Umm, could you provide a definition please?

*I began this post with an actual point, however the context section became a post of it’s own. This will be Part 1. Part 2 will follow after some feedback perhaps.*

Remember in kindergarten when everyone was your friend?

And then in elementary school when your group of friends was determined by the people who wanted to play the same thing with you at recess?

High school came along and then friends became the people who were like you – preps, jocks, band geeks, skater kids (at least so it was in my All-American high school transplanted into suburban Ontario, resulting in a cross between Saved by the Bell and Dawson’s Creek – cool principal and teacher dating student scandal and all)

And that brings us to…well, now. Adulthood, I guess you could call it. The beginning of “real life”. Real jobs, real responsibility, real freedom…all those realities. I’m finding that one of those realities you’ve got to deal with is who is your friend and who isn’t.

For the first time in my life, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to define who (and what) I’d consider a friend. I’ve been lucky I guess, since for the most part of my life the hardest thing I had to differentiate was who was a close friend and who was “just” a friend.

Enter university. Or rather, I entered university. For the first time, I was exposed to a social scene where people not gossiping meant people were gossiping, where even if you weren’t friends with someone you had to pretend to be to save face, where for the sake of social standing you had to remain friends with someone even if they’d stabbed you in the back. Now I don’t mean to say that I never dealt with this in high school. I did. There were the confrontations in the hallways, cliques being split down the middle because of a break up, vicious rumours spread that could only be believed in high school – plus all the stuff other people were doing. =P But it was never like this.

Part of the trouble stems from the fact that I can’t understand how adults (or people on the brink of adulthood) are still involved in such stupid drama. I mean, sure we all did it in high school, but that was high school. It was a rite of passage. You do it there so you get it out of your system and move on after graduation. It’s like the chicken pox – you get it once and then never again.

I guess the other part is that the close friends I have made have sort of been this revolving door phenomenon. They come in and then something happens – a fight, some third party drama, an event – and out they go. Mix that in with the drama mentioned earlier and you’re trying to survive a social scene littered with carnage. Broken promises, broken bonds, and broken friendships. But on the surface – all is well.

Like any good battlefield, you need to know who your allies are. How can you know? How do you determine who’s in and who’s not? Who to trust and who not to? Who’s a friend and who’s a close friend? I think I’ve figured out an easy, albeit kinda stupid way to figure this out, but what do you all have to say?

How much a good shopping trip is really worth...

So last week at work, I had a really bad day. Like it was one of those days when not only do you not have any real work, but the work you did do comes back all wrong and you're feeling bullied by your co-workers and the more you hide in your office, the more stuff outside your office goes wrong.

As a result, I decided to reward myself with a shopping trip. So off I go to this mall that I heard has amazing stores at outlet prices. I thought, This will be a nice little pick me up. I can get myself a new wardrobe for $5. =P Because the outlets were a bit of a hike, I decided to hop on the subway and head on over. As I got out of my stop, to my horror, I learned, buses stopped running. Of course, why expect anything different if you're taking the TTC? *rolls eyes* Now I was determined to give myself this pick me up. No stupid bus cancellation was going to stop me from my shopping trip!

Being the resourceful girl I am, I flag down a school bus and persuade the driver to give me a ride. Okay, no, more like it was them that saw me walking on the side of the road and offered to give me a ride since they were obviously heading in my direction. I learned as I accepted this offer and took my seat that it was a church group, also heading to the same mall I was going. I dunno...maybe it was a trip to boost group morale? I was on this trip to boost my morale, wasn't it?

To my shock, as I saw down, who was sitting across from me??? A co-worker of mine! He and my manager were quite good friends from what I gathered at work. He was a very nice young gentleman. Reminded me of boys from home. (hometown, not the other "back home") But the strange this was, he was acting like he didn't know me. For some reason, the entire group was calling him by a different name. And a name I had never heard him being called before (this co-worker of mine is one with name nicknames).

I guess the church group had one more stop to make on it's way before we reached the mall. They stopped over and picked up some girl. Of course this girl had to choose to sit beside. And of course she had to want to take up the entire seat. And of course she had to start elbowing. And I had to elbow back. And then she started screaming and crying. And NO, she wasn't 5. This was a 20 year old girl here, ladies and gentlemen. Well the advantage of being a crybaby in this church group versus being the hitchhiker they picked up on the side of the road? The church group believes the crybaby. I was removed to the back of the bus, and get this - they put my co-worker on guard duty! Like I posed a greater risk than Elbow McElbow-Face!

Whatever! That's all I was thinking by this point. I'm gonna get to the mall and key the bus! Thankfully, though my co-worker acted like he didn't know me, he was still a lenient guard because he did recognize me. When we finally reached our destination, of course I couldn't go shopping yet? Why you may ask???....

...because the Business Manager from my old job was there! Like right there in the middle of the main entrance to the mall, sitting herself down beside the stupid water fountain. Now given my current state of mind, this meeting was of course where I had to give her a piece of my mind. Out came everything - how I was mislead into accepting the position, how she distanced herself from all the real issues in the work place, how she let the manager run that place into the ground when she should have intervened - stuff I didn't even know came out of me.

At this point I walked off indignantly...walked away from the stupid day at work and the stupid church group and the stupid elbowing girl on the bus and the stupid Business Manager.

Oh, and did I mention this was all a dream?