September 27, 2008
September 24, 2008
September 21, 2008
Finally home from training @ White Oaks! Don't get me wrong, it was great (5 star resort come on =P) but of course there's no place like home! I'm glad we had a chance to go away for the week and spend time getting to know our colleagues better.
Hotels are really quite wasteful. Generally all the linens and towels are washed everyday...that's a heck of a lot of water and detergent! Many hotels nowadays in an effort of "being green" are giving guests the option of leaving a card out requesting that the linens not be changed but seriously, how many guests are actually remembering to leave that out? Likely not many. Maybe hotels should reverse the policy and require a card left out if the guest would like their linens changed. As well there was such a waste of bottled water. Bottled water in itself is not a particularly environmentally friendly choice. The better alternative should have been providing pitchers of water. The hotel threw out opened bottles of water every time they refreshed the rooms regardless of whether the bottles were finished or not (unless people put little "water saver" rings on them...but again, people don't do this stuff!). Soo very many bottles of water were thrown away. And even if people were actually finishing them, it would be better to not provide such an abundance of bottled water. There are just too many plastic bottles ending up in landfills. As well, bottled "spring" water is likely more contaminated than municipal water. Spring water at the source is tested something like every 2 years, Toronto drinking water is tested every 2 -3 minutes!
So next time you go to a hotel or want a sip of water, try to be a little more environmentally friendly =)
Hotels are really quite wasteful. Generally all the linens and towels are washed everyday...that's a heck of a lot of water and detergent! Many hotels nowadays in an effort of "being green" are giving guests the option of leaving a card out requesting that the linens not be changed but seriously, how many guests are actually remembering to leave that out? Likely not many. Maybe hotels should reverse the policy and require a card left out if the guest would like their linens changed. As well there was such a waste of bottled water. Bottled water in itself is not a particularly environmentally friendly choice. The better alternative should have been providing pitchers of water. The hotel threw out opened bottles of water every time they refreshed the rooms regardless of whether the bottles were finished or not (unless people put little "water saver" rings on them...but again, people don't do this stuff!). Soo very many bottles of water were thrown away. And even if people were actually finishing them, it would be better to not provide such an abundance of bottled water. There are just too many plastic bottles ending up in landfills. As well, bottled "spring" water is likely more contaminated than municipal water. Spring water at the source is tested something like every 2 years, Toronto drinking water is tested every 2 -3 minutes!
So next time you go to a hotel or want a sip of water, try to be a little more environmentally friendly =)
September 7, 2008
September 4, 2008
For a last minute, middle of the night, 5 hours before departure plan, mini weekend trip to Montreal, it was pretty fun! We managed to drive there in 6 hrs...which was pretty sweet. Unfortunately we couldn't get a room at the W!!!! I know, what a disappointment! Well we had to compensate by going to the second best lol, the Opus Hotel. It is a pretty nice little boutique hotel, the room was quite nice (the shower was really neat) and the restaurant downstairs was quite the happening place. Too bad the super chic lounge wasn't open!! =( Very lovely modern hotel and great service. Would definitely come here again (if we aren't able to get the W that is! hehe)
It was such a nice day, we went down to Old Montreal and there were so many people. It was sort of like Toronto's Harbourfront + Queens Quay area except MORE people and more "old-ish"....they had cobblestone like roads! Great for exploring by foot, but definitely not fun to drive on (as we learned the hard way!) lol. Had dinner at Jardin Nelson, a lovely outdoor restaurant with live jazz and crepes! =) What I love about Montreal is that the city just seems so much livelier. So many activities all around. Lovely patios and restaurants everywhere! No chain restaurants here for me baby! =P There are people about at literally every hour of the day! You can feel the excitement in the streets in the dead of the night! Oh and of course I can't go to Montreal without having Shawarma! mmmm...the ones there (and Laval) are like the best ones I've EVER had. Soooo yum!
Started work at the new place this week. It's really neat but I'm so very extremely exhausted!! All we been doing is intensive training all day everyday. My arms were close to falling off today from lugging my huge laptop bag and our 2 GINORMOUS training binders!!! OMG!!!! So heavy -_- Worst yet, all that material + 2 more equally sized binders need to be studied and in my little brain ready for writing CKE in January!!! And these binders aren't even comprehensive!! They're just like high level summaries of everything! >.< 4 years of university in 4 binders crammed into about 12 days of training and 1 day to test it all...I'm getting tres nervous!
So tiring waking up so early. I have to rise earlier than when I worked at MOE....6:00 am!!! Talk about pain! It takes me an hour to get to work, and that's even with me driving halfway there! Ergh I detest morning traffic.
Another intensive day of CKE training tomorrow...
thank goodness it's Friday! =)
It was such a nice day, we went down to Old Montreal and there were so many people. It was sort of like Toronto's Harbourfront + Queens Quay area except MORE people and more "old-ish"....they had cobblestone like roads! Great for exploring by foot, but definitely not fun to drive on (as we learned the hard way!) lol. Had dinner at Jardin Nelson, a lovely outdoor restaurant with live jazz and crepes! =) What I love about Montreal is that the city just seems so much livelier. So many activities all around. Lovely patios and restaurants everywhere! No chain restaurants here for me baby! =P There are people about at literally every hour of the day! You can feel the excitement in the streets in the dead of the night! Oh and of course I can't go to Montreal without having Shawarma! mmmm...the ones there (and Laval) are like the best ones I've EVER had. Soooo yum!
Started work at the new place this week. It's really neat but I'm so very extremely exhausted!! All we been doing is intensive training all day everyday. My arms were close to falling off today from lugging my huge laptop bag and our 2 GINORMOUS training binders!!! OMG!!!! So heavy -_- Worst yet, all that material + 2 more equally sized binders need to be studied and in my little brain ready for writing CKE in January!!! And these binders aren't even comprehensive!! They're just like high level summaries of everything! >.< 4 years of university in 4 binders crammed into about 12 days of training and 1 day to test it all...I'm getting tres nervous!
So tiring waking up so early. I have to rise earlier than when I worked at MOE....6:00 am!!! Talk about pain! It takes me an hour to get to work, and that's even with me driving halfway there! Ergh I detest morning traffic.
Another intensive day of CKE training tomorrow...
thank goodness it's Friday! =)
