eek!

and of course i forgot my glasses at work. i NEVER forget my glasses,
but it's inevitable i would on a day i want them. but now when i fail
miserably i'll just blame it on poor eyesight.

alright, the waiting is driving me bonkers. i'm going to pace around for a bit. wish me luck...

happy new year

so here we are: 2009. time sure is zipping by these days. have i really already had this blog for 4 years?? yikes.

new years was nice and quiet this year. i went for dinner with a whole bunch of good friends, went back and played some board games around the fire, and then my boyfriend and i went back to his place around 11pm, where we played cards and watched the ball drop in NY. it was very enjoyable.

this has been a full year. i think back a year, and it seems so long ago. the newness of my job, the people i was hanging around with, it's quite different now. and what highs and lows this year! the wedding and traveling around israel, michael's death... but i don't feel like reflecting too much at this moment. right now i'm very content with where i am, and i'm looking forward to the potential of this new year. things are going well for me. work is satisfying, i've got a great family and terrific friends, and now to put that extra twinkle in my eye, i've met someone who makes me ridiculously happy and who loves me. yep, life is grand. i think 2009 will be a good year.

tears of joy

 

not all the crying i hear is bad. yesterday i spoke to someone for nearly an hour who was crying in gratitude for all the help i gave. today i came in and there was a bouquet of flowers on my desk. a thank you from the person i'd spoken to, who had then talked to my supervisor to tell her what a wonderful job i'd done. it made my day. yep, it's times like this when i love my job and i know i'm doing something really valuable.

 

back on the phones i go :)

tis the season

 

ugh, this is such a miserable time of year to have my job. working for employment insurance can be trying enough at any time of year, but at christmas time... yowza, a whole new level of awful. don't get me wrong, i like my job, but it's hard when i have to tell people that they don't qualify for benefits, or they've used up all their weeks, or for whatever reason we just ain't paying them anymore. there's yelling, there's tears, there's despair. not fun.

 

so you can imagine what it's like around now, when people are desperate for money, waiting waiting waiting, hoping they get a payment in time for the holidays. and here i am, the heartless voice of "the man" on the other end of the phone, telling them that no, probably won't being seeing a cheque for christmas. i hate it. it's not all bad news. i've been very helpful to many people who thank me for doing so much for them and wishing me wonderful holidays. that warms the heart. the ones that yell don't bother me too much. they want to take their anger out on me, it's not personal. i don't feel much anxiety over them. but the weepers... those are the killer calls. i offer my sympathies and apologies, but i hang up feeling sad and drained.

 

on the up side, having this job makes me grateful to have all that i do have. not just a secure job, but my health and the health of my family too. that's a hell of a lot more than some people have.

so far so good

 

there's a new boy in the picture. i quite like him. he's the one that i wrote my unenthusiastic "first dates" entry about. i went in with no expectations, almost irritation at having to go through all those dating motions. but we got along so i saw him again. and then again. and again. and suddenly i was seeing him all the time. i don't even know what precipitated the change. where was the tipping point? oh well, who knows and what does it matter! we have fun, we have good conversations, he plays trivia games with me and makes me dinners. plus, he isn't an older divorced man with children, so hurrah! yep, he seems... normal. but not BORING normal. i feel so bad rereading my note about our first date!

 

so that's my news. i'll let you know if he turns out to be a nutcase with mommy issues or something.

i don't wanna work

 

it's been a while, and i have nothing too interesting to report. i just got message emailed to me, reminding me of some extra training i have to attend on saturday morning. Boo! i think it's safe to say i will have absolutely no desire to come in to a 4 hour meeting about IT stuff, first thing on the weekend. yuck. on the upside, i suppose the 9am meeting will keep me from behaving badly on friday night. maybe i won't need the extra incentive to be good, but it can't hurt to have it as backup.

 

well, break is almost over, i think i'll read a few pages of my book before getting back on the phones. "a short history of progress"... quite interesting.

from the archives

as i mentioned, i found my old journals and have been enjoying flipping
through them. i thought it'd post a few excerpts. these are from my
first ever diary. spelling mistakes as originally written.

Thursday, January 7, 1988
Dear Diary,
In exactly two weeks it will be my birthday (on my piano lesson night)
and i have to go to music. that really ticked me off, well see ya.
math was never my strong suit, it was actually 3 weeks til i turned 11

Friday, Feb 12, 1988
Dear Diary,
mom said she was no good at chess. lately everybody has beaten me and i
need incouragement. the next thing i know she says "i guess i'll put
you in check". she didn't even know she put me in checkmate!
maby i shouldn't be mad, i thought for once i was going to win. the
worst part is she went and was telling my dad evreything. she went and
bragged! she asked me if i was writing about her. well i'm not going to
tell her, i'm not! now i never want to play chess again.
wow, i've always been a poor sport. and stubborn: i never did play chess again

Jan 2, 1990
Dear Diary,
Well well. HAPPY NEW YEAR! 1990! 1990! 1990!
i can't believe it. the end of a whole decade. last time it changed
decades i was only turning 3. now i'm turning 13! just wait, here's
something even harder to believe. next time i'll be turning 23!!!
WOW!!! now that's what i call a big deal!
crazy, the days when i thought 23 was old...

Feb 17, 1990
Dear Diary,
I'm 13 now! Yeahh! Yahoo! Well, actually i don't know if i should say
that. Life as a teen isn't supposed to be that hot. Oh well, it seems
the same to me. so far at least.
oh, ghost of amanda past, you are so wise. those were some crappy years to come!

that's all for now folks. stay tuned for more peeks at amanda's formative years.

the motherload

rummaging... i do this quite often in my spare time. my family has
never been quick to throw things out, so we've got boxes of old
mementos to sift through. certain things remain simply because they've
been put away and forgotten, while the nostalgic and sentimental value
of others is more evident. i've been enjoying some good rummaging
today, and here are some of the little treasures and surprises i've
come across.

- my old sports walkman and a pile of tapes (rock on, bryan adams)
- rainbowed "amanda" stickers from grade 1 (i'm going to put one on my computer at work)
- a can of coke from russia, best before 11/96 (completely evaporated)
- 4 cans of NZ beer, circa 1996 (those can't be good)
- name tags, order pads and packs of matches from the olive garden
(along with completed comment cards saying what an excellent server i
was! why didn't i hand those in??)
- jurassic park trading cards, magazines, stickers, calendars and other merchandise (oy, so embarrassing)
- mr sketch smelly markers (mmm, cinnamon)
- a stack of Mad magazines (what, me packrat?)

but i've found what i was looking for. the good stuff. all my old
letters and postcards dating back over 15 years. remember that postcard
you sent me from your grade 9 trip to seaworld? i still have it. the
letters sent to me while i lived abroad? all safely filed away. but
there's more. i have the letters i
sent too. that's right, i'm a nerd and keep carbon copies or
photocopies of all of my outgoing letters. anything i've ever written
to you, whether mailed or hand-delivered, i have a copy of it. and then
of course there are the journals, going back to 1988.

i'm going to go read for a bit now. i'm sure i'll have some goodies to share as i go through!

second impressions

thank god for them! sure, first impressions make one hell of an impact, but that's just a glance at the surface. luckily we don't have to adhere to our initial judgments of someone. and that can work in their favour or against them.

i've been unimpressed upon first meeting some people. for whatever reasons i don't like them or maybe i just don't find them noteworthy. but then they can surprise me once i get to know them a bit better. sometimes the change of heart is sudden, sometimes it evolves over time. i've been good friends with a girl since high school, and yet when we first met i thought she was a snob. i don't think she liked me much either. thank goodness for second chances!

of course it can go the other way too. that first impression can blow me away. and when this is the case i find it harder for those re-evaluations to take hold. that early conception that they are fun, interesting, exciting, whatever... it can blind me to the unfavourable reality. perhaps i don't want to see the truth because the persona i originally imagined is so much more pleasing. but once again, first impressions aren't immutable. a single act can open my eyes, or maybe my vision clears over time. and what a relief!

it's not always easy to accept that i've been wrong about someone, but in the end i'm so grateful. abandonning my first impressions has allowed me to develop true friendships with wonderful people, and ditch the losers that are nothing more than a charming facade.

first dates

 

bah! i hate them.

 

i agreed to go on a date with someone the other night, and almost immediately i regretted it. i'm just not in the mood for first dates! they can be very exciting, but only if you really want them. i felt indifferent. it seemed like a chore. it was a perfectly nice date, he was nice, we got along, had fun etc etc. but i just don't care! he asked if we could go out again and i said sure. bah!!! i hate dating!!! i'm sure i would be more than happy to accept second dates with certain people, but i just don't want to put the effort into someone new.

 

it's annoying because we got on really well, he seems like the type of person that i should like. but oh no, those are never the kind of people i get excited for. i don't know if i have a "type" or not, although my friends have joked that my type is older, divorced single dads with teenage kids. ha! i certainly don't go looking for that type, but yes, the last two men i have been interested in have fit that description. it's all about spark! i want to feel giddy when i look at them. i want to daydream about them. i don't want to dread the end of a perfectly enjoyable evening because of the is-there-a-kiss-or-isn't-there moment. bah!!!! although i had a fun time last night, i found myself comparing it to the first dates with my darling divorcees. now there was spark! no dreading a kiss moment, only the eagerness to grab it mid-date. sigh...

 

i hate dating.