My Holiday at a Glance

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Dec 24 - Drive home with Sana. I ended up meeting a fellow FI at StatsCan who knows all the DND FORD people. I cannot stress this enough: the finance community in Ottawa is small. 

Dec 25 - Crazy family Xmas dinner prepared by moi! It was a long night, but great time to spend with the kids. Regarding their parents though, let's say some things never change. 

Dec 26 - Drinks with the boys + gf at Coopers. I always wondered what these guys would look like in relationships, and I must say it's pretty adorable. 

Dec 27 - BBT with Candy. She's been through a lot since the last time I saw her during Thanksgiving, but it was great catching up. I've never known anyone more honest with their feelings. 

Dec 28 - Engagement day! (more on this later). Hung out with Steph, visited her condo, shopped downtown and met up with the happy couple for dinner at Kinton Ramen. Ran into Mike & friends and ended up going for drinks and Korean fried chicken afterwards with them. 

Dec 29 - Annual dim sum brunch with Thomas & friends at Emerald. Went to Lisha's party at her downtown condo. We played pervartistry and girls won, even though we were outnumbered 6-5. Fun!


The Remainder of My Holidays...
- Lunch at Panera Bread with Becky
- Coffee shop time with Denbo
- Downtown NYE's party with Charis, Seth & friends
- V time
- Hang out with Jacey & Mike downtown
- Drinks with Kevin at West 50
- Maybe Ripley's aquarium with my parents & my youngest brother's family
- Seth's bday at Etsu and karaoke at BarPlus
- Become a beggar on the street after spending too much, become obese from all the delicious food consumed, and pass out from exhaustion. 

Have a Merry Christmas

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When it comes to a dysfunctional family, the feelings of "happiness" and "love" is an anomaly. When it comes to my family, all reason and reasonable means of communication are thrown out the window. Instead, we scream, we swear at each other, we throw inanimate objects and we slam doors in a huff. All for the most inane of reasons. We stay angry for days, not talking to each other, and when we do, we are cursing each other off. Being on my own for so long, I forgot how hot-headed and temperamental my family is. Is this why my oldest brother decided to cut his family off? Is his psychotic personality a result of growing up in this family environment? Because I remember him being normal when he was younger. Am I going to turn into him in 17 years? Is this why he is bald? All important questions. 


I am laughing right now but I am sad. Really really sad. Merry Christmas, I guess? What's different now is that I now understand that my family is just like this and instead of trying to fight it, I am just laughing at it because that's all you can do. When they say hurtful things, remember that it's only out of anger and there is no shred of truth in it. The devil wants to put you down and make you fight back, scream, throw things, curse and say hurtful things back at the people you love. But what if you just walked away from the situation and let it cool down? Makes for a congenial environment. 

On to a positive note, I am home for Christmas, my loves. Play with me. 

Location: Mississauga Mississauga

Pray for Karson

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You spend the whole day worrying about trivial things, and then the reality of life happens. People get sick. They get really sick. So I pray for this man I don't even know, I pray with all my heart for this sick man's soul. I pray that he regain his life and live to know Your name, Lord.

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My brother is the devil.

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He is selfish. 
He is childish. 
He is callous. 
He is self righteous. 
He is cruel. 
He is tempermental. 

As much as it helped me grow, I never want to relive that one summer at home. Coming back does remind me why I ever left in the first place. I am traumatized, and I will always be as long as I live in fear. Unless something drastic changes, nothing will stay the same. I never enjoy walking away from a problem...

FMI - Wednesday

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FMI PD week is sponsored by the Financial Management Institute and is a conference for members of the financial community in Ottawa. It is held usually the last week of November, and has a host of different speakers every day. 


TBS (Treasury Board Secretariat) holds a FORD graduation, and we are the lucky graduates this year. As a result, we get one free FMI day above the one my department pays for. So I attended today's session with my FI-02 and Lt. Colonel. 

The keynote speaker was David Chilton, the author of the Wealthy Barber and one of the Dragons on Dragon's Den. His presentation was amazing. It is evident that he is a great speaker, a great storyteller and an overall great guy. He was telling us stories from Dragon's Den (and that Kevin O'Leary can be an ass in real life) and stories about his success as the author of Wealthy Barber. I have the book and kind of bummed I didn't do my due diligence to see that he was a keynotr speaker, or else I could've brought it for him to sign! 

He also talked about the state of Canada's economy and where it's heading. He also made a point im stating that no matter what people complaim about, Canadian 's quality of life is getting better. We are a spending nation and we always want the best of everything (why does everyone need granite counter tops?!), things we do not need, and using financial resources we do not have to fund this. He was talking about a woman who spent $60K on renovating her two bathrooms but when it came to funding her son's university education, she found she was struggling financially. We have never been more in debt. Then he talked about our number one hobby not being hockey, but complaining. We complain about everything! And we don't even realize how great our quality of life is. His speech really hit home. One of the best presentations I've ever heard, interesting and very funny too. 

The remaining sessions I chose to attend related to "International Perspectives" and dealt with Canada's role in the global finance sector. It wasn't as interesting as I wanted it to be. 

I love these events because it is a great networking event. Networking sounds so daunting, but when it's with people you like, it makes it so much fun! I never realized how many people I met in the finance industry after one year alone. The finance community is definitely small in Ottawa!

After the sessions, Melissa, Brian (other FORDs) and I went to Milestones for drinks and a much needed catch up session. It's so nice knowing people in your exact position but people you don't necessarily work with, to get perspective. Sometimes a little encouragement is all you need!

Anyway it is going to be incredibly busy in the next couple of days. I'll try to keep this thing updated.