Oh to be a fortunate elitist with a debt of thirty five grand.

I'm sitting at my desk on Tuesday and up comes the real life version of Wario from the Marios Bros saga who is overseeing my project. Yes that's right I work with a short stalkey Italian man who laughs with a weasely tone only after making belligerent comments towards women and what either of us could and would do to them; he's quite awesome really. So he walks up to me and asks if I wouldn't mind holding a meeting with the director of development for the health care system in Trinidad and Tobago. Since my natural element is presentation, and talking with people, I obliged without a problem.

Two o'clock roles around and in comes one of the nicest trinidadians I have ever met. Keep in mind I have only really met Canadian-Trinidadians, mostly attractive women my age, whom I went to school with, so he kind of had the nicest trinidadian competition locked down anyways. Regardless, I sit down for about an hour with him and tell him all about my project. How we are establishing phase 1 of a regional cancer program in the attempt to decrease service wait times in Ontario with the ultimate goal to centralize hospital funding as a cohesive unit across the central east region. I showed him my data collection methods, the means by which I go about holding interviews, the means by which I collect and present data, and so on and so forth.

This guy's mind is blown by the work I have done this summer, saying that he has hired consultants for the past 8 months back home who haven't even broken the mold of what I have completed in the past four with no previous health care experience. Now this entry is not intended to toot my own horn, though I am glad I just got to use that expression, its more of a comment of awe at the fact that this guy was so impressed with my basic research method tactics that I pulled out of an introductory text book from a required class that I took in my last term at Western.

The educational gap between the millennium baby (born from 81-85) is mind blowing compared to the generation before us. This guy could not believe my technical ability with base programs that have been sitting on his desktop since 1997 (im using excel) and he was a bucket of slander for those who he had hired back home doing the same work at a much smaller success rate than that which I am pulling off.

I am blessed to have been educated in a Canadian university during a technological boom, and it really shone through yesterday when the global hierarchy of knowledge unveiled itself in the conference room behind my desk. The best part of the whole thing is that he insisted he take my contact information and inquired as to whether or not I would like to be living in Trinidad for some winter months if any more consultant work were to arise.
I (swallowing a gigantic grin) was very professional, passed him my card, said keep in touch, and that Im sure I would love Trinidad for some work. Who knows where this will go, but its fun to know that someone in Trinidad is sporting a business card with my name on it, touting my research contract abilities to a bunch of islanders who have probably been doing this for twenty years.

Even more funny is the fact that I hate research methods, loathed the class, went like 4 times throughout the year, skimmed through the text book on the lawn outside the exam room before the test, and thanks to presentation skills somehow managed a low B from the course, even though the professor clearly knew I put in no effort towards the lessons she had planned.

Bless the gift of gab people, talk to yourself in the mirror, it'll help in the long run.
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On a very cool note, once I got home yesterday, what awaited my arrival, but a small litter of baby raccoons hanging out under our front porch. Apparently the neighbours saw the mother trying to move the liter but once all the human activity started up she left three of the five babies in our front garden to await a later move date. They were the damn near cutest things I have ever seen and wished I had a camera. Especially when the overly aggressive pup (is that what you call a baby Raccoon) came out from the shrubs and circled all the humans watching the little trio.
I thought raccoons were nocturnal unless rabid, so who knows how gentle of a creature these things were, but their foamy little mouths were adorable.

posted by mr. tomas ubik @ Wednesday, August 17, 2005