Work was amazing this weekend, we made a ton of money. Which is good and promising. It may be a min-wage customers service job with NERDS UGH NERDS, but at least it's fairly calm and with a cool atmosphere, and no matter how dense, annoying or unbelievably socially awkward our customers may be, they've never really outright upsetting. And considering I'm to keep this job once I pick up animation again, it's nice it'll be relatively stressless, what with my doing 14 hour days. Yeeks.

Also, it's finally snowing outside and I think it's here to stay. JOY.

The roomie keeps coming to bed at ungodly hours and it's been giving me weird dreams. She never wakes me up, but seems to disturb my sleep just enough that it shakes my REM. I normally don't dream (or remember dreaming) except on the odd occasion, but now I'm having weird ass sleep visions thrown at me, and it's also making me wake up earlier. And it's exhausting, I keep waking up feeling like death warmed over, and stumble around for an hour or so trying to wake up properly and shake a huge headache. I think I'm going to have to spend most of today sleeping, just to try and be rested for tonight.
If this continues, I may have to kill her.

There was a weird smell in the bedroom last night that borked up my sleeping - I don't know what the hell it was, but it smelled insanely strongly of chlorine. The vents aren't fantastic and so we can often smell different stuff from the other apartments - my bathroom always smells like my neighbours food and my bedroom usually smells like smoke from the downstairs neighbours. I don't know if that's where the horrible chlorine smell came from, but now I have a headache.
I'm currently using scented oils to try and make the house smell less like a burning pool and more like cupcakes.

Birthday celebrations were fantastic. Friday was brunchtimes at Coras, where I had a delicious giant meat breakfast. Saturday was the big event at the pub. Big ol' group of my friends came to the party night at the pub and it was loud and awesome. Everyone kept trying to buy my drinks, which I had to keep declining because of work the next day. It was still great fun though. There was lots of shouting, lots of witty conversations, and lots of beer. I love all of my friends. :3
And with any luck, the curse of 22 shall now be over. It can only look up from here, amirite guys?

Today is a cleaning day. I might go grocery shopping, but today I've got to get this apartment back to tiptop.

Today is my birthday. I am getting brunch and cupcakes.
Excited.

So this morning I woke up bright and early, went through the morning routine and then puttered off a dusty but familiar trail of catching the buses to Mercury for my test. It ended up not being what I expected; I thought I was gong in for an animation test, but it turned out with was a prop building test. I had to draw a rotation of a car, a clown character, a flag wave animation and 20 different hands. It took me about 4 hours, but I was alloted 5 hours so I guess that was good. I didn't rush or go slow either, I managed to pace myself nicely.
I think it turned out well. I won't know for sure for another few weeks though, which isn't terrible. I'll admit, I'm pretty much expecting to NOT get the job, but if I do it'll be a pleasant surprise.

So I got on email few days back from the Mercury - asking me if I'd like to take a test to qualify for a key animation position. I'm tentative, but I said yes. It is a test after all, so no guarantee I'll actually get the job, but if I do it's a 750-900/wk salary.
FINGERS FUCKING CROSSED.

I've also managed to train the dog to use a litterbox I've set up on the balcony, for no more late night pees. Which is a relief.

I have artists block again. Everything I draw comes out misproportionate and stupid. I can't even draw loopy cartoony right now, and usually that's the style I can count on.
This is very discouraging.

So a week and a bit ago I went down to the studio I hope to work for, after hearing that they're looking for storyboard artists. I got the test, got a lot of 'hey, what's up' from old coworkers, and then shit got crazy busy with the convention, Thanksgiving and getting a new roommate.
Did I mention that? I have a new roommate now. Friend from Toronto who's going to be living here for the forseeable future, helping me out with the rent until she can get on her feet and see where she's at.
Anyway, so shit got busy and I only managed to start it over the weekend. I pretty much worked my ass off for three days straight trying to finish it. I hadn't been given a due date, but I wanted to get it done sooner rather than later. Spent all day yesterday, from when I woke up to when I passed out at 1am with my wrist throbbing from the effort, finishing it to send it in. I was so proud.
Then I got an email back today saying that they had already chosen someone.
I'm almost too jaded with my luck to be disappointed, or even surprised. The only thing I really feel is annoyance that I put it all that work and really hurt myself only for it to be for naught. I would rather be told that it sucked, then 'well we liked it, but we've already hired someone'
Still, with my track recored, I practically expected it.
I'm never going to work in animation again, am I.

OH HEY LOOK, UPDATIN'

So the new in my life is this: roommate. I've got one. In my one-bedroom apartment.
She's a girl I know from the Internet, of all places, that I've known for a bit a now. I stayed at her place during the spring for Anime North for some Toronto adventures, and now the tables have turned. Only there's nothing she's up here for, and she's not going back home.
More or less, she needed a place to get away, and I needed a way to save money. So it worked out for the both of us. She moved in on Thursday and we're now looking around to find furniture for her clothes and stuff, and eventually a bed 'cause right now we're sharing. It's working out pretty well so far, though it's only been two days so that's hard to judge. Once she gets a job, we'll see how things go. She's trying to get in with the Shoppe with us, but I don't know if Bossman really wants another young'un in the store. I might be able to convince him for a Christmas season hiring, but I think I will have more luck convincing her to hand out her resume other places.
AND THAT'S THE UPDATE. Not much else going on. Trying to do a storyboard test, but maybe I'm rusty from not working for a year, maybe I'm stressed, but every time I start working on it, I only get a bit done before panicking that it's not good and there's no point even trying. I know it's bull and I'm still working but, yeah, it's a problem.

Working on the comic side of the Shoppe, I always see one old coworker a week, it seems. Today came in a guy who's name I can't recall, but I recognized. Still, not recognizing him enough to know his name, I just kept with the usual customer service rhetoric, until he looked at me and asked 'Hey, didn't you used to work for Mercury?' I reply with a 'yep' and he asks why I'm not back there now. I give him a look and tell him that I've been asking them that for months - I'd been emailing them since the winter about work, and they told me to wait until next winter.
He looked confused and then just sorta mumbled 'well, I guess yeah we only have the one show right now'

Oh animation, why can't you just leave me to wallow in my sorrow and dejection.

In other news, I'm going to go see Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs tomorrow. It looks FANTASTIC, so I'm super excited.
And I laughed at Ted's Shellfish joke. I don't know what that means for me :/

Goddamn, last night's episode of HIMYM was golden. Golden. I laughed, I didn't cry, I laughed some more. I'd missed this show SO MUCH and I'm so happy it's back, because it's the best thing ever. Oh, why did it have to be on Mondays at 8, though. This hampers dearly with my Beer and Boardgames night. :<
Not that I've been able to attend B&BG night lately because of work, but it still increases the guilt.
But again OMGAWESOME. This show has done the best shark avoiding ever - the Barney/Robin thing could've ruined it, but they're playing it perfectly in character. I can't wait for season 4 DVD so I can watch the whole thing in a giant marathon again. :D

Also, I'm thinking of trying out Roller Derby - the arena is pretty close to where I live and (despite my poor attempt at skating this year) I wanna try to relearn my childhood awesome skating skills. Once I have money I'm going to at least give it a try. Will have to find some people to drag along for public skating.

My mum sent me this email this morning:

Hi my love,
Do you realize that you should put nothing on the internet that you wouldn't put on the front page of a newspaper for everyone to see? You do not put anything in writing that could even remotely be used against you later in life in anyway or form. If you want to journal, journal in a private book, not on the internet where anyone can access it somehow.

I love you lots.
Mum


I wonder if this is just one of mum's random 'Words of advice you already know' emails, which she sends often, or if it's something more... sinister.





Hi mom!

I always wonder how the word of my sexuality passes along my peers, when I don't mention it to people and find out that they already know. Do people introduce me with that? "Oh yeah, that's Ama, she draws funny shit, likes Batman, and fucks women."
Not really a complaint, but always something that pops in my head whenever I'm in a conversation with someone I'm certain I've never told I was gay, and they're the ones to bring it up first.

Also, WTF Patrick Swayze is dead. This is freaking me out man. Who's next.

YYEEEAUGH my feet hurt. I've been wearing the same shoes for 5 years now and they are nearly non-exsitent by now. But with my strange, square feet I utterly HATE shoe shopping, so I've been putting it off for a while now. But today I tried walking home from the Shoppe, and my feet feel like they've fallen apart. I guess tomorrow I'm going to have to go shoe shopping.
On the Shoppe, they've hired me back, which is yay! Considering the news for animation for the rest of the year isn't entirely optimistic, it's good news for me. I've had to promise to work even once animation starts back up, which'll be interesting but that'll be a bridge to cross when it's come to. I've never been one to think super far ahead.
Otherwise, I'm broke. Dead broke. I'm trying to figure out exactly how to work comissions and try to get some extra money in. Although, it would probably help if I did something like not buy IKEA funiture - I just bought a TV stand yesterday that put me back 200, but now I have an awesome stand, that actually helps my TV look bigger!, and having managed to put it together all by myself, I'm feeling pretty good about it. Managed some tough callouses on my hands, but a good feeling of acomplishment.
OH MAN, ICE CREAM COMMERCIAL, SO HUNGRY RIGHT NOW

I'm still in a bit of an art depression funk, but I'm hoping to pull out of that by the end of the week, when the apartment is schway super clean.

So, I'm still jobhunting.
I had an interview on Thursday, but it was my first, professional interview and I went in blind and fell on my ass. Since all I've been hired for is 'here are my drawings' or 'just give me this min. wage job', interviews have been pretty much show up and I'm hired. But this one was talking about myself, about the company, about a lot of things and I totally blew it. But at least I came away knowing what to expect.
A friend who used to work for the Shoppe but now, coincidentally, works in the building my caf job's in, let me know of some job information his Storyboard Artist friend came across. Turns out, it was just Mercury's hiring information, which I had already noted in July and asked them about, to be told that the 'Start date: Immediately' was wrong and that they intended to hire in the mid winter. But then seeing the job posting posted again last week, again saying 'starting now' made me worried and upset. A friend at the studio told me that as far as he knew, it was still a Feb start date, but I'm still starting to feel more and more burned by the place. This is like an abusive relationship, where I know I'll only get hurt, but I'm still begging to go back.

I've also got a shot at doing charicatures for partys/fairs/whatever else for an entertainment company, but that's hardly steady work. Still, I'm working on cranking some stuff out so I have a decent portfolio to show them by Monday and maybe at least get some side gigs for extra cash.

Went to see District 9 today with my sis. We have almost identical taste in movies, other than my soft spot for enjoying terrible films as hilarious, so we both came out with pretty much the same reaction: huh.
It was... kinda what I had expected, but not. Firstly, I didn't realize it would be so gorey. Secondly, I didn't realize that it would make everyone so damn unlikable. Obviously, the humans suck. The humans are terrible. But the aliens don't exactly do much to redeem themselves either - they're just as violent, animalistic and disgusting as the slumdogs and military taking advantage of them.
I didn't like how they left everything unexplained too. Why certain things were important, why stuff was the way stuff was, things like that. There's little exposition - it's like waking from a coma and watching this documentary on TV without any prior explanation.

It was good. It's a good movie to watch. But I didn't enjoy it. It's a very harsh, tense and violent film.

On an RL note, my Pepere - grandfather on my mum's side - passed away last night. He'd been fighting lymph cancer for about four years now and it finally took him. Some of my best childhood memories are from going up north and going fishing with him, or riding on the fourwheeler.
I'm very much going to miss him. This is just one more straw on 2009 being a very shitty year.

And so, the 1 week Jade update!
Had I been updating every day, the updates probably would've looked something like this:
OMG YAY DOGGIE
Doggie stop crying you have so much stuff in your pen and I have to sleep, you can't come onto the bed until you and the cat are used to each other.
YAY WALKS
Doggie stop snapping at the cat.
Dog, stop chasing the cat.
Bad dog.
OH HAVE I MADE A MISTAKE.
Fuck this, I'm no quitter.
YAY DOGGIE, DAMMIT, YAY.

Jade's integration into the home has been mostly successful, she's completely attached to me, listens well on walks and after one or two snappish encounters in the elevator, now sits nicely in the elevator and is mostly good with all the strangers in it.
I got really worried for a bit about Kenobi, who are first was super curious about just what the fuck Jade was and then when Jade started snapping and growling at her, is now just freaked out by the dog. I've been spraying Jade with water and scolding her whenever she does it, and now, like a good fast learner, Jade just looks sulky when the cat walks by. Kenobi had been sick for a bit first, which I thought was due to the stress, but then I found out Kenobi kept eating Jade's food and that was the reason she was throwing up, a problem now solved. She's also nervous about being on the floor whenever Jade's around, and spends most of her time walking around the edges of the couches and furniture.
The couches have also been claimed, green by Kenobi and red by Jade. They're both sitting on them now, Jade gnawing on her bone and Kenobi staring at her.
For a few nights, I was worried I might've made a mistake, that maybe I should've gotten a puppy especially with the bonding with Kenobi and training. But other than slight seperation anxiety, which I'm putting in the effort to eventually cure her of, Jade's a great dog. Stubborn, but great. For the most part, her personality reminds me of my folk's dog, Teddy: stubborn, but obedient. And she's cute as a button and every single person we've met has cooed over her - including two very high girls last night who thought she was a Boxer puppy. We also met the other Boston who lives in the building, who must be mixed with something else because he's easily 30-40 pounds, and I ended up talking dogs with the couple for about twenty minutes.
I'm a dog owner now, and I'm in deep. Hopefully in a few months Jade and Kenobi will be good enough with each other that they can sleep in the same bed, and I'm comfortable leaving them alone together.

I'm sleepy - I think I'm going to go make a cuppa tea.

I have a doooooooog.
Stayed over at Chris and Steph's last night so that they could drive me this morning and we watched Coraline and it was awesome. Then this morning we all woke up nice and easy and grabbed coffee and headed on down the road. It was raining, but not badly. Got to the breeder's, had a chat on all the important information I needed to know, and then little Jade was handed over to me. She was spayed on Wednesday, and is still a bit shy cause of it and has some stitches, and it took a bit for her to warm to me. I seem to have a thing for clingy but otherwise antisocial pets. She eventually quieted down and follows me around all over the apartment now. She went for a short walk with me too and was pretty good.
Her and Kenobi are... tentative. She mostly ignores Kenobi and kitty doesn't seem to know what to think of this other animal in her home. I managed to get them to both sleep on the bed with me and thought they were good, but then they had a little fight over Jade's knucklebone. They're not chasing each other at least, but Kenobi gets all bristley if Jade's too close. They just gotta get used to each other, I hope.
So I now have a doggie!

I got to go to a carnivale today! It was fun! We couldn't afford the big ticket package, which invluded the circus/freak-show, but what we did see and do was still fun enough. It was a pretty great time, which was only marred by my friend's utterly shitty, douchbaggy boyfriend who has to be one of the dumbest, worst people in the world. And the worst part is that even though she knows how much we all HATE him, she still brings him along, or will ditch us for him. So he easily brought the evening down from the awesome it could've been.
I've told her that I don't want to hang out with her until she breaks up with him because he's so damaging, but I know that I'll eventually crack and still be her friend while rolling my eyes.
God, I don't want to do this any more. I'm sick of my friend's relationships ruining our friendship. I hate hanging out with my friends while they're with their boyfriends, and either being the third wheel or pushing the boyfriend to being the third wheel because my friend and I are doing friend shit. And then he gets all pissy and grumpy, they fight, and I either have to patch it up or sit around and wait for it to patch up. Although, since he got left with Douchebag Extraordinaire, his mood can be excused slightly.

Also, work really sucks. I hope I find something better real soon.

So I have a joooooob.
It's not a fantastic job. It's a cafeteria job in a bank headquarters, and it'll pay just slightly more than what I'm making on EI right now, but hey, it's a job. It's something steady to plan my day around and keep my feet on the ground. And right now, that's what I really need.
Also got a new couch, along with the new-ish bookshelf, folks bought me a bunch of groceries and I've got the party on Friday. I think things are looking up.