Frustrated

So I'm in Vancouver now and that's going along as well as it can. Doing my best to be up beat and positive about the whole thing. I burnt my hand yesterday while doing dishes and it sort of opened the flood gates of despair that I've been feeling. however i managed to close the gates fairly quickly and get on with my life again.

It's Sunday, guess where Darren is? School. yep. I knew that moving to Van wouldn't change how much work Darren would have to do. I also knew that moving to Van only meant I'd see him every day, not that I'd get any quality time with him. and the little quality time we do get is generally poisoned by the fact that he should be getting work done. then i worry like a mother (which is highly annoying to me) that he's not getting work done, and feel guilty (i should have been a Jew) that I'm keeping him from his work.

so that's frustrating me

what else is frustrating me is a bit of a long story. i shall shorten it for you.
Darren has an uncle who lives in Japan, therefore he has Japanese cousins. One of these cousins has been in the hospital since Christmas, he is recovering but slowly.

To encourage his recovery Darren's sister and another cousin had arranged to do a project involving encouraging words and pictures of couples.

I have been SO out of the loop on this its ridiculous!!!!!!!
A picture has been chosen for myself and Darren, a picture we had never seen until last night and a picture neither of us are too fond of. its not bad, its kinda funny but there are so many other good pictures of us that we would have picked instead, but alas its too late - frustrating

also i know its Darren's cousin and therefore its not up to me and my input isn't all that necessary but the words Darren picked for his encouraging words i actually really don't like. at all - frustrating.

but he's not my family yet so its not like i can do anything about it. I'm just uber frustrated that I'm feeling yet again like an accessory to Darren's life not a partner in it. I see him every day but i barely spend time with him. I also don't get ANY input in his cousins "card". Yes im a selfish person, deal with it, i've been trying to for 23 years and it's a hard habit to break out of.

I'm SICK of feeling like this!!

Vancouver so far

On the 2nd Darren and I moved me and my stuff to Vancouver, so now I am living with Darren and our room mate Alex. so far its been pretty good. Because I didn't bring over much stuff i was able to get it all sorted and put away fairly quickly on the 2, which was nice. On Jan 3 Darren and I went night skiing at Cypress which is about an hour drive away from where we live. It was a lot of fun. However there were a couple hic-ups before we were actually able to get on the slopes.

I have new ski boots which must be fitted to my ski's by adjusting their bindings. Unfortunately my ski's are 5 or more years old. So the guy at the shop said that the manufacturer had just put out a list which has deemed a lot of older bindings no longer safe. And my bindings are of course on this list, therefore he is not allowed to work on my bindings. Therefore I can’t use my ski’s to go skiing so I have to rent a pair of ski’s. On top of that the manager of the shop tells me he wouldn’t work on my bindings anyway because they are child’s bindings and wouldn’t hold me. This confused and frustrated me because I’ve had the ski’s for 5 years, I haven’t been a child for 10 years and I have NEVER popped out of my ski’s, they have always worked just fine. But doesn’t matter because I had to rent regardless.

The last time I went skiing, which was last year, we had just bought my new boots and I forgot what they looked like, so when packing I grabbed what I thought were my boots. Turns out the ones I grabbed were Dad’s boots so they didn’t fit me and they didn’t fit my ski’s, so I had to rent boots. Which means my boots and my ski’s have never actually met. Haha.

So back to last week when I rented ski’s, because I have new boots I haven’t broken them in yet which means my feet HURT! Because we are night skiing there are no line ups to wait for the chair and very few people on the hill, which is lovely, so we got quite a few runs in in the 3 hours we paid for. But my feet hurt so much they go numb, I can’t feel them at all, except my arches, which I think are trying to detach themselves from my feet. On top of that because I haven’t been skiing in a year my thighs are also killing me. But I do my best to ski through the pain because I love skiing, the snow is perfect and the conditions are lovely, night skiing with not a cloud in the sky is heaven. But my thighs and feet get the better of me and I eventually have to call it quits, but Darren was still able to get 3 or 4 more runs in before we decided to go home. All in all it was a lot of fun and we hope to do it again.

Last Friday, Jan 7, I finally hear back from all my references and am able to hand out my resume. I printed off 15 resumes and wasn’t able to hand out 1. NO ONE was hiring. It was very depressing. Then I went into a convenience store to buy a bus pass, because I rarely have change and was planning on going more into town to look for jobs later. A bus pass for one month in Vancouver is $110.00. I am now very depressed. But its ok, Darren took my out for a friends birthday and we had a lot of fun watching the hockey game.

On Tuesday, Jan 11, I muster up the courage and the happy attitude to go out and look for a job again. This time I was able to hand out 3 resumes. On my way home I stopped into a pub called “The Cheshire Cheese Inn” and I asked if they were hiring. The owner said yup and took my resume then asked me to sit down and he’d be with me in a minute. So he interviews me on the spot.

“have you had any waitressing experience?”

“No, but I did work at McDonalds for 3 months”
“are you a fast learner?”
“I think I can be, but it really depends on what I’m doing.”
“we’re looking for someone we don’t have to train and we’d like them to start in a week. So why don’t you come in on Friday and will give you a two week trial run and see how you do”

Just like that I got a job I have no requirements for, haha. So Friday I start at 9:45am and he mentioned id be working in the evening too. I’m not sure when I’m off but they close at midnight, so at the moment I’m expecting the worst but hoping for the best. I’m expecting to work from 9:45am to midnight with an hour and half brake (he mentioned I’d get an hour and a half brake) and it’s a game night, which means the place could be filled with a lot of hockey fans. But I’m hoping for the best in that I learn quickly and hoping that it wont be too hard. I keep telling myself that if I can work at McDonalds at their busiest times and the Butchart Garden’s coffee shop at their busiest times I’ll be able to work in a small British pub. This pub that I’m working at really reminds me of the local pub where I lived in Wales.

In the mean time I’ve been being a bit of a house wife for Darren. It’s fun in that I know it will end soon, so I’m enjoying taking care of him as much as I can. Right now I’m waiting for Darren to get home from band practice. Darren’s playing trombone in the UBC Godiva band which is just a volunteer school marching band but he really enjoys it.

And that’s pretty much all that’s been happening with me since I moved over here. I’m still looking for a Job with better hours and decent pay, I’ve applied online to a lot of banks and other businesses and today I sent an e-mail to the head of the Classics department at UBC to see if he could suggest anything or had any work for me. So even though I have a job I wont stop looking until I have a good job.

life since then

So i keep on trying to do my best to remember about updating this thing and it never goes well. So Darren and I are still engaged, the wedding is at the end of this year.

Whats happened since then:
I finished school, i'm graduated with my Bachelor of Arts in Greek and Roman Studies. Its slightly frustrating how many people don't understand that Greek and Roman Studies is its own thing.

"so what are you taking?"
"Greek and Roman studies"
"but what is that?"
"Greek and Roman studies"
"So are you in anthropology?"
"no, its greek and roman studies, it's its own program, faculty, department etc etc"
"oh.... so is that like in the archeology department?"
"no, its GREEK AND ROMAN STUDIES!"

no joke that is an actual conversation i had with someone, and there have been many similar ones to it. Its frustrating.

So now im living in Vancouver (which btw im a bit afarid of) with the hubby-to-be while he finishes school. Looking for a job, and its depressing because no one is hiring, oh well. something will come a long eventually, i just have to keep looking.

Thats about it.....

this summer Darren and I lived together in Langford, that was interesting. our toilet broke so for 2-3 weeks while both of us were working in langford we were living in saanichton with my parents waiting for parts to be shipped in.

what else? OH YEAH! I signed up for a class in july, or at least i thought it was in july, but really it was in june. so on july 2 when i showed up for class it wasn't there. then i looked at the schedule on the board and my class was in june. OOPS! no worries, I got 100% of my fees back for that class so yay. at the time i was really embarrassed, but now its kinda funny :D

Anyway, thats a really short recap of life.
school, work, school, vancouver.

if you want wedding info go to plande-thomas.blogspot.com