So today, in a panic over my current financial state, I decided that it was time for me to get off my ass and get a job. Off I go, ten freshly printed copies of my resume under my arm, in search for employment. What I didn't factor in was the fact that I'm terrified of the kinds of places I want to work in. I would really like something that might make over minimum wage, ie-waitress. Of course, having never worked in a restaurant before, I'm horribly intimidated by the whole thing. So I spent a good hour wandering around the neighborhood coming up with increasingly more creative reasons for why I shouldn't apply to every store I walk by.
In the end I took my balls in hand and dropped a few off. The result?
Well I have what sounds like a trial shift at a bar wednesday night and what sounds like a hostess job. In both cases the owner was very abrupt and vague, not to mention heavily accented making me paranoid that I was constantly misunderstanding them. I'm terrified of both my potential employers. I'm terrified of this trial shift at the bar. I've never worked a bar before! What if I'm hopelessly lost? And hostessing... ok, there seems to be very little that can go wrong with that one... but I don't want to be bored either! Basically, I'm having a right freak out at the moment for no reason at all. GAHHHHHHH.
Monday, July 23, 2007
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
Of Quotes -or- Treeplanting: The Aftermath
In the past 24 hours two quotes have made me stop and think.... "heh.... that's sort of true.". Ok, so yeah, they weren't life changing or anything but they definitely provided me with temporary diversion.
After having your activities decided for you every day for two whole months, you kind of lose the impulse to plan ahead since there's just no need for it. It would kind of go like this... What are we going to do tomorrow? Plant trees. Ok, how about the day after that? Plant trees. ...and after that? Still planting trees. But now that I'm back in the real world, I have to start thinking about what I'm going to do tomorrow, and the day after that. So far I've had enough people to see to keep me busy for a week. But I'm realizing that I can't indefinitely bum around my parents' house randomly hanging out with people and spending money that I shouldn't. Eventually I have to go back to Montreal and get a job and... like.. work? See, this is my problem! I'm direction less. This was the state of mind I was in when yesterday, while bored, I happened to read my Horoscope. The first part was some mumbo jumbo about someone was going to try and scam me. But the second part said this: "A change of work may leave you feeling left out or vulnerable".
Let me set the record straight. I DON'T believe that Astrology can tell the future. I DON'T believe that it can tell me something about myself that I don't already know. I think that people read these things and make up similarities to their own lives. That being said, I'm starting to think that there might be some validity to these imaginary links. Maybe in searching for some kind of connection between your horoscope and your own life you take a deeper look at something about yourself that you'd been ignoring. Most of these things can apply to anyone if you try hard enough. So maybe horoscopes are an excuse for a little bit of introspection. Either way, that's what this one line did for me. I'd been feeling a little edgy and I realized that it was because I DO feel a little vulnerable. I've lost the stability I had for two months and now I have to re-create it. So I'm kind of looking forward to finding a job and eventually going back to school.
The bizarre thing in all of this is that I'm enjoying this whole free time business to death. I'm loving being around my family. I'm loving seeing friends that I only see once every few months. As always, when I'm in Aylmer, Montreal seems so far away. I rarely want to go back. That is, until the bus pulls into the Montreal station and it hits me that I'm home. Which brings me to quote number two. This one I found today, again while bored, when I was wandering through old blog posts of mine and found a comment Rhonda left (Two days in a row on my blog!). She wrote: "Like, what the hell Montreal? You make me feel apathetic, accepting, and fucking glorious." It was in response to something I said about how Montreal fucks people up or something to that effect. The point being that it's those same conflicting emotions that makes me confused about how I feel about my home in Montreal. I know I don't want to move away, it's one of the few things I am certain of right now. At the same time, I never seem to be in a rush to go back. I don't know where I'm going with this.
In other news, I'm heading off to my grandparent's cottage tomorrow and I won't be back until sunday. That's right, I am going from doing next to nothing here to doing absolutely nothing over there. I am looking forward to doing nothing but reading in the sun and eating for 3 days.
Catch you on the flip side.
After having your activities decided for you every day for two whole months, you kind of lose the impulse to plan ahead since there's just no need for it. It would kind of go like this... What are we going to do tomorrow? Plant trees. Ok, how about the day after that? Plant trees. ...and after that? Still planting trees. But now that I'm back in the real world, I have to start thinking about what I'm going to do tomorrow, and the day after that. So far I've had enough people to see to keep me busy for a week. But I'm realizing that I can't indefinitely bum around my parents' house randomly hanging out with people and spending money that I shouldn't. Eventually I have to go back to Montreal and get a job and... like.. work? See, this is my problem! I'm direction less. This was the state of mind I was in when yesterday, while bored, I happened to read my Horoscope. The first part was some mumbo jumbo about someone was going to try and scam me. But the second part said this: "A change of work may leave you feeling left out or vulnerable".
Let me set the record straight. I DON'T believe that Astrology can tell the future. I DON'T believe that it can tell me something about myself that I don't already know. I think that people read these things and make up similarities to their own lives. That being said, I'm starting to think that there might be some validity to these imaginary links. Maybe in searching for some kind of connection between your horoscope and your own life you take a deeper look at something about yourself that you'd been ignoring. Most of these things can apply to anyone if you try hard enough. So maybe horoscopes are an excuse for a little bit of introspection. Either way, that's what this one line did for me. I'd been feeling a little edgy and I realized that it was because I DO feel a little vulnerable. I've lost the stability I had for two months and now I have to re-create it. So I'm kind of looking forward to finding a job and eventually going back to school.
The bizarre thing in all of this is that I'm enjoying this whole free time business to death. I'm loving being around my family. I'm loving seeing friends that I only see once every few months. As always, when I'm in Aylmer, Montreal seems so far away. I rarely want to go back. That is, until the bus pulls into the Montreal station and it hits me that I'm home. Which brings me to quote number two. This one I found today, again while bored, when I was wandering through old blog posts of mine and found a comment Rhonda left (Two days in a row on my blog!). She wrote: "Like, what the hell Montreal? You make me feel apathetic, accepting, and fucking glorious." It was in response to something I said about how Montreal fucks people up or something to that effect. The point being that it's those same conflicting emotions that makes me confused about how I feel about my home in Montreal. I know I don't want to move away, it's one of the few things I am certain of right now. At the same time, I never seem to be in a rush to go back. I don't know where I'm going with this.
In other news, I'm heading off to my grandparent's cottage tomorrow and I won't be back until sunday. That's right, I am going from doing next to nothing here to doing absolutely nothing over there. I am looking forward to doing nothing but reading in the sun and eating for 3 days.
Catch you on the flip side.
Monday, July 09, 2007
The Post in Which Emily Makes a Triumphant Return to The Blogosphere.
As you all probably know, I've been home for about a week now. While I posted something about my Triumphant Return on Facebook, I decided to hold off on the blogging in order to make a more... considered response.
The question everyone asks is "How was treeplanting?" or "did you have fun?" or "did you enjoy it?". The first thing everyone needs to know is that this is a job. Some people seem to think it's some sort of vacation destination which it's anything but. Not only is it a job but it's an incredibly difficult one. Eventually you get used to the physical aspect of it (sort of...) but the mental part is hard until the very last day. Actually, in my case, and I think other planters might agree, it only got harder near the end.
I wrote Rhonda a letter on June 8th, about 5 weeks into the whole affair. In true Emily fashion, I never sent the damn thing (Rhonda, I'll type it up and send it to you soon) but I think I summed up how I felt about the whole thing decently... I edited out stuff I don't want to advertise to the whole internet and pointless details. I also re-wrote a few parts to add more details.
"Dear Rhonda,
First off, I'm not going to lie, once I got here I pretty much decided I wasn't going to write any letters. Turns out waking up at 5 am and working for 10 hours makes you not want to sit down and write. Who knew? Days off are no better either. The way it works it that you work a half day on your night off before heading to town. Generally you're drunk as soon as possible. If you're lucky, the laundromat will be unsupervised and you can get a head start while you're doing your laundry. Your "day off" is spent hungover wandering around a shitty little town waiting until your ride back to camp decides to leave.
I'm not really sure what to write about. So much has happened that if I wrote it all down you'd get a novel. Don't particularly feel like novel writing.... So I'll give you the short version. We just finished off our 3rd contract and are on our way to Sioux Lookout, our 4th and final camp. We've been in various camps around Manitoba so far, but this next place is in Ontario. The way it works is that the people who hired me, HRI (Heritage Reforestation Inc), bid for planting contracts. For every contract there is a certain amount of trees to be planted and once all those trees are in the ground the contract is over and we move on to the next one. Except for the first week, it's pretty much just been a small crew of about 15 people (including management and cook). When you spend 24/7 with the same 15 people you get pretty comfortable with one another. Except eventually all the crap that people can't stand about each other catches up with you. Actually, it's actually quite funny to watch from a distance when you're not involved.
There's not a single artist here, it's like a mind vacation. Treeplanting is like the anti-art experience. All you have the energy to do is eat sleep and plant trees. Oh, and once a week you get shit-faced. So no room for deep thoughts or meaningful, introspective conversations. We're more likely to talk about the shit we had that day or retell the stories from night off for those who were too drunk to remember what happened. Most people here use the word feminist as an insult, but they're either smart enough or dumb enough that they don't actually mean it. Someone called me an "accidental feminist". That'd be Luke. He's about the only one I've had intellectual (as in it went beyond poop) conversation with. He's a really smart guy and will talk about the location of the soul and other stuff that blows my mind but then he'll say something like he's a firm believer in Steak & Blowjob day or how if someone cheats on their boyfriend/girlfriend it's in the relationship's best interest to not say anything about it or how he wouldn't mind if his kid turned out to be gay, he'd just RATHER he'd be straight or he'll try and convince me that saying something like "man that's so GAY" isn't ACTUALLY offensive and come up with semi convincing arguments. As you can see, we didn't see eye-to-eye on many things but it makes for some really interesting arguments. I also punched him in the face during an overly rowdy wrestling match. At the time, he was still my crew boss. Needless to say, alcohol was involved....
Oh! You of all people should appreciate this. I got to drive my first 4-wheeler last night! It could not have been a worse idea. There were 4 rules on the warning label:
-don't carry passengers
-don't drive under the influence of drugs and alcohol
-don't drive without proper instruction
-always wear a helmet
We broke all 4.
We'd been drinking all afternoon (we'd just finished off a contract so it was not only a night off, we were also celebrating) and someone said they were going to take the ATV for a spin. So I, in jest, pipe in and ask "Can I drive!?" figuring I'd get a good laugh out of it before shooting me down. But I guess they were drunk enough to not care. So I hop on, not drunk but... well... not sober, and Luke gets on behind, probably more buzzed than I. Two more people jump on to perch on the back while Luke gives me on the fly instructions. Basically I drove us up and down the cottage road we were on until our boss flagged us down and said that there were a couple RCMPs who live on the same road, so cut it the fuck out. [I actually got to drive a 4 wheeler again a few weeks later. It was under equally unsafe conditions and just as fun]
The actual tree planting itself alternates between being great and terrible. I pretty much curse myself on a daily basis for ever trying this all the while making mental plans to come back next year. I only started making good money about a week ago. I mean, I was making money before, but not enough for it to seem like it was really worth it. But in the last planting days, I didn't once make under 125$/day, and sometimes it was a bit more. I'm m pretty sure I'll make 2-3 times more money in my second month than I did in my first. At least that's the plan. [I'd say my calculations then were about right. As a side note, the most I ever made in a day was about 350$, which is 4000 trees. I did it once and it almost killed me. I never came close to it again. Near the end a more reasonable amount was around 200$ a day, about 2200 trees. Of course this was only in the last week or two.]
Here's a funny little anecdote for you... About 2 hours ago, my bad bounced off the roof rack and got run over on the highway, nearly causing a 3 car collision. Needless to say, the bag is pretty fucked. I need to see if my tent survived, I have a feeling it's pretty pwned. [miraculously, the tent was the only thing in the bag that survived unscathed] As much as this sucks huge monkey balls, it's made much worse by the fact that most of that gear is my parents. Fuck.
[the rest of the letter is just me wrapping it up, saying goodbye and speculating on my return date. Boring stuff]"
And that's that. That was longer than I remembered. The thing with treeplanting is that with all the screwed up things that happen, some of your worst days are the ones that make the best stories. Like the time we planted for 10 days straight in a swamp. Or the time I planted in waist deep water. Or the contract that had us sit in a boat for 45 mins there AND back EVERY GODDAMN DAY. Or the daily quad ride that coated us in mud every single time. Or the trench foot. Or waking up at 3am because there's a thunderstorm and your tent is leaking on your forehead. Or waking up at 4 am EVERY MORNING, an hour and a half before you have to, because that's when the generator turns on. Bears. Being cold. Being hot. Being tired. I swear, I could continue this list for HOURS. Just to clarify, I'm not complaining. That would be stupid. I signed up for this and was well paid for it. But this is what treeplanting is. You go through shit and then you look back and think damn that sucked, but what a hell of a story it makes!
And Yes. there are good times. Like the day we quit early because of a forest fire and went to the beach instead. Or how every night, supper is the best meal you've ever had, just because it's the only relaxing part of your day. Or seeing a bald eagle. Or hearing wolves howl. Or impromptu 4 wheeler races/mud fights. Or nights off. Or getting kicked out of countless bars and hotels all across Manitoba and Ontario. Or the immense satisfaction of knowing you just beat your Personal Best (the most trees you planted in a day). Or getting to drive a 4 wheeler. The paycheck (which I have not yet received). While this list isn't quite as long as the other one it could still go on for a bit. These are the things that keep you sane (well... sort of sane) while in the bush for 2 months. Personally I didn't so much learn new things about myself, but more about the life I lead. I dunno... that's for another post on another day.
For now, I need to go enjoy some of this freedom while I still have it. Hope this wasn't too long/boring. Cheers.
The question everyone asks is "How was treeplanting?" or "did you have fun?" or "did you enjoy it?". The first thing everyone needs to know is that this is a job. Some people seem to think it's some sort of vacation destination which it's anything but. Not only is it a job but it's an incredibly difficult one. Eventually you get used to the physical aspect of it (sort of...) but the mental part is hard until the very last day. Actually, in my case, and I think other planters might agree, it only got harder near the end.
I wrote Rhonda a letter on June 8th, about 5 weeks into the whole affair. In true Emily fashion, I never sent the damn thing (Rhonda, I'll type it up and send it to you soon) but I think I summed up how I felt about the whole thing decently... I edited out stuff I don't want to advertise to the whole internet and pointless details. I also re-wrote a few parts to add more details.
"Dear Rhonda,
First off, I'm not going to lie, once I got here I pretty much decided I wasn't going to write any letters. Turns out waking up at 5 am and working for 10 hours makes you not want to sit down and write. Who knew? Days off are no better either. The way it works it that you work a half day on your night off before heading to town. Generally you're drunk as soon as possible. If you're lucky, the laundromat will be unsupervised and you can get a head start while you're doing your laundry. Your "day off" is spent hungover wandering around a shitty little town waiting until your ride back to camp decides to leave.
I'm not really sure what to write about. So much has happened that if I wrote it all down you'd get a novel. Don't particularly feel like novel writing.... So I'll give you the short version. We just finished off our 3rd contract and are on our way to Sioux Lookout, our 4th and final camp. We've been in various camps around Manitoba so far, but this next place is in Ontario. The way it works is that the people who hired me, HRI (Heritage Reforestation Inc), bid for planting contracts. For every contract there is a certain amount of trees to be planted and once all those trees are in the ground the contract is over and we move on to the next one. Except for the first week, it's pretty much just been a small crew of about 15 people (including management and cook). When you spend 24/7 with the same 15 people you get pretty comfortable with one another. Except eventually all the crap that people can't stand about each other catches up with you. Actually, it's actually quite funny to watch from a distance when you're not involved.
There's not a single artist here, it's like a mind vacation. Treeplanting is like the anti-art experience. All you have the energy to do is eat sleep and plant trees. Oh, and once a week you get shit-faced. So no room for deep thoughts or meaningful, introspective conversations. We're more likely to talk about the shit we had that day or retell the stories from night off for those who were too drunk to remember what happened. Most people here use the word feminist as an insult, but they're either smart enough or dumb enough that they don't actually mean it. Someone called me an "accidental feminist". That'd be Luke. He's about the only one I've had intellectual (as in it went beyond poop) conversation with. He's a really smart guy and will talk about the location of the soul and other stuff that blows my mind but then he'll say something like he's a firm believer in Steak & Blowjob day or how if someone cheats on their boyfriend/girlfriend it's in the relationship's best interest to not say anything about it or how he wouldn't mind if his kid turned out to be gay, he'd just RATHER he'd be straight or he'll try and convince me that saying something like "man that's so GAY" isn't ACTUALLY offensive and come up with semi convincing arguments. As you can see, we didn't see eye-to-eye on many things but it makes for some really interesting arguments. I also punched him in the face during an overly rowdy wrestling match. At the time, he was still my crew boss. Needless to say, alcohol was involved....
Oh! You of all people should appreciate this. I got to drive my first 4-wheeler last night! It could not have been a worse idea. There were 4 rules on the warning label:
-don't carry passengers
-don't drive under the influence of drugs and alcohol
-don't drive without proper instruction
-always wear a helmet
We broke all 4.
We'd been drinking all afternoon (we'd just finished off a contract so it was not only a night off, we were also celebrating) and someone said they were going to take the ATV for a spin. So I, in jest, pipe in and ask "Can I drive!?" figuring I'd get a good laugh out of it before shooting me down. But I guess they were drunk enough to not care. So I hop on, not drunk but... well... not sober, and Luke gets on behind, probably more buzzed than I. Two more people jump on to perch on the back while Luke gives me on the fly instructions. Basically I drove us up and down the cottage road we were on until our boss flagged us down and said that there were a couple RCMPs who live on the same road, so cut it the fuck out. [I actually got to drive a 4 wheeler again a few weeks later. It was under equally unsafe conditions and just as fun]
The actual tree planting itself alternates between being great and terrible. I pretty much curse myself on a daily basis for ever trying this all the while making mental plans to come back next year. I only started making good money about a week ago. I mean, I was making money before, but not enough for it to seem like it was really worth it. But in the last planting days, I didn't once make under 125$/day, and sometimes it was a bit more. I'm m pretty sure I'll make 2-3 times more money in my second month than I did in my first. At least that's the plan. [I'd say my calculations then were about right. As a side note, the most I ever made in a day was about 350$, which is 4000 trees. I did it once and it almost killed me. I never came close to it again. Near the end a more reasonable amount was around 200$ a day, about 2200 trees. Of course this was only in the last week or two.]
Here's a funny little anecdote for you... About 2 hours ago, my bad bounced off the roof rack and got run over on the highway, nearly causing a 3 car collision. Needless to say, the bag is pretty fucked. I need to see if my tent survived, I have a feeling it's pretty pwned. [miraculously, the tent was the only thing in the bag that survived unscathed] As much as this sucks huge monkey balls, it's made much worse by the fact that most of that gear is my parents. Fuck.
[the rest of the letter is just me wrapping it up, saying goodbye and speculating on my return date. Boring stuff]"
And that's that. That was longer than I remembered. The thing with treeplanting is that with all the screwed up things that happen, some of your worst days are the ones that make the best stories. Like the time we planted for 10 days straight in a swamp. Or the time I planted in waist deep water. Or the contract that had us sit in a boat for 45 mins there AND back EVERY GODDAMN DAY. Or the daily quad ride that coated us in mud every single time. Or the trench foot. Or waking up at 3am because there's a thunderstorm and your tent is leaking on your forehead. Or waking up at 4 am EVERY MORNING, an hour and a half before you have to, because that's when the generator turns on. Bears. Being cold. Being hot. Being tired. I swear, I could continue this list for HOURS. Just to clarify, I'm not complaining. That would be stupid. I signed up for this and was well paid for it. But this is what treeplanting is. You go through shit and then you look back and think damn that sucked, but what a hell of a story it makes!
And Yes. there are good times. Like the day we quit early because of a forest fire and went to the beach instead. Or how every night, supper is the best meal you've ever had, just because it's the only relaxing part of your day. Or seeing a bald eagle. Or hearing wolves howl. Or impromptu 4 wheeler races/mud fights. Or nights off. Or getting kicked out of countless bars and hotels all across Manitoba and Ontario. Or the immense satisfaction of knowing you just beat your Personal Best (the most trees you planted in a day). Or getting to drive a 4 wheeler. The paycheck (which I have not yet received). While this list isn't quite as long as the other one it could still go on for a bit. These are the things that keep you sane (well... sort of sane) while in the bush for 2 months. Personally I didn't so much learn new things about myself, but more about the life I lead. I dunno... that's for another post on another day.
For now, I need to go enjoy some of this freedom while I still have it. Hope this wasn't too long/boring. Cheers.
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