I'm not bossy. I simply make suggestions without options.

LOVE this quote from a presentation 'Oldest Child Syndrome' at Winnie's Yonge-Eglinton Toastmasters last night! Yes, I visited this Toastmasters again last night, especially to see and hear Winnie's presentation on the Hadza community, close to Tanzania, where she's from.

No, I'm not even ashamed to be promoting her Toastmasters nor feeling guilty about not attending my former Toastmasters (MSIT). I haven't been to MSIT in so long that I don't even think I would fit in anymore. Although, I am still part of the MSIT group message only because I had originally thought I would be returning. NOW I am very unsure. To the point that I haven't paid to renew my membership and am thinking of asking to be taken off the group message system.

HOWEVER, I'm tentatively planning on attending the MSIT Christmas party that'll be occurring in about three weeks time. I hope to attend (perhaps with Winnie as my sidekick) as a refresher, to scope out my situation and how I feel about the possibility of returning (or not).

Until then, I'm resigned to job searching and catching up on too many taped television shows...

The Finale!!! (DWTS)

So who showed up on the ‘Dancing with the Stars’ Finale?!?!?!??!!!?

PITBULL (MR. 305) & NEYO!!! as well as LIONEL RITCHIE!!!! & CHER!!!!

Oh yes...the dancing was phenomenal!!!

“Good night, sweet prince”

- Shakespeare

Began the weekend having lunch with Grace & Alice at Moto Sushi on Friday. We had such a wonderful meetup that is nice to have once in awhile! During our get-together, we touched upon some discussion regarding our family health involving a relative. Little did we know that this would come back by the end of the week...

There were potential plans to see Louie this weekend, however this was put off due to last minute family plans to head to Niagara Falls (casino :p) after my massage Saturday morning. I'm happy to report that there was enough winnings to cover dinner (at an Italian restaurant called Vittoti's where we split a penne with vodka & prosciutto) and Sunday's brunch!

Unfortunately, during our brunch, we found out the sad news about said previously discussed family health with Felix. I cannot say that I remember ever meeting said cousin as he lived in Hong Kong.

"Goodnite, Dr. Death"

Alright, Children
The lights are out and the party's over
It's time for me: Doctor D
To start running and say goodbye for a little while
And I know you're gonna miss me
So I'll leave you with this
You know that big ball of radiation we call...

After returning back to the tdot, we stopped by Ames to watch the new Frozen II movie by her fabulous theater that has really nice seat that can recline back with very roomy seats! Thumbs up, you cannot go wrong with anything Frozen!!!

Then to end this weird weekend, I caught Keith Urban's Grey Cup halftime show as well as the American music awards hosted by Ciara. Highlights for me involved Halsey's acceptance speech, her performance 'graveyard', watching Green Day, Taylor Swift, Christina Aguilera and Great Big World's fall on me and Shania Twain's closing performance!!!

ebs & flos

Today, I spent the day in a purple shirt...the color purple representing World Pancreatic Day and this brings to my mind the name, Alex Trebek.

An incredibly busy day...beginning with the fact that our building parking garage was going through maintenance repairs so cars that had to not be in the garage had to be out between 9-5pm.

Therefore, Mom and I began our day leaving the garage just after 8:30am to go to Yonge and Davisville where the TTC head office is so that I could update my wheel-trans support companion card. There we encountered an employee, Trevor, who suggested I look into opportunities within the TTC. We thanked him for his help after completing our transactions and as we were making out way out to the car, he came running out to give me several sheets of paper with the current job ops (26) with the ttc that he printed out for me. A lot of aren't relevant for me but I've since applied for the General Clerk, Accounts Payable role. As I was fashioning my cover letter, it brought back Minto flashbacks!

This was only our first stop of the day. Along the way, I stopped by the Art Inn @ Runway in Pacific mall to have my bangs trimmed by a guy named Benson, who added side bangs with the initial trimming of the bangs. Yay, I have a facial structure again!!!

Afterwards, on our way home, I was surprised by messages from Louie, wanting to catch up some time this weekend. However, after receiving the flu shot on Monday, I happen to be suffering from a cold that's recently begun. As well, he's been battling an on/off cold that began at the beginning of the cold season.Not wanting to bring his hopes up (or dash it), I've currently left my response up in the air. TBD for Sunday morning...

Making it home just after 5pm, the day didn't happen to wrap up like work...a CIBC representative that my family deals with helped with a potential networking job opportunity with a contact to this place called Moohan Taekwondo.

And THEN almost like a cherry on top, my job counsellor to the ODSP agency that I work with contacted me regarding a receptionist position with a company right at the corner to where I live. Unfortunately, as she's going to be MIA until the new year (due to a family emergency), I wasn't sure she would be able to follow up. SURPRISINGLY, a job developer called me a little later to give me more details about the position so I plan to send him all my information for tomorrow morning!

You'd think I'd be exhausted....I AM but something I've failed to mention is that I've had two cups of coffee too late in the day...and now I'm definitely paying for it!!!

JUDGMENT DAY...

Grey's Anatomy's 350th episode

WOW...

This past Thursday was Grey's 350th episode of the series. It was kind of emotional in both the plot of the series (Meredith's faced the medial board to see if her medical license is revoked or not) and also brought back many flashbacks of many late characters who had been a part of the show by giving nods to the likes of the late Lexie, Derek, and Denny Duquette. Alex showed the board letters of support from Addison Montgomery, Callie Torres, Arizona Robbins, and April Kepner.

Even though she didn't make an appearance, she'd sent a letter of support for her 'Person' that Alex read at the hearing:

"Dear medical commission: People who know me would describe me as selfish to a fault. After that, they'd say, 'honest.' I can honestly tell you that if I were dying and a surgery stood between me and death, Dr. Grey's hands are the only ones that I'd want inside my body. "Taking away her license is signing the death certificates of countless future patients. She is a light in a broken system that she will fix, whether you want her to or not. She is the sun and she is unstoppable. Sincerely, Dr. Cristina Yang."

BRILLIANT!!! and sooooooo Yang-like!!!

I'm watching the Sesame Street's 50th Anniversary Celebration hosted by Joseph Gordon-Levitt and it's brought really nostalgic memories of the days when I used to watch Sesame Street growing up...at the same time, seeing how it's been updated with the times!

The best part is seeing all the guest cameo's including: Busy Phillips, Whoopi Goldberg, Meghan Trainor, Sterling K. Brown, Alessia Cara, Lucy Liu and Terry Crews to name a few...woooooooaaahh!!!!

Karen's birthday was on Tuesday and I wished her a happy birthday online as she and Patrick are Honeymooning in Hawaii.

I'd gone to my in person interview at Sick Kids for a recommended position from HR (to another in person job interview position from last week) on Wednesday and even though I thought it would be a good fit, I'm not putting all my cards on this opportunity. Life and job opps work weird for me like that...

Thursday was a super busy day spending it at Roy Thompson Hall for the Global Summit 2019, an annual diversity and inclusion event like no other. The globally recognized Summit brings together thought leaders, partners and amazing humans of all identities to connect, learn and grow. I was extremely lucky to be able to attend this event for free as the testing company that I've worked for previously, Fable Tech Labs, had invited me. It was a great opportunity to come out and hear so many speakers like Randi Zuckerberg (sister to Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook), Kat Holmes (Google), Angelica Ross (Actor), Erin & Sara Foster (Bumble cofounders), Colleen Ward & Norie Campbell (TD bank), Leagh Turner (Ceridian), Heather Clark and Salim Teja (SickKids Foundation) to name a few! #movethedial

After resting up on Friday, I spent the morning going for dim sum with Aunt Teresa but because I had an unfortunate tumble, I had to bail on Henry's bday party this evening. Instead, I tried out a restaurant, Jollibee with amazingly juicy chicken and great spaghetti!

Now I'm trying to take advantage of missing the party by catching up on many episodes of tv. It's a challenge...

Remembrance Day musings

A quick update as to what I've been up to last week:

Monday was Winnie's birthday and we'd already celebrated in advance when we'd had a sushi dinner before visiting her Toastmasters last Thursday.

Tuesday was spent doing something I'm not particularly fond of...going to job fairs. Unfortunate part of life yet I still attended a CAA job fair that my job developer had sent my way (in his defense, not like he needs it... but I had mentioned interest in looking into the potential CAA market). Sadly, it seems that even going all the way to Scarborough wasn't really worth it as the HR lady viewed my resume and suggested I 'add' her on LinkedIn and go to a website with job postings. Which, in my mind, is really saying that it's really slim pickings...ah well...

It seemed to brightened up a little on Wednesday as after I had applied to a position at 'Sick Kids', I'd received an invitation for a telephone interview, which led to a panel interview that morning. I'm happy that I made enough of an impression that even though I was unable to score THAT particular job (through follow up email correspondence), that HR lady actually suggested that I apply for another similar position through her HR network AND I now have another in person interview this upcoming Wednesday (fingers crossed!).

The rest of the week's main activities included grabbing a Thursday dinner with Louie at Max's (this Filipino reso seemed to be the safest choice for us at this time due to Louie's own health battle) before coffee at Starbucks in my old neighborhood in the Dufferin and Steeles area. As well, I was able to enjoy a Saturday lunch date with Jordan at a particularly long ago haunt, Bonjour Brioche, downtown off of Queen St E. The food and atmosphere was the same joyous was that we remembered it and we ended up spending quite some time there taking in the familiarity!

Topping this off involved beginning Sunday with visiting Alicia, Steve and Rosemary! During the visit, Alicia and I went off to grab a coffee at Jimmy's Coffee and then a lunch at San Remo's bakery...yum!

A highlight to this week on television was sesame street on the latelateshow!!!

It's been a busy weekend beginning with attending Malcolm's first birthday on Saturday at Ames' condo's party room in the early afternoon and then going to mom and dad's friend's (Uncle Norman and Aunt Susan) 50th anniversary party in the evening!

This morning I met up with Karen for brunch at Eggsmart! Afterwards, went to visit Ames' again with the rents for a take-out sushi dinner.

Luckily this is the weekend where we gained an extra hour so it mostly (mainly because due to the overlapping events that were occurring, unfortunately, I missed out on the Mon Sheong Cathay Ball, boo...) worked out! ;p

Caught up with Winnie yesterday! I miss our work lunch dates but such is life...at least we can still randomly catch up when we make dates!

We had originally planned on meeting up for dinner at Tio's Urban Taco. UNFORTUNATELY, when my ride dropped me off at the restaurant, I was sad to find out that the reso had ACTUALLY shut down (unpaid bills) not two weeks ago!! *tragedy*

No biggie as Winnie and I decided to have dinner at 'Sushi Shop' where we had tuna sushi tacos and split a dragon roll, salmon sushi burger (WHAT?!?!?! a sushi burger!?!?!? But it was DELISH!!!) and a lobster poke bowl. Good times!!!

Afterwards we went to her Toastmasters (shhhhhhh, no need to mention to my own toastmasters group...;p) where I enjoyed listening to the two speeches given as well as joining in on the table topics! The word of the evening was gregarious which I found complimentary to myself. ;p There were several guests (other than myself) that also included two girls visiting from Korea and Japan!

So THAT was my evening out!!! Of course after I got home, I caught The Good Place before calling it a night!