Report # 908

Hey everyone, I hope that you’ve all been having an awesome start to the week. I had a great three day weekend and it was super hot as well so I got lots of suntanning in. After going for a run on Saturday afternoon I swam in the pool and tanned for a couple of hours. I had my sunscreen on so I didn’t have any problems.

In the evening I watched a Mexican movie called Y tu mamá también. It was a very good movie about two young guys who take a road trip with an older woman from Spain….. though it was definitely a little bit of a wild movie. I talked to Dora for a while in the evening and that was pretty much it for Saturday. On Sunday I ran up to Tim Hortons in the morning and I went for a run during the middle of the day. It was around 32 C (90 F) and I was just burnt out after that run. I tried to go around another time but I was just beat.

My dad actually came and picked me up as he didn’t think it was a good idea for me to be running that much in such warm weather. I wanted to make it around the second time but I was kind of glad I got to go home. I swam in the pool and soaked up some more sun for a while that afternoon. I think I totally overdid it as I had a bad cramp in my right leg and it felt like I had a bone out of joint for a few minutes. Once it got back in place I was able to walk and I was good.

On Monday I went for another run up to Tim Hortons and for a walk in the afternoon. It was humid but it actually started raining really hard in the afternoon so all of the plants got a great shower. I couldn’t find my graduation document from my university for my program after looking all over the house so I figured I would have to go to the university today and order a new one, but luckily my mom found it in the evening.

I had an idea that she had it as I remembered giving it to her in the past to frame, but she tucked it away somewhere in her closet and it just sat there for a long time. I now have made sure I got all of my important school stuff and reference letters scanned onto my computer and in my email as well so I think I’m good. I watched another Mexican movie last night called Miss Bala. And while it was a good movie, it was basically pure horror to watch it.

Basically it was about a woman who wanted to be Miss. Baja California, and she gets to win the contest, but the contest is controlled by drug traffickers and she is forced to help out the gangs do bad things and in the end she gets send to jail for being involved in murders and theft when really she was innocent and just forced to be apart of something. The movie was just filled with gun shots, corruption, and sexual assault…. nothing very pretty to watch.

I didn’t sleep too well last night as it was probably because I drank a can of coke after 6:00 pm. It sucks that I can’t even drink coke at 6:00 pm anymore without it affecting my sleep. I’m sure some days I’ve had it later and slept without any problems, but some nights it really does get to me. It was my last day of work today though so it really wasn’t a big deal. I got all of my work done and I am leaving the company with things as caught up as they possibly could be.

My replacement still hasn’t started, and he might not start until next week, but I’m not there anymore so I don’t have to worry about anything ! The last day went by really well and in the afternoon we had a DQ ice cream cake and everyone wished me all of the best and I got a card signed from everyone…. it was a very special good-bye and everyone was so friendly. I can remember just 18 months ago on my third day of work there we all had pizza and signed a card for the girl who was leaving….. she was the girl who I was replacing, and now I’m going….. time flies !

I left at 2:30 instead of 4:30 as I was pretty much done everything I could do and I wanted to be home earlier to get some things done. My grandmother picked me up and we went to IHOP for dinner and my brother came by as well. When I got home I started packing my suitcase for Calgary and that’s basically where I’m at now. I’ll be in Calgary from tomorrow until the 17, so basically I just have two full days at home before going to Mexico. I still have some things to do in advance, but I’ll be able to do some of them while I’m in Calgary.

I was interested in reading about the whole controversy over comments made by the CEO of US restaurant chain Chick-fil-A. Basically the CEO said that the ownership supports the bible definition of family. Now this has caused on one hand a high out pour of support from traditional Christians, and on another hand protests by gay people and others clearly against the restaurant’s stance. In my opinion everyone is overreacting.

I certainly don’t agree with the CEO’s views, but he has a right to have those views. As long as he is not promoting homophobia and discriminating against same-sex couples, his comments really aren’t causing problems. I can see why his comments would upset same-sex couples, but they don’t have to agree with the CEO’s comments to enjoy the food. And if they really want to protest and not give that restaurant the business they can go somewhere else.

It’s been great to see leaders standing up against the restaurant in a number of cities though. While the CEO has a right to believe what he said, from a business stance I think it was a stupid thing to say. He is obviously going to be alienating one group and while sales may be up initially I think over time the restaurant will lose customers. And I always think the CEO made a mistake in bringing religion into the restaurant industry. Not everyone is Christian and has those beliefs, so to put them all out there I don’t think was a good idea.

Three are no Chick-Fil-A’s in Canada though if there were I can’t say I’d go to one. And not because of what the CEO said, but because I really don’t need to be going to another artery clogging eatery and stuffing myself with nothing more than deep fried and salty poultry and fries covered in grease. And if anyone was thinking about their health much I don’t think many people, gay or straight, religious or non-religious would eat there !

At the end of the day as long as what a person is saying isn’t hateful or discriminatory there is free speech. And some people will like what the CEO said and others won’t. And people can show their support or opposition with their wallets in this case. All I can really say is companies should be trying to appeal to everyone and bringing customers from different walks of life together, not creating bridges and division. So while I respect the CEO had a right to say what he said, I think he made a poor choice to come out and say it.

Now the people who go to Chick-Fil-A regularly will have to decide what this means for themselves. While I do think sales will decrease slightly in the future, I don’t think there will be a big change. People who love eating there will continue to eat there and people who don’t will continue going somewhere else. It’s just always interesting when these stories are in the paper. I kind of wish I was in a marketing class now to discuss an issue like this. I’m sure we’ll all find out the fallout from the CEO’s comments in a few months.

For the next question:

Do you agree with what the Chick-Fil-A CEO said, why or why not ? Do you think there will be any fallout or positive effect on his business based on his comments ?

I wish everyone all of the best with everything. Take care and I’ll talk to you all on Friday from Calgary, bye for now.

Report # 907

Hey everyone, I hope that you’ve all been having an awesome start to the weekend. Today is going to be around 30 C (86 F) and tomorrow will be a little hotter so I’ll get some great temperature preparation for Mexico. My last full work week went by super fast and now I just have one more day remaining on Tuesday as Monday is a holiday here. (BC Day) I would have preferred just to finish yesterday, but seeing as I can get paid for two days for working one I decided just to work that extra day.

A lot of people at my work were very  nice and wishing me all the best for the future and saying that I’ll be missed. While it certainly hasn’t been my dream job I’ve been thankful that I’ve had a place to work that is almost as close to home as possible and some nice people to work with. So I will miss it a little bit, but I’m definitely ready for the next chapter of my life. After work on Friday I went to my final Spanish class with Carlos. From my calculations I had 68 sessions with him. The first 17 were for two hours each and the next 51 were for 1.5 hours.

So basically I’ve spent about 110 hours with Carlos since April of last year. I will miss going there, but I definitely won’t miss the super long Fridays. I have Carlos on Skype and his email as well so we will definitely stay in touch. This morning I was in bed until around 10:00 am and then I had a shower and took the bus to Cloverdale to get my first haircut in almost three months. Cloverdale was super busy today as it was the Blueberry Festival with a classic car show as well so there were quite a few people there.

I was in an out of the hair salon in about 15 minutes and now my hair is nice and short so I’ll be good for quite a while. Afterwards I went to some Mediterranean place to pick up a meal. I thought I would have something different. I had some meal with pieces of chicken, lettuce, rice, sauce and pita… it was great. Afterwards I stopped at the post office to pick up another one of the Telenovela DVD’s I ordered. I had to pay an additional $ 10 to pay the shipping fees. I won’t be ordering anything else off Amazon for quite a while.

On the way home I stopped at Starbucks and picked up a frappuichino and some oat fudge bar. It already was pretty warm outside so I am looking forward to going for a nice heat run this afternoon and than jumping in the pool. I definitely will be using sunscreen ! A few weeks ago there was a two year old German Shepard whose owner had thrown him in a dumpster leaving him to die.

The dog was found and the SPCA did everything they could to save the animal but it ended up dying. The dog was named “Captain” and he was once a police dog but apparently he was too nice for that line of work. So eventually the dog found an owner and clearly this owner mistreated him terribly. From what I read the owner had some mental health issues, but that is no excuse. At the end of the day the negligence and disgusting actions are reponsible for the death of this poor dog and that man should be punished to the full extent possible.

People who treat animals so poorly are among the worst people on this planet and to be honest I don’t think they deserve any leniency at all. These are disgusting human beings and they need to be treated as such. That poor animal I can only imagine the pain and suffering he went through. Thankfully so many people have realized what this dog has been through and from what I’ve read over $ 70,000 has been raised for the SPCA since news of this story broke out.

There was even a 7 year old girl who made a sign offering to pet dogs passing by in a big park for a donation with the goal of petting 1,000 dogs and raising $ 500. It’s just wonderful knowing that with one act of hate and atrocity towards a wonderful animal that so many people have stood up and not only spoken for Captain but raised so much money as well. So this cements my belief that while this world is full of sick people, the majority of people are great individuals who truly do care about remarkable causes.

For the next question:

Is animal abuse taken seriously enough ? What can be done to provide more protection and improve the lives of animals ?

Finally a day without pictures ! While I like taking pictures and posting them it is quite a bit of work so I’ll enjoy this photo-less day. I wish everyone all of the best with everything. Take care and I’ll talk to you all on Tuesday, bye for now.

Report # 906

Three more days of work ! It’s taking forever but I’m finally down to the last couple of days before going to Calgary. I just have Thursday and Friday, and then Tuesday after the long weekend. I just said it’s taking forever, but this week has gone by so quickly. I suppose it’s just taking forever because I gave four weeks notice, but these first three days of the week zoomed by. I’ve basically just arrived home after work each day, had my Tim Hortons, watched some programs and then relaxed in the evening.

I started watching Mujeres Asesinas, (killer women) but the version from Argentina. I really liked watching the Mexican version and this one is good as well. A lot of the stories are basically the same, though there are some new ones. I’ve also been watching La Fuerza Del Destino on DVD. Watching a telenovela on DVD is kind of nice because all of the long hours of unimportant stuff are taken out and it’s packed into 12 hours without commercials. I have one more DVD that I ordered in the mail, and aside from that I’ll just be watching the programs I can find on the internet.

I am hoping I can get an internet connection where I will be in Mexico, but of course there are things that are much more important for me to achieve in the beginning. The weather has been really nice and sunny and on Sunday I got a little bit of a sunburn as I swam in the pool and soaked up some sun for a couple of hours. From what I’ve been seeing this coming weekend is going to be very hot and sunny, so I’ll have to put some sunscreen on and go for a nice hot run in the middle of the afternoon. I haven’t had a haircut since May so I’m planning to do that on Saturday as well.

Every once and a while I read a story that just makes me want to shake my head. A few days ago on the internet I noticed a story about a couple who had all of their plans ready for their wedding, but than they found out they would have to get married in another church. And what was the reason that they would have to do this ? Well apparently because they were African Americans. This all took place in Mississippi, and they had wanted to get married in the church that they go to regularly.

Here are the two articles I have been reading:

http://news.yahoo.com/mississppi-church-refuses-marry-black-couple-205218322–abc-news-topstories.html

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/mississippi-town-church-blocked-black-couple-wedding-rallies-tolerance-article-1.1125962

From what I read the church that they attend has never married a black couple in the 120 years of its existence and when the pastor found out that some of the church goers did not want that streak to end he chose to marry them at another church nearby. Apparently some of the people who go to that church were so upset about the possibility of having a black couple married at that church they basically told the pastor if he married them there, they would remove him from his position.

In the article I have read it seems like a good number of the people in the place that this took place (Crystal Springs, Mississippi) are very angry with what has happened…. and that is at least some good out of this. I agree with those who say the pastor should have just married the couple. Now compared to many people my knowledge of the bible is very minimal, but I am sure there is nothing in there that accepts racism so the people who are going to that church clearly don’t know the Bible much more than I do.

I think its shameful there are still people opposed to something like marrying a black couple in a church. It would be wrong in any year, but come on it’s 2012 !!!!! I have read that a lot of the residents of Crystal Springs were incredibly upset over what happened and many members came together to express their disgust. So I am happy to know that people in this city have stood up to the racist minority and are doing what they can to combat the racism and discrimination that still clearly exists.

It’s just really shocking in the 21st century stories like this continue to come into the news every once in a while. We all have to do what we can to stand up against the racist losers of this world and protect the rights of everyone. Unfortunately there will always be racist people in the world which is very unfortunate, but to think that they are still part of certain church’s is just another eye opener for many people. And all I can say is the people who protested against marrying black people in that church should be ashamed of themselves.

I may not know who they are or what their reasons were for being so stupidly racist and discriminatory, but I do know one thing; they may call themselves Christians but they certainly aren’t. They are a bunch of racist losers who clearly don’t understand much about tolerance and their religion at all. If anything they should be banned from the church for causing pain in a couple’s lives and igniting a racist firestorm.

Unfortunately the pastor of this church seemed to be too weak and didn’t stand up to the racism and discrimination there. I hope he has learned a lesson in all of this as well, and instead of thinking about himself and his job, he needs to think about standing up for racial equality and combating the racism and discrimination that exists. That church clearly has a black eye to its reputation and one that will never heal unless the racist members are kicked out and the pastor apologizes. Then and only then can that church fix its damaged reputation and can the community truly beginning healing.

For the next question:

Was the pastor wrong to choose to marry the black couple at another church ? What should be done now going forward in terms of cleaning up the mess from the fallout of this situation ?

I will leave you all with some more pictures from John Hendry Park and a few others from Vancouver. Take care and I’ll talk to you all on Saturday, bye for now.

Sources: Mississippi Church Refuses to Marry Black Couple. By Alon Harish. ABC News. July 28, 2012. news.yahoo.com.

Mississippi town where church blocked black couple’s wedding rallies for tolerance. By Anthony Bartkewicz. New York Daily News. July 31, 2012. nydailynews.com.

Report # 905

Hey everyone, I hope that you’ve all been having an awesome weekend. After work on Friday I walked up to Tim Hortons before taking my two buses to see Carlos for my Spanish class. I actually left 15 minutes early as I didn’t want to wait around for the bus and start my class later. Giving four weeks notice when leaving a job is a great thing for someone to do if they can, but it just seems like it takes forever to finish up and move on. I start my last full week tomorrow so I’m looking forward to that.

My class went well with Carlos as we just talked a lot and he finished going over my reference letters. I hope to have one more from my manager of my current job, and I’ll need to get that one translated as well. I will miss my classes with Carlos, though I won’t miss the long 14 hour days every Friday so it will be nice to finish up with that this coming week. Yesterday morning my grandmother called and said that we should check out Zellers for a suitcase as all of the Zellers stores will be closing by the end of September and becoming Target.

So after running to Tim Hortons and coming home for a while my grandmother arrived and picked me up. Zellers had a huge selection of suitcases and all of them were on sale. I got a suitcase that was originally $ 220 with taxes, for $ 90, as it was 60 % off. My grandmother actually bought it for me as a Christmas present so that was a great surprise. Afterwards we went to Boston Pizza and I had some shrimp tacos with a cesar salad, and it was an amazing meal.

In the afternoon I went for another walk and afterwards I swam in the pool and soaked up some sun. In the evening I watched a movie called Te presento a Laura (I present you Laura). I remember when I was in Monterrey in December 2010 I was with Pili and we were looking for movies to watch in the theatre. I saw that they were playing that movie but Pili was saying I wouldn’t understand it. I tried to read the synopsis and I could only read the first line well and afterwards I didn’t really understand it.

This year though I am able to read much better and watch movies and shows in Spanish and I never use any subtitles, so I have come a long way in the last year and a half. I’m sure after going to Mexico this time and being there for a long period of time I’ll be even better so I am very excited about the future and continuing to improve. Of course it will take me like 10 years to really perfect the language, but I am getting there !

It was actually a very good movie about a depressed young woman who had a list of things she wanted to do before she died. (Some of them serious and others just very silly) One of them was to save a life and care for it. She saved a suicidal actor from jumping off a building and they started working together and really having a fun relationship completing the rest of the items on the list. He would save her life at the end of the movie as well. So it was a fun movie to watch.

I talked to Dora for a few hours in the evening and that was pretty much it for my Saturday. Today I walked up to Tim Hortons and I bought a few things from the grocery store. I will run this afternoon as it’s a super sunny and warm day and I love running in the hotter weather. Maybe I’m kind of odd, but I love running when it’s super hot outside and I love running when it’s really cold. I also got my travel insurance purchased for Mexico. It cost me $ 200, but at least I won’t have anything to worry about now.

I talked about how I went to Zellers yesterday and bought a suitcase with my grandmother. My grandmother’s friend had the idea to check out Zellers because she knew everything in the store was on sale and we could find a great deal. Zellers is basically Canada’s version of Target. Zellers is a department store that was part of the Hudson’s Bay Company, which was one of Canada’s oldest companies. The Hudson’s Bay Company was bought out by an American investor a number of years ago, though I think he has since passed away.

Basically in a couple of months a number of the Zeller’s department stores here will be changed into Targets while a number of other stores which weren’t so profitable will be permanently closed. Obviously a number of employees will lose their jobs. The people who currently work at Zellers are guaranteed an interview with Target, but they won’t be guaranteed jobs with them. Now I can understand this in some ways, Target is a new company and they have every right to hire who they want, and there will be some people who have worked for Zellers that they don’t think are worthy candidates to retain.

All this is fair enough, but I have heard that someone who has worked for Zellers for 20 years will lose all of their seniority with that company and basically will have to start from scratch at very low wages. Target is Target and it’s not Zellers, but I find this to be a little unfair. Target is a billion dollar corporation and they most certainly can afford to retain the benefits and levels of seniority on the staff they decide to keep. They just are choosing not too because at the end of the day the most important thing for them is being able to offer customers the lowest prices.

So yes people will be able to buy things at prices they weren’t able to before at stores other than Wal-Mart, but they have to be feeling a little bit guilty knowing they are saving those dollars in place of people’s jobs with their seniority thrown out to window, not to mention having a lot of the products being sold made by someone getting paid next to nothing in a number of foreign countries. Now this isn’t only a Target thing so they shouldn’t be singled out, but Target had a real chance to come here and create a positive name for themselves, but I just don’t think they are doing that.

Of course all of their stores will sell amazingly well and they will rake in tons of money because let’s face it…. people are cheap and they don’t really care about the reasons behind why they are paying the prices they are paying. This isn’t to say that nobody in the world cares, but honestly the vast majority of the people in the world really don’t. And when it comes down to saving a few bucks every time someone goes to a department store, or ensuring that people who have worked for a company for more than two decades continue with the same salary and benefits they had before their previous employer was taken over, people will choose the cheap prices.

I am sure Target will come and give a lot of people jobs, and surely they’ll do lots of charity work as well, but it’s important that they are criticized for what they are not doing right as well. Companies should always be held to the highest standards, especially billion dollar corporations and when they are not meeting those standards someone has to make some noise and speak out against these injustices.

In the end though people will speak with their wallets and Target will get just what they want and than some because finding the best products at the lowest prices is what society in general wants, no matter the reason behind that. And this is something we all need to stop and think about a little longer. For the next question:

Do you feel that Target should be honouring the years of seniority, wages, and benefits of many of the Zeller’s employees they keep on, why or why not ? Do you care about the reasons behind the prices of items, or do you just buy what you want at the cheapest price you can ?

Today I’ll leave you all with some pictures of in and around John Hendry Park in Vancouver. I wish everyone all of the best. Take care and I’ll talk to you all on Wednesday, bye for now.

Report # 904

Hey everyone, I hope that you’ve all been having an amazing week. After super cool Monday the rest of the week has been a lot nicer, and today was actually pretty hot outside. On Wednesday my manager at work took us all out for lunch at IHOP. It was basically for my last day even though I don’t actually leave the company until August 7. Month end time will begin next week and it was a good idea to go out this week before it gets busy and hectic.

I had a sandwhich with egg, ham, and melted cheese with fries and two glasses of coke. I thought since it was such a big lunch I would just have some cereal to eat in the evening, though I really shouldn’t have ate anything. I felt so stuffed the rest of the day. IHOP is a lot like Denny’s, the food is amazingly good and there is so much of it, but it’s just loaded in fat it’s certainly not a place a person can handle too often !

I now have 7 more days of work remaining and it looks like tomorrow I’ll find out who will be replacing me. One of the candidates actually already works with the company in a different department, so it probably wouldn’t be too hard to get them in some hours or training before I go, and the other person doesn’t have a job right now, so either way it looks like there will be plenty of time to train someone next week so that’s great news. The one girl I’ve been training from another department is doing really well and she is already entering in a lot of stuff on her own, so I’m sure everything will be fine once I leave.

Yesterday evening I saw once again that I could only watch the first 25 minutes of the telenovela I’ve been watching online. I was able to watch all 120 episodes of the first one I watched without any problems. Well I was watching them on Youtube for a few months and then all of the episodes were removed, but a friend found a site I could watch them all and after that I had no problems. With the show I’m watching now, I was finding almost all of the episodes complete, even if I had to jump around from one site to another.

In the last week or two though a lot has been removed and now sometimes I can only see 25 minutes out of 42 minutes or something of show. I finally just gave up and found out I could just order it for a fairly cheap price off of Amazon. So I ordered the telenovela I’m watching now, and I ordered another one which will have 165 episodes for me to watch. I have another 70 more to watch of the one I’m watching now so that will be sure to keep me busy for the next 8 months.

The 2012 Summer Olympics will be starting in London tomorrow and while I never really watch any of the olympics on TV I still think they are such a cool event and they can really bring the world together. It’s unfortunate that so many negative stories have been in the media so far saying such bad things about the games before they even started. This happened in 2010 during the winter olympics here in Vancouver and it was just ridiculous how critical a number of journalists were. Some even said it was the worst olympics ever before it even began !

The olympics here in Vancouver in February 2010 were absolutely amazing and I am so thankful I had an opportunity to enjoy the atmosphere downtown and actually head up to Whistler and see a live event. The summer games are just as exciting and on a much grander scale. I would love for the summer olympics to be in Vancouver one day, though this city has a lot of growing up to do before it can handle a summer games here.

I just wanted to say I wish all of the athletes from around the world the very best, and hopefully a lot of people around the world will have time to take off from their busy lives and watch at least some events that they enjoy. I really think with a global sporting event of that magnitude, there really has to be something for everyone. And to anyone lucky enough to be in London right now they really should take thousands of pictures !

Before I go I wanted to talk about a Greek athlete getting removed from the Greek olympic team after what she posted on her Twitter account. Female Greek triple jumper Voula Papachristou posted this on her Twitter page:

With so many Africans in Greece.. At least the West Nile mosquitoes..will eat homemade food !

After hearing some of the outrage she posted another Tweet:

That’s how I am. I laugh. I am not a CD to get stuck!!! And if I make mistakes, I don’t press the replay! I press Play and move on!!!

After finally receiving the seriousness of the uproar her first tweet created, she started to get more serious:

I apologize if I inadvertently offended people! I have no mingling with politics!!! I am only an athlete!!

And then came the real heartfelt apologizes:

I would like to express my heartfelt apologies for the unfortunate and tasteless joke I published on my personal Twitter account. I am very sorry and ashamed for the negative responses I triggered, since I never wanted to offend anyone, or to enroach human rights.

My dream is connected to the Olympic Games and I could not possibly participate if I did not respect their values. Therefore, I could never believe in discrimination between human beings and races.

I would like to apologize to all my friends and fellow athletes, who I may have insulted or shamed, the National Team, as well as the people and companies who support my athletic career. Finally, I would like to apologize to my coach and my family.

I’ve talked a lot about how people use their blogs and social media before and how people really need to be careful to what they post and the things they say. Clearly this 23 year old woman crossed the line and really said something that upset a lot of people. And for her senseless comments it appears that she is paying the ultimate price and she won’t get a chance to fulfill her dreams and compete for her country at the olympics in London.

What she posted was incredibly stupid and it does come across as being very hurtful, but based on her apology and what she has said, it appear its genuine and that she has really learned her lesson. I think banning her from the games out right is a little bit harsh. Now any racist behaviour is horrible and completely unacceptable, but I think it’s a bit of a stretch to use one very poorly posted comment into saying someone is a complete racist person full of discrimination.

This young woman made a terrible mistake, and obviously learned a very important lesson here, but no one is perfect and we all screw up sometimes. There are olympians who have done much worse that weren’t banned from competing in the games. Michael Phelps drove drunk and was caught in photos smoking marijuana and he was still able to compete in the olympic games. There just appears to be a huge double standard here. Yes she posted something insensitive and stupid which clearly comes across as very racially unaccepting, but clearly people here have overreacted.

So in my opinion, she should just be going out and giving interviews and apologizing, and mainly with her actions showing she is truly sorry for what she did, however banning her from living her dream for posting something without thinking is overreacting. I say give this young woman another chance instead of tossing her dreams in the fire. However it’s not my call and ultimately she will have to move on and get passed what has happened. And hopefully we can all learn something from this to make sure we all use real sense before saying something we will regret.

For the next question:

Are you interested in the Olympics, why or why not ? Do you think the Greek athlete deserves to be banned from competing in this year’s olympics ?

Today I will leave you all with some pictures from the back yard. I hope that everyone has an amazing weekend. Take care and I’ll talk to you all on Sunday, bye for now.

sources: Expelled Greek Olympian apologizes for racist tweet. By John Bowman. July 25, 2012. cba.ca. CBC News Community.

Report # 903

Hey everyone, I hope that you all had an awesome weekend. After work on Friday I went to my Spanish class with Carlos and finished reading my story. I now just have to type 53 more pages onto a word document and maybe I’ll make the ending part a little more detailed. Carlos told me none of his students had ever done anything like that before. I really think it’s a great idea for anyone working with another language….. write a story ! I’m definitely all storied out for a while though and I can’t see myself writing anything for at least a few months.

Over my final two classes with Carlos we just have to work on my reference letters and that is pretty much it. After class I took the two buses home and that was all for Friday….. I definitely won’t miss my 14 hour Fridays. On Saturday I went for a run in the morning to Tim Hortons and came home and had breakfast before vacuuming the house. I really didn’t do anything all day, though I did go for a walk in the evening. I really should have went in the pool as it was a super nice day.

Yesterday I ran to Tim Hortons once again and in the afternoon I walked up to my grandmother’s house to see if the suitcase she had would be good for me to take to Mexico. It would have been perfect but it was just too small. My grandmother will see if they have any at this store she volunteers at sometimes, and if not I’ll have to buy one in Calgary. I went for another walk in the evening, watched an episode of the telenovela and talked to Dora for a while, so it was a pretty uneventful weekend.

On Saturday I talked to the guy from Indiana who I met when I was walking in Monterrey at the end of March. He said that Dora and I should come and visit, so that would be fun. He’s married to a Mexican woman and he wants to live in Mexico and his wife wants to live in the US. He has a job as a teacher, so maybe I’ll have to find something like that. I will be open to almost anything in the beginning as I know I can’t be too picky. At work my manager has received a bunch of resumes so hopefully some people will come in for interviews in the next few days and someone can get hired.

Depending on who is hired, the person might have to give two weeks notice at their current job, so in that case I won’t even see the person who replaces me. I’ve been training a girl in another department so she’ll know how to do the main part of the job, though it is the person who will be replacing me that will need to know how to do everything. Hopefully I’ll get a few days to work with the new hire, but if not I’m sure everything can be figured out. I’ll be gone so I won’t have to worry about anything !

I’m sure by now everyone has heard of the shooting at a premiere of the newest Batman movie in a cinema in Colorado. This is just such a tragic and senseless shooting and it’s just incredibly sad thinking about the 12 people who died and the over almost 60 people who were injured. Not only were the 12 people who died and the ones injured effected, but the other people there who managed to get by unscathed will no doubt be having such horrendous memories for the rest of their lives. And of course all of the friends and family of the people killed have had their lives forever changed.

These shooting tragedies happen every once and a while, though this one has really surprised me as usually it seems to be in a school or a mall. Clearly the suspect had been planning this for months as the reports have said, it’s just kind of surprising that someone would have been able to plan something like this for so long without anyone becoming suspicious. Now the gun lovers will disagree, but clearly it’s still just way too easy to get a gun and bullets in many places. I even saw on the news the place where the suspect got some of the weapons, one of the employees was talking, and thought something to be very odd about this guy.

So not only do the rules need to tighten up on how easy it is for people to get guns, people in general need to be more observant, and if signs are pointing that something is not right with someone, they really should say something and take some action. I can only guess what this suspect’s motive could have been, but he was obviously no idiot. From what I read he was very intelligent in university and graduated from a very difficult program. I think this should stop any myths that some people may have that these shooting atrocities are done only by dead beats or low lives.

Anyone can truly be evil. No matter how rich, successful, or educated they are. Obviously only the shooter himself knows what was going through his head when he committed his horrible crime, but hopefully a lot more information comes out in the court. In my opinion though after a investigation is done as much as possible this individual should be executed. People who do things so horrible just can’t be given a second chance. And I can’t see a lot of people being able to stomach having this man live another 60 some years in prison.

Now people might be saying that movie theatres should be checking bags before people enter, but in my opinion that won’t do anything. If someone comes with high powered weapons, they are going to do what they are wanting to do regardless if there is someone there checking. Unless a couple of armed guards are deployed at every public place, I don’t really think much can be done in that regard. It was an isolated event and we can’t turn the world into a military police state just because of the sick actions of a few horrible individuals.

That being said though I was shocked to read that one of the victims in the movie theatre in Colorado had narrowly missed a possible death a month early in a shooting in Toronto. I just can’t believe the unfortunate circumstances a person could run into like that…… very, very, very unlikely. So really all I can say is we should all have our thoughts with the families who lost their loved ones, it needs to be made a whole lot tougher for people to get guns, (though personally I don’t see why anyone needs to own one), and and we all need to be a little more aware of what is going on with people and if there are any possible signs beforehand where the police could be notified.

We can’t live our lives in fear and overreact and change everything about the world we live in because of these actions, but from every tragedy things should be learned and some changes can be made. It’s impossible to all of the horrific events like this from occurring, but certain actions can be taken to make sure they are less likely. So I hope a discussion gets started ASAP and some good suggestions can take place as to what can be done differently, and I really hope the shooter is punished to the full extent.

For the next question:

Do you think anything could have been done to avoid this tragedy ? What would you change to improve the safety of people in the future and lessening the chances of these shooting tragedies occurring ?

That’s all I have today. I’ll leave you all with some pictures from around the front yard that I took a few weeks ago. I wish everyone all of the best. Take care and I’ll talk to you all on Thursday, bye for now.

Report # 902

Friday is here again and seeing as I’ll be finished with my job on August 7, this will be my last Friday entry that I’ll have to type at work. The week has gone by super fast and after today I just have 11 days of work remaining. After some really warm and sunny days on Monday and Tuesday, Wednesday was mostly cool and cloudy, but once the sun came  up in the evening it felt pretty warm. I got off work at 2:00 pm as I went to meet Danny at a bus stop to go and have lunch.

She actually goes back to Mexico today so it was the last day that I would see her. We took the bus into Langley and we went to Viva Mexico for lunch. All of the restaurant staff spoke Spanish so I was able to order in Spanish ! I really have to stop ordering so much food at these restaurants though, I just can’t eat it all. I ordered some Queso Fundido to start, which is basically melted cheese with pieces of sausages with tortillas to eat it with.

I also ordered a plate with rice, salad, a quesadilla and something that had chicken and cheese. I had a giant class of Horchata as well which is a good tasting non-alcoholic Mexican drink. The only downside of the meal was that I had asked specifically to not have beans and to have more rice instead, but I still got beans, so someone didn’t listen very well. I just can’t stand beans so whenever I get them on a plate I just can’t eat them.

After eating Danny and I walked to the bus stop and got on the bus. I had to get off first as Danny was going to meet her cousin downtown so I said good-bye to her and that I would try and visit her in Xalapa. Seeing as I still wanted something sweet to eat, I stopped at Tim Hortons just to grab a few cookies before walking home. The last few evenings have pretty much been the same. I worked on my Spanish story, watched an episode of the telenovela that I’m watching, and talked to Dora before going to bed.

My Spanish story is pretty much finished now, though I might touch up the ending a little to make it a little better, but basically it’s finished. I definitely need a break from story writing for a long time. Today I just wanted to talk a little about something that happened yesterday morning. While I was walking to work, another guy who works here, though in a completely different department came up to me and started walking with me.

We talked a little and one of the things he said I was very shocked by. He told me that he heard someone saying that I was autistic and he asked me if this was true. I said no and I asked him who he heard that from…. though he didn’t say any names. This kind of made me upset for a few reasons. Firstly, there are lots of autistic people in the world who work and do great jobs. They should be respected just as much as anyone else, and having people talk about them is just completely inappropriate.

Secondly it’s really of no concern to that guy or anyone else if someone else is autistic. So I don’t understand why he would just approach me and ask me that in the first place. And once again there seems to be a bunch of people in this place that enjoy gossiping. I talked about before how some people seem to be going out of their way to watch what other people are doing while they work, but now people are just completely inventing things.

I’m sure 90 % of the people I work with are extremely professional, but there is no question there are some people out there (and I don’t really know who they are) who just enjoy making up stories and acting like immature idiots. I talked to the co-worker I work closely with and she told me she’s never heard anything like that and that I shouldn’t let it get to me as there will always be people in the workplace who gossip and say things about others.

This whole thing has just been very weird to me as the guy who told me the whole autistic story in the first place hardly even knows me…. I just see him around a few times a week and only for a minute at a time. So I have no idea where he heard what he heard or if he made it up entirely. I do know though that somewhere along the line someone or a group of people have acted extremely unprofessional and what they have said speaks very poorly for themselves.

I am not bothered by this too much though. I feel more injustice was done to people with autism who apparently have to listen to such ridiculous comments in the workplace and in their lives in general. All of those people who speak down on these individuals with different sets of challenges in their lives they should all be ashamed of themselves. No one is perfect and we all say things we don’t mean or stupid things at times, but we must do our best to act professionally especially when one is expected to be professonal. Clearly some people have a long ways to go in learning this !

So I urge everyone to speak out against those who make such inappropriate comments, create stupid workplace gossip, or outright lie. These people are lowering all of us with their stupidity and they need to be held accountable for the garbage that they spew out of their mouths. In a way though I am glad to have been a part of this odd situation. It has given me a lot to think about and reflect on, and I really do think I’ve learned something from it.

For the next question:

Whart sort of gossip have you heard or been a part of before ?

Today I’ll leave you all with some pictures from around Vancouver when I was hanging out with Danny. I hope that everyone has an amazing weekend. Take care and I’ll talk to you all on Monday, bye for now.

 

Report # 901

Hey everyone, I hope that you’ve all had a great start to the week. My weekend went by super fast as I was out most of Saturday and Sunday, but it was enjoyable. On Saturday afternoon I met my friend at Nanaimo Station in Vancouver and we walked to a park with a lake. I saw a sign and it was called John Hendry Park. I honestly had no idea this park existed which is pretty bad considering I have lived here for my whole life.

It was very nice and warm day and there were lots of people out walking, biking, with their dogs, and swimming in the little lake. My friend and I just sat down by the tennis courts under some birch trees and had some soft drinks and fruit. After a while we walked around the lake and found ourselves at the point where we started. It took me a few minutes to realize that we weren’t actually on another side of the lake but where we started.

We then left the park and went to look for this Brazilian restaurant Buteco Brazil as I wanted to try Brazilian food for the first time. It took us a while to find it as we passed it on the bus and kept walking in the wrong direction, but we were able to call a friend and find out where it was exactly. We walked back and took the bus back a ways and then we finally found it. The restaurant was very Brazilian as the waitresses were both Brazilian, and there was a Brazilian soap opera on the TV as well.

I ordered some chicken wings with rice and a salad and a typical Brazilian soft drink made by the Antarctica company called Guaraná. Before we ate something that looked like larger french fries, but were not actually potato…. though kind of similar. It was great being in the restaurant amongst Canadians, Koreans, Brazilians, Mexicans, Arabians and maybe others from around the world ! Afterwards we took the bus back to Nanaimo station and I took the skytrain back home.

On Sunday I ran to Tim Hortons after getting up a little before 10:00 am. In the afternoon I went downtown and walked around with my friend for a couple of hours. We had dinner at the Cactus Club after 7:00 pm, and I was kind of stuffed after having the burger and fries and two glasses of coke, so that was it for me that night. I still felt full the next morning.

The first two days of work this week have gone by well. The girl who I’m supposed to be training told me on Monday morning that she didn’t want to get me sick so she didn’t sit next to me to train. And today she just wasn’t in work at all, so I haven’t had to do any training yet this week…. maybe tomorrow. We had a short meeting this morning, and this evening all of the drivers are meeting with dispatch in a restaurant. I was invited to go, but seeing as my life is so busy with everything, I just said I wasn’t able to make it.

Last month I was reading an article in the Vancouver Sun and it said that Canada is the best G20 country to live in the world for women. The review of all the G20 countries and how life is for women was done by TrustLaw, which is a legal news service done by Thomson Reuters Foundation. At the bottoms of the list were Indonesia, Saudia Arabia (which is definitely not surprising) and India.

Some one has to be at the bottom of course, but that just means that so much more work needs to be done to advance the treatment and opportunity of women around the world. And keep in mind these are just the G20 countries….. I can imagine things are much worse for women in many other countries in the world. Now here in Canada I think we still have a ways to go before there is the 100 % equality with the men here, but this ranking shows at the very least the country is on the right track.

Some interesting information from the poll done by TrustLaw from this article:

On one side of the border, a woman can see a doctor for free and is guaranteed paid maternity leave. On the other, most women do not qualify for free health care and one in five under 65 does not have medical insurance. (referring to Canada and the US)

The United States ranked sixth among the 19 countries in the Group of 20 economies. (numbers 2-5 are: Germany, Britain, Australia and France)

Neither Canada nor the United States has been able to resolve the gender pay gap.

India’s women are discriminated against, abused and even killed on a scale unparalleled in the top 19 economies of the world. Many of the crimes against women are in India’s heavily populated northern plains, where, in parts, there is a deep-rooted mindset that women are inferior and must be restricted to being homemakers and child bearers.

Now of course this doesn’t mean that there are no positives in India among the treatment of women, they are just the findings of this particular study. Clearly though all the countries need to continue to work to improve the lives of women…… some more than others. By failing to protect women and giving them the equality they deserve, countries are failing themselves and prospects for a bright future. Women have so much to contribute to this world, and until they are appreciated fully and given equality, all of the opportunities, and rights that men have, no country should stop working in terms of futhering the advancement of women’s rights.

And the countries which are doing better with women need to put pressure on the countries not doing so well, though they certainly need to keep an eye in their own backyard as well ensuring everything is up to par for all of their own women. It’s good to read some positives here, but clearly there is much work still to be done…. I just hope everyone is up to the task. For the next question:

Do you feel that your city is a great place for women, why or why not ? What needs to change ?

I will leave you all with my final set of pictures from Queen Elizabeth Park in Vancouver. Take care and I’ll talk to you all on Friday, bye for now.

Sources: The Vancouver Sun June 14, 2012

The Status of Women: Canada is best G20 country for females. By Lisa Anderson. TrustLaw via Reuters

‘It’s a miracle a woman survives.’ By Nita Bhalla. TrustLaw via Reuters

Report # 900

900 Entries ! While this is not a huge milestone like 1000 will be it’s still pretty cool, especially knowing in another 10 months I’ll hit 1000. I always wonder how long I will do this for. I’ve mused about stopping after 1000 before but now I’m thinking I can keep this up until I’m 30 or I can always just keep going but I guess it will depend on how I feel in the coming years and if I feel too old to be a blogger or not.

This week went by really fast. I now just have three full five day work weeks left and one additional Tuesday remaining. So I basically have 16 more days of work remaining. Yesterday I found out someone who has worked for the company for many, many, many years just gave his two week notice and I’m sure a lot of people are shocked. I’m thinking he was just overwhelmed with his work load. There have been two key people leave in the last 10 months and they’ve never been replaced.

The company wants to centralize a lot of the work in the head office, but a lot of problems have happened and I’m just not sure how well it has been working. I definitely know I’m leaving at a great time though as it sounds like it’s not going to be too much fun here in the coming months. Just in the last couple of weeks we’ve been having two lengthy meetings a week, yet for the first 15 months I worked here there was basically two meetings in total. If we would have had just one weekly meeting for the last 15 months I think a lot would have been better.

I’m not going to worry about two much of this stuff though as I will just show up and work the remaining days and get ready to leave. There is a dinner meeting on Tuesday after work, but I’m really not wanting to go too badly so hopefully I don’t have to go to that. It’s been unusually humid here the last few days though nothing compared to many of the humid places in the world….. just kind of unusual for here. The summer weather has been wonderful though and I don’t think too many people are complaining.

After work on Friday I went for my Spanish class with Carlos. We talked for a while and I read him the newest part of my story. I am thinking my story will be completed this coming Friday, and if not definitely for the last Friday in July. After the story Carlos helped me translate my reference letter into Spanish. We didn’t get it all done, and I still have another one, but I’m sure we will finish that next week. I headed home after and just relaxed for a while and went to bed.

This morning I ran to Tim Hortons and came home and had a shower and read the paper. I talked to my grandmother for a while and now I’m going to head to Vancouver and walk around for a while and just enjoy the nice weather. That’s about all I have today, so here is the next question:

If you were going to write one story what would it be about ?

I will leave you all with some more pictures from Queen Elizabeth Park in Vancouver. Take care and I’ll talk to you all on Tuesday, bye for now.

Report # 899

Hey everyone, I hope that you’ve all been having an awesome week so far. On Sunday morning I went for a 45 minute run and later in the day I swam in the pool and soaked up lots of sun. I made sure to use sunscreen this time as it was super sunny and 29 C (84 F) so I didn’t want to end up super burnt. I probably still lied out in the sun for too long, but I didn’t feel too badly. Monday was a little stressful at work as it was the last real day for the month end.

I had to enter in a few more fence credit notes before finishing up my work. This month there were way more problem invoices than usual but I’ve got through everything now. On Tuesday I mailed all of the month invoices out in just an hour and a half so it went pretty quick. In the afternoon I talked with my manager and told her that I would be leaving. Not surprisingly she was pretty surprised to hear the news, but she was very happy that I had decided to give her four weeks notice instead of the two weeks which most people usually give.

She was very nice and we talked about the transition and how we would do things over the next few weeks. I asked if she could write a reference letter and she said she would so that will be great to get seeing as I just have two so far. This morning I started showing a girl in the other department how to do my regular work, and she’ll be sitting with me over the coming weeks to learn more. And of course a new person will be hired to replace me and I will have to do some training with them… providing that they start before I leave, though I would assume so.

The girl today helped me staple my invoices and I was happy with that as there was almost 500. So later today I will try and get all those mailed out and then it will pretty much be back to normal with the month end over, so it should be a nice final four weeks here. I was thinking in all of the jobs I’ve had before, I haven’t always asked for a reference letter. There have been at least two other times I probably could have asked for a reference letter but didn’t. That was probably a mistake on my part, but if I get the reference letter from here I’ll have three and I think that’s a good number of references.

Hopefully I get this reference letter before my last day so I can work with Carlos to get it nicely into Spanish, but if not I can always email him and I’m sure he’ll help me out. I am thinking I’ll finish my Spanish story in the next week or two. It’s over 60 pages so I’d say it’s time to wrap it up. After work today I stopped at Tim Hortons and headed home. I ate, read the paper and had a shower and then my mom’s friend came to pick me up.

She drove me over to her place to talk with her neighbours about living in Mexico. He is a Canadian his wife is Mexican. And they had lived in Mexico for a number of years. They live in a trailor park and every year they drive down to Mexico and visit some friends in the US on the way down. He’s 65 years old and she’s in her early 30′s but they are very happy together, so sometimes age is just a number I suppose. We talked about tons of things and they gave me some great advice.

Most importantly that when I’m there to be extremely careful with my money and make sure I look out for me first and foremost. And to make sure I don’t get rid of my health insurance or stay a day longer than six months, unless I have a job and the permission required to stay longer. It was great to talk with some people with experience doing what I want to do and they were both very friendly.

I was there for about two hours and I can imagine I got at least a few mosquito bites. After my mom’s friend drove me home and I thanked her for helping out and told her I would send her emails. I talked to Dora for a few hours and I really do think everything is coming together. Anyways I think that’s all I have for today, for the next question:

How many reference letters do you have ? How important do you think it is to have at least a few of them when applying and interview for jobs ?

I will leave you all with some pictures from Queen Elizabeth Park in Vancouver that I took in May. Take care and I’ll talk to you all on Saturday, bye for now.