why are my feet to the sky?

So I went to Wonderland yesterday with Gord and Meghan. A fun time was had by all.

3 Rides happened that I said I would never ever do:
Dragonfire
Drop Zone
Sky Rider

I was freaked out from Drop zone... my eyes were closed the entire ride down.... Yuck.

We went on the Italian Job Stunt Track too. It's an ok ride, but not worth the hour and 45 minute wait due to it breaking down 2 times while we were in line... that's right. And the people at wonderland didn't offer us free water because it was freaking hot outside too. Ah well.

Here's the ride tally of the day:

Dragonfire
Wild Beast
Drop Zone
Vortex
Ghostercoaster
Mine Buster
Sky Rider
Vortex
Italian Job

Not a bad day in all. I would have liked to do the Fly, Thunder Run, and Tomb Raider, but the others weren't so keen on that idea. Tomb Raider was also broken down for a large portion of the day.

Out.

T.

btefnet?

I went to btefnet yesterday to see if there was any hope of redemption for the site and there seems to be... But it's now a pay service. 30 US for a lifetime membership for unlimited downloads of tv shows. Now the question that stands is if this is legitimate or not. For a while there it said the domain name was for sale and I'm wondering if the whole thing's a scam.

It's a good question, and we'll see how things turn out. I probably wont pay, but we'll see in the future.

after day 1

I was told:
f you
your moms are pigs
to go to a massage parlour in Toronto because it's a sex shop.

The joys.

gradumacated

So I graduated from Directory Assistant training today and am going on to begin work tomorrow night. Call 411 between 8 and midnight tomorrow.... you may get me. Maybe.

Today's stats were:

Time online: 4.75 hours
Calls taken: 371
Average time per call: 41 seconds
Calls per hour: 78.1

I'm still pretty consistent with my call time so far. When I first started I was between 47 and 57 seconds per call, so it's come down quite a bit over the past week. Maybe I'll get it down into the low 30's by the end of the summer as I become more familiar to the system.

I may try to get a job at the Kitchener centre when I return to school. I'll have to look more into how that would work and if it would be feasable at all.

Out.

T.

sigh

I'm going to have a bit of trouble when I go back to school. The backspace button on the keyboards at work is in a different location than it is on a regular keyboard... Ooops!

Also, we were online taking everything the past 2.25 days or so now. It's not nearly as bad as I thought it would be before we started, but after 2 days, I'm down to the following stats:

Thursday:

Time online: 7 hours
Calls Taken: 586
Average time per call: 42 seconds
Calls per hour: 83.7

Friday:

Time online: 5.5 hours
Calls Taken: 448
Average time per call: 40 seconds
Calls per hour: 81.4

Monday's the last day of training and then I start on Tuesday for my regular shifts (which for the first 3 non-training weeks are all but one 8-midnight shifts... yucky.

overload

Well, finally after 1.5 weeks of training we went into the main queue for all calls. It was a lot. It was only 40 minutes and the time flies when you're taking calls. I'll be ok when we do a bit more of this and I get a bit more comfortable being able to multitask. But on the plus side, my manners have gotten amazing and my diction is much better than it was a week ago. Go figure.

T.

ugh

So for some strange reason, I started to panic about funding for school this evening. I don't know how I'll manage to afford a final year of school because I most likely won't be getting full time hours at work, but I'm sure something will work out in the end.

There's a few things that I'll have to drop out of my schedule in order to make things more feasable, which include:

backpacking in algonquin
PEI
Scotland (yucky!)
Laptop
Maybe more...

The sucky part about this is that I'm forced to have extra finances in my account to be able to afford weekend meals next year because they're not included with the meal plan. Maybe I'll just save up from the rest of the week or freeze a lot of food this summer for reheating in the fall. I already have 5 extra pieces of lasagna!

online

Today was the day. We went online for the first time. The feeling you get when you don't want to take the leap of faith and try something new happened today. We only took 800 calls and US calls seperately with a few canadian numbers thrown in that emily got mixed up on. Wasn't that bad in the end. The US numbers were really slow for some reason. I only did about 10 of those in 20 minutes online rather than 15-20 800 numbers in that time.

Supposedly we'll be taking lots of calls by Tuesday in a variety of areas. Eek.

back to school

I've felt like a student once more in grade 7 and 8 the past few days as I've been returning to Hill Street School, now known as Nordia. They've done quite a few changes with the inside, the most welcoming being the addition of central air conditioning which has been an amazing addition through this latest heat wave we've been having. We've been learning on the computers and through online based training how to be a directory assitance operator for the various companies and conglomerates that use Nordia's service. There's a lot. So much to learn, so little brainspace to cram it in.

Haven't taken any calls yet, but we've probably spent 2-3 hours listening in on agents as they've been taking calls. As with any business, there's the weird requests that come through that you're wondering what the person is on. I'm at the point where i've experienced enough oddities through my term at the travel centre that nothing really faces me anymore... though there was the one request for a place called stitch and b**** (son of an unwed mother). The agent was taken aback and had to clarify. No listing came up, but it was still quite interesting.

The rents are home, and nothing's really changed except for that I haven't had to cook for 2 dinners now, which has been nice, though I hope I don't lose my willingness to fend for myself ambitiously rather than through microwave edibles.

T.

directory assisted

Well, I've had two days of training at Nordia. I haven't messed up yet... but I haven't taken any calls yet, so that kinda helps a bit. So much to remember, so much overload when I realize that it'll take forever and a day to get it all down. Ah well. We might be live for a bit tomorrow... i'm frightened beyond belief.

If you call 411, 1 (area code) 555-1212, or 1-800-555-1212, you'll be through to a Nordia agent somewhere in Ontario or Quebec... most likely Corunna or Kitchener. Try it sometime (from a payphone - it's free there)

bcn

So my parents are in Barcelona right now theoretically. According to Wunderground.com, the temperature there is about 24 C, about 6 degrees less that it's supposed to be here today. I'm glad that there's good weather for them to explore my favourite city that I've been to. We had a day of rain and a day of rushedness to see the city that's known for the Gothic architechture all around it. Anton Gaudi was a genius, I say.

I have the house to myself for another 48 hours. It's still presentable, which surprises me. I've never kept it this spotless before. I just keep doing the dishes and cleaning up after myself. I guess I am becoming slowly domesticated.

In other news, I think I'm going to the Pinery today to have a relaxing day in the beautiful weather that we've been having lately. Hopefully others are coming with. It'll make things more fun.

And to make myself look presentable, I shaved completely last night. Originally it was only a trim, but the humidity made my face sticky and I messed up, so it all came off. First time since March. I'll probably keep clean for a month or so now, just to be different... but when I get to the point where I don't need to be presentable anymore for professionalism's sake, I'm going pretty again with the facial hair. LOOK AT ME! I'M PRETTY!

domestic tim

This week has been a week of firsts for me:
First time making lasagna
First time frying potatoes
First time changing door knobs
First time fixing a toilet
First time scraping a deck
etc. etc. etc.

I fried chicken and potatoes for supper tonight. Neither were fully cooked in the end, but I had to stop so I didn't set the smoke detector off... oops. I'm not dead yet. I nuked the chicken to finish the cooking process and the potatoes were fine in the end. And the left over creamed corn didn't taste so hot, but that's ok.... I'll survive. I also made a lasagna and caesar salad from scratch the other day and no one who ate of is dead yet.

I think I'm doing pretty well for myself being on my own for this week and a bit. I start at Nordia on Monday. The 'rents return on Tuesday. And life continues.

T.

scrape your booty

I've spent parts of the past 3 days working for my grandpa scraping a deck of the stain that it once bore in order to sand and restain it. Today, after about 12-15 hours of work, I completed the top level of the deck. I have 4-5 steps to scrape now and a culvert cover before I can get to work sanding all the pieces (with an electric sander, thankfully). It's something to keep me busy throughout this week of potential work that Nordia stole from me.

I just wish I knew of a professional masseuse where I could go for free/cheap... stiff necks suck.

Sigh.

Now that all the yearlong shows are over (Scrubs, Survivor, Amazing Race, Lost, Joan of Arcadia [permanantly... stupid cbs]), I'm left with very little to watch on the tube. Maybe this will help a bit. I made it to world 4 by myself on Super Mario 3 on Sunday afternoon before turning it off due to poor game cartridge quality and getting sick of seeing it in my head everytime I close my eyes. One day I'll return to that spot and pick up where I left off. I also have a few books that I'd like to read. One of them is "God is closer than you think" by John Ortberg. It looks interesting, so I'll give it a go and see what it's like. I'd also like to re-read "A Royal Waste of Time" by Marva Dawn and "Who You Are When No One's Looking" by Bill Hybels.

Reading is the lost artform when there's TV around... you don't have to think for TV. Or computers for that matter sometimes.

T.