Busy day!

Here's the view from today's lunch spot - ain't it pretty?




I was up early this morning to move my stuff into my new apartment (which was accomplished with two trips in the hot sun - thankfully it was only about 20mins walk between apartments) then it was on the SkyTrain out to where Lani lives. She picked me up and drove us to one of her favourite hiking spots where Lani, Maya and I joined Lani's friend and her 5 month old son, and we set off for a hike out to a beautiful picnic spot overlooking the picturesque settlement of Deep Cove. Lani's wee dog Finnigan accompanied us too and dutifully followed along close behind the humans.

Being a weekday, it was noticable that the Baby Brigade was out in force! I lost track of the number of mums with babies in carry packs (is there a special name for baby back packs?). It was nice to see and it seems like a great way to keep fit. I felt like I was cheating, just carrying my light day pack on my back! Today's hike was rather more 'horizontal' than Tuesday's climb, which was just as well because my leg muscles were still recovering from Tuesday!

So... the job situation. The interview on Wednesday with the temp agency went well and I passed all their tests with flying colours. I thought I had reasonable typing and computing skills but not having been tested before, I was a bit nervous beforehand! Taking the spelling test took me back to primary school days! I seem to have lucked into a good temp agency as the woman I met with is really nice and seems genuinely keen to place me in a position a.s.a.p. (I have heard a lot of stories about temp agencies that don't even contact people who send their resumes to them - in fact I've experienced that myself with one agency). She set me up with an interview on Thursday and told me to dress "very professional". I even put some makeup on for the occasion! The woman I met with was very friendly so I didn't feel too nervous. The role is admin assistant as part of a group of 7 admin staff who each support a group of 10 consultants - so it's a fairly large office, 95 staff in all in a rather flash downtown office. The company does HR consulting and this office mainly puts together pension plans for large organisations. The interview seemed to go well but it was hard to tell if I was what she was looking for. She had to interview a couple more people so I'll find out on Monday if I got it. Did I mention it pays reasonably well? Better than the crappy minimum wage supermarket job I applied for on Monday - I went back there the next day and asked to withdraw my application! Don't get me wrong, I've worked in supermarkets before which is why I thought it might be an okay job just to get some money coming in, but $8.75 an hour?? Before tax! 500g of cheese costs $9.oo. Plus tax. A litre of ice cream costs around $8.oo. And I was shocked to see the price of a kilo of rice: $5.00. When you add tax at the checkout and factor in the exchange rate, you realise it sure ain't cheap to live in this most livable of cities!

So I'll find out Monday about the role, and if I don't get that one, Pat (the temp agency lady) thinks she might have another couple of roles I could try for. In the meantime I'm continuing to apply for other jobs. Now I've "dumbed down" my resume and condensed it into one page, the application process is a lot faster!

Applications sent: 23. Interviews: 1. Job offers: 0.