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Anna Overseas

6/3/2005

Bought plane ticket today. (stop)

Still in shock. (stop)

Leaving June 13th. (stop)

Oh my, this means I only have 10 days to do everything I want to do, and see everyone I want to see.

Okay. So, who wants to go shopping with me? I need to buy pants. A laptop. But mostly pants.

Anna stopped here at 7:58 PM

6/2/2005

In a desperate attempt to settle my stomach, this blog post will not in any way refer to the fact that I am going overseas and have to get rid of all of my worldly possession in the next few hours. Not at all. Even a bit. In any way.

Instead, I'll just respond to a bunch of comments that I've been too lazy to actually email people in response to. I kinda suck that way.

In no particular order:

Laura: If you promise that you'll get Tall Man dressed up as nice as he was at that one Untitled game, with the top hat and everything, I would fly back from Scotland to see it.

Star: The only mandarin I remember may be less than helpful. Does Aria need to know how to say "I'm not American, I'm Canadian!" and "I have no money"? Cuz I can do that. I can also teach her how to sing "Brother John" in Mandarin. It's a song about tigers, though. One has no ears and one has no tail. It's very strange.

Wally: I really don't have ten minutes to rub together... but I could find it if the right man asked... *wink*

Raven: Oh, I don't think you'd want to be my wife anyway. There are so many shineys in my house you'd forget to crack the whip. Speaking of which, I found my whip. (Or is it Kristi's whip? I can't remember.)

Ben: Oh my, I didn't notice your comment till now. I suck. I have a whip, someone must crack it so I remember to email you. When I have more than ten minutes to rub together. See earlier comment.

Crash: Yes, yes, sending off the paperwork and getting everything ready is the point, but gah! Gah! GAH!!!

Gail: I'm getting to Scotland by plane. The question has been how I'm getting my cat to my parents' place, as the quarantine stuff in the UK is insane, and my cat would go nuts. He is, in fact, the devil in a tidy cat suit. (I did look at going over by boat, since I hate flying, but that's not economically viable.)

*thinks* Was there anything else? Nothing I can really think of....

Oh, yes. In unrelated news, my Visa arrived today.

Anna stopped here at 7:46 PM

This is me finding it terribly amusing that I got a total of 12 applications to be my boyfriend, but no one wants to be my wife. I'm sure there's some sort of social commentary in there, but I'm too busy to make it.

Anyway, lately I've been having really strange days. I'll have days where I think everything in the grand city of Edmonton is wonderful. The weather is pleasant, the people are nice, there is some gorgeous eye candy on Whyte Ave (Dear Goth Boy with the black lipstick: I am moving to far far away soon, and could possible die. You wouldn't want me to die without being your special friend, would you? You can reach me any time, day or night, at anna@annaoverseas.com. Trust me. Hugs and kisses forever and ever, or at least until the next pretty goth boy walks by, Anna.), and I fall in love with the River Valley. Those are the days I can't remember why I want to leave.

Then there's the other days.

On the other days, I clench my jaw and close my eyes and mutter over and over in my head that everything in Scotland is going to be SO MUCH BETTER than it is here, and the weather will always be perfect and it will never ever ever be too hot, and the coffee will be excellent and the buses will not only run on time but never be overcrowded and I will never be bored at work or have to work with people who drive me nuts and all the role players will be PERFECTLY WELL ADJUSTED DAMN IT.

I don't really like those days.

Lately, I have been almost completely unable to sleep. I'll be awake for something like 30 hours, and still not feel tired. Friends have taken to trying to bribe me to sleep. "Okay, just close your eyes for 15 minutes, and if you're still awake when I come back, we'll go out and play DDR or something to get some of that energy off. But just try sleeping, 0kay?" "But... but... I'm not tired." Then, I close my eyes for 15 minutes and the next thing I know it's 10 hours later and I'm still not tired.

I don't eat much lately either. I just don't seem to register hungry or tired or much of anything except timetimetimetimetimetime. It's driving me a bit more nuts than I thought it would.

Oh, yeah. And remember that plan? The plan I was so fond of because I had a plan and plans are just wonderful and perfect and I had one and yay? Yeah, plan's changed. No new plan, just old plan didn't work anymore. *sigh*

So, no, I have no idea now what's going. I'm alive, I'm trying to get everything done, and I think I'll be able to pull it off....

Or, you know, I'll find some nice goth boy to distract me so I don't have to worry about it anymore. (He was really tall, too. mmmmm..... tall goth boy.....)

Anna stopped here at 7:44 AM

5/31/2005

Things I Did Not Do On My Last Night At Work, Even Thought I Wanted To, a list, by jo

  1. Replace the nice classical music in the lobbey with the soundtrack to the Rocky Horror Picture Show.
  2. Set every room in the hotel with a wakeup call of 7:22, regardless of what time it was supposed to be set for.
  3. Walk up and down the hallways singing "Home for a Rest" at the top of my lungs.
  4. Randomly charge credit cards for randomly large amounts.
  5. Tell any guest, staff member, or member of the management team what I really thought of them.
  6. Tell any bad D&D jokes. ("So, a cleric, a theif, a mage and a fighter all walk into a bar. The bartender looks up and says 'What is this, a party?'")
  7. Talk like a pirate all night.
  8. Refuse to actually do the audit, stating "It can be done tomorrow night, it won't matter."
  9. Answer the phone with "Thank you for calling AT&T Wireless, my name is Anna, how can I assist you?"
  10. Call in sick.
IOW: It was a terribly dull night. I had a steak sandwich for my last "free" breakfast (It's a taxable benefit, does that mean it's free? I don't understand income tax some days), and calmly informed my vegetarian friend later that day that there was a cow in my stomach. Then I trotted around the kitchen and mooed a lot.

I've been a bit stressed, is it showing?

There is a plan, of course. The plan has changed three times in the past 12 hours, but there is currently something shaping up to be a plan.

The nice people from the women's shelter are coming over later today to pick up all of my good furniture. Kris is coming on the weekend with a posse and at least one pickup truck, if not two, to get the rest of his stuff finally out of my apartment. (For those following along at home, Kris moved out in early January. Yes, it will be June before he gets his stuff out. I know, I have no leg to stand on, there was still stuff of mine at Barry's for about a year after I moved out, but Barry wasn't planning an international move at any point.) I am planning on flying out to BC for about a week, leaving on ... whatever day next Tuesday is. But that's up in the air because I want to find tickets for no more than 119$ one way, and I don't really have a deadline in place to get there. The cat will go to BC with my parents. I don't plan on spending much more than a week in BC, simply beause I am feeling that constant pressure of TIME TIME TIME on my head. By the time I get back from BC, my paperwork should all be in order. (This is assuming I get the visa. I can't imagine any reason why I wouldn't, short of them not accepting a letter from the bank regarding my current financial status. Which would suck, since it was 98$ to apply for the damned thing, and I'd have to reapply and pay another 98$.) Then, I buy my ticket, pack what's left of my things, and flee the country like the hounds of hell are following me.

Somewhere in that mess I need to see a bunch of people, give away some things that need to be given away, take a trip to the Goodwill Store and WINhouse to drop off some donations, and return even more things to various friends of mine that I have belongings off.

Wheeeeeeeee!

Anna stopped here at 11:29 AM

5/30/2005

This is me not handling being unemployed. Wanna watch?

*gah* I know I have two more paycheques coming in, that I have 15 impossible things to do before breakfast, that I have a million things I'm forgetting I need to do, that I will be able to fill up all of my time in a productive and meaningful way.

But, damn it, I have no job! Gah!

In unrelated news, I am still playing with the new url. I had to contact customer support to fix the things I broke, though. Note to self: Read the Fucking Manual.

Anna stopped here at 11:58 AM

5/29/2005

I have been reminded not to blog while drunk (or at least very tipsy) so I shall instead just say that I no longer work at the very very boring job, and post the rest later. There was a celebration involving me, and some alcohol, and my cat, and a computer, and some chairs that i am not allowed to eat. No eating the chairs.

Now don wants to know if he's Rip, and he thinks I am the one who is drunk? Boys are dumb.

Anna stopped here at 11:26 PM

 mind the gap

A 20-something Canadian who used to teach English in China. There's lots in the archives about my experiences with teaching, with culture shock, and with my adventures in China. Occasionally it meanders into melancholy (part of the culture shock), which must be very dull to read, so you can skip that.

But right now, I'm back in Canada, and kinda determined to do something with the several thousand photos I took, as well as write more about China and other stuff.

People I Could Pick Out of a Police Lineup
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