What a hectic few days this has been!
I expected packing up and closing off my private clients to be not quite as hectic as they turned out to be, and can only breathe a sigh of relief that the clients are over with except to be paid for my efforts, and the packing up is more or less completed for the major items.
To officially mark the end of my sojourn in Kingston, I went out to dinner with my closest female friends in Kingston. There are only two of them, as such it was a small but enjoyable dinner that was had. Of course, in keeping with the tradition G and I established, we went to have sushi, because that is what we do when he is leaving for Canada. Now that I am the one doing the leaving, my friends and I did the same.
Along with dinner, I left my friends with small tokens to keep as reminders of me. For one, a small book of practical advice for every woman; for the other, a book journal to record all the books she is reading, from one reader to another. I will be able to look back and say, how cool was it that we could do that? Very cool.
Tonight is my last night in this apartment, tomorrow night I fall asleep in my mother's house. I have lived here for 19 months, and of all the addresses I had in Kingston, it will remain my favourite. No, it wasn't the best apartment, but it certainly was the most conveniently located, and the one I felt safest going to and from. I had the least issues here, and really few things annoyed me, and now they are of no consequence. I am looking forward to my new address, but will remember this one fondly.
I am moving again. In the eighteen years since I became an adult (legally, anyhow), I have had twice as many addresses as I did in the previous eighteen years. I am obviously something of a rolling stone. I have always been willing to pull up stakes and move to the next place in the hope that I will find something better than obtained in the last place. In some cases, it was work, in other cases it was quality of life.
One more appointment and some bill paying tomorrow, then off to the West!
Thursday, May 24, 2012
Saturday, May 19, 2012
G minus 17
My colleagues gave me a send-off party yesterday. It was so unexpected, it came as a complete surprise. By dint of some slick manoeuvres, they got me out of the office so they could get the decorations and cake into the meeting room, which is located directly behind my cubicle. I even walked past the team members who chose the card they all signed while they paid for it and was not one bit the wiser.
I was astonished, and honestly have never had a nicer send-off. Considering that I have worked with them for the shortest period I have ever been employed full-time, it speaks to the quality of the team spirit at this particular place that they felt it was necessary to do this for me. I was not the least bit reluctant to give the expected "speech" and spent it praising them individually and collectively for the welcome, the training, the encouragement and the camaraderie I was so fortunate to experience.
So, now we're at G minus 17, as a clever friend of ours described it, a description I was pleased to adopt. I am going fully into moving mode now. I hope to get a few boxes to start packing away my books, and I will pack away all the clothes I won't wear in the following week and those I don't plan to take with me. I need to have my spaces clear so I can begin cleaning them down. I intend for cleaning to be a multi-day project rather than a one or two day event, as I will be scattering some appointments through the various days.
One such appointment is to see a dermatologist. While I am fortunate enough to be married to a man who literally loves me "warts and all", I have long wrestled with self-consciousness over those on my face and neck and have decided to have them dealt with. I think it's appropriate that I start my new phase in life with a fresh look, and not carry some of the image issues I have had here with me. This treatment is unlikely to rid me of all of them, but at the least the most obvious ones will go. There are some that look like freckles, I find those unremarkable and do not care if they remain.
Another appointment is to see to my bank account, as I have some monthly commitments attached to it that I need to sign paperwork for it to cease. Not looking forward to that, getting service at my branch involves waiting for an hour to be seen for 10 minutes. I will be staying with the same bank in Canada, and plan to keep this account open to do any business necessary in Jamaica.
So, on with the show!
I was astonished, and honestly have never had a nicer send-off. Considering that I have worked with them for the shortest period I have ever been employed full-time, it speaks to the quality of the team spirit at this particular place that they felt it was necessary to do this for me. I was not the least bit reluctant to give the expected "speech" and spent it praising them individually and collectively for the welcome, the training, the encouragement and the camaraderie I was so fortunate to experience.
So, now we're at G minus 17, as a clever friend of ours described it, a description I was pleased to adopt. I am going fully into moving mode now. I hope to get a few boxes to start packing away my books, and I will pack away all the clothes I won't wear in the following week and those I don't plan to take with me. I need to have my spaces clear so I can begin cleaning them down. I intend for cleaning to be a multi-day project rather than a one or two day event, as I will be scattering some appointments through the various days.
One such appointment is to see a dermatologist. While I am fortunate enough to be married to a man who literally loves me "warts and all", I have long wrestled with self-consciousness over those on my face and neck and have decided to have them dealt with. I think it's appropriate that I start my new phase in life with a fresh look, and not carry some of the image issues I have had here with me. This treatment is unlikely to rid me of all of them, but at the least the most obvious ones will go. There are some that look like freckles, I find those unremarkable and do not care if they remain.
Another appointment is to see to my bank account, as I have some monthly commitments attached to it that I need to sign paperwork for it to cease. Not looking forward to that, getting service at my branch involves waiting for an hour to be seen for 10 minutes. I will be staying with the same bank in Canada, and plan to keep this account open to do any business necessary in Jamaica.
So, on with the show!
Saturday, May 5, 2012
Immersion and Miss Marple
I have been on my "immersion" therapy for my transition to Canada for a couple of weeks now. I read the news every day on CBC's website, I also catch the odd article or editorial from other newspapers online when they catch my eye on the news stream on our website's Home page or Social Lounge page.
The sheer size of the country guarantees something is going on somewhere, so it's impossible to keep track of all that is happening. I find myself sticking with news from around Ontario, and trying to get a hang of the various levels of government and how they interact and function. I have a ways to go, getting to actually having the hang of that, I think.
One thing that is at least looking familiar, though. Some weeks ago my eye caught on an article reporting on meetings of the Public Accounts Committee. Since what I do now has direct relation to that, I read the article, and since then have become hooked on following this story. I have come to an inescapable conclusion now, since following these articles, that there is at least one thing I will have no trouble recognising: government operations!
Yup, doesn't matter where you are in the world, there is nothing like an Auditor General's report for embarrassing non-compliant government ministers and their ministries, and no excuses so lame as the ones propounded for these failures, and no employees so apologetic as the low-level staffers about to be thrown under the bus for carrying out the orders of higher-ups. I could have been reading a report from the PAC here in Jamaica, all I had to do was substitute names.
I read a lot of Dame Agatha Christie's Miss Marple mysteries, and one of the constants of Miss Marple is her firm conviction that people are the same no matter where you are. She believed that experience in one place can hold you steady somewhere else, as long as you let yourself see the patterns in human behaviour. The names will change, but the actions and reactions are the same. I am seeing how right she is, and now I feel one step closer to confidence and a step further away from worry that I will not acquit myself well in EL. People really are the same, no matter where you meet them.
The sheer size of the country guarantees something is going on somewhere, so it's impossible to keep track of all that is happening. I find myself sticking with news from around Ontario, and trying to get a hang of the various levels of government and how they interact and function. I have a ways to go, getting to actually having the hang of that, I think.
One thing that is at least looking familiar, though. Some weeks ago my eye caught on an article reporting on meetings of the Public Accounts Committee. Since what I do now has direct relation to that, I read the article, and since then have become hooked on following this story. I have come to an inescapable conclusion now, since following these articles, that there is at least one thing I will have no trouble recognising: government operations!
Yup, doesn't matter where you are in the world, there is nothing like an Auditor General's report for embarrassing non-compliant government ministers and their ministries, and no excuses so lame as the ones propounded for these failures, and no employees so apologetic as the low-level staffers about to be thrown under the bus for carrying out the orders of higher-ups. I could have been reading a report from the PAC here in Jamaica, all I had to do was substitute names.
I read a lot of Dame Agatha Christie's Miss Marple mysteries, and one of the constants of Miss Marple is her firm conviction that people are the same no matter where you are. She believed that experience in one place can hold you steady somewhere else, as long as you let yourself see the patterns in human behaviour. The names will change, but the actions and reactions are the same. I am seeing how right she is, and now I feel one step closer to confidence and a step further away from worry that I will not acquit myself well in EL. People really are the same, no matter where you meet them.
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