what a wonderful world?

What a busy but mostly wonderful week. Work is absolutely frantic right now; I don't think we've been this busy since the first year I did spring/summer...Some days we have three pages of tours, which is absolutely terrifying.

Kristabelle and I had a fabulous weekend, we visited the Build A Bear and THSWSNBN and its Sister Site. So good to see her, but so sad to see her go. It will be very difficult to live without her next year.

I am participating in a D20 based RPG campaign entitled "The Grimoire" which thus far is shaping up to be quite a lot of fun.

The election campaign is afoot in Canada, which has brought my beloved Trevor home for a brief time period; creating much chaos. (The election, not Trevor.)

strange magic

Strange (but wondrous) things are afoot at THWSNBN. I porbably shouldn't comment too much here, but my summer has taken a turn for the better.

I have decided to destroy my body by my 23rd birthday

Not much new to report here, except that I have caught Lizzy's throat infection, because she is a giant nerf herder.

My hands are healing nicely, and now I have made it through two whole days without having to file an accident report at work. Work will be crazy busy this week, and thankfully being on tour should minimize my injury risk levels. I've got a tour almost every day, which is definitely random...thankfully none of them are in French, as mon francais is pretty rusty right now.

My weekend was pretty uneventful. I went to a party on Saturday night, and ended up leaving early, since both the boy and I were really tired...we were both in bed and asleep by eleven, I think. The rain here has been pretty crazy, but thankfully we have not been beset by tornados as of yet.

The little one painted with me today, her only condition being that we listen to her music. Unfortunately I am not so cool with JT when not intoxicated/in a club...but it is nice to spend time with her.

Kyle, that's telekinesis

I am no longer allowed to handle sharp objects at work. While carpenting yesterday, I slipped with a chisel and drove the chisel into my right thumbnail, and now there's a 3mm crack right in the center. It was very hurty. Today, while carving a piece of wood, my knife slipped off the wood and sliced into my left index finger across the first knuckle. It didn't hurt too much but it sure was bloody.

Things here are mostly good, though busy--I feel like I hardly have time to catch my breath in between one day and the next. I got a phone bill from North Bay today, and Bell is trying to charge me for May's service...even though I disconnected my phone on April 30th. And apparently their 24 hours customer service is a big fat lie, so I will have to phone tomorrow and get this straightened out, because I am not paying for services I'm not using.

It was our first payday today, and I am excited to be not broke. A bunch of us from work went out for supper and it ended up being a lot of fun. It's a really good group of people to work with, and I think I treasure that aspect of my job more than anything else. Where else could I have conversations about comic books (and the social relevance thereof), the supreme awesomeness of the White Stripes, some of the finickier points of historical interpretation, the history of the Bible's translation and interpretation, and the Masonic Bible?

Aside from my general incompetence with all tools, it was a good day.

And I get my Kristabelle back next week.

I don't know why I didn't call

Today was a pretty good day. I got to see my family in the t-dot, which is good--some of them I haven't seen since Christmas 2002, and it was nice to spend some time with them. I also found my missing Norah Jones CD, in my dad's car. This seemed like a good thing until my mom realized I'd found it, because then we got to listen to it six times.

We went to the Build-a-Bear in Missassauga, which was way too much fun. We met my youngest cousin and my aunt there and he got a big black bear, because it reminded him of the movie Brother Bear.

I bought a bear, too--this one, to be exact. And then I dressed him like this. Oh yeah, he's totally a present for the boy.

quiz master

Via Greengrl and Esther:

I'm the limerick, mired in muck. I refuse to be bored or get stuck.    I like to offend,    But not, in the end, As much as to thwart expectations. What Poetry Form Are You?

All too true, I'm afraid.

Saw Troy tonight. Terrible but fun at the same time. Saw preview for King Arthur movie, looks to be more of same--except that the delicious Ioan Gruffudd is Lancelot, which is a choice I cannot argue with. If you've never seen him as Horatio Hornblower, it comes highly recommended.

so many times I thought I'd call...

I'm getting run down by work already, which is a bad sign, since this is only my third week there. I probably shouldn't have come back this summer; I feel so completely incompetent all the time. I'm hoping that it's just an off couple of days and that I'll be feeling better soon. Work has been fairly steady these last few days, which is a definite improvement over opening day, and I have my first tour group tomorrow.

The interesting/crazy visitor brigade has started up again. Today's most interesting was from Holland, and had a good grasp of the English language. He compared the interactions of French and First Nations people (with specific regard to converting to Christianity) at our site to the current doings of Muslims in Europe. (Apparently they are trying to convert people to Islam.) He wanted to talk about how today we would consider this to be wrong, but it wasn't wrong in the seventeenth century, and how unfair it was. It also transformed into a conversation about the French ban on the hijab and other visible signs of religious belief. Interesting, but very random...especially since he was clearly looking for an argument, and I actually agreed with him, so there was no real discussion forthcoming.

I had more to write, but I should probably save it.

I guess that's why they call it the blues

this is a test post

mittens? who eats their mittens?

I am currently connected to the internet via my spiffy spiffy router. I'm not entirely sure why, since I haven't properly installed the darned thing yeet, but if it's working, it's working, and I'm just not going to question that.

Hurray for time off. I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do today, but I suspect I will not get done all that I wish to. Things I would like to do: laundry, cleaning/organizing my room, knitting, scrapbooking my trip to Scotland, getting mail ready to send out tomorrow, some writing, painting, and so on.

Yesterday was our first day open at work, and it was busier than I thought it would be, although still painfully slow at times. Considering that a good chunk of our literature says that we don't open until May 2-4, and that it was a cold, damp day, we did pretty well. I got to do the admissions thing, and somehow managed to snag to the only two French groups of the day in the course of doing so.

chill factor

Today was long. We did a Survivor-style activity challenge this morning for team building purposes, and my team did not win (though we should have, but that's another story). I got to learn the admissions program so that I can cover the desk during lunches and breaks. There was a small thunderstorm, and the power went out a couple of times. Sadly, that was one of the more exciting parts of the day.

Last night was fun, though. One of the crew from work is writing an RPG, and I've agreed to participate in it, which is horribly geeky but also shaping up to be a lot of fun, or at the very least a chance to get to know new people. A couple of us went for coffee and shenanigans, and really it was just good to be with people who aren't so familiar with me that they can finish my sentences most of the time.**

I am working on an ambitious knitting project that thus far is going quite well. It almost made watching the Friends finale bearable. But not quite, 'cause, well, it was pretty brutal.

I say the word "wicked" way too much; I think it was originally popular when I wasin grade six or something, which makes me officially lame.

**I am actually really bad for doing this--even with people I don't know. It's part of my social ineptitude.

All this training means that I'm secretly a seal

More staff training at THSWSNBN today. I wish I could say it had been enjoyable. Actually, it wasn't that bad...I guess. French training is always a bit draining, and then part of the afternoon involved going on another tour of the historic site. I know that I shouldn't complain, but I've worked there for four years; I've got a decent handle on what's going on, despite my score on the information test.

I am getting to know new people, which is one of the better parts of the job. We did a neat exercise today about working with visually impaired people, which involved being blindfolded and led around the historic site. It was a very disorienting (but fun) experience.

One of my friends is thinking about running an RPG if he can get enough interested bodies, and I'm considering doing it...it could be fun.

raining letters from heaven

In the past week, I've had a phone call from the president of the university and now a letter from the Dean of Arts and Science to congratulate me on the SSHRC. It's sort of an interesting phenomenom, but their sentiments are certainly appreciated. Even if the Dean thinks that he will look forward to my "achievements in the scientific research community."** I think someone used the same letter for the SSHRC as he did for the NSERC awards.

Not that I mind, as I certainly wasn't anticipating anything like this from him, but it is kind of funny.

**This is funny because I am a Humanities major and my MA will be fairly UNscientific.

clouds of loneliness

The CBC Radio One is playing some of Gordon Lightfoot's new music (apparently he has a new CD coming out next week) and they had Ron Sexsmith introduce the song. I saw his new CD (Ron's that is) yesterday and nearly bought it; I really need to watch my expenditures this summer.

I redid the colours of my sister's blog yesterday and I think it looks pretty spiffy. I will be giving this place an overhaul eventually, with some (read: lots) of help from a friend as soon as I can figure out what I want the design to look like. I have a few ideas in mind but they are taking form very slowly.

Back to work tomorrow, starting my regular tuesday-saturday work week. In spite of myself, I am actually very glad to be back.

and so, that chapter of my life ends.

Chapter the Next. In which the protagonist spends the summer working at THSWSNBN, takes tours, makes friends, and speaks a lot of French. The protagonist also endeavours not to spend money, not to tick off the management at work, and be a valuable employee.

I have moved all of my things from North Bay, finally, and now my parents' house is being overrun by my junk. I'll have to start looking for a place in Guelph soon, I guess. My dad has agreed that if I buy a router, I can hook my computer up to the internet, and this means more regular internet access for me. Considering that I'm still research assisting it up, this will be a very valuable thing.

I get to go to the art store day and I'm really excited about it.