The only real thing of note I accomplished today was making a packing list for my looming trip to Vancouver (I also napped for three hours, so there’s that…). I’m heading to Vancouver for work, to attend the Issues of Substance Conference being out on by the Canadian Centre for Substance Abuse. No, I did not actually pack, but the list has been made. While work related, I am excited to get out of the city for a short time and to catch up with two friends currently residing in the city. Also, I have a suite at the Hyatt the may prove to be quite, as the kids say, “pimp.”

The most exciting thing other than my 55 minute plane rides will be Homovember, when I can cross something off of my list for the first time in months.

The JET Programme
via Matador
Immediately after reading this article I messaged my boyfriend Adam and said “you can find work in Japan with your job skills, right?” This excited me. A year of living in Japan AND a job after I graduate in December? Yes please! Check for official info here


How to Make Travel Look Good on a Resume
via Traveler’s Notebook
Great suggestions for making all of your time spent wandering around work for you in your job search


Save the Economy
This entire site makes me pee myself laughing, and I figure since it has to do with this “tanking” economy of ours it is relevant to my sad state of joblessness. Installing toilets in all the rooms of my house? Yes!


Earn Money on the Road
via Brave New Traveler
This isn’t particularly relevant to my current state of financial affairs, but it could come in handy to other people! I’d rather be broke and living with my parents than broke on the road.


Save Money, Travel Later
via Vagabonish
A great and simple piece about four ways you can easily save money now so you can travel later.

I’m not sure how I found time to read this mostly illustrated 109 page childrens’ book into my time, especially since I have been completely wrapped up in RuPaul’s Drag Race. God I love Drag Queens. I wish I could BE a Drag Queen, and according to my gay bestie, there’s nothing stopping me. Then again, he wishes he was a woman, so it’s only fitting he encourage his lady friends to try and impersonate men (who impersonate women). I have been trying to find a drag show to attend, since seeing a real live fully fabulous and over the top drag show is #489 on my list.

My inspiration

Otherwise, life is bland. I’ve been working on papers and getting through the last 3 or 4 weeks of this semester. I then get a full two weeks to mentally reset and prepare myself for the long haul of spring and summer courses. Other than my short trip to Red Deer to see Hey Ocean do a show, I have no travel plans until June. Even then, it’s just Kelowna. I shouldn’t disparage Kelowna so much, I’m rather excited! At least there is water there.

A week ago I was let go from my job, which was my only real source of entertainment. I’m still not sure why I was let go. So far, what I have gathered is that I do not steal and I actually got things done and this mucked with their endeavors to go bankrupt. Yes, I actually had a conspiracy theory where I thought the owners of the company I worked for were attempting to go bankrupt. How else do you explain rubber shoes for $40 and introducing expensive and poorly sewn yoga pants into the ghetto-est mall in Calgary?

I’m not going to lie, I was pretty peeved. At least let me know why I’m being fired, instead of saying “the numbers aren’t there” and then telling me it “doesn’t matter” when I ask what that means. Slowly, within a 48 hour period, I realized exactly what had happened. They had told me not to come back to a job I hated and had tried to quit a month and a half ago. No more selling rubber shoes to the one person an hour who enters the store (yes one person an hour was about the average rate, unless it was Monday and then it was no person per hour). Can you really be insulted at someone telling you you aren’t good enough to sell over priced rubber to welfare mummies and homeless men? Really? No, I’ve decided I am okay with that turn of events. This list is about doing things that make me happy, and I think anyone who knows me can vouch for just how much I hated that job.

Making fun of a company doomed to swallow itself whole aside, what does being unemployed mean for me? Well, I did just book a trip to Kelowna that costs about the entirety of my final paycheque. That pretty much sucks, but at least I didn’t book some crazy trip to hike to Machu Picchu like I really had wanted. It also means that, barring my odd fascination with not having anything to do 4 days a week, I can start hunting for a new job! On my list there are a few job related items so I figured why not make lemonade vodka coolers out of lemons and apply for some waitressing or coffee house jobs? I’ve applied for a few waitressing jobs so far and I hope to hear back. I do need money to fund most of the things on my list and since Richard Branson hasn’t stepped up to the plate yet, I need to exchange my free time for legal tender.

Rather than taking a stupid online test that will give me 50 possible careers most suited for me (note: these in the past have always included judge, which is awesome, because I would totally style myself after Judge Banks from Fresh Prince) I think it would be best to make a short-list of careers I definitely do not want and a compilation of careers I think I would be both interested in and totally kick ass at.

DO NOT WANT

Fish gutter (the smell, mostly)
Seamstress in the 1870s
Anything to do with the creation of buildings
Dental hygienist
Janitor at Peep Show establishment
Doctor who performs colonoscopies (though it would offer for a multitude of awesome jokes…)
Mother of fifteen
Hugh Hefner’s sponge bath assistant
Intestinal bacteria (just think if your human host ate a whole bulb of garlic, what would that be like?)
Participant on Hell’s Kitchen
Cow breeder (you have to catch semen…really now)

DO WANT

Professional zombie hunter
Japanese cartoon voice actor
Tiffany (touring malls, singing the best song ever written over and over? HECK YES!)
Pillow comfort analyst
Richard Branson’s best friend
Camera person for sea turtle documentaries
Baroness (I don’t honestly know what this is, but it just sounds so cool)
Cheesecake taster
Giant squid (shooting ink and living in the ocean, could life really offer a better profession?)
Town drunk

The periods in between traveling are pretty much terrible.
I have absolutely nothing planned that will fulfill anything on my list. I guess in a month I am seeing a live comedy show, but that is about it until December 27th, when I hit Mexico (or Cuba?)

I want to say that I’m not dead, but it certainly doesn’t feel like I am living at the current moment.