“I met my love by the gas works wall, Dreamed a dream by the old canal”
-Dirty Old Town, The Pogues (my favourite drunken Irish song)

First off, a Happy St. Patrick’s Day to you all. I’m in the festive spirit since I’m wearing my beloved green U2 Popmart t-shirt today. My perpetual travel photo calendar is also pleasantly Irish pub-themed today. So let us commence with the wearing o’ the green, the luck of the Irish and the traditional Lucky Charms and green beer for breakfast…

“Clouds a drifting across the moon”

Yesterday was a looooong day. I spent a solid 13 hours with my co-workers. Luckily they’re fine folk so it was rather enjoyable, especially when there’s alcohol and nonsense to be had. After a typical morning, we had a catered lunch provided by the Pickle Barrell (of the half-yards of beer fame, which were sadly not provided with lunch…we’d have to wait a whole 5 hours for our booze). That followed by a meeting and a session with the dreaded “motivational speaker” who may or may not live in a van down by the river (and there’s my “’Twas 1995” reference for the day). Now the man who does these occasional sessions with us is a nice guy in the rambling anecdote about his Uncle Stuart kind of way. But bless him, he has no idea what our company actually does and likes to make us participate in inane presentations for bonding and “self-discovery” when we are already a very tight-knit group and pretty confident in our selves.

Naturally, when you place me in a group to do something which I have no interest and/or see the reason for, I am likely to mock and become ridiculous, if I even pay attention (Martin Landau’s class and the History of the Slave Trade class serve as prime examples from my university career where Shane and I made up quizzes, played hangman and read magazines in the former class, while in the latter Mairin and I took notes entirely in pictogram form and still managed to ace that class). Obviously, when partnered with my friends in the legal department (whom I basically hung out with all day, despite my ignorance of the law…sorry Kate. You teach can me Ms. Law-woman), we made a mockery of the day. Here is a list of things you can do the next time you have a motivational speaker:

1. Call everything lame.
2. Call people chumps and gimps (although not specifically your co-workers, just in general).
3. Add Bono to any list you make since almost everyone I work with enjoys U2
4. When asked to name a film/TV show/book with a storyline that reflects your time at the company, choose one of the following:

Armageddon- no matter what, Bruce Willis will always be dead to us
Deep Impact- the classy man’s Armageddon!
"Cheers"- work is like a good ensemble comedy full of drunks who go on to live in spin-offs like "Frasier"
The Wizard of Oz- a surreal place full of little people and witches
Blood and Donuts- Canadian film reference! Like a cop drama, just what work is all about: blood AND donuts.

After sneaking away to eat candy int eh last portion of the day, it was time for our cocktail party at La Maquette, a very nice restaurant on King street if you’re ever in need for a fancy, romantic dinner. With the free booze, things get silly. Luckily, pictures were taken and I will add them to this post once they hit our intranet at work. It’s always fun to see who can’t hold their liquor and then watch them as they can’t look at you in the eye the next day because they vaguely remember telling you details of their sordid past. One thing I will miss about my job here is the people I work with.
I only have one picture for now, and thankfull ythe beer bottles are out of sight. I present to you, the 2 youngest staff members (I'm older by 4.5 months):


“Smelled the spring on the smoky wind”

I’m still working on finding someone to go to Thailand with. It actually looks like I might be able to participate in the 18 day tour my mom and aunt are taking in June, providing the cost of the land tour is to my liking. If not, maybe I’ll go in August, even though the rainy season is in full swing until October.

“Dirty old town, Dirty old town”