busy, for a change
For once, I’m actually busy…. That’s because…
I’m gainfully employeeeed!!! wee! yeay!! well sort of employed, I think….
It’s kind of a fucky situation…. I started out volunteering for Real Living Solutions, as an intern… I had found a posting on craigslist from them… Title: Want to help communities become sustainable. I figured why not, and a few weeks later, I’m unofficially working there! My supervisor had been mentionning that there was the possibility of giving me incentives, possibly financial, or in other ways… I wasn’t a total keener on that (like I was, but I wasn’t actively approaching him on how to set it up), but I just kept plugging at it. Last week, I had gone into the office twice, and it was pretty good… I remember coming home feeling productive, which felt really nice, as opposed to sitting around at home….
So it’s unofficial as in I haven’t signed any sort of contract, but official, in that I’ve been putting in full days the past two days or so, after two weeks of doing stuff for them on an irregular basis. I’ll be on a one month probationary period, to see how I fit in their company, at which point i guess we’ll renegotiate a contract, if they like me!
I never really saw myself getting into it, but I’m essentially doing pre-sales marketing… Lookinng up potential clients, and preparing material to ge thtem interested. So I am doing a lot of internet research, which works out pretty well for me, since I’m pretty good at it… And what exactly is it that i’m trying to sell? Well essentially, it’s an online tool that helps organizations become more sustainable, but helping them model their operations around the prototypical triple-bottom-line sustainability model (environmental, social and economic) It’s a tool that makes the planning process of writing lengthy reports that nobody reads anyways, into a process that engages people, and lets them see how the different goals an organization (whether a community/city, an institution, or a progressive business) is aiming to achieve fit into the bigger picture of being sustainable. So really, it’s right down my lane, in terms of helping communities become more sustainable. The duties themselves that I’m doing aren’t necessarily building up my skills a lot, but I’m learning a lot, just by having so much exposuree to all these things… Learning about what kinds of things cities are doing, and coming into contact with a lot of people who have jobs that look really cool to me! So as far as I know, I’m working pretty much 5 days a week.
In some ways, I’m essentially doing what I’ve been doing at home, learning about urban planning, and sustainability, but now i’m getting paid to do it, and meeting people who are actually doing it! So I’m pretty pleased… There is a bit of me that is nagging inside, as to how whether this is a good choice, in terms of what I need in my career right now. I feel like I don’t have tons of clear-cut skills, and this job is pretty informal particularly in terms of its organization… everyone just does everything, really… so I’m not sure there is that typical progression, in terms of gaining skills… Would it be good to start in this kind of environment, where there’s not really a sense of clear-cut responsibilities to structure myself? Perhaps I should take this chance, to see how high I can go, in taking on those responsibilities… hmmmm, interesting. So we’ll see how this goes… It’s definitely a change to my schedule… Even though I’ve been on the computer as much as at home, I don’t feel the liberty of surfing wildly at will, or catching up on blogs and such, so I’ve been pretty behind in all that stuff… So i’ll have to establish a new routine. Hopefully a more balanced routine, where I can have a balance of activities. My supervisor had a great idea for getting enough sleep, and just sleeping better. Put your desk lamp on those timers that break the circuit at a given time, so that when bedtime rolls around, it’ll just cut your light off, and then when you need to wake up, it’ll come on, and wake you with light, instead of a blaring alarm, like i’ve been using lately. I should give it a shot and see how it goes.
In the other parts of my life, I’ve been seeing Katie a lot, which has been nice… She came up this weekend, for her birthday! So that was really nice… Went to capone’s for some live jazz and dessert on saturday, and then the fish hatchery and watching some battlestar galactica on sunday as well as a delicious birthday dinner at hotpot, then a cool medicinal herb workshop on monday at the Strathcona community garden, where we made a tincture! You know, those healing items you use in video games.. haha. I bought her the first season of Pinky and the Brain on DVD for her birthday… teehee, it’s 471 minutes of brainy goodness! Narf!
And before I go, I leave you with something I made from the amazing Chatfu comic strip generator. I am the monkey, and Katie is the human. Two reasons I love her… 1) She can make sense of the gibberish that comes out of my mouth (”fro man, that draws…”), and because she has a bob ross t-shirt!
created using chatfu - a comic strip generator
