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Observations!

Okay, I'm going to write up a description of someone, and then I'm going to ask whether or not it's crazy he's single.

• Graduated Engineer
  
• Swing dancer
  
• Physically fit / works out
  
• Good at Math
  
• Has people-skills
  
• Good humoured, especially about stress
  
• Good at being in charge of stuff
  
• Has a nice, healthy, sane worldview
  
• Balanced, or at least, good at juggling things
  
• Not afraid to express himself

Kay, am I the only person who thinks it's crazy he's single?! I mean, if he were younger (or I were older and ready to settle down) and maybe if I liked guys more, and if he weren't one of my bosses, sort-of, I'd ask him out. Really, I would. He's a good guy--a good man.

One of my friends is in his Swing Dance class at the university, and he teaches. She says he seems shy, and he's one of the best dancers she's ever seen.

It's so strange, he's so faceted.

I really only see him on Saturdays when he's being a Principal and managing people and dealing with work-issues; or after dismissal when we chat briefly and he gives me tips on working out or "cheating" on a grip test.

And then I hear he's supposedly shy and a magnificent dancer.

I'm going with my friend tomorrow. I guess I'll see for myself.


Dancing

I've always wanted to either dance or do martial arts. I've always just kinda felt physically inept, like I can't do anything with this body. Ha-ha, yes, and I'm in the Army, hilarious.

I love watching figure-skaters, especially when I was a kid. It seemed that the CBC always had some figure skating competition to cover every other weekend, and I'd watch these beautiful people perform fantastic movements on the ice.

More specifically, Jeffrey Buttle is fantastic! I love his energy, and the fact he uses his face, too. He does beautiful things with his body that I barely knew were possible! Also, he has an exquisite body!

I just feel that I should be doing more with my body; not just my mind. That's one of the reasons I joined the Army; because I want to do now what I won't be able to do when I'm older. Both my brothers are/were into Martial Arts and Lion Dancing.

Aside: My Brothers

I'm a little upset my brothers didn't raise me to be a geek or an athlete. Then again, I'm younger than them by nine or eleven years, so of course I couldn't hang out with them.

My eldest currently lives in Germany, and is currently working on his MBA. He picked up German pretty quickly, and then decided he wanted to learn Mandarin, so he took Mandarin classes--in German. Right now, he's visiting in China and Taiwan.

My second-eldest lives a few neighbourhoods over and is working for a company that got bought-out by Microsoft. It's kind-of funny, because he's all pro-FreeBSD, pro-Mac and used to be pro-Linux. I'm gold-farming for him in World of Warcraft.

Sleepy time.

--Charissa

Interviewing

Work

The market research gig is pretty great. I got my first racist comments on Sunday, and that was a little disheartening. For me and most of my generation (who got the "stereotypes are bad and false!" lectures in grade school), it's always a shock to see that the stereotypical people do in fact exist.

Also, one of my supervisors, let's call him Don; we like to chat! It's great! And I told him I'm queer today! He seemed shocked; but he also defended himself with the, "Well, we're not supposed to ask" blurb. Hehe.

I've been telling him a lot about my parents, lately, it seems. Don had actually monitored me on that particularly bad survey, where, instead of just hanging up, decided to stick around and finish the entire survey, which is normally five minutes, in 15 minutes.

I ended up telling Don about stuff:

Last year, my other supervisor wanted me trained on this specific type of customer satisfaction survey ("c-sat" for short), but it meant that I had to be put on other c-sats first. Unfortunately, several things were going against me.

First, you have to understand, that c-sats are usually completed with people who don't necessarily like surveys. They're just completing it because you're representating a company they use or like or at least, deal with or own something from. So they don't understand the "unwritten" rules (they're actually written, on this end) that go with saying, "Okay, I'll do your survey."

One question went something like, "So, how did you find out about [company]?" The fellow on the other end said, "Yellow pages." The next question was, "And how did you find the phone number for [company]?" He hung up profanely.

Second, earlier that day, my father had said something pretty stupid and careless and it would have been abusive had he said it on purpose, but I just can't tell if he's that dense, or if he actually realizes what he's saying. It was something along the lines of, "I love you, even if you're not in school", or more basicaly, "I love you, even though you're flawed!" Gee, thanks. And I guess I take those things pretty badly. I hate being called worthless. I'm tearing up even now, with at least one year's distance, just writing this all.

Anyway, I had to leave work crying that day.

Eventually, I got trained on the specific c-sats that is one of our biggest clients. I'm pretty good at it! Just, on Sunday, I got my first two racist fellows.

First guy couldn't understand what I was saying. We were calling into the States--the deep south, too! He couldn't understand me. Just before he hung up, I chould hear him say, "God damn foreigns!"

Wow.

Next guy stuck around for fifteen minutes. He made me spell out my name, the name of the company I work for, and then asked me--get this--"Where were you born?"

"Canada," I told him, rather forcibly. "Ca-na-da." Do you know where that is? It's up. Up. North. There. Yeah. Good for you!

Apparently, he (let's call him Billy) had called [company]'s call centre, and had gotten a fellow with a strong accent. And Billy just needed a number from the accented fellow, so that was all Billy understood, and it was all Billy needed. But Billy's biggest concern was that [company], which is a good ol' American company was putting call centres in this, that and the other country. Why should a good ol' American company have call centres located in other countries?

I was quite tempted to tell Billy that there are people who live in America who have accents. And I really wanted to suggest to Billy that, "Hey, maybe it would've been better had no foreigners come to America at all!" But I don't think he would have understood that.

Ah well.

Well, Don had monitored that call, and we chatted, and I talked about my parents and stuff.


Past experiences with supervisors

On my first actual day of work, I was supervised by, let's call him Bob. This was summer of 2006, I should add.

Well, Bob introduced himself to me, since I was new, and, for some reason, suddenly asked how old I was.

"Seventeen," I told him.

"Oh," he said. Then, "When do you turn eighteen."

Uhh.... Well, I told him my birthday, and then he made some comment about Scorpios being passionate. I think I just excused myself from any further conversation.


[post abandonned, unfinished]

Quick Sketch

I made this sketch tonight.

On Tuesday, I got this haircut. It's incredibly butch. That's what I wanted.

My parents, however, must think it's a good way of pointing out how different I am from the idea of Girl, and saying how I shouldn't be this way and that I should change and be a good girl.

I hate that. So much.

So, I took a good look at myself in the mirror, and, I liked what I saw! Quickly, I grabbed a board and paper and drew as I saw in the mirror; it shows, with the right hand and the funny posture. But I like this picture. I like my face. I like myself. And I don't have to care who else likes it.

Though, because I like the face so much, I may finish it, one day, holding a bazooka or crossbow or something. Yeah!

--Charissa

When I grow up

"Mum, do you know what I want to be when I grow up? I want to be someone who can talk to anyone. I want to be able to understand what anyone says, and I want for anyone to be able to understand what I say. Because, some part of me realizes that until something I experience is real to someone else, it's incomplete. Even I am 'someone else' every passing month, week, day; and I forget; and when I forget something, maybe it didn't happen. But if someone else knows it, or if I can make a perfect record, something more than simply experience has been accomplished."

At least, that's what I wish I'd said.

Last night, I took a bus home from work. I kinda had this feeling that I should leave work on time tonight--sometimes, I stay logged in for an extra few minutes, especially on Sundays, because I could get paid overtime if I wanted. But, last night, I just felt like I'd benefit more from something if I left work on time.

On the bus home, an elderly Oriental man took a seat in front of me.

Maybe I should explain...


Why Buses are Important to me

I meet a lot of people through the buses.

I'm not quite sure why it happens that way, but I just do. Once I jumped over a bank of snow to get to the bus stop, and a young man laughed, so we started talking. Turns out, he's a friend of the principal of the Maths school where I work.

People like to talk to me for some reason. Mostly, these are older folks, and it's eye-opening to hear what they think of the world. I never knew there were so many pessimists!

Several times, I've talked to folks, and they've told me stories of how there are such injustices in the world, and they're the only ones fighting back! There was a lady whose mother was robbed while they were downtown, so the lady clobbered the thief so badly that the next time he saw them, he crossed the street to avoid them. There was a man who entered a restaurant and saw a young lady leave her bag on the table and a ruffian pick up the bag and make as though to leave with it. The man picked the thief up by the collar and made such a commotion that the thief could never show his face at the restaurant again. There was a woman who saw a lady in a wheelchair was wanting to board the bus. There was a young boy sitting on a fold-away bus seat, and the woman told the boy, rather severely, that he'd have to move.

These struck me as painfully loveless solutions to painfully loveless problems. And it was on the bus that I decided that if I want to change this, I'd have to be the opposite. If someone steals from me, maybe that means I'll catch him and give him money instead of a beating.

...Anyway.


Talking to People

On the bus home, an elderly Oriental man took a seat in front of me. Near the end of the bus ride, he began coughing violently; so I tapped him on the shoulder and passed him a pack of cough drops. He thanked me over his shoulder; and we talked a little.

His English was poor, but he spoke Cantonese. Actually, his English was better than my Cantonese (which actually might not be saying much). I never asked his name--mostly because he never asked mine, and it really isn't important--but I'll call him Jim for the purposes of this blog entry.

Jim's from Vietnam. He told me he has a younger sister living in the States, and other siblings back in Vietnam. He works for a company that makes chairs; and on Sundays, he goes to a casino by himself. He has two sons; and he's a grandfather at 62 years.

And I wouldn't say I have amazing communication skills, but I'm even a little impressed we managed to exchange that much information. At one point, we switched to Cantonese, and I had to explain in my undoubtedly Canadian-accented Cantonese, "Sik tang siu-siu, sik gong siu dee," which means I can listen/understand a little, but I can speak less. I live at home with my parents and am the youngest of my siblings. My "dai-goa" lives in Germany, and my "yee-goa" lives on a different street.

It felt unreal to talk to Jim. We were talking across a fairly steep language barrier, two countries, two generations and 43 years. I could see bits of his world, but not understand their depth; and I'm sure it was the same for him.

So, when I got home that night, I told my mum how awesome it was. I'm not sure she quite understood it all, but that's okay, because I can keep explaining things to her and she'll keep trying to understand; and she'll try to explain things to me, and I'll think I understand them (though I probably don't), and it's okay, because she's still my mum and I'm still her daughter. I find that so incredibly comforting.

And when I grow up, I want to be someone who can communicate with anyone, no matter the kind of separation between us.

--Charissa