A Breif Update

All of my posts are freaking huge! If I actually got any traffic on this site, I'd STILL lose readers just because they'd be turned off by the length of my rants. So let me be brief today. Maybe I can continue this trend in the future and make all my posts more bite-sized.

Work today was pretty cool...I'm really getting to know my regulars, so we talk about random stuff when they come in, and I'm starting to feel like a member of the community. It's funny how weather seems to have such drastic effects on my mood: today was sunny and warm, clear blue skies and a mild breeze, and I felt GREAT all day! Sort of the "gee-it's-great-to-be-alive" feeling that seems incredibly schlocky when you look back on it, but which is so damned enjoyable at the time. So huzzah for warm spring days!

And I get to go home early tomorrow, to go to the Eatery with Jon and some of his pals and then play Super Monkey Ball Deluxe afterwards! Yay!!!

Waiting and Wanting

Ah Tuesdays, how I loathe thee. Or, perhaps more accurately, I loathe Jon's Tuesdays. Once again, I have been cuckolded by Quantum Mechanics. I am feeling very woebegone and there is much self-pitying and whimpering and deep-sighing. I consoled myself with Moe for a bit, but Moe left me for greener pastures (i.e. food-related ones), and I am now left, once again, to my own devices.

Got my sixth and final interview offer today. U of T, for April 16th. I know I'm a spoiled brat and there are plenty of people out there who'd LOVE to get an interview anywhere (and two months ago, if I'd heard that 6 of my 7 schools would offer me interviews, I'd have been thrilled!)...but Jesus fuck! Can't this end? I'm definately NOT enjoying this cross-country gallivanting stuff. I am starting to loathe planes with a passion previously reserved only for icicle lights (why, I ask you, why? I mean, okay, when there's snow around, it's kinda cool, but here in BC it's just another form of delusional behaviour. WE DON'T GET WINTER PEOPLE, DEAL WITH IT! Fake icicles are not going to make things any snowier, trust me!). Bah, I'm just feeling run-down lately.

Christ, the whining! I am one shrill bitch tonight!

So let me see...well, far be it for me to break this lovely trend I've established. Let's talk about Science World.

I volunteer at Science World. Mostly, this is office work...getting stuff organized for fundraisers and other events, typing up minutes from meetings, putting together promotional packages etc etc. But every once in a while, I get out there and mingle with the public doing exhibit interpretation (guiding people through the highlights of certain exhibits, of which Science World possesses many). Yesterday (Monday) was something altogether different, and far, far more terrifying.

This week is Spring Break for all the little elementary/junior high/high school kiddies, and because Mom and Dad get no corresponding break, they're desperate to shunt their children off somewhere where they are permitted (even encouraged) to run amok and be loud and messy and hyperactive. Science World provides such a venue. Last Monday, I spent what was possibly the longest three-hour chunk of time in the history of the universe making doodle tops. I was adrift, a solitary adult in a sea of 5, 6, 7 and 8 year olds, paper plate and marker in hand, showing an endless stream of children how to make tops that would DRAW ALL OVER EVERYTHING! Oh my god! Thrilling stuff!!!

Wanna know how to make one? Christ, I could do it in my sleep:
Take one paper plate. Punch a hole in the center. Push a marker through. Fix marker in place with two elastic bands, one on top, one on bottom, wound around and around as tightly as possible. Take lid off marker, spin top. Add paper clips strategically to give wieght and alter spin trajectory. Voila! Every parent's nightmare: something DESIGNED to write all over tables and floors with various markers.

Tomorrow, I go back. Tomorrow, I work with DUPLO (those oversized legos). God grant me strength.

Random Musings

Much to my chagrin, for the past few days (starting the day I left for Halifax) I have been experiencing fairly significant back pain. I have NEVER (okay, very rarely) had a sore back before...except after heavy full-time labour (wow...that sounds kinda ambiguous. Okay, NOT the pregnant kind.) when it was well-deserved. You know, someone whose opinion I'm sure I respected once told me that women have higher tolerance of pain than men...something to do with the whole giving birth thing (equivalent to a male passing a small cantaloupe through the urethra I believe). But I think I speak for a significant chunk of female wusses when I decry that as pure bunk (whoever you are, consider yourself disrespected!). I HATE pain. I cannot tolerate it. It makes me whiny and self-pitying and leads to a lot of limping around the house, interspersed with loud proclamations about the degree, location, and frequency of the pain. I consider myself lucky (as should anyone who hangs around me for significant periods of time) to inhabit a body that is generally pain-free. No migraines, no major cramping at ANY time of month, no stomach issues, and, until recently, no back pain. This must stop. The fate of the world, nay, the universe, rests on this pain ceasing, and soon.

On to other things. I am still waiting for U of freaking T to get back to me regarding an interview. Hell, at this point in time, I'd love to see a REJECTION envelope in my mailbox, so this dratted waiting game can finally be over! What are they doing out there? All the other schools have made their invites months ago, and some have even decided who they're accepting! Christ! I'm tired of waiting out here! Someone tell me I've been accepted somewhere so I can quit leapfrogging all over this god-forsaked country, spending oodles of (my parents') money, wasting my time, and abandoning Jon on a weekly basis.

In other news, I spent my St Patrick's day cuddling with the man I love, drinking Guinness (laced with port), and watching Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Screw green beer and copious partying, THIS was a great evening.

Gotta go, Moe is eating my shoe.

Biding My Time

Wow...remember how, in my last post, I complained about being really tired when I got back from Calgary? Damn yo...that weren't nothin' compared to how dead I am right now, and this is AFTER I've taken a good 4 hour nap.

I got in five or so hours ago from my cross-country oddyssey to Halifax. I've never been so tired that I was actually physically shaking before--little muscle tremors kept on chasing each other over my arms and legs--and I never want to be again. Thanks, but I LIKE being able to focus my eyes.

Jet lag sucks ass...especially when you never really get the opportunity to recover from it. I mean, I've had these freaking interviews like clockwork every weekend for the past month (and I'm not done yet)...so I get somewhere (and damn, BC is the WORST place to be living if you're travelling in Canada...we are behind everyone!) and spend all of my time desperately trying to adjust to the time change. It's only a few hours, but that makes a big difference when your interviews are ALL at 9 in the morning (read 5 or 6 am BC time) so you've gotta wake up at 6 am and your thrice-damned brain won't let you sleep until like 3 am anyways. I swear, this past weekend, I got a grand total of ten hours of sleep over three nights, and that's counting an afternoon nap.

But that's not even the worst of it, because then you come home to BC and find that, though you couldn't get on to eastern time while you were actually there, you've switched over at some point in your flight back West. So I find myself waking up at like 7 and 8 am (voluntarily! that NEVER happens!) and sleeping at 10 pm. And of course that is about the worst possible sleeping schedual if I want to see Jon (who prefers to go to bed at 2 am and wake up half an hour before he has to leave). And that just puts me in a bad mood period.

But it will all be over soon...well...in a month or so anyways.

On a lighter note, I met Jon's family this past weekend (something that I thought would be very stressful, but which proved to be very enjoyable...they're much less scary than my family). Everyone was very kind and quite understanding (considering my primarily non-functional mental state) and very encouraging...and funny! I can see where Jon gets his sense of humour. His brother Jeremy has one that's quite similar...though perhaps a little more subtle (heh). I got dog fur all over everything (and brilliantly packed mostly black and grey clothing...so it's pretty visible) because their dogs are like the friendliest things on earth and will give you no peace until you've acquiesced to patting them. And his mother is crazy (she drove me to the airport at 4 am in the snow!). I really missed Jon while I was there though, and it's really obvious that they miss him too.

The interview itself was so-so...but hey, what the fuck do I know? My interviewers seemed a little disinterested in me...but I talked to others who were interviewed by the same panel, and they got that same impression I did...so hopefully things work out. It'd be really cool to go to Dal.

I've rambled enough, and this is barely coherent, let alone interesting. But I thought things needed an update. Perhaps I'll be able to comment on things a little more lucidly when I've gotten a decent night's sleep.