Being busy 24 hours - not possible!

        Sometimes it looks like I am working 24 hours. I know it is impossible and it's not true. I still sleep every night, but it is still very stressful life and I promised myself to go easy this year, to quit one job, to go to bed early, not to eat before going to bed - promises, promises...
 Well, I am still working 7 days a week. I do not eat after 9 pm. I still sleep less than 8 hours and my crazy cat keeps interrupting my very valuable sleep... I know, I know, it very dangerous.

  Sometimes I have to pay for my stressful lifestyle by high blood-pressure spikes, fibrillation attacks, what not. Well, I am just a human. I hate poverty. At the end of my month I have to have a couple of bucks in my account, extra I mean. I s it too much to ask? I still need my own place to live and I am sure it's reasonable wish, isn't it?

 And I am not going to count sheets of my bathroom tissue or dry and reuse my paper towel - no way. And I am still learning how to earn money om line, when I have time. What time? Sleeping time of course, what do you think? Well, I almost stopped cooking for myself. I buy canned sardines for lunch at work. There is always old fashioned oatmeal for breakfast or my old trusted friend fried egg with some quick salad from sealed plastic packages from supermarket, or with boiled potatoes on a side if I get lucky. Anything that does not take much time to cook.
   I read a lot when I can, it's my way of relaxation and not thinking about how stupid my life is because working like that is not good, even reckless and non productive and... stupid again. No one should work like that and I am not going to, may be just a little bit until I can afford not to, if i can... if I dare... if I'll be able to... I still need to save some money, those dirty pieces of paper that rules the world and my small life. I need them damn it, I really need them. Sorry, have to run. Time to go to work.

How I ordered a new Internet connection or...

...what's my mothers maiden name?

You might ask me: what is the link between Internet and my mother's name? I can tell you: it is very important to know it, because if you forget it, how you are supposed to get a new Internet connection or telephone line?

I am tired of good old Rogers. I've had it for 10 years I think(the Internet connection), and now with new technologies and companies, I need something new too, because old Rogers charges me more and more on top of it's current plan and other companies promise to give you more, at least it looks like it.

After some thinking and "googling"I called to Distributel, http://www.distributel.ca/ as they advertise unlimited bandwidth. Don't ask me , what it means, I do not know. Tried to learn, still don't know. Beyond my understanding, too stupid, I guess, technologically challenged, to be polite. But never mind. The fact is if it costs less, I'll take it. I need to save some money, at least money, that I do not have, because money that I have, well, not enough for anything.

Okay, to make long story short, I ordered their service on July 29 by phone. Today is August 5 and I am still waiting for somebody somehow to show up. Please, guys, show that you are genuine. Do something. Connect something to something, so I do not have to call you every day and diligently tell you my mothers name.

Are you absolutely sure, that you need to ask me it every day?

I've paid you already, just come,please.

No, life is not that simple. I have to call them again, today.

It's like a secret game, I just have to know the rules. I will call them and they will ask me my mother's name, as it is very important for them to know.

Do you want to know it too? No way! I cannot tell it. Its a very important secret between me and Distributel, ask them.

I already paid them $130 dollars for the right to ask me every day when I call them my mothers name. I hope one day they will get tired of asking me that, or may be they will remember it at last and just will come and connect me to a cheaper version of Internet.

I really and truly need it. Cross my heart, and hope to die, no kidding.

What do you have to lie about if you immigrated to Canada?

Every year about 250,000 permanent residents come to Canada. Sometimes more, sometimes less.

New immigrants come to seek old things: better life, more money, something better for themselves and their children.

Most of them are not rich. They saved some money, they are qualified to come and live in Canada, but most of them still facing on of the biggest problems: finding a job.

For me it was never a problem to find a job in my old country, but when I came to Canada and became immigrant, everything changed. Nobody needed me there.

To make things worse we moved to a small town south of Hamilton and there a middle aged immigrant woman with a thick European accent that betrayed you right away, without local experience and local education was completely out of place...

The worst thing was that nobody told me anything. I was walking around trying to find a job in all wrong places, places that would never in a million years hire me because they have a lot of qualified people with Canadian experience, who is eager to take the position: just pick and choose. But they never told me that and I continued to walk around, to send my resume, trying to get noticed, to get an interview.

And they would invite you , polite listen to you and very politely tell you that they will call you next week as soon as they would make a decision. And you sit and wait and they never call, because they never intended to call anyway.

That faceless politeness was more damaging than real rudeness.

It took me quite a while before I realised how everything worked, what unemployment meant to a reluctant immigrant, to any immigrant for that matter.

I was not better or worse than anybody else. It's just every employer tried to hire the best and I definitely did not fall into that category.

I needed a lot to learn. Well, if I was alone without a family, I would have left for sure and went to a big city, like Toronto, to get more chance and more experience, but I had to consider my family so I had to stay. I tought it would be better, I was wrong...

We bought a house, kids were going to school. I spent 10 long years in a small town of Brant county, without a job or education, reluctantly. Of course I was busy, helping my kids, my husband's business. Helping, helping, helping... Nothing to myself.

Finally I got some job at Tim Horton's. I had to lie about my education. I did not put on my resume that I was a University graduate, you do not need that to serve coffee and donuts, that's for sure. I learned that in order to get any small job, you have to go down, you have to forget a lot of stuff that you know in order to earn some money. You have to lie.

Now I am in Toronto. With my present employer I did not have to lie about my education.

May be because I work for a company, that was created by my compatriots, who needed me with all my education and more. But sometimes I think: what if I tried to get the same job but in a similar Canadian company, were all my bosses were Canadian born people, would I've been hired, especially if I did not lie about my education? Probably not.