I Survived Chicken Fest Week
Current mood: happy

Hey Everyone!

I am very happy to report that I am still with you, and I didn't have a massive heart attack after Chicken Fest Week.  Just to explain, I was helping my friend Franck organize some Chicken Fest lunches at work last week.  Chicken Fest is a fundraiser by the Rotary Club where people pay for Chicken Delight lunches and the money is donated by Rotary to various charities...

Franck, who is in the Rotary Club, asked me a couple months ago if I would like to help him organize a Chicken Fest in my office.  And after my usual slow start, I got around to organizing not 1 but 2 Chicken Fests, one in my old office and one in my current office.  In addition, Franck was organizing a 3^rd Chicken Fest lunch in government that I was a part of, so I participated in 3 Chicken Fest lunches last week.

Let me tell you, three days of chicken fingers may have tasted good, but I was starting to feel like that guy in Super Size Me that only ate McDonalds.  In addition to that, Franck decided to borrow me season one of 24, which I had never seen before.  This combined with my Chicken Fest diet was a bad combo, as I didn't get off the couch on the weekend because 24 is such a bloody good show!

But on the plus side, my gym pass was effective May 1, so I have started going to the gym again in the mornings before work. (I still can't believe I'm getting up at 610 am, maybe I'm imaging this actually and I'm not really there?)  Good thing I'm going to the gym (at least I think I am, lol), because not only do I have way more energy and feel great, I can also work off the effects of my Chicken Fest / 24 week and survive to see Chicken Fest 2008!!

Oh, and a closing side note, I know Franck will read this, but just to give a friendly reminder, he did say he was going to set up a myspace one day soon in exchange for me organizing 2 Chicken Fests… ;)

Have a great week! :)

9:21 PM - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

Compliments of the Week
Current mood: productive

Hiya,

*Special note: Names and Departments are changed in the following story!

Just a background for you, it can sometimes be a little bit complicated to explain to people that I am in this 3-year development program that allows me to work in different government departments every 6-9 months before taking a permanent position in one department at the end of the 3-year program.  Many people are under the impression that people in this program are not real government employees, to put it nicely.

That being said, at work last Friday, senior managers from various departments were coming over to review some classified documents that my office has been working on.  SO BUSY!  Anyways, I was given the responsibility of sitting in the room and monitoring them to ensure the documents were not removed from our office.

So, "Patrick" and "Bill" came over to our office from the "Department of Manitoba Oceans."  I had already met Patrick last year when I was working in a different office.  As I led them through the corridors of our office to the room where they would review the documents, the following conversation occurred, and you will understand the sarcastic title of this blog when you have finished reading it.

Matt: "So how are you doing these days Patrick?"

Patrick: "Good.  Busy.  So Matt, are you just a student here?"

Bill: "What do you mean by 'just' Patrick, that's kind of insulting!"

(Bill and Matt laugh while Patrick stammers.)

Matt: "Well Patrick, I'm taking French classes once a week, but I'm not a full-time student at university anymore."

Patrick: "Oh.  So do you actually do the same work as everyone else here?  I mean, are you actually an analyst?"

Matt: "Yeah, I am.  I'm the analyst for the Civil Service Commission and the Manitoba Securities Commission."

Patrick: "Oh.  And do they let you work on that all by yourself?"

(Bill directs a stunned look at Patrick.)

Matt: "Yep, they give me freedom to work on that pretty independently, but whenever I have questions I know who to ask, so there's no problems!"

(Bill laughs, Matt wryly smiles, Patrick has a blank expression.)

Matt: "Well, here's the room we will use to review these pages."

All I can say is, good thing I'm easygoing and have a sense of humour when situations like that occur!  Thanks Patrick, lol :D

7:36 PM - 3 Comments - 3 Kudos - Add Comment

Test Results Are In
Current mood: thoughtful

Hey All,

So one day last week I was at this training workshop where we did the Myers-Briggs personality test.  I had a lot of fun doing this test, because it made a lot of sense to me and gave me a good indication of how I think.

The test has four components, which are:

Part 1 – Extroversion (E) or Introversion (I) – Do you prefer to focus on and get your energy from the outer world (Extroversion) or your own inner world (Introversion)?

Part 2 – Sensing (S) or Intuition (N) – Do you prefer to focus on the information you take in from the senses (Sensing) or do you prefer to interpret information and add additional meaning (Intuition)?

Part 3 – Thinking (T) or Feeling (F) – When making decisions, do you prefer to first look at logic and consistency (Thinking) or do you prefer to first look at people and special circumstances (Feeling)?

Part 4 – Judging (J) or Perceiving (P) – When dealing with the outside world, do you prefer to get things decided (Judging) or do you prefer to stay open to new information and options (Perceiving)?

After taking the test, I ended up being an ENFP, which was not really a surprise.  There are write-ups on all 16 personality combinations, and here is mine:

ENFP – Warmly enthusiastic and imaginative. See life as full of possibilities. Make connections between events and information very quickly, and confidently proceed based on the patterns they see. Want a lot of affirmation from others, and readily give appreciation and support. Spontaneous and flexible, often rely on their ability to improvise and their verbal fluency.

There was more info in the workshop, and I was interested to learn that ENFPs rely on others for support, can be very sensitive, and have a tendency to interpret and analyze other people's behaviours, sometimes incorrectly.  This is all true with me, because as many of you know I tend to overanalyze everything, hahaha!  It's good to know this is common within my personality type.  Going forward, I'm going to try and watch for when I'm doing that, acknowledge it, and try not to overanalyze every situation – key word being try, lol ;)

Anyways, for more information on the MBTI test, check out this link: http://www.myersbriggs.org/my%5Fmbti%5Fpersonality%5Ftype/mbti%5Fbasics/

And to take an unofficial but similar version of the test, check out this link:

http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes2.asp

But a final rule, if you take the above test, message me and tell me what letters you are, or better yet blog your results!  I would be very interested to know :)

Enjoy :D

10:10 AM - 6 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Games are Supposed to be Fun, Right?
Current mood: giggly

Heya,

So due to a couple requests, I am posting another silly story from the TO airport!  Actually, this one happened on the plane.  First off, Alisa and I were asked to sit in row 1 and help in the event of an emergency.  I think we both looked confused, thinking there was actually an emergency in progress, but we then realized it was just because we were in row 1.  So we were fine with that, after all we are public servants, so helping the public comes second nature to us, hehe!

As we sat in row one waiting to take off, we overheard the three flight attendants talking, and apparently they had each counted a different number of people on the plane, and therefore couldn't balance the manifest.  We promptly volunteered to help out and do a quick count, but they ignored us.  I guess that wasn't the kind of emergency we were supposed to help with.

So the more intense and somewhat frustrated flight attendant gets on the P.A. and says, direct quote, "Hi everyone, we are going to play a little game.  It's called Roll Call! When I call your name, just say you are here and we can get this plane off the ground shortly."

OK, in my opinion, games are supposed to be fun, right?  So what do I do?  I make a few jokes to Alisa and our other new friend in row 1 about this whole procedure, and then they make a few jokes back.  Before I know it, I am laughing hysterically, and I don't even remember why anymore, but I couldn't control myself.  Alisa motioned me to be quiet because roll call was happening and we were in row 1 right by the P.A. and angry flight attendant, but I couldn't stop!  Finally, angry flight attendant says, directly into the microphone, "THAT LAUGHING ISN'T HELPING THE SITUATION YOU KNOW!!!"

Whoa, getting freaked on by the flight attendant in front of the entire plane!  Unfortunately, that just made me laugh harder, and I clamped my hand over my mouth to try and stifle the sound.

I finally got myself under control, only to have angry flight attendant read the roll call name of "SARAH MULLET" which led me to glance at Alisa before bursting into howls of more laughter!  I feel bad for Sarah Mullet, because it wasn't anything personal, it was just I was already having a good time, and a name like mullet just made it worse, haha!

The angry flight attendant through me several more dirty looks, and Alisa commented that it was lucky I didn't get thrown off the plane.  And the other funny thing is one of the nicer flight attendants who thought I was just silly commented to me during the flight, "I'm glad you aren't ordering any alcohol, because it seems like you have already had enough!"  I just said back to her, "no, believe it or not, this is me totally sober.  Scary, eh?"

10:25 AM - 2 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

A Garbage Bag Makes the Perfect Suitcase
Current mood: amused

Hi everyone!

So Alisa and I were recently in Toronto with work, and it was indeed a blast!  But some of the most hilarious moments happened while we were waiting to come home in the TO Airport.

One example of this occurred while we were waiting to get out boarding passes.  We were behind one other person in line, and when this guy, traveling by himself, was called over by the next available agent, it was only then that we noticed his baggage consisted of approximately 7 jackets and this mother-huge black garbage bag that was partially sealed and had numerous tears and holes in it.

Alisa and I watched in some shock as he proceeded to lift this huge bag off the luggage cart and drop it down onto the weigh scale beside the agent's counter.  The agent had this shocked look on her face.  Alisa and I were even more stunned when the drop of the garbage bag onto the scale caused this guy's razor to fall out of one of the holes of the garbage bag and drop onto the ground.  OK, gross!  He then proceeded to pick it up and shove it back through one of the bag holes into his garbage bag of possessions, as if this was an everyday occurrence.  Whoa.

We couldn't hear what the agent said, but he must not have liked it very much, because he began waving his arms madly and looking very perturbed.  Alisa and I then began the enjoyment of making up a pretend conversation with what we thought was being said.  I was the agent, and Alisa was the angry garbage bag guy, and it was quite amusing to put words to the facial expressions and gestures we were witnessing.

We eventually got called over by another agent a few booths down from garbage bag guy, and when this agent asked us what we were checking in, Alisa brightly stated, "one suitcase each, and no garbage bags!"  This agent, Alisa, and I all started howling with laughter, as garbage bag guy continued his fight a few booths over!

As we moved on, all sorts of other funny things continued to happen in the TO airport and on the plane, but this was definitely one of the highlights.

Maybe I will blog the other highlight which was getting yelled at over the P.A. system by an angry flight attendant for laughing too much, but that's a story for another day ;)

Have a lovely week!

5:50 PM - 4 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Little Moments from 14-Hour Thursday at Work
Current mood: satisfied

Hi everyone!

So I have to go to my grandma's right away to help her with her computer.  I was supposed to go on Thursday, but I ended up stuck at work until all hours of the night because my branch had to get all these minutes proofread and edited for Government Ministers.

I think I have sort of given up trying to impress my manager at work.  I think she likes me and thinks that I do good work, but she always seems to come to my office at the worst possible time.  Same with another manager who I don't report to but who works just a few doors down from me.  Perfect example, on Thursday I was talking to another civil servant from Translation Services about a government event we are planning to raise money for charity.  It is a lunch fundraiser called "Chickenfest."  Well, of course as soon as I phone him and he picks up, what do I say on the phone really loud?  "So Franck, about this Chickenfest…"  And right when I say it, this manager is walking past my office door, and looks in my door with this confused expression on his face.  The managers always seem to walk by at the worst times and hear the weirdest things from me on the phone!  And for once it was actually work-related, but it didn't sound work related I'm sure!!  Oh well, whatever ;)

And another thing that happened on the long Thursday was I had been waiting for this report from the Public Trustee's Office for weeks, because I needed the information from it to get this other report done that was now really late.  I hadn't thought about it for a few days, but Thursday morning I remembered how this project was just hanging over me and I couldn't do anything until I got this information.  I was just thinking about all that, when a colleague of mine walked into my office and said, "this came for you."  I took it, and of course it was the report I was waiting for.  I got this huge smile on my face and said to her, "Thanks very much, I was just thinking about the Public Trustee!"  She just sort of looked at me kind of weird and walked out, and I guess that must have sounded really weird!  Apparently I think of the Public Trustee with every waking moment, lol :)

So ya, those are a couple of stories from my marathon work day on Thursday.  I just hope my manager doesn't think I am completely crazy with my bizarre phone conversations and my obsession with the Public Trustee, haha!

Have a great weekend!

10:40 AM - 2 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

A Close Call
Current mood: grateful

Hi everyone!

OK, I am having trouble focusing on work now, because this morning my friend Tracey and I could have been killed.  We were walking back to work from grabbing a coffee (or tea in my case), and were waiting to cross at the Broadway and Edmonton Street intersection.  Someone in a car decided to try and turn left when there was oncoming traffic coming.  You can guess what happened next – an oncoming car hit this other guy, and before you knew it, two cars are sliding right towards me and my friend on the corner!

The weirdest thing was that the whole thing happened in slow motion, and I mean SLOW.  The whole accident seemed to take an eternity to happen from start to finish.

The other crazy thing was that my friend and I just stood there with our mouths wide open in shock, watching the slow motion scene play out.  I remember thinking when the cars hit, "oh my word, Tracey's pregnant, we need to move!" but I was like a deer in the headlights.  Thankfully she had the sense of mind to pull my arm when the cars started sliding towards us.  Tracey is laughing at me now, because she is 7 months pregnant but she was the one who had to take charge of the situation by grabbing me and guiding us to cover behind a nearby tree.

We're both fine, and we weren't hit, although one car stopped only about 5 feet away from us.  For some reason I wasn't thinking that we could be hit when it was happening, but looking back, I realize how lucky we are that we weren't hurt – or worse!

So ya, that was the excitement for the morning – glad to still be here!

I think this has reinforced for me that you need to make the most out of your life, because you never know what will happen.  Oh, and also to be careful crossing the street ;)

Talk to you later,

Matt

10:55 AM - 3 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Being Positive and Optimistic
Current mood: positive (better be, considering this blog!)

Hi everyone!
 

I am *usually* a pretty positive person, and I try to keep an optimistic outlook on the world in general, in the workplace, and in my personal life – although sometimes that is the area where I am not as positive as I should be.  (Right Andrea?  Hahaha!)
 

In any event, I was talking to one of my relatives a few weeks ago, and we got into this discussion where I said I had a positive outlook for 2007 and then she responded by saying she didn't feel the same way, and had a bad feeling for the New Year.  (Ouch, that put a damper on the conversation!)
 

Anyways, her birthday was around the corner, so I went out and bought this book for her called "The 100 Simple Secrets of Happy People" by Dr. David Niven.  I ended up skimming through the entire book that night, because it was such a great list of thoughts, ideas, and things to consider.
 

I wanted to share a few of the interesting points raised in this book:
 

Idea 6 – Cultivate Friendships (I would agree with this.  Although it is important to enjoy your job, I really feel that building relationships with friends, family, etc. is one of the keys to happiness.)
 

Idea 15 – If You're Not Sure, Guess Positively (Probably my favourite idea in the book, at least right now.  It is easy to make negative assumptions about things that happen to us and around us.  Since reading this, however, I have really focused on making only positive assumptions if I am going to read into situations, comments that I hear, etc.  And I must say that thinking in this way has really benefited me!)
 

Idea 39 – Busy is Better than Bored (Uh, yeah!)
 

Idea 57 – Be Flexible (I used to be pretty inflexible in a lot of ways, but I think I have learned over the past couple of years, both at work and outside of work, that being flexible will help keep me calm and happier overall, because things don't always go according to plan!)
 

Idea 78 – Don't Forget to Have Fun (I totally agree, and I try to have fun throughout the day, including at work, and I think that is a good thing for me, for others around me, and even for the organization that I work for.)
 

Idea 100 – What Does it all Mean?  You Decide (This is interesting, and I am still thinking about big questions like what is really important in my life, what the purpose of my life is, etc.  I am starting to draw some conclusions on this, but I think this kind of thinking is always a work in progress, at least for me.)
 

I have had too much experience in my life being negative for various reasons, but in the past year I have become a lot more optimistic and positive in most areas of thinking, and I must say I feel a lot better for it!
 

Talk to you later :)

10:20 AM - 4 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

Scatter Baking, Scatter Brain
Current mood: okay

Hey there, I will get right into this so this blog doesn't get too long, because if I write a proper intro and conclusion, it will probably be way too long and I don't want to take up too much of anyone's time!  Well, now that I have wasted time by trying to explain how I won't waste time...

Anyways, I had to bake some cookies tonight to take to a meeting tomorrow afternoon.  I am somewhat proud of my cookie baking skills, but since I moved into my new house, I have had some bad experiences trying to figure out my oven, which works but is from the 1960s and seems to have a wonky temperature gauge.

So, on the way home, I get off the bus at Safeway to pick up the few ingredients I need.  However, when I get home, I realize I am nearly out of eggs and forgot to buy more – but I have just enough for half of the recipe I am making, so I breath a sigh of relief and start baking.  The recipe I am using bakes 8 dozen cookies, but since I only have enough eggs for half the recipe, I am only making 4 dozen, and therefore I am using half of each measurement.  However, I get to the last 3 ingredients, and before you can say "Matt is a scatter brain," what have I done?  Forgotten to half the numbers, and accidentally doubled up the amount of baking soda, sugar, and something else into the mixing bowl!  I stare at the bowl in shock, wondering what I can do – unfortunately the three ingredients I just doubled didn't jump back out of the bowl for me.

Well, the only thing I can do is get my boots back on and trudge two blocks back over to Safeway to buy more eggs and try again!  When I get home from the -35 windchill, I decide to make the full recipe, because now I have enough of all the ingredients.  Once the ingredients are mixed together, the mixture needs to sit in the fridge for a couple of hours.  So, I put the mixture into two plastic ziploc bags and put them in the fridge.  However, I lazily decide not to bother sealing the bags, but simply folding the end over and underneath, so it is still airtight but needs to be taken out carefully since the top isn't done up.  Yes, you can see where this is going…

Two hours goes by, and I have sort of forgotten about being careful.  I take the first mixture from the bottom of the bag, and when I yank it out of the fridge, the dough promptly flies out of the bag and onto the floor!  URGH!!  I couldn't believe it!  Now, I know what you might be thinking, but I don't have a Food Handler's Certificate for nothing!  I throw the dropped batter right into the garbage, meaning I am now back down to half of the recipe.  Needless to say, I am very careful taking the other bag of batter from the fridge!  I try not to think that I have actually made more than one and a half of this recipe, but I will only be bringing half to work tomorrow!

And to make matters really sad, I still didn't quite get the oven temperature exactly where it needs to be, as this is a rather sensitive sugar cookie recipe, so some of the cookies are slightly overdone.  Sigh, nothing is ever easy, eh?

Although a lot of this baking fiasco was due to my silly, scattered brain, I would like to also blame it on the fact that I was preoccupied today thinking about issues I have in personal life, but really, I need to just settle down a little bit and stop letting that interfere with my day to day life!  In reality, I am actually pretty fortunate in so many ways.  I have a large group of wonderful friends, I enjoy my job working for government and feeling like I can make a difference, I still keep in touch with a huge number of people from my old job, and I have some great family members such as my sister.

Anyways, the long and short of it is that sometimes I focus too much on the things that worry me, such as when I will meet the right guy and associated relationship stuff, but I just need to calm down, look on the bright side, and realize that things really will work out fine in the end – just like my half batch of slightly burnt cookies, which I am sure will go over well enough in the meeting!

Thanks for reading this long and somewhat silly blog!  Take care and see you soon!

Love Matt :)

9:45 PM - 3 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

Goals for 2007
Current mood: contemplative

Well, as I have done for the past few years, I have developed goals for the year.  As Andrea mentioned in her blog, I prefer to call them goals and not resolutions, since I have a better chance of being successful if they are called the more friendly term of "goals."

One special note first: I am following up on a mind-blowing (to me) 2006.  Last year, I had 9 goals, one of them being the completely frightening goal of "come out of the closet."  Well, I must say, since successfully doing this in 2006, I feel so much better than I ever have in the past, and I am so much more positive and happy with where I am!  That being said, there are no similar "huge" goals (and no surprises!) to take care of this year, so I apologize if these aren't as exciting as last year's big one!

Here are my six goals for 2007, in no order (although I consider goals 3-6 the more major ones):

1) Exercise Regularly – Especially since leaving the zoo, I have found that I have not invested enough time in this.  Although to be fair I do walk a minimum of 8 long blocks every weekday, because my bus stop is on Portage and I work on Broadway.  However, I still need to exercise more.  I bought rollerblades a few years ago, and have only used them once!  Maybe I could do that, or at least run around my west end block every now and then!  (I will be easy on myself in regards to measuring success, but I just need to do something more in this area!)

2) Eat Healthier – I have noticed that since I have been living on my own the past 3 months, I have not been eating healthy at all.  It's not that I eat a lot of junk food, but rather that lots of times I just skip meals for whatever reason (something I did too much when I was at the zoo as well), and I certainly don't eat enough fruits and vegetables.  This is not good, and I really need to take time out to prepare healthy food and just eat healthier and more balanced foods.

3) Write More – I have always enjoyed creative writing, but I have always done lots of writing at work, so I often go for long periods without any creative writing.  I have Zoo Food Services Memoirs to write, a couple of stories on the go (one has been in progress for years, how embarrassing to not be anywhere near finished) and now I have blogging to do on myspace!  I am going to really endeavour to do more creative writing this year, because I find it really enhances my general day-day thinking, and it also seems to put me in a happier, more positive frame of mind.

4) Relationship Building – OK, I realize that title sounds a little corny, but I do HR work for government, so phrases like that come very easily to me!!  Haha, anyways, I know a lot of people in my family don't understand me for who I am, and rather than just ignore the issue, I really want to make an effort to help them understand that me being gay is not the end of the world and is not what they assume it means based on stereotypes they think and the like.  As well, me having different ideas about them, whether it is about my own spiritual beliefs, being socially liberal, being gay, etc. is OK.  I need to do a better job of trying to help them understand, and be a bridge rather than a wall.  (Sorry if that sounds silly again!)

5) Making Time for Friends – I was REALLY bad about working long hours at the zoo for years and having schoolwork to do and always being busy.  Although I think I can be a supportive friend and a good listener, I would like to make a goal for this year to really make time for others, listen to what is going on in my friends' lives, and be there for my friends whenever they need me to be.  I have learned a lot about myself in 2006, and one of them is that while I have a tendency to get really wrapped up with my work, relationships with the people around me are extremely important to me.  I want 2007 to be a year where my investment in time with my friends (quality and quantity) goes up and not down.

6) Clear Communication – I think 2006 was the year where I finally stopped being evasive with my friends and family about who I am.  That being said, I really want to work on developing even more open and honest communication with the people around me.  From my personal experiences, as well as my work experiences at the zoo and with government, I have come to a conclusion that open, honest, and clear communication is one of the key ingredients to success in anything.  My final goal for 2007 is to continue developing this skill in myself.

Well, there you have it, my goals for 2007!  I'm glad I have myspace this year so I can clearly share them with people!  I guess by posting them like this I have even more motivation to really make some of these things happen this year ;)

If you are still reading this long post, then you are amazing, and thanks for being in my life :)

Talk to you soon - Matt

10:55 PM - 6 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment