Life in general has been knocking me down and kicking me while I'm trying to get up, but that's all there is to it - it's not how you fall, it's how you get up.

Recently finished my job last Friday and elected not to renew my contract due to another work obligation that would have started up on Sunday. It would've involved graveyard hours, but due to weather, they decided to postpone it "indefinitely." I found that out today. And I completely cleared out my schedule for this, and even made a point of climatizing my body for the graveyard hours (ie: not sleeping until 4AM, waking up at 10PM). So, does anyone have any use for someone who's pre-climatized for graveyard work?

So, in my downtime, I've tried to make an effort to clean my apartment, practice my Portuguese ("O qui nao mata engorda!"), and find more work. I've taken a few more steps, having finally emptied out the trash and cleaned up that massive pile of dishes that occupied the sink, then purchased a Portuguese-English dictionary (which, alas, has no swear words in it), and revised my website resume.

On the plus side, I've been getting work hosting Karaoke night at Scruffy McGuire's pub, which doesn't pay huge, but is a good side gig.

Will make more calls, will network, will get out of the apartment.

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I hate Monday.

I had what I thought was a cold since Friday night, but not feeling sick enough to stay home, I go in anyway. Realizing that there are other people who are sick in the office, I make a point of designing up a "biohazard" sign to tape to my chest as I do my job, and I also distribute them to the front desk. I get about 5 hours of work done before I am sent home. I'm also forced to cancel on a face-to-face with someone who I met on-line.

I really shoulda gotten that flu shot.

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For reasons unknown, I somehow managed to land a weekly gig hosting Karaoke night at the local watering hole. Doing training and getting familiarity with the equipment last night (Friday), I quickly got to know the ins and outs of karaoke, how difficult it is to get people to sing, and why it's a bad thing to be playing too much gangsta rap.

The first objective is to avoid the mistakes of previous hosts. Obviously, that means no monopolizing the mic time (outside of one song to warm up the crowd), no making creepy-creepy-gross-guy advances towards the female regulars of the pub (that's how my friends and I got rid of the first guy), and keeping songs with excessive swear words to a minimum (meaning that even though "Ode to My Car" by Adam Sandler happens to be in the song book, we're not supposed to use it).

So, with my one and only song to encourage the crowd to get up and sing, I did "She Bangs" by Ricky Martin, in the style of William Hung (Chinese-American accent and everything). I was actually admonished by one of the wait staff, who felt the need to indicate that we have many patrons of various ethnicities coming into the pub. I had to point out the fact that I'm Chinese. I have done the song about a dozen times in various karaoke bars and this is about the first time anyone's ever called me on it. But, point taken.

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