Amazing!!!

I had a rockin' kick-ass day here on this Birthday Eve because of a rush project.  Rush = 2 hours until delivery after very first briefing.  I produced a complex, precise, professional series of process diagrams using software I only began exploring yesterday morning along with a document that is strategically significant...  And for the first time in my life, I watched something that I designed and created come to life and get delivered in its original, me-designed state in the span of a few hours.

In the past, I had to somehow pull together poorly-organized bits of information into something moderately coherent that would likely get completely transmogrified into obtuseness by my bosses and their bosses, or eventually scrapped in its final stages by bureaucratic fat cats anyway, affecting nothing at all after a 6-month fizzling lifespan.

Thank god for pressure.

Don't Mind Me...

I am having an AWESOME time.  So awesome, in fact, that I was at work and looked up at the clock for the first time in hours and noticed that the office was empty and it was almost 7 PM.

My new place rocks, and the people there are so fun and interesting and diverse.  Everything feels so natural, interactions just click into place.

And for the first time in my life, I am attempting to consciously cultivate an attitude of "I like being in this place."  I think one of the big reasons I despised my last major position is because I'd conditioned myself to love being any place (including the dentist's chair and sitting for hours in a doctor's office) but at work.

It's actually extremely liberating to feel free enough to not have an incredibly strong compulsion to run from the building after one's 8 hours are complete.  To be free of that compulsion...

Work Update

Starting to get the routine down (regarding wake-up times, commuting, etc. - NOT the work itself), here after day three and a killer weather-related cluster migraine.  Survived!

Totally grooving to Amon Tobin on Grooveshark and reading and assimilating hundreds of pages of raw information = good time.

We did it!

We got me the position!  Because I couldn't have done it without you.

Also got...

The third interview.  I think I'm in, for good or ill.

I'm Done!

With my degree in French, that is.  There's no update on my transcript yet, so I'm not sure of my grade, but optimistic me says A and pessimistic me says B, which means that I probably received a B+.  McGill professors are terrifyingly strict about grading.

Still no pic of me in a cocktail dress holding a bottle of prosecco, but my buddy here is still on her honeymoon in Aruba, so I haven't had a party yet.  Perhaps this weekend?  Unfortunately, the sealed, stamped and signed diploma will be printed with the rest of the diplomas for 2012-2013 in one fell swoop...  Sometime next April.  POOP.

Six days after my last final exam...  I had a job interview for a company in a field that I refuse to talk about simply because my potential future position there could actually be dangerous.  My dad even suggested that I go by a pseudonym simply because the market can be so volatile and easy to take advantage of.  I really, really don't want to jinx the result (I'll receive news tomorrow or Tuesday), and so I'm carefully cultivating an attitude of stoic apathy.

But within 10 minutes of sending the company my CV, I received an e-mail invitation to a phone interview.  I gave HR my availability, and within 10 minutes of my first available hour, HR called me and I had that interview.  Was immediately invited to an in-person interview, which took place last Thursday.  Interview went very well compared to that one I had last March for the position with that marketing company.

Can't say anything either way.  But I've thought it over and over and over again, flip-flopped multiple times, been alternately jazzed and jaded...  Because the position is a high-powered, high-salaried, high-stress position that could make me or break me.  Terrifying and challenging.  Do I want that, or do I want to be a fiction editor and writer, spending my days in the nearby library with my laptop while the snow falls or the sun shines outside, lost in fantasy worlds?

Money Equals Freedom?

Here I am, thoroughly enjoying my three week break from school!

Despite the fact that it's been rainy (and snowy, at times) and gross, and despite some truly epic migraines that have lasted for days (I blame allergies), much exercising, reading, cooking and planning has happened.  Applied for a really interesting position at one of Canada's largest philanthropic organizations dedicated to women's issues, and even got headhunted yesterday in French.  I will interview just for practice!

Much thinking has happened as well.  I have decided to be uber, super picky about my career path.  I pondered my naive decision to work for government after grad school, as well as possible careers in the private sector, and completely gone are the days when I would accept a position simply because it "sounds good" or "pays well" or "is 'professional.'"  It's time to actually do something that will change the world in ways that interest me.  Anything less is just a placeholder and a farce.

After interviewing at the advertising firm and being perfect for the position apart from the fact that I couldn't start work until after six weeks (ultimately why I wasn't offered a position), I realized just how short-sighted that particular company was.  Maybe they were pressed for time and/or man/womanpower, but they passed up a potential dedicated, intelligent, long-term employee.  Was not concerned; the bottom line was obviously more important than honing the combined skillset of the company.  However, if I'm not granted an interview at the women's advocacy organization I mentioned above, I'm going to be really bummed.

Prematurely and happily, I've spent many hours of my free mornings dreaming about what I'd like to see in a custom house on a large piece of property.  HA.  I dream of designing a rather small contemporary home to be built on Prince Edward Island, covered in solar panels and boasting a state-of-the-art rainwater reclaiming and filtering system, complete with a forest, a view of the Atlantic and a garden capable of sustaining us all year on our own produce.  We would have a music room for Caspian (and I), a library to contain our zillion books and a beautiful nook where I can write my books.  I would just love to live this kind of ultra-modern, old-fashioned, self-sustaining life.

In the meantime, I mean to find a fulfilling career and make the most of this car-free, dance-filled, downtown city life!

Name Use by Russians

I don't know about you, but I talk to Russian guys and ladies every day.  In class, and for my job.

I've noticed something that is particular to all Russians that I speak with...  They use names with far more frequency than those with whom I interact from any other culture.

Most people use first names to get the attention of their desired conversational partner at the initiation of a conversation.  However, Russians (and I generalize based on experience) are very likely to reiterate one's name many times throughout a conversation, at the beginning of emphasized statements and at the end of advice/recommendations.  I spoke with one of my regular students today and he must have used my name at least 4 or 5 times in 45 minutes, which is highly unusual when two people are conversing one-on-one with no interruptions.

And it's so...  Endearing!  I've noticed that it's natural for me to feel closer and more appreciated by people who use my name often.  I like being spoken to specifically, I like to hear my name being said by others.  Thus, Russians seem a lot more personable than people from other cultures, even though they are naturally very emotive, trite and forceful speakers.

Bizzy Week!

What has happened in the last 9 days:

• Surprise job interview:  After applying for a few interesting positions mostly to practice my cover letter writing skills, I was quite shocked to get called in for an interview on Tuesday morning.  I am 70% sure that I will get an offer within the next week.  Because of Rule #1 (don't talk about work), I can't really reveal the nature of the position or the company (which are both pretty unique), but I'll suffice to say that it's in a sort of unique subsection of marketing and would likely be an excellent experience (even if it doesn't pay as well as I'd like in the beginning, but beggars can't be choosers, I guess).  This means that I would complete my current full-time semester on April 13th and then commence work and part-time class...  If I get an offer and if I accept it.
• Almost skipped my French level, but decided to stay in it after all.  I'm very strong in my level and I'd be quite weak in the next; I'd rather have actual fun in class rather than struggle to keep up.
• Had a couple of beautiful dance lessons:  Foxtrot, tango, quickstep and Viennese waltz.  It seems that whatever was bothering me about Felix has passed; we are on as good of terms as ever?
• Finished my first week of the next level of intensive French.  Met a lot of neat people from Korea, Bangladesh, Japan, China, Brazil and Israel, and I have a beautiful - ahem! - I mean, talented and kind teacher (who is also married with five kids) this time around.  I am very excited about this level!
• My husband, Caspian, left for a very important business trip in San Francisco last weekend...  And he will return tonight!  I've been alone for this entire week and all of its craziness, and it's probably for the better.

Er, what?

I had a strange moment today.  One of my prime blogging principles is to try not to talk about work, and never in depth, so I'm going to keep it vague, but I'm sufficiently confuzzled that I have to mention it.

One of my clients has an androgynous name and I always, from the get-go, assumed that it was a young woman.  I really enjoy working with this client; she's funny, interesting and intelligent.  I never gave her name a second thought and got on with business.

Recently, I took a closer look at her client profile and realized that she was, in fact, a he.   A young man.  I...  Just didn't know.  I couldn't tell.  I heard her - HIS - voice, and he could be anyone, male or female, between the ages of 25 and 34, really.  For some reason, I instinctively decided that he was female.

Now I'm desperately riffling through all the conversations I've ever had with him and hoping beyond hoping that they were always professionally-oriented; and I think they were!  English is pretty egalitarian and I don't think I singled him out as being a female.  When two people are addressing each other and talking about their own business ideas and experiences, it's sometimes hard to determine age/sex, and since I rarely move into personal territory without the client first initiating that tangent...

It's just amazing that he never mentioned anything, ever, that indicated that he wasn't female.  Never mentioned a significant other of any gender or sex, never said anything that lead me to wonder if I was talking to a male or a female.  We talked about styles of professional dress, hobbies, all sorts of things - and I never suspected!  I wonder if this is actually a good thing.  I think it is.

I just don't get it.

I'm selfish and I'm ready for something fabulous and amazing to happen to me.

I'm trying to decide whether I should live my life the way I want to, or if I should want to live my life like my peers do.

Find steady income, buy house in suburbs, acquire stuff and things, keep it copacetic, learn to accept it, etc.?

Bow head to the pressure to take a career path delineated by my three degrees, or to enjoy what I do?  Both possible?

Costumes have to be purchased this weekend.  I have a good idea of what I want my standard dress to look like, but no clue for latin.  Felix and I will discuss it while we're partying tonight, I'll bring my netbook so we can look at images.

I just submitted my application for a student visa.

I applied for a job today as a corporate trainer for a multinational company.

Each of the two previous options are mutually exclusive.  I just love to generate drama.  ::gag::

Why My Job Rocks

One of the things I really love about my job is the fact that I get to hear international news straight from the horse's mouth, so to speak.  My Italian students rant to me about the latest Berlusconi flub, my French students ask me about the American criminal justice system so that they can better understand the process of the Strauss-Kahn fiasco, my Russian students let me know that the weather in Moscow is quite warm and lovely, but that there is a dearth of parks in the city.  I have a pesto recipe from a family in northern Italy that has lived in the same village for generations.  I know the names of the best beer gardens in Munich.  I've been invited to country homes in Tuscany and Brittany.  I've been given names and addresses in Corsica where I can find the best and cheapest places to stay.  I know all the best beaches in the Canary islands.  People send me pictures of their children and pets.  I've even been Skyped with video, so that one of my German students could show me his daughter's surprise litter of baby bunnies (they'd thought they'd bought two females, ha!), as well as his balcony view of the tallest mountains in Bavaria.

Truly, all of these people are likeable, each story is so interesting, and I feel so incredibly accountable.  I used to think that remarkable stories were rare.  I truly believed that 99.9% of the earth's people are simply sleepers in the dream, who live and die without ever truly awakening.  Now I begin to doubt it.

When I first took this position, I thought it would be me teaching technical English and grammar to foreign executives.  Instead, I have discovered that it's me truly caring about the lives and careers of those I am assisting, and me trying to ascertain the best ways to help them achieve their goals.

Work, Tango, more Tango

Good morning, world!  Happy Friday.

Seven consecutive days with no dancing; this is not life!  We couldn't get reservations at any of our practice locations on any days except early on Saturday and Sunday morning.  I spent many evenings this week working instead.  I told my manager that I would be willing to change my schedule to continuous (to teach lessons consecutively without 15-minute breaks after every hour), and this small change has affected the way that my students book my available hours in such a way that I now have almost twice as much work.  Good, and also a bit exhausting.  A LOT exhausting.  It's very cognitive, communicative, active work, and it requires quite a bit of diplomacy.  It's always an interesting experience to be in a position of power (as teacher) over CEOs of large corporations, world-famous digital animation gurus and geophysicists.

I've also done quite a bit of writing this week, with pen and paper.  It has gotten easier with time and practice and doesn't feel nearly as futile as it did a week ago.

In other news, Caspian and I had our first Argentine tango lesson last night at my friend Alain's studio.  It took us awhile to find, as it was nestled away a few floors up inside a warrenlike, incense-charged old building off of St. Laurent.  But find it we did, A greeted me warmly, and we began our group lesson with about 6 or so other couples ranging in age from mid-twenties to fifties or sixties.  I was the only woman wearing high heels, in the form of latin shoes.  Most of our classmates were completely bilingual, but some were francophones and others anglophones, so the class was taught in an awesome mix of French and English that is unique in the world.  I love this city, I love its people, its tensions, arguments and swirl of differences.

Being a bit of a dominator, Caspian is completely comfortable with directing my movements and physically imposing himself upon a dance partner; ergo, he is a natural at tango.  He's a musician and his rhythm is spot-on, and he is more aware of his position in space than most men, probably because of previous dance and figure skating experience.  I think we will be a beautiful Argentine tango couple, although it was baffling at the beginning to dance with him.  He is significantly taller than Felix and broader in the shoulders.  The attitude, movements, positions and figures of Argentine tango come easily to me.  For now.

This evening, I'm going with Caspian and a bunch of his colleagues and friends to a "sugar shack" (cabane à sucre) - a place that harvests maple sap and transforms it into maple syrup, sugar and other confections and flavorings.  There is restaurant as well, and much of the food incorporates maple harvested right there.  Many of these sugar shacks are very, very old.  Maple is my most favoritest taste!  I'm excited.

Felix and I will be spending a lot of time together this weekend to make up for the dearth of dance during the week. We have a new tango routine to puzzle out!

Me and the Dances

Life is so sweet right now.

My birthday present from Caspian was ordered today:  NEW STANDARD SHOES!  My first pair in four years.  You should see the plastic heel protectors on my current pair - worn completely through to the actual heels.  And the heel is becoming detached from the body of the shoe, causing my heel turns to favor my left foot.  So, my shoes are coming!  And rhinestone buckles!  And suede heel protectors for both latin and standard shoes because I am mortified about my uncouth clomping!

Tomorrow I have dance for 2.5 hours with one of my best friends and one of the neatest coaches I know.  I love, love, love to dance.  Why didn't I start this sooner?  Why wasn't I motivated to devote so much of my life to it until this past year?  It's romantic and physical and challenging and musical and everything I want my life to be.  If my life were a metaphor for dance, I would die a happy woman.

And Caspian!  So much love and excitement.  He is so entertained and enthused about his career, which is taking off.  He's so interested that he adds extra hours to his workdays simply to have time to pursue the creative ideas he has for his projects.  I spend my days doing work that is not particularly financially rewarding - but I am able for the first time in my life to witness the changes I am able to make in peoples' lives around the world.  My students have accredited me with their promotions.  They send me gifts of their favorite songs in e-mails, and write me ecstatic notes and reviews every day.  French classes have started again, and I've graduated to the intermediate section.

I finally have time and energy to devote to my passions.  I invent new recipes almost every week.  I have time for a quick nap at lunch, and for pleasure reading in the evenings.  We eat dinner by candlelight.  I don't dread the mornings, I don't despise Sundays, I'm rarely irritable or discontent.  It may be time for some evolution regarding my career, but I've only had this position for five months.  That's not very long, in the scheme of things.  Regardless, I have a meeting with the job hunter on March 3rd.

Last night after our astoundingly good practice was rudely interrupted by the arrival of an obnoxious womens' choir, Felix dramatically took my hand and made up a little poem in English, "You and the dances are my romances."

Sambaaaaaa-ahhhh.

I'm feeling chipper and I think it's almost time for a redesign of my little corner of the internets!  I'll be thinking about graphics this weekend.

After a long vacation and a slow start to the year in terms of work, I've suddenly been swamped with new students from all over the world.  My job is very intense, and 30 hours of it per week is more than enough in terms of satisfying my demand for meaningful and cerebral activity - even reaching the very limits of my energy.  I had my first Japanese student this week; just the accent brought me back five years and across a continent and an ocean.  I'd forgotten how uptight they are compared to, say, Italians.  Heh.

I am meeting with the professional job hunter on Wednesday, who was hired for me by Caspian's company.  She already has my resumé, and while it's always good to have options, I'm suddenly intensely entertained by my current job.

In other news, I just came back from a Brazilian steakhouse, where I danced some samba and won some drinks.  True Brazilian street samba is a knack of isolated hip action and sexy leg-jiggling, curvaceous body and no choreography required.  Tomorrow morning, all too early, on a belly full of endless seafood and blonde beer...  I dance.  Life is a beautiful thing.

Slushy Monday

What happens when you pour an inch of rain over 15 inches of slushy old snow?  Nastiness.  Blech!  My boots splorsh in the glumpy slush.

Give me snow!  Powdery flour of the heavens!  Confectioners' sugar of the clouds!  I will make thee a cake of the purest froth of water and air.  Frost the garbage bins, turn them into delectable heaps of joyful, lolling drifts.  Transform the people into half-seen, half-remembered specters, laughing and hunching all alike.  So much whirling activity to be seen, for such deep silence.  I close my bedazzled eyes and hear nothing but your slow breaths.

Felix and I are having so much fun.  My little meltdown a few weeks past has been forgotten.  I feel like I'm improving at lightning speed - I see myself in the mirror during practice and remember being at my first competition, watching the bronze dancers and thinking, "OMG I will never be that good."  In February, we will dance gold Latin.  I think we will be dancing silver standard, since Felix has never competed in standard before.

In five days, my parents, Natty and Pepper arrive in Montréal.  I have off every day that they will be here.  We will cook, and skate, and hike, and tromp through snow, and have dim sum, and play with kitties together, and go shopping and have coffee.  I have three wee presents from my parents-in-law under our wee tree.  I have also inherited a fox fur coat from the 1940s.

I am happy and fulfilled...  Maybe a little bit poor, though.  I've been looking at jobs in the nonprofit sector with varying degrees of interest.  Only a very tiny percentage of them do not require fluency in French.

Recovering with Style

I had my first clinical observation today; this is when an experienced teacher listens in on a private lesson and grades an instructor on his or her achievement of a detailed set of objectives.  We tried to do it yesterday but failed because of technical problems, and then again earlier this morning because of technical problems on the learner's end - and then succeeded.  Really succeeded, with a client who terrifies me with her efficiency and no-nonsense attitude.  Refuses to divulge personal information.  Grammar exercises and discussions only, with contextually-related vocabulary that I have to come up with on the fly.

And it went so beautifully!  So, I'm not making a million bucks.  But others have judged me to be a good teacher, and I feel like I'm finally earning money instead of just making it [appear out of nowhere].  Maybe some people would like the latter, but I much prefer the former.  Maybe I'm not directly applying the knowledge I learned in grad school or doing policy analyses for the government - or more realistically, sitting in a cubicle and goldbricking so that my co-workers don't have to move at my naturally quick pace.  But every hour I spend doing this job, I'm entertained and challenged.  I have to be in control at all times, an excellent communicator, and a grammarian capable of astutely and graciously correcting the use of extremely technical language by people with multiple PhDs.  Every hour flies by, and I feel thrilled when I close a successful lesson.

If I do this for any period of time, I will benefit in a whole host of ways.  I'm already benefiting.  I think I dismiss the usefulness of this work and the demand for it, and I do it because I was socialized to want more power, more money, more underlings.  Fancier baubles on my shinier desk.  Uh.  I think I'd rather have fun meeting people from around the world and helping them communicate better.  For now.

R and I had a remarkable 1.5-hour lesson this afternoon - chacha, samba and waltz.  Pierre said a really great thing to me that I want to remember.  I was samba-ing and completely screwed up, but managed to invent a little spin and a flourish and recover in time for the next set of voltas.  I was laughing and apologizing afterward, but Pierre said to me in some seriousness, "Dancing well - and living well - is not about making no mistakes...  It's about recovering from them with STYLE."

If You Can't Speak, Laugh

How do you talk to somebody when one of you only knows three words of the other's language?  Well, let's just say it was the quietest obligatory 30-minute conversation I've ever engaged in.  We would periodically laugh when the silences became too awkward, which sort of broke the ice between us.  It's kind of amazing how much better you feel after you laugh together.

He was my first Russian e-student, and the first student who was an absolute beginner.  Now, you might be surprised to hear it [snork], but I don't speak Russian, although I'm fairly decent at effecting the accent of a sexy Russian supervillain.  I Google-translated sentences into Russian, and my student laughed and laughed and I think he understood, but he had no idea how to make any sort of response.  Seriously, it was 30 minutes of periodic laughter and occasional typing.  I spoke every word I typed, hoping he'd catch on, and I think he did at the end. When I said we had no time left and then goodbye, he repeated "yes" in varying melancholy tones.  I think he was apologizing for not knowing how to thank or say goodbye to me properly.  He did say "bye" after I did - many, many times, and sadly.

At one point during the lesson, he repeated my name over and over again, and I think it was because he was at that terrifying point when all words of any language flee, and you're left with a choice between laughing, incoherent stuttering and sobbing.  It's more fun to choose the former.

Worky Worky, Dancy Dancy

Crazy week - tons of teaching.  I'm so personally invested in this career endeavor that I spend hours of unpaid time researching and preparing lessons and plans for my clients...  It's fun to be a little bit stressed out, and it's great to never be bored, but I'm oscillating at all times between a buzz of excitement to full-blown anxiety.  I think it's burning a lot of energy.  My first observations are next week and I'm terrified, but my mentor called me today and we talked for an hour about standards and the goals of observation, and I feel much better.

My headset is my friend.

In about 40 minutes, I'm taking the metro to Studio 2720 to have my first full-blown standard lesson with R and his coach, who is apparently a national champion.  I'm nervous because I am sure to be awkward, but determined because it's the only way to get better.  R picked me up on Wednesday evening and took me from the Berri-UQAM metro station to Conseil des Arts, where we had an entire ballroom all to ourselves for one hour.  It was gorgeous - sparkling lighting, a black baby grand Yamaha in the corner, soaring windows overlooking Rue Sherbrooke at twilight - and all for 9.50 an hour.  We split the negligible cost.

We worked on silver chacha for the majority of our hour, and then we did some foxtrot.  He isn't sure about the follower's choreography for his gold routine, so we really need this lesson tonight.  I suspect I need desperate help with my frame, but R says it feels solid.  Gold?  Really?  I discovered that R used to be a high-placing (top three) gold dancer in all dances before his partner stopped dancing.  It's really intimidating, but he insists, insists on this partnership because he's having a lot of fun.  Apparently, his ex-partner was quite a snob.

A little bit of ballroom background for the uninitiated.  There are two schools of dancesport; American and International.  I dance International exclusively, but American is very popular and tends to be a lot more gaudy, in my opinion, while International is more...  Finessed?  Difficult?

So!  In the International school, there are two categories of dances; Latin and Standard. Latin includes chacha/rumba, samba, jive and paso doble.  Standard includes waltz, foxtrot, tango, quickstep and Viennese waltz.  Somebody who dances all of them is called a Ten Dancer.  I can only dance nine of them - I've never learned paso.

And, for all of these dances, there are 7 amateur (meaning non-professional) levels, in increasing skill - newcomer, bronze, silver, gold, novice, pre-champ and champ.  Novice and above dancers are much less constrained than dancers in the levels below them, who have to adhere to a strict syllabus of figures or risk being disqualified.  There are also Junior, Youth and Senior divisions to keep kids and old people competing within their age groups.

So, I am pretty much silver.  R is gold, and better than me.  Sigh.

Snow is forecasted for tomorrow.  If it truly snows (meteorologists up here tend to disagree widely and nobody actually knows what will happen), I will take pictures.

Tuesday Morning Update

Yesterday was my first busy work day (apart from orientation) since I resigned from my old position in August.  Clients would request me 30 minutes in advance, which isn't much warning and doesn't give me much prep time.  Caspian is sick with a relentless cold, so we didn't go to French class for the first time - me opting instead to go grocery shopping.  There were Americans in line fumbling with the wrong currency and swiping their credit cards backwards, etc.  I love PayPass.  There's a little computer chip embedded flush within my credit card and I just have to hold it over a little pad to pay, kind of like the Opus card for the metro.

Pic:  Sick Caspian with fuzzy friend.

R, my dance partner, called me yesterday a few times, trying to reserve practice space for us at Conseil des Arts and schedule a joint lesson with Mireille.  I can tell that he's excited about me.  Maybe he sees potential in me, maybe he sees a similar motivation, or maybe he just likes me, but he seems thrilled and says so.  It's nice.

Today is shaping up to be moderately busy, too.