Tagged with work …

May 14 2012
2 Comments
vancouver

sun and sea

It’s funny how all my writing on here is about going for walks down to the water. Sorry. You’ll just have to deal with it I guess because this is my first summer in Vancouver and I’m a fan.
Laughing man with melon
This morning I went down to English Bay to do a bit of reading in the sun and went further East than usual where there’s a large inukshuk and benches on a small finger of rock sticking out into the water. Most of the places I’ve been sitting to watch the water are set quite a ways back from the beach, which gives a nice view, but out at this point it sounded like you were at the ocean. There was a woman sitting on one of the benches (apparently) meditating away, and it would be hard to pick a better spot. Other people were slackrope walking and there were teams of dragonboat-ish canoeists out on the water.

I feel a bit of urgency in enjoying all of this because I’m one of those new librarians who can leave the lower mainland to find work. I’ve been applying in places where the ocean will be a dim memory. Even if I manage to stay here, I’ll probably move to a different (cheaper-rent) area, since chances are I won’t be making much money, and the water won’t be right out the door any more.

Tagged , , , , , , , , ,
Jan 19 2012
Leave a comment
library, school, vancouver

two bits without a segue

I did not get the job at the Art, Architecture and Planning library at UBC. Selah. I did get a very nice phone call from the librarian who interviewed me (along with two other staffmembers) saying that I did a fine job in the interview and he was sure my experience would be great for somewhere in the future, but they were going with a candidate who had a lot of experience with local art. Which isn’t something I could have made myself be, so yeah. It’s the kind of situation where their priorities were just things I couldn’t fill. I hear that happens sometimes.

The shitty thing is that was probably the last formal GAA position I could possibly have gotten at UBC. I don’t think they do those just for the summer months, and come September I won’t be a student any longer. So that means I won’t have any academic library experience on my resume when I’m off looking for work. I’ve been trying to diversify through this degree, not focus, but we’ll see how much that helps, or if I’ll just be every employer’s second choice when the real jobhunting comes around.

When I was coming home from school yesterday (on the bus because I don’t feel like biking through slush and snow with my fenderless bike) the second bus I got onto wafted with the aroma of weed. It was incredibly strong for a place where no one was smoking. I sat down and another guy got on and as he walked towards the back he just started grinning. “Now this is a Vancouver bus!” he said to no one in particular. A conversation began between a bunch of the people in the back about the guy who had just gotten off the bus, who had been the source of the smells. It was all very friendly and good-natured, about the blessings of being in Canada. Eventually the guy who’d been grinning and who’d started the talking wound it up with “All right. Enough of that. Everyone can go back to their iPhones now.”

Tagged , , , , , , , , ,
Jan 16 2012
Leave a comment
books, library, school, vancouver

the difference a phone call makes

My weekend was spent working on an annotated bibliography, a topic briefing, and reading. There was reading involved in the first two parts as well, but well, yeah. Yesterday I took a break from my indoorsyness and went for a walk down to the water to watch the seaplanes land and take off again. I enjoy how Canadian that feels, with the mountains and the water and the trees, right here in the city.

My weekend was also kind of crappy with my lack of being called about the most recent student librarian gig I’d applied for. On the posting it said the interviews were going to be today, so when I didn’t hear anything by 5pm on Friday I figured that was yet another job missed somehow. I dwelt on what I could possibly have done to make my application better, brooded on the possibilities of ever finding a job when I graduate without recent library experience, and generally buried my head in books.

And then this morning I got a call saying I’ve got an interview tomorrow. So that’s all right then. I still might not get the job, but I’ve got a chance. A little bit of income, and the experience in a university library setting, would be so very excellent.

Tagged , , , , , , , , , ,
Jan 10 2012
Leave a comment
books, library, school, vancouver, whining

the studenty life

Today I gathered texts for assignments all day. Woo. Our management class has its first assignment due in a couple of weeks, and that requires a whole hell of a lot of books on management and economics and libraries to be annotated for a bibliography. Don’t you wish you were in library school?

Doing this kind of thing is much easier than I imagine it used to be when you couldn’t lie in bed with your laptop all day, reserving books from all over the area to be delivered to places conducive to being picked up, or just getting the documents loaded onto your computer. I did go out to the VPL to grab a stack of books. Just for the thrill of going to the library and hurting my shoulder by overloading my bag.

And I did laundry and bought groceries. Wee. Exciting. Aren’t you glad I’m writing about this?

So many of my classmates seem so much more busy than me. All with their multiple jobs and things. I’ve just got my classes and the assignments, which I might as well do now since maybe I’ll be getting a job at some point to cut into my schoolwork time. This term I don’t have any pressing reason to get my school stuff done early, but I’ve kind of gotten the habit started so it seems better to be working on that stuff than not. It’s basically procrastination from writing or thinking about the future to be working on homework.

Tagged , , , , , , , ,
Jan 02 2012
Leave a comment
photography, vancouver

being in vancouver

My new place here is very different from living at Brenda and Marlis’. It feels more like what I think of Vancouver being like from the outside. I’ve got all that City of Glass stuff surrounding me now (that’d be the Douglas Coupland book, not the Paul Auster one, which is about New York).

This afternoon as I was wandering around getting acquainted with the neighbourhood (Coal Harbour) I walked down to the water and watched little seaplanes at the Harbour Airport. Across the water was North Vancouver with a mountain behind it. To my left, islands and Stanley Park all filled with trees. It was cool but not freezing and ships were passing by, far away. It felt very Pacific-Canadian, very much like how it should feel to be here.

I’m going to start taking more pictures, I think. I mean, I live here now. I want to start to get attached to the city, to make it feel like home. It’s harder to do that when you’re thinking of leaving again in a few months. But I think I’m going to try to stay when I’m done my degree. All I need to do that is to find work, right?

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Nov 29 2011
Leave a comment
australia, food, travel

luncheons not truncheons

It is my final week at work and it seems we’ll be having many a lunch. Last Thursday Holly and Edmund and Rob and I went for Thai food around the corner (since Holly was on her way to New Zealand the next day). That was pleasant enough. The food at the Thai place is a lot sweeter and not nearly so spicy as better Thai food, but still. We never did get to go out bushwalking, what with Holly’s schedule at Patisse occupying her so much of her weekend time here.

Then Holly went to Christchurch on Friday. I spent my weekend doing homework, watching movies, eating the last of the food in our cupboards (I didn’t want to buy any groceries this week, but ended up getting some ice cream today), and thinking about buying a pair of shoes.

I also sold Holly’s bike and the rental agent came by to show the apartment to a prospective renter. He’s such a slippery guy. He came in pointing and concern-trolling about how the place looked. There was a bit of mold on one of the walls that is nothing resembling our fault, but he tsk tsked and said when we do the final inspection on Friday he hopes it’ll be cleaned up. He could of course quote a price on getting it cleaned professionally… Fucking guy. Peter is going to move into our rooms and wants our double mattress, the one we found on the street. He’s also going to look after some of our stuff between me leaving on the 2nd and us heading back to the North on the 19th. Hooray for Peter.

Yesterday Edmund and Rob and I went up the Sydney Tower for lunch in the revolving restaurant. It was excellent. The place was filled with old people, and the elevators seemed in poor condition, but we watched the city rotate slowly beneath us for an hour. We could see all the way out to the Blue Mountains and Manly and the airport as well as peer down and marvel at the cranes and window washing apparatus so many tall buildings have as part of their superstructure. The vegetarian options were probably the best I’ve had at a buffet like that. Baba Ganoush and bread, loads of good salads, Indianish and Chinese dishes, all in all pretty decent.

Friday will be my last day at work. I’ve got the apartment inspection in the morning and have to get on a plane at around 6:30pm. And then I’ll be joining Holly in a life of vagabondery for a while. I never feel as much like myself as when I’m on a train or a bus or other conveyance. It’s going to be a good December.

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Jul 31 2011
Leave a comment
australia, travel, vancouver

gallivanting on train and bike

On Saturday I got to go on an adventure. Holly needs a bike to get to work. It’s a half-hour walk that’s really crappy at the end of a twelve-hour day running around a kitchen lifting 20kilos of butter at a time, smashing your fingers under said butter and getting yelled at/needing to dodge the occasional cupcake being thrown by the chef. (I’m leaving out the story about the panicky bike-borrowing that happened this week, because I’m not sure if she’s got it in her queue of blog posts.)

So she went on Gumtree and found a used bike for a decent price. You can get a new bike from KMart for less, but she wanted a bike that was actually going to be good to ride, that was light and fast. Having bought such a bike in Vancouver last fall, I know what she means.

Anyway, this bike was out in Woolooware, across Botany Bay from where we live (yes, that Botany Bay), so I took a couple hours from my Saturday to take the train out there. I like how these suburban trains work here. If you live in a little town like Woolooware you’re still only half an hour from downtown Sydney. I don’t know if that’s what it’s like on the Go Train in Toronto, but this feels even more extensive than Vancouver’s Skytrain network.

I got to Woolooware and phoned the guy to get directions through the town to his house. Now, we have trouble with Australian accents, Holly and I. I especially find it difficult when it comes to names, since you can’t necessarily just figure it out from the context when there’s a word you don’t get. Case in point: Woolooware is down the Illawara Line though Holly’s best guess was Yellow Wire. We just looked at a map until we could piece something sensible together and happily it worked. For getting to the guy’s house I knew his street had a F in the middle and vowel sounds on either side. Maybe an R in there somewhere. It took a bit of getting lost but eventually I made it to Alfred street and went “That makes sense!”

I brought the bike back to Central Station on the train and then rode it home from there. My first time riding on the left hand side of the street. I remembered to be in the left lane, but I kept on trying to hug the right hand side of it. It was a little hard on my nerves but I got the bike home safely, and missed my bike back in Van City (but not that hill up to UBC).

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Jul 27 2011
Leave a comment
australia, library, teaching

getting out of the office, seeing new things

I walked through the CBD this morning to the NSW Parliament library. It was hard not to notice that Darling Harbour was full past the chocks with boats, but I made it past most of them before I did. There’s a boat show going on.

Then I climbed a hill and followed a man with a slightly shiny suit and expensive shoes but who complemented that with a green and yellow soccer scarf (that appeared to say England on it, though the green and yellow were exceedingly Australian) and ratty fingerless gloves. Oh how I wished I’d gotten a look at his face.

At Parliament I did some work that will hopefully be published in a UN handbook, so that’s cool. I got to mix my journalist skills with my library opportunities in a way that meant I could be boring for Holly in so many ways over dinner! Frabjous day.

When I got to Parliament early there was a bus full of school kids arriving for a tour. One of the teachers must have been Maori because he had a full-on facial tattoo to go with his teacher jeans and teacher blazer. It was pretty awesome. I wonder if it’s the first thing he talks about with a new class, or if he waits for a student to ask or if Australian kids are so culturally sensitive and aware no one would even think there’s something remarkable there. (I’m betting it’s not the last one.)

We went out for lunch at work because of the completion of a big long project and then I spent the afternoon troubleshooting as per usual. Home to make dinner and for Holly to set off the smoke detector with her bucket of foot-soaking water (I don’t exactly understand it either).

And now we’re sitting here on the bed. Side by side. Blogging. Because that’s what we do. Not a new thing, but still something I enjoy.

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Jul 14 2011
1 Comment
australia, photography

tracking (far from the outback)

Holly’s very into the jobhunt. They do this whole “job trial” thing here which is deeply annoying. They keep on bringing her into places for a few hours to work and then don’t call her back. Kind of a dick move. But it’s a big city and there are lots of people looking for work I guess. She’s pretty awesome about keeping on going even though it’s tough.

Today she went on an hour train ride north and back as part of this whole process. I can’t tell you why, or what she returned with, but I can post this picture she took from the train.

Tagged , , , ,
Jul 13 2011
Leave a comment
australia, food

sunday in the sun, everywhenelse very shady

I had been worried before starting five-days-a-week work. Only two days off each week? I would likely die. How would I ever get anything done? Doesn’t everything close at five pm just when I’d be done? The madness of it all. But it’s kind of working out. Having only two days focuses your time off a bit more. You feel a bit more justified sleeping till 11:30 when you only have the rare chance to do so.

And then Sunday after a slow waking up Holly and I found a place out of the wind and in the sun and we sat and read a newspaper and wrote and talked about jobsearching and it was kind of great.

When Holly arrived she wasn’t a big fan of the king-single sized bed our apartment was equipped with. I mean, we both fit in the bed, but there wasn’t a lot of (read: any) sprawl-room. Our landlord didn’t have a double bed for us, so we decided to get one ourselves. We saw a mattress in an alley, asked at the building it was leaning against and learned it had been left there by “some feral” out in the rain and it was nothing we wanted. A couple of days later a mattress appeared outside the building two doors down from the apartment. It was out there not a huge amount of time, seemed uninfested with bugs and it made its way into our room (we left a note, just in case it wasn’t being thrown out).

Last night we hung around a streetcorner in Chinatown waiting to buy an espresso machine from a guy in a tricked out Mazda who said he was “selling it for his mom.” It came in a paper bag, and the milk steamer hadn’t been cleaned, but apparently this is the way we roll.

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
← Older posts
Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 237 other followers