Refraction

Postcrossing is such a wonderful site. I signed up about two weeks ago, and I sent my first postcards last week…. and one of them has already been received! This gives me a warm, fuzzy feeling inside.

Basically, the point of Postcrossing is to swap postcards with other people from around the world. You send one, and then you get on a “to-receive” list. Eventually, you (hopefully) receive another postcard! This is seriously fun stuff.

I need to think of some cool things to write on cards. I don’t want to write boring cards, but cards that will brighten up people’s days and make them smile. Or at least make them think. Something creative.

I really encourage you all to sign up, though, if you’re into this kind of thing. X3 If you want to collect a certain type of postcard: sunsets, or night scenes, or “local colour”–I’m sure the community will be happy to oblige.

Speaking of postcards, anyone who wants a postcard from Chicoutimi need only ask. I’ll need your address, though, naturally 🙂

I’ve always wanted to do one of these random picture posts.

Here we have Domo-kun, of Internet kitten-eating fame (however wrong that may be), and he’s going to be your tour guide for this post. He actually looks much better in daylight. Less… black. Domo-kun is made from suit material, I think, with felt for his mouth and two huge buttons for his eyes. He also has some cotton balls in his feet. His arms are a bit uneven, though.

First stop, JAPAN! Domo-kun hangs on to my precious CORE OF SOUL CDs. On the left is the BEST collection, and you may recognize the colour scheme from the CD on the right from one of my previous layouts. Those are some awesome CDs, right there. Unfortunately I couldn’t find the little car, but I daresay that after my next Yesasia shopping spree, I’ll have another to play with. Next!

Next stop, bad-thriller-land! The blacked-out barcode on this book point to its former existence as a library book. I can’t believe I actually bought this book. Deception Point is probably the weakest of Dan Brown’s works. It is decidedly cookie-cutter and utterly uninspired. This one gets the Domo angry grimace.

Around the bend, we see the best comic book I’ve ever gotten for free. Owly is a nearly wordless young readers’ comic, but it is irresistably cute. Look at the eyes on that owl! They’re even bigger than Domo-kun’s! Go on, try it, I DARE YOU. Plus, you get to learn fun life lessons! Isn’t that fun? 😀

Finally, we come to another Jane Austen book I have yet to read. (I’m working on Pride and Prejudice… again.) Some Jane Austen aficionado is going to have to tell me what works I have left to read if I have Emma, Northanger Abbey, and Pride and Prejudice under my belt.

Domo-kun thanks you for your time and hopes to see you again on Domo-kun tours. Until then, “Do~mo!“

If I’ve learned one thing recently, it’s that I am not cut out for a full-time career in retail.

I am exhausted, which explains why I haven’t been in touch, or replied to emails (I read them and think, I’ll reply to this later.) Well, I’ve been working day shifts lately, and since my dad’s got these few weeks off work, we’ve been going out for dinner and the night market. I liked the Mandarin restaurant, because I didn’t have to say a thing at all! The night market is also much more amusing when you can eat, as opposed to wandering around because your mother is stuffing her face with food that you can’t eat.

See, the thing that really sucks about my job is that I never get to sit down, which means I’m standing (and running, and clambering up ladders) for eight hours. I reviewed the dress code for no particular reason today, which says I’m not allowed to wear ‘overly casual shoes’ since that ‘does not promote merchandise authority.’ I’m not good with flats for two reasons: a) lack of arch support; b) lack of height–heels are the way to go. (Besides which, our flats are ugly. But that’s another story.)

I worked 38.5 hours last week. It’s going to be something like that for this week, too, and I’m working the full 40 the week before I leave. On one hand, I was not expecting to work this much, and this will pad my budget for my trip nicely; on the other hand–grrrsummertourists!nohabloespanol!toomuchtodo!nofoodtoeat!.

Someone actually asked me for winter boots today. What was slightly more disturbing was that she started off the conversation with ¿Hablas español? I need to take a Spanish course at some point in the near future so that I can stay sane. And Korean. I need to learn some kind of basic Korean. “I don’t speak Korean” would be a good start.

Oh, and German, since I told Mrs. French that I’d be fluent by 2010. XP

My days off are jam-packed as well; I still have to buy:

• luggage
• summer clothes; I can survive the summers here, but I think it’s a lot warmer in Québec
• material to make that darn sheer summer poncho
• something I can wear to a ‘formal’ event in the summer

Not to mention that installing a simple game on the Linux box is taking the better part of my patience. I’ve spent about three hours on that, now, and it’s still not working. I’m going to cry.

Here are ten guaranteed ways to make a sales associate like me ticked off:

1. Try to scam me at the register. Let’s get something straight. Buy one, get one half price means that you get another item of equal or lesser value for half price. You do not buy something for 5 dollars, and something for 60 dollars, and expect to pay 35 for both. That’s just stupid. Also, I will give you the best deal that I can without getting fired. I’m trying to be on your side, people, but you’re not making it easy.
2. Point out that, “In the States, this is a lot cheaper.” And your point is…? I can’t do anything about it; I don’t set the prices.
3. Ignore a greeting. Look, a simple “Hi” will suffice, or if you’re not feeling very verbal, even a smile is better than nothing.
4. Be needy. We are understaffed as it is, and I simply do not have the time to be your personal shopper. Especially if the store is full of other customers wondering why there’s no one coming to help them.
5. Interrupt me when I’m in the middle of dealing with another customer. It’s selfish and I end up losing when I have to deal with one angry customer and one selfish one. Wait your turn, or try and catch me as I finish with someone else.
6. Steal merchandise. Personally, I don’t really care, but it makes my manager crack down even more, which is annoying. (Some store loyalty, eh?)
7. Make a mess. Or, worse, try to fix your mess and wind up making an even bigger mess for me to clean up. It’s just not cool, people.
8. Whine about how we don’t carry out-of-season merchandise that you like. I’m sorry, it’s summer now, and we don’t have any winter boots left. I don’t care if you’re climbing Mount Everest.
9. Whine that we don’t have enough selection. You’re in the middle of a huge tourist trap shopping area. Go to another store if you don’t like us.
10. Start a sentence with “Why don’t you just…”
    First: I think I know how to do my job better than you do. Unless you work in retail, you have no right to say this. Second: Chances are I’ve already thought of that and rejected it. Third: I will admit that 10% of the time, customers have some worthwhile points after the ellipsis. That doesn’t change the fact that it comes off as presumptuous and rude. Finally, if I tell you my register can’t do something, guess what: You and I are both stuck with it. Wait the extra minute.

People are idiots. Luckily, 90% of customers are decent enough people to deal with that don’t increase my stress-o-meter. Here are a few things that make me happy:

1. Saying “thank you” sincerely, especially if we’ve really done a lot for you. Yeah, it’s my job to help you look for stuff, but it’s still nice to hear a “thanks for trying anyway” or something.
2. Making small talk at the register. It’s a nice break from what can be monotonous work sometimes, and it’s just nice to be able to talk to people without trying to sell them anything.
3. Acknowledging how busy we are, in general. Thank you for understanding. :cheerful:
4. Being happy, and cheerful. As a professional, I’m not supposed to let customers’ moods rub off on me, but I’m a thin-skinned person as it is, so it really does help if you’re nice. Besides that, it’s always a pleasure to serve a pleasant person.
5. Buying lots of stuff. :tongue: Just kidding.

Sometimes I feel I just work at my store, and not for my store, if that makes any sense. Another day like today and I’ll be ready to quit. Seriously. I’m not working past this December for sure, since I got in co-op (:star:) and I’ll have my first work term in January, but I’m questioning if I really need this job after all.

We now have a Linux box running downstairs. Linux is the operating system that real geeks use :biggrin: For anyone out there with a clue to how this stuff works, it’s a SUSE distro.

To be honest, I’m just poking around at this point.

My first thought on booting up the computer was: Hey, this reminds me a lot of a Mac. The desktop is nearly empty, there’s no taskbar at the bottom, and it’s all very clean-looking. Like the Macs I used to use in elementary school, there’s a bar along the top that screams “Mac” at me: it offers access to programs and a bunch of other things. There’s no dock, though, and I wonder if that might be something to look into installing.

My second thought was: Great, how do I do anything without a mouse? (I have only one PS/2 and/or USB compatible mouse.) It turns out it’s quite similar to coping with a mouseless Windows computer–the numpad can be converted into a crude sort of mouse. Besides, I’ve always been a keyboard shortcuts kind of person, anyway. Unfortunately, the Windows key on the keyboard does nothing.

My third thought was: It’s nice to see they have their priorities in order. By alphabetical luck, the first option under the “Applications” (that’s another Mac word, isn’t it?) is “Games.” Awesome.

My fourth thought was: The games on this thing are so much better than the ones on Windows. Yeah, yeah, XP ships with Solitaire (Spider and Klondike), Minesweeper, Hearts, Pinball, and a few others. This distro has clones of Bubble Bobble (with penguins! :D), Tetris, Super Mario (with penguins! :D), Yahtzee, and Snake. There are at least 15 games on that sucker.

Next: I wonder how it plays with my USB drive. Not too well, it seems. I don’t understand this concept of “mounting,” since I’m never given an option to mount the thing, and when I try to “un-mount” (ie, “remove safely”) I can’t, because I’m not signed in as the root user. Still, with some attention, I can transfer files back and forth.

What kind of files, you ask? It comes with OpenOffice!! AWESOME!! OpenOffice is an open source, freeware alternative to MS Office. I’ve only tried the equivalent to Word so far, but it seems the two programs can read each other okay. Fonts are a bit of a problem, but since I only have a printer hooked up to the Windows computer, I’m not too fussed about this: one can always change the font as necessary on that box, instead. I still need to install Asian font support, though–I hope it exists.

More exploring yields… The GIMP!! Super-awesome! The GIMP is a freeware alternative to Photoshop. Adobe Photoshop. We’re not talking Paint, with its complement of approximately three tools. Full-fledged Photoshop, my friends, with layer editing and a whole lot of other stuff. I have a portable version on my USB drive. 🙂

There are a few multimedia programs, but as I have no speakers, either, I didn’t get a chance to test those out.

Still, this is exciting 🙂

I feel like I’ve abandoned my blog, an irrational sentiment since there are people out there who have dead blogs.

It occurs to me that I always feel emo around my birthday. My sense of trepidation only increases as the day approaches, and I wish I knew why, especially since for most people birthdays are glorious occasions. It’s not the whole ‘getting old’ thing; I can deal with that. (And, let’s be honest: I’m not really that old. Both Sarah and Sam, for example, are older :D) Rather, it’s a combination of ‘getting old and taking responsibility’ and general emo-ness–or just the last vestiges of teenage angst getting out of my system. I despise teenage angst, generally, and I think I fall into that trap far too often for my own good.

Then again, this past birthday was somewhat more muted than usual given that I couldn’t eat anything, and was reduced to waiting for my beautiful ice cream cake to melt into ice cream pudding before I could eat it. That was upsetting. So was not being able to eat the chocolate cookie centre: I even poked at it for a good three minutes before deciding, No, this is not going to work.

Looking back on it, I have been fairly un-emo-ish throughout this whole “recovery from surgery” deal. You can’t afford to be emo when you have to monitor your fluid intake and make sure you’re getting enough calories and nutrients. There’s simply no time. Plus, the whole plaintive ballad thing doesn’t work so well when you can hardly talk.

Plus, I survived a month on nearly liquid food. That has to be worthy of a medal, or something.

On the upside, though, pretty much everyone who’s seen me has promised to take me out for some kind of delicious food when I’m ready to eat it. That makes me happy :dorkygrin:

So I’m loading up my USB drive with portable apps for when I go to Québec, and it’s been quite fun discovering some new extensions for Firefox… okay, it’s just one new extension. Still!

Right now, I’m blogging straight from Firefox using an extension called “DeepestSender.” I don’t understand the significance of the name, but hey, whatever.

So please excuse me while I try some formatting things to ensure everything works correctly.

This should be bold.

This one, italic.

Titles should always be underlined.

(Cool, keyboard shortcuts work, too :biggrin:)

1. These
2. are
3. items
4. in
5. an
6. ordered
7. list

• This, however,
• is a bulleted
• list!

This is a link to Google. Because I’m a Google minion.

I don’t change colours because my themes would be be messed up 🙁

//edit to try and fix more link…

I hope none of you ever has to subsist on a liquid diet, but in case you do, I have a few pointers:

1. Get a blender and a strainer/sieve. NOW. You may also want to get a food mill, which is what they use for baby food, apparently, but it just looks like a strainer with a few attachments to me. No doubt it makes life easier, but it might not be worth coughing up the money for a few weeks’ worth of food.
2. Fiber is hard to come by. I just bought some wheat bran, which I plan to start adding to the milkshakes I’m drinking. Don’t forget about applesauce and other purees.
3. This is a basic recipe for cream of anything soup:
   • Finely chop an onion (and a leek, if you want :D). This is very quick in a blender. Anyway, you’ll want to cook those in some fat of your choice over medium heat until soft.
   • Finely chop whatever other vegetables you want to add. (I’ve only made cream of carrot and broccoli.) Add those to the onions/leeks, and cook for 5 minutes or so.
   • Add enough chicken/vegetable stock to cover the veggies, more if you need a thinner soup.
   • Bring to a boil, and simmer for a good 10 minutes.
   • Remove from heat, let cool slightly, and ladle into your blender in small batches. Have a second pot handy to collect the blended soup. Blend to desired consistency.
   • Add some milk to blended soup. Re-heat as necessary. Add whatever spices you like.
   • Ladle and serve! 😀

   I didn’t add any spices, since I cooked my onions and leeks in butter. 😀 Also, I don’t have any spices.

4. Spices may become your best friend. Nothing tastes like anything on a liquid diet. I just added salt and pepper to everything.
5. Milkshakes can also be made from soy milk 😀
6. Even a little jar of baby food holds more than it looks O_O I can’t say it really tastes like much, though.
7. If you thin foods, thin them with broth, milk, or juice, as opposed to water, which will only dilute the taste further.
8. A lot of things can be pressed through a strainer: I usually have a mashed potato through a strainer as part of my dinner.
9. Remember to drink a lot of water to keep hydrated. It sounds ridiculous, since everything is liquid, but water is still important.

One week to go before I start eating overcooked mac and cheese!

I miss work, a little bit. But not that much. In any case, I was sent for extra training today, which I think sucks, since I’m on a leave of absence. On the other hand, I will get paid four hours for sitting there three hours (heh, they screwed up booking th room) and doing nothing, so that’s also good.

Anyway, I figure I’d dedicate this post to my shoes, since I work in a shoe store, after all.
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