Pack Your Bags

I always thought that when my teaching career was over, ('cause good lord, I'm terrible at this, I'm bound to get fired eventually!!) I'd like to have a job where you travel a lot. I love to fly and I figured it would be so glamourous to jet from destination to destination living it up in fancy hotels and spending my per diem on clothes and booze. Turns out, I was pretty much totally wrong.

Now, don't get me wrong, Saskatoon is hardly a glamourous, exotic destination. It's no Paris or New York or even Calgary. But I thought a week of living in a nice hotel and eating in nice restaurants would be awesome. It's totally not. I'm having a crappy time and I'm gonna tell you why whether you like it or not...

First of all my conference started Monday morning but they wouldn't pay for a hotel Sunday so I had to leave really early and drive up. I wasn't sure where I was going in S'Toon so I wanted to give myself lots of time. I spent two hours trying not to fall asleep driving only to arrive an hour early and have to hang out at Starbucks getting hopped up on caffeine. Did you know that wireless Internet isn't free at Starbucks? What's up with that, when I need to mortgage my house to afford a latte the least you an do is provide Wi-Fi...bastards.

Upon arriving at my conference I scan the room for the two people I know who are also attending. I don't see them so I find a spot where all three of us can sit and even tell someone that "these seats are taken", which is so high school and made me feel like a tit. Then the facilitator walked over and asked me if I picked up my name tag, but when I went to the registration table I discovered that neither one of those two bitches were going to show up, they'd canceled and not told me. BITCHES!! So at this point I realize that I'll be spending 4 days in this hell hole by myself, I don't even have anyone to go for dinner with.

So I figure, that's ok, no big deal, I'll have some quality "me" time. But then I remember that I'm boring and I don't even like me that much. The first night I drove to Safeway after my conference, picked up some food for the week and then went back to my hotel room, did my homework and was asleep by 10.

Day two I figure I can at least make use of my time and I book a spray tan for my sister's wedding, because I've got to do something to look half decent in the dress, and at least it's something to do on day 3. I head to the mall immediately after class only to find out that the mall closes at 5:30 (WTF? What happened to 6?) and I'm there a total of 10 minutes before I have to get something to eat and leave. I stop by the LuLu Lemon on my way back to my lonely hotel room only to find that the one thing I wanted to buy on this trip wasn't available in my size. F@#$!! I end up watching South Park and the Deadliest Catch on the phone with my boy and feeling sorry for myself. He's indifferent and can I please be quiet because he missed what Cartman just said.

Day 3 I get up early because I didn't do the reading for today. I head to Starbucks, curse the lack of free Internet, drink my expensive coffee and read the boring materials. The day drags at my class, but not enough for us to have time to discuss the readings which I got up early to read; we have to skip that part. Oh, well, at least I can leave. I go for my spray tan, immediately have reservations and visions of a bright orange lump in a bright blue dress coming down the aisle. I get my tan and realize that there's no way I can sleep in the beautiful, crisp, white sheets of my hotel bed because I'm gonna leave more brown streaks than a four year old who doesn't wipe properly. I head to the mall where I buy sweat pants and a sweat shirt. It's 25 degrees outside.

As I wander the mall, (which is open until 9...as it should be) I realize that I can't try anything on because I'll leave spray tan all over the inside of the clothes. I try to kill some time by trying on shoes but I just end up getting take-out Chinese, and a booster juice and I pout all the way back to the hotel where I eat and send text messages to my boyfriend who's at home where things are normal and good. I miss home.

So, long story short. I will not be signing up for any more conferences anytime soon, and travel is starting to seem a lot less glamorous than before, and I don't even like South Park anyways.