A Recommit and FMM

Now that I'm pretty sure the reading list of this blog has been reduced to no one, it seems like a great time to start blogging again. That's how this whole thing works, right? Blog. Stop blogging. Start again when no one cares? No? Well, I've been going about this all wrong then.

I haven't been blogging because there's been nothing to tell. After injuring myself in November, I fell off the wagon (and the bump from the fall really didn't help with the whole back injury thing - *snort* I love bad puns) and while I kept telling myself to get back on it, it was so hard. The wagon was so tall. I had to, like, climb up on to it and shit. (If you read that in a really whiny voice... yeah, that's what I sound like about this whole thing.)

Then I returned to full time work. And then I had a couple of other time commitments. And then my dance class moved to a location I couldn't get to. And. And. And. And I rock at coming up with excuses. Seriously, school kids should hire me to create their "I wasn't in class today because..." notes. Instead of excuses, I needed a goal. Something simple. Something I know I can do. Something fun.

Like a 10K.

I missed the TC 10K in Victoria because [insert any previous excuse here]. Also, I don't really like doing the 10K: it's insanely crowded and I find myself wanting to punch people in the back of the head because slow moving people crowd into corrals well above their projected finish time. I needed a new 10K to do.

I have tentative plans to visit my family in Alberta this summer so I searched my preferred travel dates and found a 10K in Taber, AB. It's apparently part of the Taber Cornfest. While the Taber Cornfest website still shows 2011 information, a 2012 race is posted on a couple of Canadian running websites. so hopefully it's a go for this year.

If it's not a go, I'll plan my own 10K route through the cornfields of Southern Alberta and make my family stand on the side of the road and cheer me in at the end. Preferably while they wave homemade signs of encouragement. Right now they're reading this and thinking "Andrea's such a clown". We'll see who's laughing when I hand you my home made ticker tape I want to run through!

Training officially begins next Monday.

EEK!

What better way to jump back into blogging than with a Friend Makin' Monday?

Simplified guidelines: Answer questions, post and link up here, sit back and watch the accolades pour in. Or something like that.

FMM: Three Things

1. Three of your favorite movies:
-Casablanca
-Beauty and the Beast
-Monty Python's Life of Brian (super excited because the Victoria Film Festival is having a MPLOB Quote-Along in two weeks *squee*)

2. Three of your favorite things to drink:
-Tea
-Coffee
-Beer (really can't get much more specific than that, I just like beer)
(I know, I know, water should be on this list and I do actually enjoy drinking straight water but it's not a 'favourite')

3. Three of your favorite songs:
Just three? Ugh, this pains me.
-Who Knows How to Make Love Stay - Doug and the Slugs (oh, 80's Canadian pop, how I love you!)
-Rolling in the Deep - Adele (I will listen to anything this girl puts out)
-Maple Leaf Rag  - Scott Joplin
A friend once described my taste in music as 'a menagerie of sounds'. Yup, that pretty much sums it up.

4. Three people who have recently been a positive influence on your life (outside of your family):
-K from work: really pushed me to go after a new job opportunity and then helped guide me through the process. It worked. I've got a new (and awesome) job.
-T and 106 (friends): convinced me that regular board game nights are cool (and they totally are!)
-Walter Lewin: read For the Love of Physics and it really opened my eyes to the beauty of physics of the every day world. I find myself trying to recall the equation for wind velocity when I see breeze through the trees nowadays. My goodness, I sound like a giant nerd.

5. Three things you to do keep yourself entertained:
-Read
-Sing and dance in the privacy of my apartment/listen to music in general
-Watch TV/movies

6. Three things you’re attracted to in the opposite sex:
-Eyes and smile (I'm lumping these together because one of my favourite things about eyes are laugh lines and you only get those if you smile a lot. The frequency of the smiling is more important than the actual smile.)
-Someone who is kind
-Nice ass (Hey, I'm just being honest)

7. Three things you love about yourself:
-My sense of humour
-My smile
-My nerdy personality (it took me a while to own up to my true level of nerd and now that I have, I like who I am better as a person)

8. The last three people who text messaged you:
-106
-THR
-Trish

9. Three things you’re looking forward to this week:
-Baby shower for THR
-Drinks with the alumni band crew
-Talk on human rights I've helped organise

10. Three wishes specifically for yourself…What are they? (Be selfish, and be honest.)
-I wish I could snap my fingers and be the active, fit person I once was
-I wish I was independently wealthy so I could set off on a round-the-world trip tomorrow (in the active, fit body I used to have)
-I wish I had a maid

11. Three of your favorite quotes:
"Humuor is not a mood but a way of looking at the world." ~Ludwig Wittgenstein
"Who, being loved, is poor?" ~Oscar Wilde
"Oh, don't pay life the compliment to take it seriously." ~Robert Service (from his poem, Laughter)

12. Three of your biggest fears:
-Falling and breaking a bone (I've never done it and the thought of it terrifies me)
-Sharp items like axes, chainsaws or swords make me nervous. Surprising for most people as I own two swords and have used axes and chainsaws many times in my life.
-Moving scarecrows on TV
 
13. Three of your favorite TV shows:
At this moment:
-The Wire
-Game of Thrones
-New Tricks

14. Three of your favorite things to purchase when you’re shopping.
-Books.
-Books.
-Books (I don't actually like shopping. It's simply a necessary activity so the only time I really enjoy it is when I'm turned loose in a bookstore.)

15. Three things that you enjoyed last week:
-Board game and Pub night with T and 106
-Tea and a game of rummy with C
-It becoming official that I got the new job

16. Three things that you always have in your bag or close to you if you’re not a purse kind of person.
-Lipgloss
-Wallet
-Pen and notebook

17. Three types of food that you wouldn’t want to give up.
-Pretty much anything my mom cooks (save her occasional decision to cook liver and onions when I was growing up. She can keep that to herself)
-Pad Thai
-Cheese Fondue

18. Three things you do to enjoy burning calories:
-Walking/Hiking
-Running (when I was doing it regularly)
-West African Dance

19. Three things you dislike about blogging:
-I love my family but sometimes I wish I hadn't told them I blog because I censor myself more knowing that my mom will read any curse words I put on here.
-Glaring grammatical errors or spelling mistakes that I notice after I hit publish.
-It's not blogging specific, but my current laptop is a pain in the ass. It's old and slowing down which means that a simple post takes way too long to write. Trying to include photos is almost painful. I've found myself saying "fuck it" and just tossing half-finished posts because my laptop is making me want to punch it.

20. Three ways blogging has changed your life:
-I've met some really awesome people
-I always wanted to keep a diary but was kind of crap at it unless I was travelling (I am the travel diary queen!) but blogging fills that need
-I plan more because I need to for the blog

One of Those Nothing Weeks

It's been a *meh* week for me. There's nothing specific, just a bunch of little things making it hard to make fitness a priority; job interview, large to-do list, added shifts at work, and general malaise make getting out the door a challenge. Well, that's going to end. Job interview: over, nothing to do but wait for the results. Large to-do list: I'm working through it, and (to be honest) now that the Canucks are out of the playoffs, I'll work through it much quicker. Added shifts at work: I'll be honest, I've got no positive spin on that except yay, money!! General malaise: I'm 99% sure this is coming from a lack of sleep the past two weeks, so I'm on a mission for the rest of the week to be in bed no later than 10:30. The only strike in the 'yay, fitness' column is that I have officially rejoined the Y. Of course, I'm so smart I sign up the one week I honestly won't be able to get there. Great start! Yay me! S-M-R-T and all that.

One of the things adding to the busy-ness of my week is the fact that I'm away all weekend. That's right, I'm going on an uber-exciting weekend to Chemainus!

. . .

Let's try this again. Chemainus!!! Yay!! Che-main-us!! Woo-hoo?

. . .

Seriously, no one finds this exciting?

Willow St, Chemainus' main drag

Okay, so Chemainus itself isn't really a big draw for an entire weekend, but my mom and I are going to see The Sunshine Boys at the Chemainus Theatre, spending the night in an awesome B&B (we stayed there last year), and just generally having some bonding time. My parents lived in Chemainus for six years-ish, only moving to Victoria when I was six months old, so walks around town always result in stories that I would probably not have heard otherwise (I'm Irish. I love to listen to stories as much as I love to tell them). During our last visit, one of the stories involved the decision to move to Victoria as a result of the mill shutting down. My mom said the words "Well, the mill had shut down..." and I spent the rest of the weekend singing "Belfast Mill" despite the fact that we were there to see the musical Oklahoma (which I know all the words to). It became a bit of a joke as I started singing it as we left the musical.

Here's to Chemainus!

Changes are not only just physical

As I type this entry (which I’m not posting until I’m home with wireless again), I am sitting on my mom’s deck surrounded by her flowers, a cup of tea to my right and a piece of toast with mom’s homemade jam to my left. My mom and stepdad are away camping, so I am taking advantage of the quiet house to do a few loads of laundry, mainly those items I can’t justify paying to clean (throws on my couch) or that need a special wash (two knit items which need to be on delicate). Despite the fact that my week has been so busy I didn’t get to the gym once nor did I get on my weekend hike, this is the perfect end to it. It has been an incredible week; a week of immense and lasting changes in my life. I mentioned once that the ultimate goal of this journey wasn’t really the Chilkoot, that was just a self-made route marker, but to become the person I want to be. The changes this week don’t necessarily help me with the Chilkoot, but they help me with the ultimate goal.

My mantra for most of my life has been ‘if I die tomorrow, will I be happy with where I am in my life?’ I told a friend that once and she found it very morbid. “You think about an early death like that?” I tried to explain that I didn’t think about death tomorrow as an absolute, just ‘what if’. She shook her head and changed the subject, as if thinking about death as anything other than in your sleep at the ripe, old age of 89 surrounded by love ones made me a dark and twisted person. Whether you find it morbid or not, it has served me well. Many of my favourite memories come from jumping into something because of that mantra, and it has led me on some incredible journeys (Africa, anyone?). That’s not to say that it is without its faults and a few of the decision could have perhaps used a second going over, but what’s done is done and if I died tomorrow, I would be happy with where I am in my life.

One of the decisions I’ve been thinking over for a bit is the idea of returning to school. It’s a thought I’ve had for a number of years now, but then I went to Africa instead and then the next time around the idea the economy crashed and I had a regular job with a very nice pay cheque, did I really want to say good bye to that for the unknown? I did a few online courses in the meantime, kept up my humming and hawing and continued getting frustrated with coworkers while collecting my pay cheque. This week it became official: I am a student. A few of the courses I was waitlisted on opened up, so there was no more excuses for delaying the return to school again. My employer, considering the company doesn’t really owe me anything, has been very accommodating. I am a full time, regular position employee in a company with a union. I have to quit, there’s no way around that when the union’s involved, but I have very kindly been placed on the auxiliary list so I can work on my days off school. I know I will get recalled once the 30 day weight period is up, there’s no doubt in my mind, but it’s still intimidating knowing that my paycheques will cease for a wee bit before they start up again. For all intents and purposes, however, as of September 4th, I am an unemployed student.

I’m sure you can figure out how this ties in with my mantra, that I’m obviously not finding job satisfaction with my current employment, but it’s a little more then that and I want to clarify. I owe it to my employer to clarify. I don’t hate my current job, I actually quite enjoy it although I would stop short of saying I have job satisfaction. I don’t hate all my coworkers, but the ones I do have pushed me to a point where I have to walk away rather than physically harm them. These same coworkers have been in trouble enough times that they have learned the ins and outs of the union rule book and know exactly how far they can go. I have not spent the time learning it because I’m a good employee: I work hard, I keep my nose clean, I’m respectful, I know my job duties better than anyone else in the department, and I retain information like a squirrel collects nuts. There’s no need for me to know the steps the employer has to take before discipline can become job termination. Again, this is not all my coworkers or even the majority, but it’s enough of them to make work unpleasant on many occasions. If I loved my job, if I was doing something I wanted to do as opposed to something that paid the bills, I think I would find it much easier to tolerate these people, down right ignore them even. But I don’t. My employer even made some offers to get me to stay as a full time employee, but although I might find short term satisfaction in a position, 5 years from now I’d find myself in the same boat I’m in now. Best to make these huge leaps of faith while I’m still young and don’t have people other than myself to consider.

Last time I attended university, I had very little idea what I wanted to major in, never mind what I wanted to do with it. I love to learn new things and have an interest in pretty much every thing, so with no clear goal in mind I got distracted by any class I enjoyed. Towards the end, German and Russian were the two things I had settled on, but having been in Berlin to celebrate the 10 year anniversary of the reunification of East and West Germany, how useful were those two languages with the Cold War over? One of those languages with something moderately more useful (History or Political Science or even Linguistics) could have lead to something. But those two languages together? I might as well have completed a General Arts degree. (No offense to any General Arts students out there, well, maybe a little.) This time around, I know what I want to end up with and I’ve pretty much mapped out every course I need to take over the next few years to get the degree I want. I’m still debating exactly what I’ll do the other side of completion, but there are three very viable job fields I could pursue—all of which I would be interested in working in—so I at least have some vague notion of where it all leads to this time.

I know that overtime to finish up everything before I leave my job will mean no gym time this week as well, but I’ll be back into it the week after that! Then I’ll be back on track with the Chilkoot plan.