Life Update - February 2013

It's the second month of the year and I think it's a good time to take a moment and see some progress with my resolutions and life.

So let's get the easiest topic out first.

Work

My days basically start with me waking up at 5:45, snoozing in until 6:28, drag my ass to the bathroom, brush teeth, wash face and drag myself back to room to get dressed and be out in the 7th circle of Hell cold morning to wait for my first bus at 7:02. (Though we had warmer days, it's been about 2 weeks of epic minuses making having 2 scarves over my face and my tuque down to my eyebrows, looking like a gangster - and worse of all - I foken love the looks!) By 8 am I am in the office where I have a good 30 mins to settle down, make tea and order my day's work if I have piles of paper. Most of the month is a rather smooth ride composed of me playing phone/faxing yakuza hunting down clients who haven't sent us meter reads since the last century and inquiring about the love story between them and their copier machines. Then around the 12th, my team mate sends out requests and the juice flows in and I have an express ticket to Heaven! I love entering data! It's ... how to say it ... very routine like, linear ... open email, open pdf, open the right window, get the first codes in, open second window, enter the read, mark as okay, move to the next. But while my fingers automatically do these, another part of my mind wanders far off in spiritual meditation or creative blooms and I find myself a thousand miles away in new stories or landscapes. Near the end of the month, people go crazy and I am being invited to the party.

I prepare invoices, I print them out. I also handle small credits (get request, send it off for approval at Toronto head office, get signed copy back, input it in Great Plains). I make piles and piles and piles of invoices. Me and my team mate we also try to gather the max reads before the month's end - which means I get to be social on the phone and press some lazy ones to get movin'! And then the last day of the month, we become an undeclared crazy house. Everyone freaks out, loose their heads, panic, abuse the servers, try to do one million things at the same time, which slows down our server, making us even more edgier. Just yesterday was such a day and we stayed at the office until 7:23 (normally I leave at 5) to wrap up everything up and post everything so that it becomes available for the Finance department in Head Office.

The next day (like today) I get my katana out and I slice and dice piles of invoices. I basically verify the client's code and see if they only have one or more invoices. If it' only one I shift them to a pile which I will fold with the folding machine and put them in envelopes and stamp them and mail them out. This usually lasts 2-3 days. Then it get's back to playing social on the phone and time goes until the 12th and then it's a circle in motion, but stuff always come up in between!

I am happy though. I get to better my customer care relationship and speak and help them out. I gain confidence in myself, in my skills and abilities. I also am growing more accustomed to the way the software works, the way the team works, the way the work works.

Health

I significantly improved on this too! First time ever! I started gradually, second week, I think, of January by including baby carrots and spinach  leaves in my diet. Of course at first I didn't cut down the meat and salami, but at least I added some vegetable! Filo sheets became my best friends! Not that I prepared them the way most websites will give you recipes and indications to. I will soon share my own technique and recipes and tips. I also included frozen beans and carrots to my rice and tried to lower the amount of meats/salami overall.

This week that is ending was the best though! I managed a whole week without meat and I have never felt this full of energy and light and aware. I mainly had wraps with eggs, spinach leaves, feta cheese, rice with veggies, spinach and orange slices, again Filo sheets with feta and spinach leaves and I started a new trend at the office! Two weeks after I started the baby carrot as a crunchy side dish - 2 young other women followed and tried it out! One recipe I especially liked this week was spaghetti with spinach leaves, feta (both cheese and the water in which I un-salt them) with a trail of pineapple sauce and canned mushrooms I boiled and sauté-ed a little. I never thought a bag of spinach leaves would go by so fast! By Wednesday I was out! I also have a yogurt as a dessert for the sweet, which cuts my need for bad sugar like candy or cake or artificial fattening calorific treats. Not that I totally cut that out of my life! I still have a few Fibre1 caramel bars for mornings where I need a little extra energy source. But I try to be more aware and conscious of my choices, not giving into bad sugars too easily. (I did indulge myself with Two Bites Cinnamon Rolls this morning because I stayed at the office until 7 last night and I wanted to treat myself a little.)

It's incredible when I compare myself how light I feel after a good healthy veggie based meal (rice + spinach leaves + baby carrots and a bit of cheese) versus a fully meat based one (turned egg + salami + cheese + pickle). I sleep better, I dream better (if I go to bed early too, it helps, thus why I have cut my social actives on the net to 3 hours a day (counting from when I get home at a little after 6pm until 9pm, giving me a hour to fully relax and de-connect from the day's tiredness and by 10 I am really ready to drift into slumber and dream land. I would recommend this actually. Half an hour or an hour to just listen to music in your bed, meditate, let thoughts out, pray, do what ever to build a strong yet smooth bridge between you hectic day and your peaceful night.

As for the physical exercise part, I have bought a yoga mat and 2 weights of 8 pounds each but I still need to set up a work out schedule. And as soon as the afternoons will be less dark - I am thinking March, April - I will subscribe to a gym near me and go there maybe 2 days a week + week ends to get toned and fit for the summer.

Personal Life 

Couldn't be happier! I am officially booked since last week I think ... Monday or Tuesday (I swear Time flies by so fast I loose track of what happened when!) ... I was saying, I am booked at Burning Monk Tattoo Shop here in Montreal with Jeff (the artist I wanted the most from that shop) to get my first tattoo on the date I wanted the most! February the 9th 2013. (Accordingly to my Facebook - it happened January the 24th and I quote myself : "Emilia updated her status. "omfg I'm so fucking happy!!! I will get fucking tattooed by Jeff at Burning monk tattoo on Feb 9 !! Ooooh can I just like explode ??!! thank you God!! now if this current state is not happiness, it's free crack cocaine!!" 

Can you feel the happiness ? Just thinking about it makes my heart flutter and I get tingly fingertips! 

At first, I wanted a french man named Pierre from Tattoomania (I think), but he was overbooked when I sent him the email in December. He recommended me to a colleague but that one never answered me. So I looked around, found another shop (Adrénaline Tattoo) but I didn't felt a special connection with any of the peeps in there through their art, so I googled some more and through a forum post I found the  Burning Monk and it was love at first sight! The shop is zen themed like a Buddhist temple and after going through each artist's gallery, I set my heart on Jeff whose works pleased me the most. And it just makes perfect sense for me! Burning = fire, which is my astrological element. Monk representing what I do consider myself sometimes (I wanted to be a Nun as  kid and a monk in my teenage years); it's just perfect! And like I said - I got the ultimate luck and privilege to have the artist i just naturally feel comfortable to ink me on the day that is significantly important for me, in relation to the tattoo I am getting. The pieces of the puzzle fit perfectly!

I haven't done my hair yet as I planned but at least I sort of found the definitive look I like. And most importantly, I bleached out some of the black so I don't feel as depressive and "not me" as I did some weeks ago. Black was not my brightest idea let's say.

"It's not great shakes, but you gotta start with baby shakes!" ~ Christina in The Perfect Storm.

Works perfectly fine and it works fine because great shakes are bound, most of the time, to lead you to exhaustion and defeat.

Art and Crafts & Creativity

Not much as you can see by the lack of uploads in my gallery but, I have no time or no energy. I do try to do a little on the week ends and I do cheat and open a Word file on my office computer to jog down random bits of poetry when inspired. I also started 2 random stories on blackberry via my Facebook but I need to order them and revise and get them decent before sharing and I still am not sure where I am going. (Well, maybe I know but - I am still sort of figuring things out ;) )

Also working on my next poster illustration which I am not even sure will come out for the right date! And I have 2 more I need to upload on the 9th since they were originally done in relation to that date. Good thing my appointment is at 12:30 - i have just enough time to do that ;)

For the summer though, I would like to set up a small bookmarks project with beads and ribbons and my illustrations. We will see how things will go.

To come home to this

I came home five minutes past 5pm to yet another night of familial despair or dismay.

I had asked my father his HMV store card because I wanted to buy the Ice Road Truckers DVD series from History Channel. I was planning on going in on Thursday, but since he is not working at the moment, he went to the mall and got it for me yesterday ( Tuesday ). I said I would repay him back. I had already money taken out - good thing.

What bugs me is his attitude. He's an alcoholic since God knows when ( and he is turning 60 this year, meaning he has been drinking since close to 20 years, or 30 if I want to be idealistic and optimistic : half his life ! ) and obviously he has been drinking today too ! He had to quiet it down during December's end and January's first 2 weeks because mom wasn't working and she was home - so he didn't quite have the freedom to drink a bottle a day like he can normally. So, yesterday he drank and forgot to turn on the heating in my room, today the same. But, before, it was always fine and warm and heat taken care of for when I would come back from work. He is home ALL day - would it kill him to turn on the heating one little hour before he knows I get home ?

So, I come in the apartment, shout ( in Hungarian ) "It's only me." He was in the bathroom, but heard me pretty damn well, but still had to loudly ask "Is that you Emi ?" ( I find this kind of ... thing dull, redundant and moronic ! I just fuckin' stated it was me. )

He goes on about the fact he bought my DVDs and they are in my room - I am not that idiot, I have seen them on the corner of my furniture piece and the bill too.

I get out the money of my wallet - 80$ in 20$ bills and a 5$ bill to reach 85$, but I say that if he has change for a 20$ - I have one more to reach the agreed amount of 95$ for the 3 DVD series.

Instead of just plain and simple take the money, give me the change and move on, he took a whole half an hour rambling about honesty, counting over and over the bills, throwing them on the living room coffee table like a professional mafioso man, throwing 2$ coins along side his 5$ bill in the same fashion and rambling on and on and on about the agreement of that amount of my DVDs and the bill and the total and ... I was keeping calm, but I was totally fed up and annoyed. I mean, for fuck's sake, just count the damn bills, give back what you want and move on ! It's only a 100$ not a million !!

Then mom came home.

This episode just ... exploded like a natural geyser when dad asked if we were going back to our home town village because my sister wants to go back in March. My mom said that yes, but that Nothing was set in stone, nothing was sure since my sis wants the whole family to go back ( her husband, daughter, me and mom ) but she doesn't know when her husband can have vacations so Nothing is sure. Dad goes on :

He was sitting at the kitchen table, smoking. Mom just had a long day of work ( from 7 am to 4 pm ) and went on top to do some groceries, puts them down and Dad like a crow bird of ghastly bad future telling goes on " I had a vision ( dream ) of your mother. You should speak to your mother." My mother of course naturally asks when he had that dream, sight or what ever. Dad asks, in repetition - clue that it wasn't recent. Thus, not a true common phenomenon with a real death annunciation as it is quoted in some books on the topic. He goes on that he had that thing some time ago ! My mom asked - Since I was home for the past two months why didn't you told me this before ?? And she is absolutely right ! He, on the other (drunken) side just ketp on rambling that my maternal grand mother had cursed him ( his bad luck with work, his difficult and miserable life ). My mom defended her mother naturally and I agree with her, and said "I just come home from a long day of work - why do you tell me this now ?"

My mom, further one and sort of under the rush of a small vengeance, asked or said that dad's Mother was responsible for his doom. And dad - instead of defending her mother - repeated 3-4 times "Yes, my Mother is a whore!"

That completely shocked me !

In truth, his mother had fallen in love or has fallen under the charms of the young master of the house where she was working and serving as a cleaning girl and got pregnant. Of course, the young man being the heir of a good family, the girl being a poor ( I am not sure if she was orphan or not, but poor for sure ) couldn't stay there. This is a small village in 1930's or 40's Transylvania. A woman's virtue, honor and life was ruined by the passion of a man who'll never face charges, guilt or anything ! For him, it was a game, a pleasure moment (s) and nothing more. For her, shame, guilt, a kid to bring up on her own - a kid who wears her mother's name because she cannot bear her father's - being a bastard child.

The young woman eventually got a small one room house somehow, met a soldier, got married and had 4 more children with the man. The last one, being my father.

But what happened to her in her young years, in the circumstances of her life cannot be held against her and she does not deserve to be treated the whore word by her own child.

... I don't know to conclude this one, so I'll leave it as is - just saying that all this adds to the cup and one day soon, the cup will overflow.

Even if I have to take my mother with me in the new place.

New year bleh

I don't even know how to really start this blog.

I feel like not being myself - like having let down my projects, my goals, my dreams.

I guess it started last April when I got my current job. At first it was great for the income money, security of something, and a healing balm on my feeling of misery and failure ( after a 3 year program, not finding a job in my field, having yet another time invested time and money and coming out without income, success or any such thing which makes one feel accomplished).

So the job helped, at first I had hopes of permanency, later, the though of my position being only temporary through agency comforted me. But with time, it took a toll on me. I started to eat my soul, but gave something in exchange : I loved my team, my work, my responsibilities, I came of help to my department, I felt useful and appreciated, at a certain level.

Sure the amount of travel there and back slowly started to slowly build up, but it really became problematic in late fall, and winter. When one finishes work at 4:30 pm, but gets home at 7, 8pm, it is discouraging.

And because of the nature of the company, of the work itself, there are peak times and low times in the year. Winter being a low empty one, since planes cannot fly as regularly because of mechanical caused by weather and weather itself.

The summer temporarly fulfilled me, made me forget about what was worrying me - but sooner or later the deep rises to the surface and yet again a feeling of having wasted my life has taken me over.

I haven't had any real occasion to do photography, to travel around, to discover - but with stolen moments.

In October I had a day off due to an interview to a potential job in my field, which left me a very cold impression, but gave me a great sight to take photos of at least.

But how many days I was on my bus, longing to take pictures of that path, with glorious cherry blossoms in the spring, but felt too bad to ask a sick day, felt too guilty to come in late - since I had no valid excuse and wanted to make sure to be a hard worker - an honest person, responsible and be there on time to build myself a good reputation.

But I let my private life aside, my hobbies, what made me happy, and thrilled about life.

Photoshop illustrations, sharing photos, keeping my photo blog updated, sharing home made junk food recipes - I was longing to make myself a professional looking flickr account but never passed the strep of getting the pro account.