Let’s do things a little differently

I’m in the middle of a quarter-life crisis.

And by that, I just mean my career isn’t working out the way I want it to. I’ve been doing a lot of soul-searching lately and have ultimately decided to take my life in a different path.

People who know me well these days don’t seem surprised when I say I want to do natural resource conservation work, but the realization was revolutionary to me. I always thought my future would be in media and communications. But it’s just not doing it for me.

The wildlife rescue has become my sanctuary and, in that, I realize there’s no reason why I can’t make similar work into my actual work.

I’m currently taking Biology 11, of all things, because that’s a gap in my education. It’s weird to be taking a high school course nearly 10 years after graduating, but I’m definitely more interested in it now than I was in grade 11.

I think it all kind of ties together, though, in the sense that we don’t explore ourselves enough in highschool. If you find something you’re good at, you figure it’s your calling and don’t stop to think about your other options. I hated sciences in highschool, but that’s mainly because arts came easily to me. I had a knack for them and my grades were good. Nothing forced me to try anything different, so I just didn’t. Why would I?

In university, I dabbled in geology and geography–until I nearly failed a course, and suddenly it seemed safer to default to the journalism plan. So I did. I assumed I could never be happy doing something that didn’t come naturally to me.

So here I am at 24, wanting to revamp all my life choices and start over. Only this time, there’s nothing stopping me. I’m in control of my own fate. I will let you know how it goes.

Besides, I have nothing to lose.

I’m fairly certain this isn’t normal behaviour

When cats aren’t costing you thousands of dollars in gender reassignment surgery, you can see them going batshit insane chasing around wooden skewers and spaghetti noodles.

But this morning I found them participating in a whole new activity that breaches all boundaries of independence and normalcy.

There is something wrong with my cats.

This is how my new life begins

Wash knives and feeding sticks separately
Knives are sharp

That’s the sign I was staring at moments before slicing my knuckle open with a fillet knife.

I was quickly scrubbing gross, hardened flakes of fish off the blade of the knife when I miscalculated the distance from my hand.

My first instinct was to ignore it. But after a few seconds of turning my finger red, I decided I shouldn’t ignore it anymore. Mainly because my wash cloth was white and hiding the evidence of such a simple misjudgement seemed like far too high stakes.

I went to the exam room instead and spoke to one of the vet techs:

M: Do you have a bandaid I can have?
X: Of course! What happened?

I felt the shame creep in.

M: I cut myself doing dishes on a knife.

She handed me the box.

X: You can have any of these you want!

She handed me a form.

X: But I’m gonna need you to fill this out too.

So I filled out the form so that the wildlife rescue now has a permanent record of my stupid mistake. It was all quite dramatic for such a minor thing.

On my way home, I started thinking all about fish infections spreading through my body and how I’m going to become a mutant!

Speaking of disease being injected into my body, I got a flu shot today. I completely forgot to sign up but my colleagues tipped me off that they had some cancellations.

HR loves when they email you about something for weeks on end and you ignore them, then drop in half-way through the strictly scheduled day and ask to sign up. Haha, but like I said, they had extra jabs so they fit me in.

I’m pleased to know I won’t be catching H3N2 anytime soon, even as a fish. I’m not really sure what I’m going to do with my last few days as a human.

I am looking forward to having gills, but I hope I can still breathe out of water. Being a mermaid would be highly overrated. I don’t want to spend my days being touched by creepy seaweed and fighting with barracudas.

How do people not find this torturous?

Today, I went to the gym.

The most exciting part of my day was actually the surprise wedding at work that I was Maid of Honouring in, but that’s a story for another day.

Instead, I want to tell you about the torture I endured during my first official cardio workout in, oh, 2 years.

You see, last Sunday, I made some bold commitments. One of those was to work out 3 times a week (Tues, Thurs & Sat) with Ben at his building’s gym. I also made plans to run outside once a week with Jen (Sunday).

I (un)fortunately missed Tuesdays workout because by the time I got to the skytrain station and realized I forgot my debit card in my other purse and would have to walk another 40 mins round trip for fare, it was already getting late. I’m pathetic on work nights, ok?! I didn’t want to be awake all night.

Anyway.

I think it was at about minute 24 of 30 where, in the spirit of my friend Kieran who likes both working out and rating things on scales, I announced to Ben, “On a scale of 1 to 10, I hate working out about an 11.”

Dramatic, I know, but I’m a sissy.

To make matters worse, there was a seriously hot Australian dude pumping iron while Ben and I flailed around on the cardio machines.

Did I mention my horrible clothes? I don’t own workout clothes. I own sweatpants and oversized t-shirts and a nice pair of running shoes because feet sizes don’t actually change over the years. And I was in Yaletown. Yaletown.

On Saturday, we’re going hiking. I despise hiking. I know, I’ve completely lost my mind.

And sure, I’ll continue being active, but I will also hate every moment of it.

2011 is pretty cool

You ever have one of those days where you’re like, “Man, technology today is totally awesome”? Because, well, it totally is. And I’m having one of those days.

I always BBM, email and phone with my phone, and sometimes I kill time with games, but today I took it to a whole new level.

It started when I was looking for a parking spot today near a local restaurant. I found one, near a sign I’ve never been able to understand.

Then sheer brilliance struck: I would tweet @CityofVancouver and ask them what it means! Sure enough, they responded within 30 minutes with a precise answer.

After coordinating dinner plans with Jen, on my phone, we were killing time while waiting for Karine to show up. (Bus transit technology isn’t as cool.) She showed me this wicked video, which I was able to watch right then and there at the table.

A couple hours later, I’m on my couch and I send that same video to Keelan who would undoubtedly appreciate it. He also watched it on his phone and then we texted each other about how crazy it was.

Then Karine asks me for Jen’s number and it takes literal seconds to find it in my address book, copy and paste it.

This day-to-day mobile lifestyle we’ve created didn’t exist 10 years ago. We totally take it for granted.

…Yeah, my life is really boring right now. How’d you guess?

Now that November is here, I have a plan

I just wrote 42 words about the rain before I realized it’s not at all interesting. But it is raining.

More importantly, it’s super cold. I don’t know what it is about Vancouver that makes the cold penetrate your very bones. It’s dramatic but that’s really the only way to describe it.

With winter so clearly on it’s way, it has become apparent that I need some more indoor hobbies. It’s hard enough to convince people to go geocaching in the best of times so I’m not holding high hopes for them now.

Here’s a list of some of my newfound activities:

Brushing Thomas. He likes it.

Painting my nails. I can do rainbows and alternating colours, pastels or glitter, dark or light. The possibilities are endless!

Re-arranging Justine’s DVD collection. Alphabetical is overrated. The fun part is waiting for her to notice.

Looking up inspirational quote photos on Google. You know, the ones with the black borders and white writing. There’s not enough of those.

Ignoring Keelan’s texts. He seems to think I never reply even though I’m pretty sure I do 95% of the time. Unless I’m at work. Or intoxicated.

Eating ice cream. Om nom nom nom. In cones, in bowls–it’s all good.

Brainstorming cliche phrases and then figuring out how to implement them in my daily vocab. Oh, and sports metaphors!

As you can see, I have some pretty big plans for the winter months. They will undoubtedly be productive.

If you want to join me in any of my hobbies, feel free to call me. I apologize in advance if I’m having too much fun to answer!

Netflix just doesn’t “get me”

Let’s talk about Netflix suggested titles.

When I first got Netflix, I just watched a bunch of documentaries on drugs. When “gritty drug movies” came up as a category, that made sense.

Then one day, “Movies With A Strong Female Lead”. Ok. I can get behind that.

But recently… “Talking-Animal Movies.”

Don’t get me wrong. I think it’s pretty sweet that I now have access to 10 different Land Before Time movies. (But not the first one! What the heck, Netflix?! I’m not gonna start on number 3!)

But we haven’t watched any animal movies. Ever, as far as Netflix is concerned. Especially talking animal movies.

Our Recently Watched list looks like this:

The L Word
90210 (that was Jenna, I swear!)
The Mothman Prophecies
Dead Like Me
Madmen

Unless the Mothman has become an animal, I really don’t understand. None of those are even remotely related.

I can’t wait to see what our current movie brings up: Never Say Never.
I’m hoping for an entire category dedicated to only Justin Bieber.