A Canberra Handshake

Abstract:
bus; interview; I can communicate well?; I'm also competent?; Canberra handshake; Glease is the word!; facebook and nap; a trip to Spain (and IGA); someday I'll have a real kitchen with the actual appliances I need!

I had my interview/time to make sure I wasn't a psychopath at Big Improvements tutoring this morning. I had to wake up at like 8 this morning so that I was sure that I could make it to the bus stop on time. I definitely did not want to be late for my interview. That would look so bad.

So, I took the bus there. Again, it was to a different part of Canberra than I had been before. Actually, I went past a place that I was two years ago. I passed Lyneham Motor Inn on the way to Kaleen, the suburb where Big Improvements is. Lyneham Motor Inn was where we stayed during NTE two years ago. Good times! (and I just finished that portion of my memoir a couple of days ago!)

It was easy to find when I got there. Google maps and street view is pretty awesome like that. I went up to Michael's house. He and his wife founded Big Improvements. On Wednesday afternoons, the tutoring is at their house and on the other days it's at the church nearby.

Michael was really nice and his daughter is super cute and kept interrupting us. Michael said that I had great communication skills over the phone. I definitely have never heard anyone compliment my communication skills before! I guess that I'll credit the Hope career centre and Dr. Nemeth for making me do that mock interview thing for sociology capstone. I also listed that I was timid as a one of my weaknesses for my application, but he didn't think that I had a problem with that. My mom says it's because I'm maturing now. haha. But really, it was weird to hear that.

I think that Michael's really excited for me to start working for them, though. (and I'm excited to start tutoring again. I miss Upward Bound!) He said that he never schedules anyone to work before actually meeting them in person, but he did for me. He texted me on Monday to see if I wanted to work on Thursday. He said that I seemed competent over the phone, which is really surprising considering that it woke me up, and I have lots of experience with tutoring so he knew I'd be fine.

At one point of the interview, he was preparing me for meeting with the parents. We never met with the parents during Upward Bound, so this was new to me. He was trying to get me to do a "Canberra handshake." He said that almost all of the parents are in public service and expect things to be very formal or something. He wanted to make sure that I could a Canberra handshake, which is apparently a very firm handshake. It took me a little practice.

Another girl came to be interviewed toward the end of my interview. Clearly that was when the interview was over. I left to go to the bus stop. Because of the time, I went to a different bus stop than the one across the street from where I got dropped off. I was listening to Glease on my zune and I couldn't help but dance along with the moves from Nykerk. It's a Nykerk song girl alum hazard. People driving passed probably thought I was crazy. Well, I guess they aren't too far off. The bus was a few minutes late, which confused me, but it came so it was fine.

After I got home, I talked to my parents and Jacki online. They're all together, but I was talking to the separately on facebook. How silly! Then I got tired and took a nap. Boy was I exhausted. I had a very hard time waking up!

Then I went on pinterest because that's what I do with my spare time now. I also tried to get a hold of Janice because we were going to get fish and chips. Apparently she forgot! That was fine because I didn't really want to get fish and chips and I wanted to make tortilla espanola.

The first and only time that I ever had tortilla espanola was when my sister, Jillian, was studying abroad in Spain and my parents and I went to visit her. Her host mom made dinner for us one night and I fell in love with tortilla espanola. So, I found a recipe online, but I'm not sure what reminded me of it since I didn't find the recipe on pinterest and it had been over 7 years since I had it. (Hey Jillian, does it make you feel old that you studied abroad that long ago? It makes me feel old to think that it's already been two years for me!)

Before I could make it, I had to go to IGA to get more oil. I had to fry the potatoes, capsicum, and onion in 2-3 cups of olive oil. I had MAYBE two cups. I needed to get juice anyway. So, I went down to IGA. Apparently they're remodeling. The place was a mess and everything was moved around.

Of course the one thing that I needed was in the aisle that they were working on. There were carts full of stuff that they needed to put back and the shelf and what-not. But they let me through. I got the big thing of olive oil that said it was Spanish olive oil. I might as well get the stuff from Spain if I'm making a Spanish dish!

So I grabbed that, some orange juice, and skittles that I saw while waiting in line that I had to have. Also, I noticed that the grapes at IGA are way cheaper than the ones at SupaBarn. I may have to stock up there! (They were 6.99/kilo while SupaBarn had them for 12.99/kilo last week and 9.99/kilo earlier this week. They're so expensive here!)

I got home and made the tortilla espanola. It was so good! Although kind of expensive because it used a lot of olive oil. But maybe that's just because I paid more attention to how much the olive oil cost and it used almost the whole 1 litre bottle. (3 cups=750 ml)

Now I've just been relaxing and looking up recipes of things that I want to make on pinterest. That site really makes me wish that I was a real adult with a real kitchen that had a stand mixer and a blender and a full size stove and an ice cream maker. Ok, most kitchens don't have an ice cream maker, I don't think, but I really wanted to make a recipe that I found for a Wendy's Frosty, like the chocolate ice cream thing from the fast food chain. But I couldn't because I didn't have a mixer or an ice cream maker. So sad!