technically, i'm not wrong.

we had to stop at edward's house on the way to my birthday lunch today cuz he wasn't feeling well.. or so i thought. ab., andrew, basil, dom, edwin, edward and jenny screamed "SURPRISE!" as i stepped inside. well done, you guys, well done. it was kinda nuts though, cuz i was so happy to see everyone. and about 15 minutes before that i was bawling my eyes for the injustice of some things. quite a few emotions to go through in a short period of time.

so really, this birthday wasn't boring after all. although, technically today wasn't my birthday. so my previous blog doesn't need to be corrected.

i must say i was surprised. i wasn't expecting it at all. they planted so many normal little touches that i would never have guessed what was really going on. birthday dinner? nothing suspicious with that, we always do that. at Il Fernano's? we were there last year! edward needed to go home cuz he wasn't feeling well? well, that happened just last week.

so it was a nice way to spend the afternoon. seeing everyone's psycho side. ie. dom leading the way to secluded parts of liberty city, andew's surprising love for video violence. good times. too bad everyone had to leave so early! booo, you guys!

great end to the birthday weekend.

and thanx for the webcam. i promise to use it for good and not for evil. i promise. *snicker*

time for: bed. i've been falling asleep since around 2pm.

am i old now?

another birthday has come and gone. this one was kinda boring, i guess i've been spoiled with awesome birthdays in the past few years. namely birthdays when i was mostly with my friends.. not my family. hahah.

let's see.

year 2000: spent birthday at school. my roomate's mom baked me 19 cupcakes. ab came into waterloo and they (roomate, her friends and ab) took me drinking. oh god. that was the weekend of puking up salad through my nose. but it was still fun.

year 2001: came home to a roomful of balloons. i loved that. how often does a person get their room filled with balloons? jo, mike, q and alice's tactics might have been a bit unorganized, but i really like the gesture. i kept all the balloons 'til november. then i went on a balloon-killing rampage.

year 2002: q, susana, jen and alice flipped everything in my room inside out or upside down. we are talking pillowcases, all the my clothes, stuff on my desk. grr. i wasn't too pleased with that fun gift. i spent the evening watch TV with edward cuz it was the smallville and gilmore girls premiere. then an an, steven and terence showed up with cake. yum. ah, friends who live close by.

year 2003: marked the beginning of the biggest period of denial i've EVER been in. we had birthday festivities the weekend before, the day of, and the weekend after. that was an awesome birthday, just lots of laughing and catching up, and seeing many of the people i care about. on the day of, i was at a CSA dance... lots of fun.. and the event started something great.

anyway, birthdays are always fun. not just mine, but whenever ppl get together to celebrate others' too. k, who's next?

Happy 9 Months, Superman. (all you other people, stop rolling your eyes!)

time for: getting ready for my cousin's wedding.

i.. i... uh.. *jitters*

guys, i'm terrified. now that i actually started looking for a job, i'm so afraid that no one is gonna take an interest in me. my grades are not good! they just aren't!! augh.. i'm like at the bottom of the list grade-wise in the list of all candidates applying for the same job. and i know this for a fact cuz there's a cut off in accounting and i just made barely made that cutoff.

i sent my application to the firm i really want just now and my hands got all clammy. i think it's cuz now i know it's out of my hands. and i'm so not gonna get it. augh. i guess now i just have to prep myself for the inevitable rejections.

time for: oh, fuck it all. i'm gonna go play some sims 2.

no more driving, pls.

yawn, drove to waterloo today.. i could hardly keep my eyes opened on the trip there... edward had to slam his imaginary brakes in the passenger seat cuz he thought i wasn't watching the road. but i was. no worries. the bright red, setting sun was in my eyes during the whole drive into the 'loo, i think it strained my eyes and made them wanna close. cuz i had no trouble keeping my eyes opened on the back to t.o at around 9pm.

i drove into waterloo cuz one of the big four firms held an info session for WLU today. it was on a golf course. we had a golf pro teach us how to hold the club properly, what our stance should look like and how to swing. it was pretty innovative for an info session. not only did we hit balls on the driving range, there was also a putting competition and a presentation of the firm. they were all fun and interesting, gave us lots of time to mingle with the employees of the firm and ask them detailed questions. after the activities there was a little reception where we could talk some more while munching on snacks and replenishing our thirst at the open bar. good times.

of all the firms i've heard about lately, i am most interested in this one. the coporate culture sounds fantastic. they offer lots of help to people who are writing the UFE, they have programs which recognize and reward the importance of their employees and most important of all, every employee i talked to absolutely love the place. i will definitely apply. most likely won't get it, but i'll apply anyway. they said they get about 1000 applicants.. for 75 positions. some of which are already filled by returning co-op students. sigh.

time for: sleep. right after i fume some more about how gmail is failing me.

it's gonna be a busy week.

a bunch of us went to Go For Tea with Ms. Tang (dammit, i can't even refer to her as Cathy!) on friday night and as usual, we ended up talking for hours and hours. It's just so nice to catch up with people once a year, the conversations were interesting and fast-paced since there was so much to talk about. Ms. Tang was only 23 years old when she took over 3 Grade 9 English classes at Zion. it's hard to believe that someone that age could be responsible enough to teach 70 grade 9 students all by herself. I definitely don't think that any of my friends are mature enough to do such a thing. hell, most of us aren't even out of school yet.

this is going to be one busy week. i may have to attend CA firms' info sessions in waterloo three nights in a row starting monday. and then it's girls nite out with my mom and sisters on thurs. then friday is just any other day..then saturday is my cousin's wedding. i'm not too big on weddings. esp. relative's weddings. i don't see them very often and it's weird and awkward. i think friends' weddings will be a whole lot more fun. getting back to my busy week, it's premiere week!! CSI! Without A Trace! Gilmore Girls! Amazing Race Finale! woohoo! i've been deprivied of good TV this summer, i'm so glad the season is starting again.

and of course, whatever free time i have will be devoted to job searching (with a side of lounging around at home), so this is gonna be my first non-school-related hell week. yay!

time for: nothing much, just your basic sunday afternoon relaxation.

ho hum.

my boss called a few days ago to ask if i can come in today and yesterday. i was going to say no, cuz i don't really want to work here again, but... there were these skirts i wanted, so i said yes to today and no to yesterday.

so now i'm sitting here, not caring whether i'm doing any work. i could've done everything i've done today in an hour, but i stretched it out to 4 hours. so now i have 2.75 hours to kill. then it's time for home!! yay. it's not that i'm not doing my job, it's just that i have nothing to do and i'm not motivated to go ask someone for work.

last nite's CA night went pretty well. i was unsure about the whole thing because i don't like going to these functions without knowing anyone. i always feel like such a fool cuz i have no idea what i'm talking about or i'm not prepared enough. but last night was different, for the first time, i realize that being a graduate means that i know stuff. stuff that first and second years don't know. so while they stood there asking redundant questions littered with "like" or "uhm" or "like, ok", i was able to formulate pretty good questions to ask the reps. i guess that the fact that i desperately need an accounting job made my brain work properly too. i think it was a very successful night, got the cards of recruiting reps from the big four plus a couple of others. i'll definitely call them for follow up in the coming days.

as we were driving out back to t.o, i completely missed the entrance to the 401. while i freaked, edward calmly told me to get off at the next exit. and then we got lost. hahah. it should've taken us 5 minutes to get back on the highway. but instead, it took us... uhm.. 45 minutes. we went west when we should have gone east. oops. in our defense, we didn't have a map or a working compass. it was just a lot of "oh, it's victoria! let's go left" and "oh, it's queen street! and king! wait, where are we?" bah. so much for race. i totally couldn't be the driver. i'd have to be the navigator. with a map.

time for: some more pretending to work. the cat is completely out of the bag though, the guy behind me can see my monitor. bah, he said he had nothing when i feebly asked him if he had any work for me to do. good enough.

waste of time.

went to the national job fair today with becca, chanelle and kim. i haven't seen chanelle and kim in ages, but it was fun. i love how girls can just chat and chat and chat. the fair itself was such a waste of time. their list of exhibitors just weren't very interesting. there were retail booths for Dynamite (the clothing store), Danier Leather, Toys R' Us, Town Shoe, etc. then there were the employment agencies who set up booths, these booths had huge line ups, but really, couldn't you just email your resume to them? There were also a bunch of continuing eduation/training booths. all in all, didn't really apply to a recent grad.

hopefully tomorrow's CA night will fare better.

I just found out that the three of the big four accounting firms plus Grant Thornton are holding info sessions in waterloo in the next two weeks. i want to attend, but i'm not quite sure if i'm willing to bus it three days in a row to get to these things. augh. so much busing. so expensive.

my ideal is to find an accounting job which commences next september/october (2005). and then do my two remaining courses in the winter in one of the T.O universities while working fulltime at a contract job which will end in around june or july of 2005. so i'll have enough money and time to do stuff i want to do. such as travel for a tiny bit or help edward settle down elsewhere if he's going somewhere not in t.o for grad school. not quite sure which part of that i'll be able to achieve though.

time for: dinner. then some more CSI fun. yay!

wish me luck.

went into waterloo yesterday with edward armed with a list of things i had to accomplish.

1. get a reference from my former boss: done
2. enroll in the Laurier Alumni Employment Service: done, by a stroke of luck. there was a last minute cancellation and i was able to get an appointment with the lady who runs the service.
3. order transcripts: done, the line was surprisingly short. this is a big deal since WLU not only stands for Wilfrid Laurier University, but also We Line Up.
4. find out info on CA sessions at school: done. i even signed up for the Accounting Association and bought a ticket for CA night on thursday.

i got all of that done in an hour an a half, then i walked around campus running into people i know. it was nice. felt a little odd to know what i don't actually go there anymore. even more funny when i got stopped at least 5 times by froshies asking for directions. so brave. one girl actually bombarded me with 4 questions, heehee. i felt old, but knowledgeable.

as i said, there's a CA night (that's Chartered Accountant night) at Laurier on thurs night. There will be alumni, recruiters and co-op students from 7 CA firms attending. they will be there to answer questions, let us know about opportunities in their firms, etc. i'm not sure what i'm gonna ask yet, because i am not very good at talking to strangers on a professional level. seems pretentious and uncomfortable, but i guess i'll have to learn.

so my strategy for learning? i'm going to the national job fair in t.o tomorrow, i'll probably talk to some companies in the business/finance sector just to see what questions come up and get comfortable bs-ing to strangers. i doubt any of the major accounting firms will set up shop there, if they do, i'll stop by.

anyway.. time to sleep. tired for some odd reason, woke up at 11:30 this morning, so i'm not sure why.

oh. race is so annoying. why can't colin and christie just lose? hmm? come on!

time for: saying good nite to hunny and catching some z's. or maybe finishing the Bourne Ultimatum.

this sounds like quite a deal...

anyone wanna to go traveling for 21 days through asia? this is pretty cheap.. CDN 1500 to fly from Toronto to Hong Kong and then 21 days of unlimted flights to 14 cities in Asia. you can also extend the time period to 30, 45 or 60 days. check it out. i wanna go! but no money. boo.

now what?

friday was my last offical day of work, i'm not sure if i'm going back there for a couple more days, but i'm annoyed with management (namely a tubby belly, time wasting, inconsiderate fool) and most likely will not be going back.

so now what?? i'm gonna go to WLU tomorrow and see if i can find any recruiters or names of recruiters of the major accounting firms at WLU's career servics. i'm also going to enroll into the alumni employment services, maybe they'll be able to find me a job. and then i'll hit the National Job Fair being held on the 15th & 16th at the Convention Center. (thanx to becca for giving me a heads up.) i have already updated my resume.. and i have my references in order. the only thing i need now is a good cover letter and i'm on my way. wheeeee.

as much as i'm kinda freaking out about looking for a job though, i am looking forward to a week off without any work. yes, i know i'll most likely be looking at more than a week of being umemployed, but it'll be at least a week before i start REALLY freaking out about it.

went to dim sum with dom, edwin, maggie and edward yesterday. (stinky ab had to work) then shopping with them.. w/o maggie. then to Keg for dinner.. w/o edwin... then watched some of the Canada-Czech game.. then watched Hero with dom, edward and alex. then i hung out with edward at his place until my right contact lens got angry and created havoc with my right eye. the movie was alright.. kinda slow, kinda good. the highlight of the day was Keg, mmm, prime rib. so bad for you, yet just so damn good once in a while.

maggie left for hk today. :(

time for: cleaning my room, then lunch, then shopping. yay.

nothing fried, please.

fried fried fried.

all i've had today was fried food. i had a lunch of fried fish fillet with fries... and then dinner was at a chinese restaurant where oddly enough, we ordered four fried dishes. (duck, appetizers platter, seafood and pork) come to think of it, i had fried fish and fries yesterday for lunch too, in the form of a Friday McDeal. augh. no more. please. i want something steamed.

my parents picked up a desk for me today, it's pretty darn nice. it's really a 6 foot countertop from ikea with legs attached to it. but the countertop is a nice light wood finish and the legs are grey, so it looks pretty decent, better than the baquent table i've using for the past 3 years anyway. the best part it, it was only 15 bucks. they were trying to get rid of stock or something and marked stuff down really really low. the countertop thingie was original $125... now down to $5. that's like 96% off. hahah. 5 bucks!! what can you buy with 5 bucks these days? my parents were pretty impressed with themselves.. actually, i was pretty impressed to. it's unusual for something to be cheap enough for them and astheticlly sufficent for me.

i've got two more days of the weekend ahead of me, i'm so excited. i'm gonna switch between the CSI marathon on SpikeTV and the What Not to Wear marathon on TLC on monday. then i'll have to decide whether i want to work all next week or just tues and friday. on the one hand, it's money. on the other, i'll never properly look for a job if i already have a job. hmm.

time for: chilling with Edward, as always. we've been trying to watch this scary movie for a month, but we still haven't... and i dun think we will tonite. i dun feel like being scared tonite.