Monday, August 30, 2004

Hurry Up and Wait

Today I find myself sitting here in my classroom on my second to the last day for me just wanting to scream AGHH….
Being a people person is getting harder and harder for me to do.
My political side just wants to scream.
Is any one there?
But I can’t help but think that this would be just a waste of breath because I don’t think that there is no one listening.
But then I have thoughts of what if there is someone there. Then they just might be listening. But this morning events I am pondering this again.

As I wanted to share me delight in my attempt to prepare myself for yet another new journey.

The teacher who I have formed a working relationship with over the past few months had returned from her vacation just on time to say hello and good bye to me. But before she did this she asked me if I had contacted HRDC. I said that I was just sending them an e-mail to inform them that my last day was going to be Aug.31.

Before I could send them an e-mail I need to contact the office so that I could get the correct e-mail address. So I telephone the office and spoke directly to the woman who had been working with me since day one. I was surprise when she was anything but delighted with my news. She said “what about your education do you realize that you may lose all you’re funding.” I said “Yes” She then said “Have You contacted HRDC?” I said that I needed to get a hold of them for the worker’s e-mail address. So I thought that I would save myself a few minutes by asking her if she had their e-mail address. She said "yes" that she did but she could not give it to me but she could forward my information. All through this conversation she told me that I was taking a chance at losing my funding. I told her that I was only doing what the government’s system had instructed me to do when a job was being offered to me.

I was accepting the job knowing full well what it was going to cost me in the long run. I told I knew what I was risking. But I also told her that I could not live or just exist on what the government was allowing for me to exist on. I had told her that I was also going to get more experience getting experience in working for a family and child agency which was being run by and all First Nations staff. I don’t think she saw it the same way that I was seeing it. She still sounded a bit irked with me for going out and getting a job.

I know that this job isn't the best paying one, nor is it the the one one that I want for a career. All I want is the experience. The experience for means that this would be the first time were I get to work with people from my own race. this is going to be a first for me. Plus I get to try and work in an office which as doing preventative child apprehension, which is what I have been wanting to do all my life.

So me this is about another learning experience.A stepping stone hopefully into the right direction of a life long career of of helping others. (As if there really is a end to learning hahaha)

So I think the moral of this letter is hurry and wait but don’t hurry up to fast.
Remember that it is really not you who is control of your life and you are not as smart as you think you are because big mamma is the one who is holding purse strings.
So don’t go too far because you won’t get your reward.
Don’t think outside the box and definitely don’t take heed to everything the government expects of you when asking for their support, because if you do you just might succeed.
Then you will totally throw off the whole government system.

Thursday, August 26, 2004

Uncertainty

I hate this feeling of uncertainty. Just as I think things are starting to final turn in the right direction for me. I get this phone call. It is NTU/O child and Family services. They phone and offer me a full time job at minimum wage for the next three months. I figure this would be great. At this stage I am willing to do just about anything.
Both James and I have been unemployed for a year now. I have been actively looking for work and going to school full time. Only had one person last Christmas over to hire me. I was never called back again after the initial interview. James want through some kind of a weird depression and retreated back into his acrophobia state of surviving after my hospital stint. He stayed in that state for several months. All through this time he was yaking about doing foot massages at people work sights and on the streets instead of begging for change. I realized that he was having trouble doing this on his own.
Having a partner that needed a little boos was something to me because I had become accustom to having people in my life who could operate on their own. I had never had the experience of having someone so closed in wanting to do foot massages on anyone who would let him do it on them.

So I spent a lot of time in the inner harbor helping him get Victoria's first out door foot massage going. That is how we survived and kept out sanity throughout the summer. Now James wants to continue on bring his ten minute treatments to people's home and work sights just like he did when he was living back east. I don't know if it will work but I am thinking what the heck the man wants to work and knows that he doesn't want to exist on welfare and know that he can't return back to heavy lifting. So who know this just might turn out yet for us. We have managed to stay of off welfare thanks to a lot of my friends who helped us with a lot of emotional support and financial stuff. The support has been just awsome.

I keep in encouraging James to go get one of those certificates. He is so good at giving massages. He has gone being a closed in person to an all out foot massage professional.

As for me I am still out there fighting and being the warrior woman I am. So until next time. Rose

Friday, August 06, 2004

Today Inventions

June 11/04

Today’s inventions can be an oxymoron hindrance for the human race.

Gone are the glorious days of yesterday where things took time to evolve.

We seem to exist in a world of instant gratification. It is a world about quantity not qualifications or quality of product.

Our government wants us to work towards a bigger, better and brighter future.

Our elders want us to remember how hard they fought for us to enjoy what some people take for granted. They want us to remember them.

Our youth wants us to feed their mind, body and soul with hope for a bigger, better and brighter future.

Our little ones want us to tell them about life without McDonalds’ fast foods, cable TV, what ATM stands for, and life without a computer.

Our parents and our grandparents remind us of how glorious life was for them in their younger days. When children could play safely on the streets with minimal supervision and wander around in their bare feet, running from house to house visiting their family and friends. As youth, they knew that they were valuable members in both their family life and in the community. They were the ones who fetched the water from the wells and rivers, fed the farm animals, babysat, and did chores for the neighbors. There, only expectation in return for the hard work that they did was a two-bit coin, a sincere thank you and maybe, a piece of homemade pie. They were the young legs and arms for all that could not do for themselves. Grandma and grandpa were almost, a fixture in every house. They carried a piece of the family history that was passed onto the grandchildren in hopes that they will have a bigger, better brighter future and not have to pay for it with a loss of a life or limb.

The world of high quantity has claimed its victim.
The victim's name is quality.
There was a time when Grandpa put a lot of his pride into his work; just like Grandma did in ensuring their children were brought up properly.

The quality of one's work was what put the bread and the butter together and on the table and into their bellies.

Everyone looked out for each other, ensuring that no one went hungry and that everyone was employed.

Some of us want to have our cake and pie, with ice cream, before working for it or worrying about the extra calories. We do this without giving much thought to the person dying from malnourishment or from starvation down the street or on the other side of the world.

June 11/04

Today’s inventions can be an oxymoron hindrance for the human race.


Gone are the glorious days of yesterday where things took time to evolve.

We seem to exist in a world of instant gratification. It is a world about quantity not qualifications or quality of product.

Our government wants us to work towards a bigger, better and brighter future.

Our elders want us to remember how hard they fought for us to enjoy what some people take for granted. They want us to remember them.

Our youth wants us to feed their mind, body and soul with hope for a bigger, better and brighter future.

Our little ones want us to tell them about life without McDonalds’ fast foods, cable TV, what ATM stands for, and life without a computer.

Our parents and our grandparents remind us of how glorious life was for them in their younger days. When children could play safely on the streets with minimal supervision and wander around in their bare feet, running from house to house visiting their family and friends. As youth, they knew that they were valuable members in both their family life and in the community. They were the ones who fetched the water from the wells and rivers, fed the farm animals, babysat, and did chores for the neighbors. There, only expectation in return for the hard work that they did was a two-bit coin, a sincere thank you and maybe, a piece of homemade pie. They were the young legs and arms for all that could not do for themselves. Grandma and grandpa were almost, a fixture in every house. They carried a piece of the family history that was passed onto the grandchildren in hopes that they will have a bigger, better brighter future and not have to pay for it with a loss of a life or limb.

The world of high quantity has claimed its victim.
The victim's name is quality.
There was a time when Grandpa put a lot of his pride into his work; just like Grandma did in ensuring their children were brought up properly.

The quality of one's work was what put the bread and the butter together and on the table and into their bellies.

Everyone looked out for each other, ensuring that no one went hungry and that everyone was employed.

Some of us want to have our cake and pie, with ice cream, before working for it or worrying about the extra calories. We do this without giving much thought to the person dying from malnourishment or from starvation down the street or on the other side of the world.