A Dear Jay letter

Sometimes in life people say nice things to you. When you're not a nice person yourself, the chances of that happening are slimmer. Subsequently it amazes me when I bump into acquaintances or people I haven't seen in a long time tell me that they read this blog. It is Friday on what feels like the slowest day ever, so thanks for stopping by! A friend of mine wrote to me and said that my last post really struck a chord with him and we're getting together for a coffee and chat tomorrow. I am so excited to see my lovely friend again. On that positive note I begin my Dear Jay letter.

I was at the Raptors/Pacers game on Tuesday with the Turkish Community of Toronto (I wasn't lying when I said I have a very diverse group of friends). The last time I went to a Raptors game was in December 08 with my friend Jay and a few other friends. Being at Tuesday's game made me sad that Jay and I hadn't connected pretty much since that game in December. You see, Jay and I were lab benchmates in organic chemistry in second year university. And those aren't just friends you come by all the time; that kind of connection is eternal [insert irreversible organic chemistry reaction here].

I went to message him on Facebook but when I tried to search for him he wasn't there anymore. I don't know what saddened me more, the fact that I have no idea where he is now or the fact that the only point of contact I had with him was Facebook. Like Sarah Chan, his name is too common to Google, but maybe, just maybe, he'll stumble on this somehow. Sky writing is too expensive and we'd need a really long string for a can on each end, so BFF if you're out there -- I miss you.

Bye, Bye Birdie and what is sure to be copious amounts of "Mad Men" references

I’m staring at a package on my bed right now, afraid to open it as if it will self-destruct five seconds after opening Mission Impossible styles. The envelope contains my offer of employment. Yes, that’s right, as soon as I sign the dotted line I’m no longer funemployed. I’ll be saying bye-bye to my high flying fauxcialite life, waking up at noon, going to the gym for hours at a time and saying hello to leaving the house when it’s dark outside and returning when it’s as dark as it was when I left. But I’m running into the welcoming arms of full benefits and after work drinks (with real meaning that aren’t just drinks at 5 pm).

I’m working for an advertising agency; and it’s located north of Bloor. I’m scared of the world north of Bloor, but I’m willing to make the commute. I’m afraid to open the envelope because opening the envelope means after all the interviews I’ll have to actually start proving myself above and beyond my fantastic references. I’ll be working in accounts, and the Don Draper (Creative Director) of the firm already thinks I’ll get promoted quickly. Hot damn, I’m not going to climb this ladder, but Charleston my way up Pete Campbell styles.

But what about this blog? I wrote this particular entry while I was lamenting my lack of job prospects. Now that I’m signing a dotted line I know I’m not some kind of job search guru, but I will impart my timeless knowledge of recessionary job hunting anyway – because I can.

How to get a job in a recession Sarah Chan style:

1. Find amazing mentors
I owe a lot to my mentors; they’re there when I make frantic calls while walking to an interview when I have to ask when an appropriate time to discuss salary is. They answer my questions how to best answer those “weakness” questions that inevitably come up in an interview. They keep you down to earth when you get starry eyed at the prospect of too many job offers (because those tend not to happen). How do you find such great people? It’s much easier to build on a pre-existing relationship that you have, because the person knows you all the better. Look to experienced people in your own field so that they can tailor their advice to you. And look for people who you are comfortable getting advice from because when it comes to picking yourself off the ground and starting over, sometimes it isn’t the easiest to swallow.

2. Get off your ass and get ideas
Get up, get out of bed. You won’t find a job in bed (it would be a very different job then) so you need to get out there and be seen, how else will they find out how great you are? I struggled with this for sure. I have a lot of pride and not working was a huge blow to my ego, I started withdrawing socially and not leaving the house because I felt I would always have to explain myself. Finally, at the advice of my mentor, I went out to an alumni event thrown my by alma mater where I ended up talking to an MBA grad who asked me what I thought I wanted to do. He asked if I belonged to any professional associations and I said it would be hard to since I wasn’t exactly a professional. (See what I mean by not taking advice well?) He said it would be beneficial to keep on top of the hot topics that were going on in the field I was interested in. This is what brought me to volunteering with the Canadian Marketing Association.

3. Volunteer and schmooze your way into everyone loving you
When I was in university I used to volunteer until my fingers pretty much bled. Then I started working the 9-5 accompanied with some erratic after work meetings and my volunteering pretty much got shot to hell because I wasn’t able to make a year-long commitment. I forgot about how much I loved volunteering. Plus it was also another way to stave off boredom and get myself out of the house. You make a much bigger impression on people when you volunteer in their office. And you really can only do this when you aren’t working, so why not? I worked two days a week for the AIDS Committee of Toronto and recently bumped into their Development Finance Officer on the subway platform recently and told him about my new job, he said that I could definitely put him down as a reference for the future. Score.

My work with the Canadian Marketing Association was a little less altruistic, I wanted to attend a conference, but damn those conference fees are expensive. So instead I asked if I could volunteer. Half an hour of doing registration got me in to see all the speakers and eat all the food. Hell, I’m still a student who does pretty much anything for free food. I originally intended to stalk erm…get the contact information of the lunch keynote speaker who is the CEO of Credit Valley Hospital, but before lunch started I took a chance and changed my seat to find some new people to talk to. It’s hard enough explaining to your friends why you have to pull out of a social engagement for lack of funds, it is worse still explaining to executive business women why there isn’t a company attached to your nametag at this conference. I ended up being passed a card from the Managing Director of the company I am now going to work for.

4. Follow up, follow up, follow up
When someone hands you a business card you should do the following things: read it, flip it over just to see if there’s anything and the back and then put it somewhere where it won’t get crushed. Don’t just shove it in your pocket without looking, it demonstrates disinterest. But then don’t just let it sit in your wallet/portfolio/card holder/pocket; you need to act on it. Most people don’t just hand their cards out to anyone, unless they’re complete tools, and especially when you don’t have a card to trade back, the ball is in your court buddy. Do something with it or else it is your missed opportunity, your fault.

5. It’s the little things
I love mail. I love getting postcards from my friends’ travels from around the world and every now and again a letter from a dear friend who has taken the time to write. I do own a pretty kick-ass assortment of thank you cards. I send out a thank you card to everyone who takes the time to meet with me whether for an information interview or a first interview. I think it just goes the extra mile, substantially further than an email. Joan Holloway would agree, but she’d probably send scotch too. Sometimes I get a little sad when the card isn’t acknowledged right away, but when you emailed that person later on, they will always reply that it’s good to hear from you and thank you for your note. Point – you. Send holiday cards to your contacts, I know it might sound trite and maybe a bit silly, but the holidays are the one point of contact you can have without asking for anything. You remind them you're alive and kicking and they know that you're keeping them in mind too. Keep it simple, silly!

6. Lather, rinse, and hopefully not need to repeat
After all that schmaltzing hopefully you have the skills to back you up and the confidence to state why your science degree is more useful to this company than the normal commerce/marketing degrees they look for. And you will likely have to explain one more time why you aren’t going to be a gym teacher, ever. Let’s rip the envelope open.

See you on the 9-5.
P.S. Count the “Mad Men” references!

Everything will be ok – and other lies we tell ourselves

Here are some things you should know about me: I can predict the future. But only a fraction of a second before someone admits something serious to me, and then I need a glass of water to wash down how far my foot has gone down my throat. Second: I enjoy a tipple every now and again. Some days I keep it classy like a bride (one glass of champagne and water the rest of the night) and other times, well … the ellipse speaks for itself. Third: I have the great privilege of having an incredibly diverse group of friends. Sometimes when you throw them all in one room it’s hard to see how they all fit, and I love them all just the same.

My group of friends is so diverse because I’m not quite sure where I fit right now, a quarter life crisis if you will. Someone asked me how I was going to change the world, and channeling my inner Trudeau (who only appears when I'm under the influence) I said “just watch me.” These are some of the lies we tell ourselves. I’m not quite sure how he’s going to change the world either, he works for Goldman Sachs after all. That’s okay, he doesn’t read this blog anyway – but maybe he should. After such a long exposition, I’ll finally get to my thesis statement: regardless of how free floating I am right now, I’m going to land where I belong because, from what I’ve seen, everyone eventually does.

Just like any mediocre high school essay I’ll also come up with three arguments to defend my thesis. It all takes place in one event filled week.

Case Study #1

Monday: I was invited to a first year medicine post-exam celebration at a bar. Do I pass up husband hunting opportunities? Never. Medical students are just like you think they are. I was thinking to myself that I could definitely see myself as a patient etherized on a table (T.S. Eliot, anyone?) staring up at these people and confidently say, “Yes, these are my doctors.” They’re the type that after the exam all they want to talk about is the exam in their anatomy lab groups while at a bar. They wear sensible footwear, flats or low wedges and some even wear running shoes to a bar. And I don’t mean Chucks; I mean legit Asics or New Balance. Style/pragmatic tip (and not just for soon-to-be doctors): running shoes are meant for running. You’d think it sounds absurd, but you don’t wear Birkenstocks on a treadmill. Being Toronto, this is a wonderfully ethnically diverse crowd, immigrant children rising above adversity and filling minority quotients, this is truly the dream. But what baffled me, and perhaps in retrospect maybe it shouldn’t have, was that for the first time in my life the beloved bar staple “Don’t Stop Believin’” by Journey played at a bar and the entire place did not erupt in unanimous cheer and spontaneous fist pumping. Not even awkward white boy dancing was in sight. And then it dawned on me, perhaps these people got to where they are by not dancing on tables during their undergrad, maybe that’s where I went oh-so wrong. The DJ spun some top 40 too, and no one seemed to know “Down” by Jay Sean which is probably one of the most overplayed songs of today. And I get it; some people don’t turn on the radio or prefer classical music to aid their studies, that’s fine. But you can’t escape this song anywhere; I swear it plays when you go into a shoe store, a take-out shawarma place, and when you get your haircut. Don’t medical students do these things? And you can’t tell me that they are too much against “the man” to listen to top 40, they aren’t hipsters. Because if there’s one broad sweeping generalization that I am nearly 99.9% sure of is that hipsters don’t go to medical school.

Case Study #2

Tuesday: One thing a hipster might be is a writer, or maybe a poet. Maybe that’s emo kids, I’m honest to God not at all sure what the hell hipsters do with their time. The literary group is not one that I’m all too familiar with, but I felt the Giller Light Bash (congratulations Linden MacIntyre) would be a good introduction to aspiring writers and those who dabble in publishing. This group is not dissimilar to a lot of groups you may have seen in high school. The trendsters wearing less sensible shoes show up fashionably late (so as to spend less time in painful shoes?), and this crowd is a lot more artsy so there were interesting and colourful outfits to be sure. One thing I noticed was how the crowd seemed kind of short. Maybe because I was wearing 3 ½ inch heels and haven’t worn a pair of sensible shoes since 2007 (again, perhaps why I’m not a doctor), but I was at par, if not taller than a lot of the men in the room. Perhaps being a writer doesn’t involve as much in-person competition in meetings etc. thusly one does not need to be as physically imposing (see Case Study #3). Moreover, to my dismay, this group of people is seemingly not very good at listening. At several points in the evening the host, Lainey (!) spoke and was completely drowned out by a crowd that could not pause in hearing themselves talk.

Case Study #3

Saturday: And speaking of people who love to hear themselves talk, it brings me great pleasure to examine my final group of people who certainly belong together. Saturday brought out the best of the brightest of young Toronto alumni from my alma mater (I think my sarcasm metre just exploded). This semi-formal event brings out all the former student government types, who now all work as consultants, as well as lawyers, bankers and other finance types. In terms of analyzing what people are wearing, this group has an unfair advantage that the event called for semi formal attire, but really these gentlemen live in suits, so it probably wasn’t a far stretch in their closets. I do love the power ties though and the silent competition of whose can be more imposing. Also these men are almost all over six feet; naturally I was wearing 3 inch stilettos but this time I might have reached people’s noses. (unless that’s because their noses were so high in the air. Hey-o!) Oh but the ladies, they’re always my favourite. There must be something about working in corporate that makes people always dress in black on black. But it’s the weekend! Add some colour; it can’t physically harm a person. But I suppose black is the most slimming colour, after all this is a group of women that drinks vodka water. I thought I was serious about calories by drinking (six too many) vodka sodas, but once again I’ve been outdone. Vodka water – it gets you drunk and rehydrates you all at the same time! Few pairs of sensible shoes here, rather copious pairs of pointed toed black (duh) pumps. The pointed toe inflicts a vast amount more pain when they kick you in the shin should you get in their way.

I’m still not sure if I fit with any of these groups of people; I’d like to say I have the immigrant dreams of the doctors, the artsy flair of the writers and the ability to avoid getting a stiletto heel stuck in subway grates of the financers. But all of this doesn’t matter because everything is going to be okay, I’m sure of it. All of these people have found their way to each other, while it might take me a bit longer I’m sure I’ll find mine too and it’ll be just like going home. So if there are any sardonic, style-conscious, judgmental bloggers out there – call me.

“R is the most menacing letter in the English alphabet –that’s why they call it murder and not muckduck.”

If you are expecting a comical analysis of “The Office” turn back now. No, wait! Stay, I promise this could still be good, think less Jim Halpert more Steven Harper. Oh God, that’ll just scare you off even more.

I was thinking about the letter R, as it often pervades my thoughts. And I think it’s true it could very well be the most menacing letter. I take my cue from a letter to the editor that was published in the October 12, 2009 issue of Maclean’s.

Broken, dysfunctional, boring: many adjectives could be applied to our less-than-perfect governmental arrangements (“Canadian democracy is broken,” National, Sept. 28). There is obviously much room for improvement. However imperfect it may be, we do have a constitutional, liberal democracy. This permits political aspirations to be achieved by peaceful evolution as opposed to violent revolutions. Like most people, I’ll take evolution over revolution. Thanks for your leadership on an important issue.

And there it is, with the addition of the letter R we can change from an evolution to a revolution. Perhaps that doesn’t sound that menacing to you, per se. But that just might be my entire point. As Canadians, we tend to live a pretty cushy life. I’m not saying we’re perfect but the fact that you’re reading this is because you have access to the internet and the ability to read as a result of free education.

One time I was asked to define Canadian culture as part of a phone interview. I said something about multiculturalism and that’s how people see Canada when I travel abroad. (I was also asked to define British culture too – that one didn’t go so well.) Then what is Canada? What defining features do we have? Luckily (depending on who you ask) we’ve always been a democratic country. Granted, the right to vote didn’t quite belong to everyone at all times, but this has always been a “free” country. That’s why everyone comes here, because we’re just so relaxed. However we may be too relaxed as our way of life seems to breed a certain amount of political apathy, especially in youth.

In the last federal election, voter turnout was 59.1%– the lowest in Canadian history. 40.9% of people decided they just didn’t care enough to vote. To a point I understand one’s frustrations over the state of government in this fine country. I’ve only been legal to vote for four years and somehow I’ve voted (provincially and federal) each year since then. That doesn’t seem quite right.

But why not vote? It’s one of strongest voices we do have, and it’s not physically that difficult. Women have fought for the right to vote, what would the Famous Five think of young women saying they just don’t know enough about the issues to vote? Apathy is not the answer. There have been wars to fight for democracy. And no, I’m not talking about the Iraq invasion. November is a special time and particularly this year. We remember those who died in the great wars which again we are so fortunate to not have lived through. This year also marks twenty years since the fall of the Berlin Wall.

I spent one night and two days in Berlin while backpacking through Europe this summer. To me, it is an enchanting city. It’s so rich with historical significance and what an utterly unique city it is. I read a great article in the Globe and Mail this weekend that spoke of a woman living in East Germany who was imprisoned for holding up a banner reading “For an open country with free people”. She is 40 now, meaning she was just 20 at the time. People cared; because if you take something away, people will start to care. You don’t truly understand freedom until you’ve had it taken away.

I admit I didn’t always have such an interest in the Berlin Wall; after all I was two years old when it came down. There must have been shockwaves sent around the world. I’ve only seen the reaction to the Kennedy assassination as pictured in “Mad Men”. I do remember when the World Trade Center went down; I was wandering the stairwell on my spare period in grade ten. I suppose at that time I couldn’t really fathom the effect it would have. So where will you be the next time something world-changing happens?

Be a part of the change – vote and pay attention to the issues that surround us outside of your Twitter and Facebook newsfeed. Maybe we need that menacing letter R to light a fire under our collective asses. Canadians (at least 40.9% of us) have not been part of the evolution for too long, maybe we might need a bit of revolution. And Happy 20^th Birthday Berlin.

It's my birthday in about five months

I found the best present for me; so remember these awesome cards come time for my birthday. I know Christmas comes first, but birthdays are the ultimate in self-centred holidays because they're all about the individual (me!). These cards are so awesome for a lover of fonts like me, but I feel like they can only be given to another font lover. We're out there, I just know it. Thanks to the Globe and Mail Style Counsel emails for finding them for me (and all other subscribers). I'm just sharing the font love!

Long live the [prom] queen – why high school TV dramas will never die

Growing up is hard. I’ve been faced with two hard questions as I continue to transition on in life: 1. When do I have to dissolve my fictitious Facebook marriage to my old housemate? and 2. What age is too old to be watching high school TV dramas? The answer to at least the latter question is never, because we’ll always have Paris er… high school.

High school: a four (or five, that’s okay) year chunk of life that is supposed to be the best time of your life. Or was that university? Or was it your early twenties? Frankly, I haven’t the slightest clue – every phase of life that I go through someone seems to tell me that it is the definitive “time of my life”. Funny, they don’t make that many shows about unemployed university grads. In any case, high school drama – the catty immaturity, the questionable fashion choices, the breakups, the friends forever delusion and sometimes even the educational portion make for riveting television. However, the CW network has low standards for what riveting really means. Ah, the CW, the amalgamation of The WB and UPN, whose bread and butter survives off of ridiculously good looking 20-somethings trying their best to suppress their chest hair to conceivably pass as sweet, naïve teenagers.

So why do we still watch? Just exactly who are we defined as, anyway? What age brackets are actually watching these shows? Are there enough 12-17 year old girls to drive Nielsen ratings? I can only surmise as to why those who are no longer in high school enjoy their primetime teen soaps.

We can start with those ridiculously good looking 20-somethings. I remember when “Degrassi: The Next Generation” first came out in 2001. They have kids who are just about the right age to play their teenaged counterparts, give or take one or two years. I think the first set of kids were supposed to be in grade 7 or 8 or something but for some reason I couldn’t wrap my head around how young the kids looked, so I wasn’t interested. Plus, it was so much more interesting to see what indecisive antics Joey Potter was up to that week on the creek, because she looked much more like the teen I strove to look like (less so now, trust me). Perhaps somehow in my nostalgia, I try to forget that I was an awkward, rail-thin, flat-chested teen and rather imagine myself as the curvy and leggy Serena Van der Woodsen. At least, I’m still awkward, that’s how I keep it real.

And high school was all about trying interpret your own sense of style, which really meant being trying to be trendy (I can explain the difference to you, I mean other than the well-known Yves Saint Laurent quote). So seeing the impeccably well dressed characters on “Gossip Girl” reinforces that I too wore the bare minimum to resemble my school uniform, always had perfectly blown out hair and never had a bad experiment with over-tweezing my eyebrows. Television also has a glossing effect by making everyone seem all that much quicker and wittier in high school. Everyone has snappier comebacks that we only wish we could have been instead of standing there slack jawed and pausing frequently in uncomfortable silences. A ridiculous number of cultural references are made in conversation that everyone else always seems to understand, and trust me; kids of today are investing their free times watching the shows you’re on, so they probably don’t have the mental capacity to process your Trotsky references. They have the lyrics of “I’m on a Boat” stored in their amygdala. Sorry. Perhaps the least realistic show with respect to dialogue had to be “Dawson’s Creek”, because no one ever talks like that. But I did learn some of my favourite vocabulary words from that show, and what is trash television if not for expanding the vernacular of their young viewers?

Most high school shows also tend to spare us freshman year, which if you’re most people is a year you probably want to forget anyway. Freshman year doesn’t make for good TV; it’s always better that we meet a group of already established friends and maybe throw one or two transfer students into their mix. And somehow, at one point, the heroine is always crowned homecoming or prom queen even if no one likes her (but the high school crowd is fickle, you see). We get to see our dream of being the captain of the [insert team sport here], cheerleader, top of our class, prom queen or valedictorian (sometimes several permutations of those options) all through the comfort of our own couches because we were probably pretty average ourselves.

And maybe it’s just me, but does it seem like shows jump the shark when the characters move to college/university? (Jump the shark, so you know, is a term that refers to the moment when a show rapidly declines thereafter. It references when the Fonz is about to jump over a shark on water skis on “Happy Days”, subsequently when the show went over its peak. See? Television can teach you things.) Maybe it is like real life, where everything seems all the more farfetched when the protective guise of high school is lifted. When you’re in high school you are the only fish in the pond, so it seems likely that in a small building/Podunk town, you are bound to run into the same people all the time. However, it’s convenient when ‘Fictional Institution C’ has always been right around the corner and magically all of our heroes and heroines are all on the same floor of their co-ed dorm? You don’t say?

I guess that’s what television is for: entertainment and escapism. Sign me up for those double Es. It’s no surprise that when I graduated high school I was voted to most likely “be hired by FOX to consult on tv dramas” (or something very similar to that), because I know my stuff -- that's pretty much like prom queen, right? That and TV dramas are incredibly formulaic, especially on FOX (Glee notwithstanding, watch Glee!). Be that as it may, I’ll be watching my high school drama for at least few more years, but I think my Facebook marriage is bound to last longer. That’s a real commitment.

Where are all the Remembrance Day decorations?

There goes Halloween, here comes Christmas. I haven't even seen a poppy box yet. I guess wars aren't quite as commercial as the holidays that sandwich it.


Here are some random musings that I quite enjoy:

I attended the Canadian Marketing Association Direct Marketing Conference last Wednesday where the Vice-President, Customer Based Management and Marketing Analytics of Rogers Wireless did a keynote. He likened a cell phone contract to being in a romantic relationship too! HA! I'm a marketing GENIUS and I didn't even know it.

I saw my first episode of "The Hills" last week too. Actually, that's a lie I once saw an episode in my hostel in Florence, but the whole thing was dubbed over in Italian. Though, I'm still pretty sure I got the gist of it because I certainly felt dumber by the end. Maybe that was because of the high culture and historic learning I had partaken earlier in the day. In any case, I read this review of last week's episode on nymag. I couldn't agree more with this whole first paragraph:

If we learned anything this week from The Hills (and we’re not sure we did), it’s that taking shots alone at the bar is not a good idea. We actually haven’t taken any sort of shot since college, when an Absolut Citron fad caused us to lose our lunch many, many times. This is embarrassing, but sophomore year, we (and our friends) used to take like four shots ... before we even went out. Did we all have problems, like Holly? Maybe. But we’ve reformed, and now we’re that lame-o who declines group shots, even on birthdays. And to the people who get annoyed by this — would you rather us puke on your nice shoes? No, we think not. Which brings us back to this week's episode, which also made us feel a little queasy at times.

This past weekend was one of my most hated fake holidays of the year -- however drinking in costume can lead to amusing points of conversation. If you don't know me, I generally gravitate to people in suits, I think there is nothing quite like a man in a well tailored suit. Here's a short conversation I had with someone I met at the Drake on Halloween and its silly result.

[Approaching a man in a suit]
Me: Who are you supposed a be? An investment banker?
Him: No, I'm something evil.
Me: Oh, so are you Goldman Sachs?
Him: That's the best answer I've heard all night.

That's only funny if you're up and up on the history of the "vampire octopus" that is GS. But it turned out he wasn't an investment banker in his non-costumed life either. Dear men: stop lying about what you do. Though I do take sick pleasure in taunting fake doctors and bankers, so try and pull a fast one on me.

Well that's the general amusement for me for now. Don't forget about the veterans this month! Buy a poppy.