At what age did you move out of your parent’s house? When did the pros (free food, free room, free home, tv, phone, internet, etc) outweigh the need and desire to be yourself and independent? What did you do to prepare? How much did you save up? How did you sustain yourself? What kind of place did you look for and how did you go about getting/renting it? What about references? All these questions are floating around in my brain, and I need a perspective that isn’t my parents. I would appreciate any insight you can send my way! (Note: those are not my boxes… but damn I wish they were!)

Oh Passport Canada, how I loathe you!

I sent my Canadian Passport in to be renewed with their “Simplified Renewal” process. bullshit. My passport doesn’t expire until September 2008 but the Simplified Renewal requires you to be in the country at the time of the application. I am not worried about it for travelling because I’ve got my UK Passport (I’m a dual citizen)… but after over 2 months, I’m wondering about my passport. Two weeks ago, I sent in an email form to inquire about the status of my renewal, and they said they hadn’t received it, but not to worry because it was probably in the mail pile unopened.

On Wednesday, I called Passport Canada to inquire about my passport (just for peace of mind). They said they had no record of it and they’ve already gone through their mail that arrived in September. I got very upset and asked them what they planned to do about losing my passport, long-form birth certificate, and health care card.  They said that it wasn’t their fault and that I should have tracked my package through Canada Post. I told them that they said that the package would arrive if I sent it by regular mail. I hung up the phone and was freaking out.

I called my dad who said it was possible it was in the mail pile of October arrivals. He said that just to be safe I should call about replacing my birth certificate, health care card, and take some more passport photos and sign another application. This way, if nothing happens within a few months, my parents can send off a new application like I never left the country. This works for me, but my old passport had my visas from Japan. *sadness*

I called Canada Post and they said they have no records for regular mail and there is nothing they can do. Fine. I called HealthBC and they’re sending a new HealthCare card for me, no charges mentioned. Then I called the Birth & Death Office in Victoria and the guy I spoke to was totally outraged on my behalf! It was awesome – he said that I should send all the charges to Passport Canada for replacing my documentation. I have no way to really prove that I exist… I have to buy my way back into recorded citizenship!

I have had some traumatic events this week involving the bastard that calls his form of torture a profession. I speak of dentists in a whole – not just my evil dentist in particular. Yesterday I went to his horrible cave to have my teeth cleaned. His hygienist Fiona brought out the angry scraping tools first… I don’t need to describe the feeling of metal against your teeth, but it’s really like chewing tinfoil. Then she put this tool in my mouth that screamed like a drill, and honestly within 3 seconds of her putting this damn thing into my mouth, I screamed. I admit, I started tearing up out of sheer fear.

This hygienist freaked out! She got really worried because I already have sensitive teeth and thin enamel. My orthodontist attacked some of my teeth with a diamond disc one day when I was 14, deciding that he needed to make more room in my mouth. He decided all on his own that he would shave my teeth of their enamel… which didn’t even work and now it is still painful to floss. So anyway, this tool that screams like a drill is apparently a cleaning tool that emits and electromagnetic buzz to attack the plaque that allegedly plagues my teeth. This tool also spurts water so I was allowed to hold the sucking-tool.

Now, once this evil cleaning was done… with all the metal scraping, and violent flossing, and vicious attacking of my poor enamel-thin teeth… I asked if I had any cavities. “Not that I saw.” says the hygienist, Fiona, confidently. So when the call came from my mother today about an appointment booked for my fillings, I freaked out. I thought about the drill, the filling, the smell of drilled tooth, the needles, and the high pitch scrrreeeeammm of the drill. And I died a little inside… then began to bawl.

The result: I have some small decay that apparently he told me about last year around this time, and I never made my appointment to get it fixed. In two weeks I get to have 4 teeth drilled and filled. In consolation (according to the dentistry nurse) it’s only one surface of the tooth — there are 5 possible surfaces for decay to infect. Bullshit. The real consolation is that I will get freezing (not thinking about the needles) and apparently I will get some Adavan if I come in early. My mom told me the first time I had Adavan was when I got 4 molars pulled when I was 11 before my braces. “Mommy, my legs feel all wobbly. My feet feel like jello!”

I am so beyond angry it’s not even funny. I am so hurt too. If you can’t handle a rant-story right now… go straight to a different post, do not pass GO, do not collect $200.

Read the rest of this entry »

Warning… I’m complaining…. so I will try to integrate “Happy Moments”….

Happy Moment: Squishy sunbathing:

Classes: School is bothering me more and more. I thought that once we got into the Summer Semester, I’d make peace with the classes feeling useless… but unfortunately they just irk me even more. Especially the fact that Craig will be here within a week and I’ll be stuck at school while he’s working at camp. If I wasn’t at school, I could work in the kitchen or whatever (since Susan has Krista and Rachel outside).

Advertising class is just plain… useless! The topic is of no use to me; I recognize that ads make the world work ($$$) and that should be enough. Video class is fun I guess but really I have no particular interest in going into that field. Flash is really starting to get on my nerves. It’s the way Rich speaks to us, like we’re stupid little children who don’t understand. And he calls us “troops” because he spent several years in the Military. Well my parents made a decision to live in Canada so that I wouldn’t have to be in the military. Don’t call us “troops”. I wanted to email him about it but I don’t know how to express with constructive criticism that his analogies make us feel stupid because he waits for answers to questions that should be rhetorical.

“Let’s make a play button… okay… so what shape is a play button? ….. [long silence] anyone? Anyone know what shape a play button is? Any guesses? [An arrow.] Thats right! So let’s just draw a triangle right here… now let’s colour it in. Can anyone tell me what colour play buttons are? [really long silence... us thinking these should be rhetorical questions] … no one? No one have any guesses? [Green.] Yes! Good! Okay… so let’s colour this in green here.” I’m not even joking. Repeat that for a stop button, pause button, and volume buttons and you’d be going crazy with us.

On Friday, in what should have been our Lab time (but he ‘forgot’ and started to lecture)… he had an analogy about a container… he actually held up a plastic Ziploc and asked if we knew what it was. No one said anything for a really long while. The worst one was when he asked if anyone had ever seen an egg carton. Everyone thought he was joking when he waited for an answer. He actually took 5 minutes to get this analogy out because no one was answering him. What’s worse — is the whole analogy was written on his PowerPoint slide which was projected on the front screen! I hate that he thinks we’re idiots and treats us like ones.

*deep breath* —–release the anger—–

Happy Moment: Craig will be here in 7 days!

Next bothersome bit: I really want to be an Editor but I am so worried I don’t have enough schooling to make that happen. SFU has an Editing Certificate through their Writing and Publishing Program that I want to take. The only problem is that it is part-time and Continuing Education… so it would be another two years of night classes just like this. That enrages me! I can’t stand being apart from Craig right now. It’s absolute torture and we end up fighting because we can’t read each other’s emotions over the phone… and the phone is really all we have besides occasional webcam chats.

Basically I’ve been tentatively planning to move to England after Christmas, or sometime around there. I’m terrified about getting a job because I don’t think I’m qualified enough to be hired as an Editor. So I’m seriously considering the SFU program, but if I’m planning to leave – would it look bad just starting for one semester then leaving? There are a few distance education courses in the certificate… but would it be better to do it all at once when I get back?

There is an Information Session for the Editing Certificate in September, as well as a Career Seminar to see if the Editing Certificate is right for you. I wish it was next week! I don’t want to wait until September…

Then there is the fact that I don’t know if I can be an Editor while I’m in England. Britain has different English standards than Canada; I would have to learn a whole new system and do even more schooling by British Standards to become an Editor in England. Then there is the thought of making money before I leave… I could join the Editors’ Association of Canada and become a certified Editor through them… but still, would that be enough? I need an Editor’s guidance! I wonder if there is an Editor at the Editors’ Association of Canada that would like to come speak with me and the other Editors in the Publishing Program.

Happy Moment: More Henry!

So I’ve just converted, as many of you know, to Mac. After working on Macs so often at school I was sold. I’ve been saving since basically after Christmas, finally broke down and bought a Macbook through Apple Online with all my birthday money and savings. Then last night, as I’m trying to solve the iPod issues (I’ll get into that in a minute) I discover that they’ve just released NEW Macbooks! For a Macbook with the specs I got, the price has been reduced $200; For the price I paid, I could have got 120GB (over 80GB) and 2.16GHz (over 2.0GHz). I’m on hold with Apple Store right now. They just tried to offer me a $50 credit.

Now the iPod issues! Oooh my. Have you ever seen a sad-pod icon?  Well for your sake, I hope you never do! It means that your iPod’s hardware is screwed… and you need to replace it. Not such a big deal if you’ve got your iTunes all fine and dandy… but a HUGE deal if you were trying to use your iPod as a hard disc to transfer your songs from one computer to the other. (And your old computer is gone). I called Apple and they told me that my warranty has ended, which was weird since I swear I bought extended 2-year warranty. They also told me they could not guarantee that they could recover my songs, in fact they don’t even try.

I’m actually finding this reeeeally funny, after I got TOTALLY upset. I will have to reimport all my CDs, and get Craig to send me a bunch of songs… but I suppose I did have a lot of trash on my iPod that I really didn’t listen to. The good news is that although Apple claims my warranty ended, I called Future Shop and they do have me on file for buying 2-year warranty (which ends August 2007). So I’ll head over there later today with my iPod I guess!

I’m still on hold with Apple. The Apple PhoneMan has his Supervisor looking over my situation.

Computer Technicians need to stay ahead of the average user. I’ve been having issues while switching over to my laptop full time. I want to use my old PC hard drive as an external hard drive – so I bought a kit and installed it and ta da! I have an external hard drive. So I plug it into my MacBook and try to recover my files — mainly my school files, business files, photos and music. Everything is going peachy, until I try to recover my iTunes. All the files are “invisible” to protect music pirating.

Now part of the problem is with iTunes; to discourage people from plugging in each other’s iPods and just dragging and dropping music, the files on an iPod are invisible too. So I downloaded TinkerTool for Macs, hoping to be able to access these invisible files on my iPod and recover my 3000+ songs. To be honest, I think that the average user would be using their iPod to recover after a hard drive crash or something – it’s another form of media backup. But, Apple never asked me… and TinkerTool only recovered 1300 songs. Apple describes how to move your library from one computer to another, but I didn’t think I’d need to prep for the move seeing as my hard drive was becoming external to my laptop.

Anyway – so I give my mom my (new!) external hard drive, and my iPod (just in case) and she brings it into the Tech Guy at her work. This morning he calls me and says, “I can’t find the iTunes folder.” Are you kidding me?! That’s why I sent the damn things to you in the first place buddy!!

He said he’d keep working on it. Then, when I got home, my mom had left the external drive at my desk. I plug it in thinking, “Yay 3000+ songs recovered!” only to discover (to my eyes & search’s eyes too) that nothing has changed. I am SO angry at this point. 1. I don’t have my music, and 2. I have to send it back to him, and 3. I discovered that I don’t have writing permissions for my external hard drive – only read permissions. Whole lot of good that does me!

Also – I sent him our Wireless Linksys router so he could password our network with something I would know. The last Tech Guy forgot to tell me the password. So right now I’m connected to some random unprotected internet in the neighbourhood. Ugh. I just want this to be less of a hassle!! And, the Office Trial Version doesn’t let me print so I have to go buy Office for Mac sooner than anticipated.

This is my old PC… I opened up the side and stole my hard drive! MOOHARHAR!

This is my new External Hard Drive. I built it myself after I removed my hard drive from my PC tower. OMG I’m so tech savvy!

And this is my gorgeous new MacBook! Everyone say hello!

Other than this, I’ve just made it through the first week of summer semester. I don’t really know what to think about how the rest of the term is going to turn out. Advertising which is mandatory for us to be able to get our Publishing Certificate, is SO dry. Besides, I’m not really interested in Advertising anyway. Hopefully it’ll perk up, but as Ginger (I think) mentioned, the teacher is kind of intimidating.

The Self-Promotion class with Giselle I’m excited about. We are tailoring resumes and cover letters right now for specific jobs. She has compiled a huge book with old job postings from the newspaper and stuff, and I found one from a couple years back that was for an Assistant Editor for the Georgia Straight. So now I have to create my resume and cover letter with this job post in mind. It’s gonna be a neat semester – we’ll end up working on our portfolios too.

Intro to New Media is interesting… a little like film studies, but we end up getting to make movies and cut/edit video footage and then we’ll learn how to make a DVD. We’re using Studio Cut Pro. I’m looking forward to the technical editing part, I’m not too keen on the filming stuff. We have to film a 30-second commercial with a Green Theme. The instructor, has left it WIDE open so someone could film a random commercial all about the colour green if they felt like it. It’s kinda nice that he’s not labelled it SUSTAINABILITY or something.

Intermediate New Media I’m a little bit annoyed with. It’s the Flash class and we’ve already started on our major project. It HAS to be about sustainability and the environment and “green” because that’s Langara College’s new theme. After focusing a lot on the Environmental Content with PRM, I’m a little bit wiped out. Also, I’m more interested in learning to USE Flash – specifically for websites. I want to learn to develop entire websites with flash and interactive design.

I spoke to the instructor, about it… and he said that yes, we’ll learn this – but he is SO excited about this Sustainability Group Project. Flash doesn’t seem like a real “group” thing. This week, before getting the project, we learned how to make a ball bounce around the screen. We have got this project, and had to give an idea of what we wanted to do, without really knowing the potential of the program and ourselves. I think that the instructor was FAR too hasty with this – and also sticking us with a focus is kind of limiting. I thought the summer semester was supposed to be about Self-Promotion in the Publishing Industry not Sustainability Sponsored by Langara College.
P.S. The intructor set up a  Flash Course Blog

Spring/June is NOT, I repeat…. NOT bustin’ out all over.

Proof: It snowed last night. Fucking snow.

This morning’s crisp view from my bedroom. Fucking snow. At first we heard about it in Abbotsford and Langley, West Vancouver but not North Vancouver, Surrey and Richmond… and we laughed. “Ha! Vancouver’s gonna luck out.” But nope; it snowed.

P.S. Happy March. I’m 19 in 20 days!

Dear Streetcleaners,

Please come to my street. The gutters are piled with mushy dirty leaf-mulch. It is supposed to snow this weekend. My car slips and slides in the leaves. The tires get stuck and spin; they don’t grip. My car got beached on a bank of leaves; my father helped dig my car out. Please come clean 26th Avenue… it’s disgusting.

Thank you,
Monica