An Update

Just wanted to write a quick update about my personal situation at the moment. As of now I still don't have a job, although I have had some more promising leads recently. I am signed up with 2 agencies now and have had a couple of opportunities with Randstad in particular, even though they kind of screwed me over on a guaranteed job last week, they are at least finding possible employment for me, so hopefully sometime in the not so distant future they will come good. 

My other agency tend to only offer short-term temporary jobs that are kind of crappy. I tried to work in a call center last week despite my concerns towards that sort of work. I was right, I hated it from the word go and couldn't work there another day, so I told the agency I wasn't going back. Money isn't tight enough for me to dread going to work just yet. 

I am hearing back more from my applications, which is also good. I am caught in a bit of a pickle though. Do I take a shitty permanent job that pays poorly or do I hold out for a job I might like that pays better? People tell me to take the shit job and keep looking for another job, but I just can't see how people work full time and look for another job as well (how can you go for an interview when you have a permanent job?). It has never worked for me! So, for the time being I am holding out a little longer, but the day is approaching that I will need to take anything I can get. 

Also last week, I did something to my foot. No idea what but over the course of a few days it got to a point where I couldn't walk or leave the apartment. Particularly frustrating as this weekend was possibly the hottest since I have been here and I couldn't leave. Thank God we have a balcony and I can stream the Olympics online with my foot one ice. I managed to hobble to the mall and buy some super strong medication, which has definitely helped a little. I can walk with less pain now but I still won't be leaving until this is sorted. My medications says if the pain remains within 5 days of starting taking it, to see a doctor, which I will do.

Other than that, my life has been pretty ordinary of late, hence I haven't been writing here a great deal. Hopefully I will have some good news soon though :) We shall see! 

The Celebration of Light

Last weekend I went to something known as the Celebration of Light down on English Bay, which is described as one of the best fireworks displays in the world. It consists of 3 nations showcasing their finest fireworks displays in competition with each other, with the best display being voted the winner. 

It lasts 3 days but I only managed to make it to one of the evenings (the first one). Apparently over the course of the 3 days around 1.5 million people flock to English Bay beach to witness the displays, and I can tell you that stat is most likely true. 

Knowing it was going to be busy we headed down early. The display started at 10pm but we got there at 7.30pm to get a good spot, which we managed, right in front of the barge the fireworks are set off from. We passed the time playing cards and chatting, whilst watching the stunning sunset over the mountains to the North West. Gradually the beach got busier and busier until you basically couldn't move or leave without walking over hundreds of people. 

Now, I'm not a big fan of large crowds and this is probably the largest I have been in and on one hand I was pretty uncomfortable, but on the other it was amazing to see so many people in one place. 

The fireworks themselves were somewhat anti-climactic in my personal opinion. Maybe they had been talked about in such esteem that I had ridiculous expectations. I always look back to the New Years displays of London and Sydney as a comparison. This wasn't even close. It was fairly poorly structured and not very choreographed. There were periods of dullness with the odd bit of greatness thrown in until it built up to a pretty special crescendo. 

This was from day 3, Italy's display. I didn't take this pic.

I'm glad I went and would probably go each year, but I wouldn't go to all 3 events each year (sadly I think the one I went to was the poorest of the 3 nations, Vietnam) and honestly the very long wait in order to get a good viewpoint is a bit of a put off. Oh, and the journey home was hell. 500,000 people trying to leave at once is not pleasant and in order to avoid a crush people we sent in the opposite direction of their goal, the SkyTrain (which by the way, was ridiculously busy to say the least)