Life, in No Particular Order
I keep expecting that things are going to pause for me, allow me a chance to catch up on everything that's been slipping away and eluding me: sleep, email, time to think, my sanity. I remember M'ris asked me, sometime in the months before I finished school, whether I thought I'd have more or less free time after I graduated. "Oh, more," I said, ever so confidently. "I sure hope it's more."
Ha.
Course, things would be different if I was working somewhere else; somewhere with different hours, say, or a location that did not require the two hours of commuting. So, sooner or later, things
will be different. You can rest assured that while I truly value some of the experiences and knowledge and skills that I'm gaining in my current position (and they are many), I do not plan to work at York the rest of my life. As excellent as it has been for me, I feel that I can't stay working long-term from the same institution where I got my degree. I have a tendency to get ... stuck, if I'm not careful.
(I've just mentally crossed every finger, toe and hair that I have to cross in the hopes that these won't be yet more words I'll be forced to eat.)
In the mean time, I'm making long-term plans ... of a sort. Do the next few months count as "long term"? What about general speculations about the things I need/want to have accomplished in the next year? It feels long-term, anway.
But what on earth have I been doing these past few weeks, beyond pondering, making plans and not posting? So happy you asked. In fact, this seems like a lovely opportunity to use Blogger's lovely new/old bullet-point feature, as trying to make these into seperate entries (as they could and likely should be) would be an overwhelming task (update: and it did seem lovely, but the visual results ... not so much). So:
Not last weekend but the weekend before was the party to celebrate my Oma and Opa's 50th wedding anniversary. My Oma and Opa, being the fabulous people that they are, have a lot of friends, and so this party (held at New House, of course) had over 90 attendees and required a caterer, a fancy sound system and a gigantic white tent on the front lawn. People came from all over Ontario, parts of the States, and Germany to attend this party. Personally, I baked nearly a hundred tarts (strawberry chiffon and lemon merangue), acted as a waitress/hostess/generally hepful person, and gave a short but heartfelt speech about my grandparents that made people cry. Entertaining, if somewhat hectic and nervewracking. Took a full day to set up everything and a full day to get cleaned up afterwards. Much fun.
This past week, a friend from Julie's newsgroup, Jihane, was here from Paris. There ensued much socializing. While she was in Toronto, everyone kept getting together to see her and generally hang out. I saw a lot of Sarah and Jana, too, and a little bit of Lara and Robbie. I don't think that I've been that social, or gone out so often, or had so much fun in quite a while. It was exhausting, of course, and I absolutely crashed on Sunday, but it was worth it, without a doubt.
I found an excellent birthday present for M'ris. (Evil laughter.)
I made an agreement regarding the writing of a novel, which appears to be working thus far. Enough already. One cannot publish novels if one does not write novels; that much is obvious by now.
I had a pair of my favourite earrings go through the laundry, which they did not survive intact. Oops. Guess I shouldn't have done that.
I finally used the HMV gift certificates that I got through all those points I amassed during my years as a MyPoints member. Though I was tempted to buy CDs, I bought what I really wanted: the Firefly DVDs! What's more, they were having a sale: buy one boxed DVD set of season one of some show, get another boxed DVD set of season one of some show of equal or lesser monetary value for free. Which is how I ended up the proud owner of Season 1 of Sex and the City on DVD. Yes, I could have gotten season one of Buffy or Angel, but as I watch neither that seemed rather foolish; and I could have gotten season one of Friends, but it's on TV constantly and season one wasn't that fantastic, really; and I could have got season one of The X-Files but it was almost $170 and that very much was
not equal or lesser value. But, heads up to people in Toronto who want season one of these and other various shows on DVD: go to the big HMV. You know the one I'm talking about.
I declared war on the house centipedes that invade my apartment. House centipedes are the Devil. They are gigantic and crawly and frighteningly fast and
they bite! They must die. All of them.
The weather turned unpleasant ... if you ask me, anyway. 22 is not summer weather. 23 is not summer weather, and neither is 24, if you ask me. Not for the daytime high, anyway. And it rained. It rained and rained and rained and then rained some more. In fact, it was raining this afternoon hard enough that the water was leaking through the bus windows and splattering my book. Sub par. And today I was promised great heat--28 but with a humidex of 40--and it did not arrive. I know 40. That was no 40. I even had to put on a sweater while I was outside for a while. Grr. I want my summer!
