WHAZZUP AUGUST

Oh... hey y'all! Here I am, still in San Francisco! Still the most amazing city ever, still never want to leave! Every day I see more awesome things... ok ok get ahold of yourself.

HIIIIII ok I finally have an hour to chill and write something! Because I really wanted to write stuff for a long time! And I have a special feature for you... that could even be interactive. It's called, "Being Canadian in Amurika."

Ok, let's play. So, I've been in the States for two years now. Mostly I go unnoticed, and if someone finds out I'm Canadian (or re-finds out, that happens a lot too), their reaction is usually: "But you don't have an accent!!" And my reaction is usually: "........."

Do Canadians have accents? Can someone help me out on this one? I mean sure, Newfies, Maritimers, Quebeckers, people from Northern Ontario... do people from B.C.? Because most people around here are more familiar with the part of Canada directly north of here. Iiiii dunno. Moving on.

So ok. I say "out" weird. I guess. I can definitely hear it now when I talk to my friends and family from Canada on Skype, so, alright. And some Americans say soda, and jelly instead of jam, or whatever. But what other fun things have I learned living here that I was not aware of previously?

1. They say "real" instead of "really" as an adverb. As in, "I'm just going to tie my shoe real quick and then we can go." This used to bother me. Now I say it. Hum hum....

2. They don't use "aft" as an abbreviation for "afternoon". At first when Dan couldn't believe I said that I thought I was just weird. But then I googled it and apparently it's Canadian. You can get paranoid living out here.

3. I was riding in the car with Emily and mentioned someone was going to make me pasta. She was like "wait... are you saying it wrong or is the person in your story saying it wrong and you're making fun of them?" I was like... "saying what wrong?"

So I say "pass-ta" and she and everyone else around here says "pahs-ta". Oh. Someone else said, "oh yeah, that's a Canadian thing." 

My real question is HOW DID I LIVE HERE FOR TWO YEARS AND NO ONE TOLD ME I WAS SAYING PASTA FUNNY?!

4. Apparently they don't say "brek" or "brekky" for "breakfast" either. I might just be weird on this one though.

5. Another pronunciation giveaway is saying "soe-ree" for "sorry" instead of the American "saw-ree". I didn't notice that one for a while.

6. It's not KD, it's not Kraft Dinner, it's "mac and cheese". Well yeah... or... wait... is it?

It's just funny when someone looks at you and is like "wait... did you just say...?" Anyone else got anything?


Ok so that was "funtimes in Americaland". Now moving on again to San Franciscoland.

So I went to visit Michaela in East Palo Alto (it's a thing, and it's dangerous) not this past weekend but the one before that. FUUUUUUUCK Palo Alto (and the peninsula in general) is HOT. Here in SF we've been getting a ton of sun since I've been here, but it's always nice and fresh and breezy and sometimes goddamn cold and misty. Palo Alto was hot. We wandered around the cute main street and checked out the Stanford University campus. It's gorgeous and green and huge and is so clean and well-planned-out that it seems like an amusement park. They have their own (good) art museum that's FREE, nice.

Stanford Campus.

Took the Caltrain there and back (Ah! Commuter trains, how convenient). Then, on:

Monday - ran with the Hash House Harriers (http://www.sfh3.com/sections/1/pages/2). I went today as well. Basically, you follow a trail marked with chalk and flour for around an hour and then get to a keg at the end. And a ton of chips. The amazing thing about it is they change location every time, and you get to explore different bits of the city. We ran up Mt. Davidson and then through a verrrrrrry well-to-do area last week, and then today we ran through the Presidio park and got incredible views of the Bay, the Bridge, and the ocean. Absolutely.... fabulous. 

View from Mount Davidson! Not my picture. I was running, you remember.

Coastline, we spent some time on a trail along here today. Also not my picture!

So yeah. I will keep up this running shit just to get to see the city.

Tuesday - Went to a San Francisco Giants (baseball) game with Drew and two other girls. We bundled up and ate gourmet leftovers. Drew is moving away... or has already moved away now, so, bye Drew :( Off to Yale with you! Oh, and Giants won against the Mets!

Wednesday - down to the Independent on Divisadero to see a mashup band called the Hood Internet. Went with a bunch of guys from ultimate, got cheap beers at this amazing café called the Beanbag, danced the night away. Did not sleep enough that night.

Thursday - Went to Nightlife at the California Academy of Sciences (awesome museum with a living roof, aquarium, four-storey rainforest, Planetarium that I think is better than IMAX), which is when you can only come in if you're over 21 and pay less than half price to get in because you can drink alcohol once you're there! It was pretty packed, they had ping-pong and a DJ as well but I didn't get to stay long. I DID, however, get to see the BABY OSTRICHES which, as Kevin said, were wayyyy cuter than I was even expecting. THEY RUN AROUND AND THEN THEY LAY WITH THEIR NECKS ON THE SAND!!!!!

Friday - had a movie night and ate Indian pizza. (It exists!) Saturday worked, and Sunday hung out in the sunny sunny Mission for Sunday Streets with ultimate peeps, and drank milkshakes that were... THE BOMB. And so ended my crazy week. 

It was so crazy because we had a "by" week with frisbee. Games resume this week. Yeah so, normally what I shoot for is playing ultimate Tues and Thurs nights and Sat mornings, and climb twice a week as well. Work-wise, I try my best NOT to work in the evenings, and preferably not on weekends. But I do the latter sometimes. Sometimes I just need an afternoon off during the week, and that means I have to find other time to work if I want to be financially responsible. 

Haven't been climbing as much as I'd like to because Brian's been so busy with work/car craziness. Hopefully we'll get back in the swing soon. This past week was awesome, but I need my exercise.

And work is going well! I'm definitely getting enough, and I think I've gotten better with managing everything. I usually have work set up for days in advance, so I don't have to stress about missing emails offering me work. I aim to start work at 9 and finish at 5 and have a lunch break, and mostly it works out.

So yeahhhhh! Things are good! I love SF! (Shut up already....) I wish for all of you to come see me! Thanks for reading and/or skimming... :)

DA JUICE

*cue café saxophone soundtrack*

I am loving San Francisco!! Hahaha I feel so unoriginal saying this. On the other hand, aren't you supposed to enjoy the good moments when they come? I am loving being in a city again, meeting new people and hanging out with frisbee peeps, watching the streetcar or whatever the hell they call it go by, reading in the sun in the Golden Gate Park. I like living in my little quiet neighbourhood near the park and everything I need at 9th & Irving, I like being able to bike to both ends of the park where I play frisbee (east end on Saturdays, west end Tuesdays and Thursdays). I like my roommates and my apartment! It's all good.

I've been "working" from home this week since my OPT started. What that has meant is that bleary-eyed at 8am I open my laptop from my bed in case someone emailed me. Because I have learned that if I don't respond in less than two minutes to the email, the job will be given to someone else. That happened on Monday. But I learned! And now I am crazy on top of my email. And I've gotten more jobs. Thank the flying spaghetti monster.

So then, if I do get some work, I, still bleary-eyed, stumble in my pajamas to the table in the kitchen and try to get organized really quickly. I'm not really a fan of this process - I like being able to shower, get dressed (if only in sweatpants) and put my contacts in before starting the day. I've been trying to set a sleep schedule for myself to wake up at 7:30, but I've been having some trouble being tired early enough at night to not want to kill myself waking up at 7:30. I think today I actually woke up before my alarm, and I managed to get up and ready and at the table at 8am to start my workday. Look at me, I am so good. GIVE ME WORK!

I was actually supposed to work a few hours this morning, but apparently the translator never did his/her work and so the file will be ready tomorrow instead. I actually have a full work day tomorrow. So today, I finally made it out of my house and into a café whose tables are almost fully occupied by people with Macs. Well, one guy has an iPad, but I guess that still counts. AREN'T WE COOL?!! Living the life. Is everyone else unemployed(ish) like me?

So the weather has been amazing summery, and everyone likes to warn me that it isn't going to last. Today it's cold - 12 Celsius (55 Fahrenheit - look at me learn!) but I'm not any less happy, it just feels like fall in Canada, which I happen to love! NOTHING WILL STOP MY GOOD MOOD!

Alright, that's enough caps lock for today. I came here for a reason, on to the applications.


BYYYYYYEEEEEE

New start y'all

Whoo! Only like four or five months since my last post! Truth be told there wasn't that much to talk about and it would only have gone like this:

"Oh my god what the hell am I going to do after I graduate ahhhh!!!!!"

Thoughts going in circles. Repeat repeat repeat. So, not a whole lot exciting.

I was pretty sad to leave Israel in January because I knew this semester was going to be horribly stressful. And it was. Not school-wise, even though, yeah yeah, I was supposed to pass all my classes and I was taking ten different subjects sort of and I was in Practicum, which is really time-consuming. I was just friggin' stresssssed about knowing what the hell I was going to do after I graduated.

One the one hand, people were saying - just concentrate on school, you need to pass your exams! On the other, I kept hearing that prep is key to launching your career, you don't want to leave everything to the last minute, etc. etc. Fair enough. Some people were able to juggle those two aspects, others got too focused on one or the other and let the other aspect suffer a bit... I kept swinging from one to the other.

It all started in February with the career fair, resumes, nice suits, blah blah blah. And then it just continued. Constant searching, basically fruitless. The other thing you have to keep in mind is that as a Canadian in Americaland I am subject to immigration and work restrictions just like any other poor slob [foreigner], so I had to apply for a work permit called Optional Practical Training (OPT). And how it works is, I have a year max to work, but only 90 days of unemployment total in that year. So once my OPT starts, I have three months-ish to do jackshit before I get kicked out of the country. To be able to stay for the year, I can freelance, but I need 20 hours of work minimum a week to maintain status. Obviously, I had no idea if that was feasible, but it didn't look like I was going to be getting a steady job.

To sum up, I was kinda jealous of the folks who got to go home to their parents and take their time finding a job. If that was needed.

Like I said, my job search was pretty much fruitless, and I didn't get a job before I graduated. So I just decided to move to San Francisco and start looking for freelance work in anything and everything (OPT only applies to work within my professional field). If I got work, great, and if not, I would have a nice summer (if foggy) in the Bay area. This is my chance to stay for a year in the States, and I figured it was as good a place as any to look for work.

I also wanted to live in San Francisco because:
1) It's a big city with good public transportation
2) It was close to Monterey (could drive with my stuff)
3) I disliked it when I was a tourist

I know that sounds weird. Everyone seems to love San Francisco, but somehow I was really underwhelmed every time I visited. It was cold or something, or I didn't know where I was going. I knew it was supposed to be great and I believed that living there, it would be great.

So, I moved there!

Well, my stuff is there. In the place I'm subletting for the summer. I move myself there on Thursday, June 7! Ben and I drove up with my stuff in a U-Haul from Monterey... thanks Ben! Right now I'm staying with Ben's brother and brother's girlfriend (Dan and Lynashley) in Berkeley, and I have to tell you something.

BERKELEY IS AMAZING. I was all like... Yay big cities, yay noise and tons of people, bring it on. And when I first got to Berkeley (I've been here for about a week) I was thinking ok, this is way too quiet. But then I really started getting into it. I've just been hanging out every day, in quiet North Berkeley, and walking around and seeing the houses and the parks and it's all so leafy and green and all the houses are crazy damn cute with all these out-of-control flowers spilling off their lawns into the streets and it all looks so peaceful and adorable and organic, like everyone teaches their kids not to discriminate and not to eat animals and they just let the plants grow and read books instead and AHHHH IT'S ADORABLE.

Of course it helps that I'm completely on vacation right now, I just chop plants down around the house and eat and go for walks and read, and I get to hang out with Dan because he is also not working right now, so for me this is awesome.

Dan and Lynashley have been the best hosts ever, but all good things must end, and I must move into my (admittedly also quiet) neighbourhood in SF. If you put this into Google Maps you can see where I am living: 12th avenue at Lawton, San Francisco

Apparently the Sunset is notoriously foggy, so, sad face! But on good days you can see the Golden Gate Bridge from this intersection. Google Maps doesn't really do it justice. Golden Gate Bridge, you will be my new CN Tower.

= 

Warming my heart wherever I may be. And honestly... San Francisco is actually really cool. Now that I've driven around instead of being a lame-ass lost tourist, it is amazing. The bridge looks stunning as the sun starts going down. The city looks amazing from across the bay in Oakland. There is a great coastline if you drive west of the Golden Gate Bridge. I live close to Golden Gate Park and am planning on playing in an ultimate frisbee league there. Can't wait to get out and start meeting people...

Which is especially important because! I forgot to mention this but it seems like right now I will be working from home fulltime for a translation company as a badass quality manager. This is a very good development because it will:

- give me money
- give me hours to keep up my immigration status
- be flexible enough to allow me to do interpretation stuff if that comes up
- give me great experience within the translation industry

So yeah. I hope it works out. My plan is to keep looking for interpretation stuff in the Bay area, work on getting court certified for California, etc., while doing this quality assurance stuff. If it works out, I could be staying in the Bay area for a year, not just a summer! :)

And that would be very nice.

For now I'll just be moving myself in, exploring, and setting up shop to start work. My work permit starts on June 18, so I still have a decent amount of time to be on vacation.

I'll tell you more about my roomies and San Francisco in general if it seems pertinent a little later! Till then, sayonara and good night.

DA JUICE

new year, whatever

It's January 1st, national hangover day as far as I can figure, and I'm reaping the rewards of mixing several alcohol varieties last night. Adleen plied us with wine punch and cheese-and-avocado quesadillas, I cried laughing at the Don Cherry piano video, then fell asleep on Janzen's shoulder on the TTC ride home. Now it's rainy and I've been walking around in my wimpy Keds, but it's not that cold, and there's no snow. At my brother's in Guelph it was all wet snow and fog. Right now I"m looking at Jack Layton the female ginger cat sitting in the window watching the raindrops roll down the window and Janzen is trying to nap her hangover away. Had a candy cane latte at Second Cup with Jonathan and also sushi, and I could use a nap too. But somehow I feel like I need to write down what's going on, because I'm starting to lose track of the days. I can't believe how quickly I can forget about school. And I was just starting to get into the whole thing! When I get to Tel Aviv I'll have to force myself to do SOMETHING for school. But I know I"ll want to bike around and work on Hebrew and watch TV. Oh sigh.

So I passed all my exams! Including Simul into Spanish, somehow miraculously, considering Leire gave us some crazy ass-exam that I'm pretty sure got interpreted into pure gibberish by me. I still haven't gotten around to (read: gotten up the nerve to) listen to my recording. Shudder shudder.

With exams done I chilled out for a week and cleaned my whole place for my subletter, then went to San Francisco for a day to see the Nutcracker ballet (awwwesome) and get that bigger-city fix with Dan and Becky. Next day got to Yellowknife and did the Christmas thing there, then the parents and I flew over to Ontario to hang out with my brother in Guelph, and now I'm in Toronto for a few days just to hang out. The weather kind of sucks right now, but hey maybe I'll get lucky tomorrow so I can do some shopping.

Saw my Oma yesterday before getting on the GO to come here, and on the 3rd and 4th I'm supposed to hang out with her again, then the 5th it's off to Tel Aviv already. Lucky me, so much vacation. Poor Perki is being worked like a dog while I kick back, and like I said I should be doing stuff for school, but it is sooo hard to feel motivated when it feels so good to do fun stuff. I still need more break; just thinking about next semester makes me feel tired and overwhelmed. Not to mention everyone keeps asking what I'm going to do after I graduate in May, but I can't blame them. I'm just as curious as them to know what the hell is going to happen to me in the real world. Only time will tell, or something.