I bet you think this song is about you Said to me just now by a very educated person:

"I've boughten lots of meals."  | ¶ 5:28 p.m.

  please have snow and mistletoe In the Calgary division of the Ryan-Jensen family, we do a name exchange at Christmas for stuffing stockings only. It has typically been the situation that several of us aren't exactly flush with cash during the holiday season so we have often foregone presents. Presents aren't really what the holidays are about anyway, are they?

So I wish I'd known about this next idea before now. Friday was international "Buy Nothing Day" - a growing protest day highlighting the disgusting over-consumption we are guilty of these days. I read about it in a new magazine I picked up the other day - "Adbusters" - I'm finding it incredibly thought-provoking and enlightening.

The next campaign by the group is just in time for Christmas: the "Buy Nothing Christmas".

(they're calling this guy "Zenta" - tee hee)
This campaign advocates some good ideas such as making thoughtful gifts for loved ones, or simply just enjoying the time together. It makes you question why we need gifts. Why not use our resources and creativity to come up with no-cost, personalized tokens, or yummy baked goods? What I look forward to the most during the holidays are the family meals (we do a FAB-ulous Christmas morning brunch, followed by turkey that evening - it's decadent) and yes, even going to church as a family (the one time of the year I'll agree to attending).

So I'll be buying some presents this year. But it's nice to see a movement such as this, encouraging us to re-examine some of the crazy values we've developed, don't you think.  | ¶ 1:51 p.m.

  I could think of things I never thunk before I think I've totally lost any math ability I used to have. Hello, former MATH MEDAL winner here...! Okay, it was grade ten, and the medal was just for having the highest score out of the people at my high school who wrote the Cayley Contest (I think that's what it was). Today I feel like I need a tutor!

To make the time go by faster at my "job", and to do something a little bit mentally challenging and maybe useful for the future, I'm doing a practice test for the "Graduate Recruitment Test" that you must write if you want to work for the Public Service Commission. I did an actual test in May when I returned from Bishop's, but I don't think my results were that impressive. My brain was still in recovery mode after the six-course second semester I'd just burnt out on.

These types of problems are giving me the most trouble:

Marcel can type five pages in half an hour. Paul can type three times that in 2/3 the amount of time. Which formula can be used to determine how many pages can be typed in two hours by these two people?

(1) (120 / 30) × (3 × 5) + (120 / 30 × 5)
(2) (2 × 5) + 2 × (3 × 5)
(3) 2 ÷ (5 × 1/2) + 2 ÷ (5 × 3)
(4) 2[5/(1/2) + 5 × 3/(1/3)]
(5) [(5 × 3) / 2/3] × 2

I feel like such an idiot that I can't seem to work through these. And double because I know a lot of the people reading my site are math and computer geniuses, so this is undoubtedly rather obvious to at least one of you out there. Man!  | ¶ 5:08 p.m.

  you don't have to put up a fight
you don't have to always be right I figured it out. I should go to Carleton University in Ottawa. I've been reading their website and something about it seems right. I've heard from people who've lived in or visited both that Ottawa is a lot like Calgary. What I'd prefer about Ottawa, I think, is the culture and history and climate of the East. Who knows...?

In industry news, the ILRAS was activated on Friday, people. In the words of the oh-so-wise froo, "...because pool price has been so high lately, we've been importing a lot of power, and breakers were tripped... Power was out all over Alberta." Wow

So I asked, "where is the redundancy in this system...? Why is everyone losing power?" And she told me that transmission lines have less redundancy (as opposed to distribution lines, which serve the customer). Transmission lines bring the power to the substations, and these were shutting down. (Right, froo?)

See what I'm forced to learn about in order to preserve my sanity...? I guess it has some interesting parts, but believe it or not, it is not my passion.

I'll see if the people at Carleton want to teach me about politics instead, I think.  | ¶ 5:19 p.m.

  lost all my good friends, didn't have nowhere to go Heheh.

Moose on the loose in Moncton

The two-year-old animal was first spotted near a local high school and was seen in the parking lot of the Moncton Hospital as well.

Poor moosey.  | ¶ 3:49 p.m.

  I've heard it all before, and I can take care of myself Here's how our mini roadtrip wrapped up. After feasting on hotcakes from McD's and re-fueling with coffee from Tim's, we left Fernie around 9:30. It seemed like most regions of the Rockies had been dusted with a few centimetres of snow overnight, so we were a little apprehensive about road conditions, but we just took our time and didn't run into any problems. I should note that Devin actually did all the driving Sunday, and he did an excellent job on the snowy Rocky Mountain roads.
(click for bigger image)
We headed South out of Fernie, looped back up by Cranbrook, then straight North to the Fairmont Hot Springs, Windermere, Invermere, and on to Radium. We weren't looking to do a lot of stopping and sight-seeing, since we had limited time, but it was a gorgeous drive. And we finally saw a mountain goat...!

There were a couple cool sections through Kootenay National Park with tunnels through the mountains and stuff. We stopped for another "extreme picnic" at a little spot called Dog Lake. At this time of the year the park is incredibly silent and serene, so it's almost eerie. We were fortunate enough to find a sheltered picnic table (okay, not so extreme), so we were at least out of any wind that might chill our sandwich-making fingers.

I didn't even think to bring a bathing suit with me on the trip, so it was disappointing to not be able to stop and bathe in the hot springs at Radium. I could see people enjoying the pool from the highway as we drove past and it looked like a cool thing to try.  | ¶ 11:11 a.m.

  the way you wear your hat What I did not know: Waterton Lakes is a ghost town in the off-season...! deVaughan and I drove in our lovely rented Chrysler Sebring to the little resort town this morning, and were met with street after street of boarded up houses, restaurants, shops, and even motels. We did manage to find one restaurant still operating and had ourselves some lunch.

What I did not know: Three hundred elk can really blow your mind. That was one massive herd we saw today grazing outside the ghost town. We got some cool pics, so stay tuned for those next week.

What I did not know: Crossing the BC border from brown and yellow southern Alberta is an incredibly refreshing experience. There is snow over here, and beautiful pine trees, and rolling foothills leading into majestic mountains. We drove through the Frank slide area into Sparwood (home of the world's largest truck, don't you know), then on to Fernie, where we are spending the night in a reasonably priced Best Western hotel.

What I know: Roadtripping with deVaughan is always a fun adventure. (But I get credit for coming up with the rental car idea...!)  | ¶ 10:40 p.m.

  I saw there were no oceans left for scavengers like me I think it's interesting how we talk about the government as though it is some kind of physical entity. "Government set to fall". "Government propped up". "Government will topple". And if you listen to Stephen Harper, we may as well have mobsters running the show up there. He does speak for a lot of people, but that kind of strong language isn't going to win him any support with the Liberal supporters who may have thought about switching sides. So we have an election; and another minority government is formed. Will the "foundations" of this new government be any stronger...? We're going to be stuck in this silly cycle for a while, I think. Unless the minority government is smart and gets more "propping up" from other parties. I say why not have more consensus and cooperation? It's just ridiculous to assume that ONE party can reasonably represent an entire nation anyway.
Last night was Round Two in Operation "Fight-The-Boredom". deVaughan and I headed across my street to Kilkenny's Irish Pub. We took our drinking a little more seriously with some "Porn Star" shooters and several beers (and wine). We were served by the lovely and chatty Jackie, who even agreed to do one shooter with us. It is safe to say that today passed by in a bit of a blur; that was kinda the goal. The main thing is that I made it to work - just don't ask what time...

Tomorrow deVaughan and I are planning to hit the road for another segment of roadtripping adventures. The plan is to head South near the Montana border (and cross it just so he can say he did it) and explore the Waterton Lakes area. I explored that area by myself a couple years ago but it was during some of the crazy forest fires in B.C. and although it was a warm summer day, there was a thick haze of smoke obscuring the horizon. So I didn't see quite as much as I would have liked. We're just crossing our fingers that the snow doesn't interfere with our travels this time.

We must all enjoy this weekend, since our government is going to collapse / go down / crumple / deflate on Monday and we will all live in chaos henceforth. Will we hear the thud in Calgary, do you think?  | ¶ 12:40 a.m.

  just tell me what you need me to know To break up the monotony of the week, and since deVaughan has a flexible schedule this week being between jobs, I dragged him out for some beverages after work yesterday. When you're slugging it out just trying to get through the week, burning off some frustration with a beer is a very good thing.

In my role as the Calgary tour guide, I've been trying to give him a taste of numerous different "scenes". Since my friends often frequent the less-trendy and not-so-fancy neighbourhood pubs (like Bottoms Up Sport Pub), I figured it was time to hit up a different kind of place. So we headed to Ceili's downtown. It's popular with the after-work business crowd. We had a cozy table for two in the corner and enjoyed our pints of Keith's.

The Flames were playing in town last night and after our sojourn into a "fancier" venue, I felt like visiting Bottoms Up to watch the game on the big screen, so we cabbed it over to 17th Avenue. Alas, BU is booming these days and I didn't like the table selection, so we didn't last long there. So much for the game. At this point food became the priority, so we crossed the street to try a new restaurant "Greco Pizza". Fresh pizza tastes fantastic when you're hungry and slightly buzzed.
Bacon... Pepperoni... Mushrooms...

This morning I was running late; my boss is out of town and I have a hard time getting to work on time at the best of times - I wasn't making much of an effort today. So I bumped into Dalt (he's my step-dad for those who don't know) on the c-train platform. When the train arrived, we didn't take seats - I figure since I sit all day, standing for the trip is a good idea. Dalt sometimes refers to something he calls the "secretarial spread", which could definitely be construed in some inappropriate sexual way, but he means it as the large ass a person (women only?) acquires from working at a job which requires much sitting. That's when I made one of my favourite jokes: "yeah, I have a real problem with my weight; I can't seem to lose these last five pounds".

I suppose if I continue with beer and pizza as a remedy to the boredom, I could maybe become a little "fleshy". My job better liven up...!  | ¶ 4:02 p.m.

  tell it like you still believe My job got more exciting today, people. Bob gave me an assignment. I got to read our "Customer Terms and Conditions" to check for clarity. You know our business is the electricity distribution one, right? And this document is sixty-two pages...? Let me tell you about the excitement of reading five pages of electricity definitions. Oh wait, that might not be possible. There probably are not sufficient adjectives to properly quantify the level of delight I experienced.

Don't get me wrong; I'm all for good grammar. It's when it is the grammar of kilowatt hours and peak demand and de-energization that I have a hard time feeling a tremendous amount of enthusiasm. I know I said I wasn't going to set any expectations for the job - maybe my hopes are still too high.

This is an excellent time to indulge in escape fantasy number two. Here it is: The go-back-to-school-again plan. In this imaginary world where I am un-constrained by financial reality, I would take a year or two to take some undergraduate-level politics and history classes, then transfer into a Master's program. I can't decide whether I should head East to Ottawa or McGill, or West, to try something new. My summers would consist of doing research for MLAs or MPs, I would earn my degrees with top marks, and have fantastically interesting job offers pouring in.

Tomorrow is Wednesday. Phew.  | ¶ 12:10 a.m.

  there's only so much you can learn in one place;
the more that I wait, the more time that I waste I have an announcement: I am a dork.

You see, all my rambling on last year about "cute Bill" has resulted in, well, cute Bill stumbling upon the site, reading the numerous references to "cute Bill" (so many that one classmate accused me of being Bill's stalker last year)(I wasn't), and then cute Bill sending me an email to let me know that he had indeed read the blog and had had some laughs. Oh yes, I am a dork.  | ¶ 12:23 a.m.

  time to say goodbye When I went back to school last year, I was very careful not to set any expectations for myself. I was prepared to be lonely, frustrated, challenged, and conversely I was prepared for it to be a reasonably tolerable time (yeah, that was my optimistic upside!). Low expectations make it hard to be disappointed. I was, after all, returning to a school in a town where I'd spent four and a half years of my "young adult" years (although looking back, I'd hardly consider myself to have been very adult at all at that point) - and didn't have a tremendous amount of fond memories from the experience.

I probably learned a lot of difficult lessons that first time, but I didn't really come out of it with lasting friendships (except for a handful of great people I've managed to keep in touch with), and neither did I feel that I'd really "succeeded" in mastering the university experience, whatever that was supposed to have been (the most tangible failure being the lack of degree, which I decided I couldn't keep pursuing). So, although I knew last year that I could not keep going on the path I was on, and finishing what I'd started made sense, heading back to Bishop's and Lennoxville didn't fill me with delight.

Who knew that it would end up being such a positive experience...? I probably didn't fully appreciate it while going through it, and have maybe idealized it to some extent since then, but all in all, I was pleasantly surprised at how I felt while I was there, how much I cared about what I was doing, and how surprisingly goal-oriented I was - me, the girl who never sets goals. I proved a lot to myself, I suppose.

The Buddha said that:

1. Life is suffering.
2. Suffering is caused by attachment.
3. Attachment is created by expectation.
4. So get rid of expectation and attachment.
5. And suffering will ease.

(or something along those lines, anyway)

Recently I've been really disappointed. Somebody reminded me this week that I'd "created" this situation for myself. Yeah, I suppose that life is about perception, and about the decision to focus on the positive instead of what's maybe not so wonderful in one's life. I made a mistake when I got this job offer. I mistakenly believed that since I was finally being offered a salary which reflected some of the hard work and achievements I've made recently, it was necessarily going to fulfill me somehow. The truth is that I'm still doing administrative work, and my expectations were misguided. Money is nice, but it doesn't create fulfillment, and that was a stupid moment on my part to have forgotten that important point.

Since giving up the job at this point would be a little hasty and impractical, I've decided that I will instead give up my expectations. No longer will I go into work and think that my job will automatically be rewarding or challenging - at least not at this point. I keep saying that I know it will get better, and I still do believe that, but maybe I need to be a lot more patient.

And because I know that last paragraph sounds a bit defeatist and sad, really, I need to clarify something. A lot of people do not love their jobs, I know that. And there's this idea that you are supposed to create a full life outside of your workplace that compensates for the lack of fulfillment. Yes, good idea. But not for me. One thing I do know about myself is that I cannot settle for work that doesn't have some kind of meaning for me. I've struggled with that alot, finding contentment in my work, and I realize that for me personally, finding value in what I spend most of my waking hours doing is important. How I achieve that remains to be seen.  | ¶ 1:02 p.m.

  you won't give up the search for the ghosts in the halls On one of the blogs I read, Opinionistas, there is a bit of a comment war going on now about whether "O" is who she says she is, both in terms of her profession and her gender. If you don't read it, she is a terrific writer and claims to be a young lawyer at big New York City firm - she also hints that she's worried about losing her job shortly because of her very honest tales of law firm life. Some people in her world have figured out who she is and have threatened to "out" her. Today a few of her commenters have referred to this "gender genie" website that they used to determine that she is not the female she claims to be.

I decided to try the Gender Genie with my own blog today. They get you to paste text into a window and they use "key words" to guess the gender of the writer (it doesn't have to be a blog - could be any type of article).

Inspired by an article in The New York Times Magazine, the Gender Genie uses a simplified version of an algorithm developed by Moshe Koppel, Bar-Ilan University in Israel, and Shlomo Argamon, Illinois Institute of Technology, to predict the gender of an author.

I tried five different posts of mine and the genie guessed that I was MALE three of those times. Interestingly, the posts which it found to be more "male" were ones where I was a bit more angry and terse. My posts that are more story-telling are the ones deemed "female".

There are too many people willing to believe in some kind of conspiracy out there. Maybe it's naive, but I prefer to take things at face value. If someone wants to go to that much trouble to fool you, what's the harm in playing along.. especially on a blog..? They are the ones doing all the work. They are the ones with issues...(!)

I really am a girl named Stacey, you know.  | ¶ 5:01 p.m.

  go lightly down your darkened way I am starting a new series here on Stacey, Inc. involving escape fantasies. These are my wild plans to get out and do something exciting and invigorating, although not necessarily responsible or realistic. I welcome suggestions along this vein as well - feel free to comment or email with your input.

I will start with some fairly traditional, not-too-crazy ideas. First is my backpacking-around-Europe scenario. After my taste of Eastern Europe with Pammy P in Prague this past year, I've got an itch to visit more of the northern and eastern areas of Europe. I would really love to visit Germany, Poland, Austria and Hungary. And then maybe Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania. Did you know that Lithuania was the first country in the European Union to officially ratify the EU constitution last year? Big news, people... I also read in the course of my EU research that Estonia is one of the most "wired" countries in the world. Internet everywhere...! And what about Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey...? Maybe I can fit them in, too.

How long would it take to see all these countries? I don't want to be over-ambitious and naively think that I can see everything in one trip. That's why I'll plan to do the more traditional European destinations on a separate visit. In my dream world, I'll have three or four months alloted to this trip, so I hopefully won't have to rush around too much. My passport expires in February, so I'll have to re-new it soon. I'm just pleased that I finally got some stamps in it (Prague, Amsterdam, U.S., Canada), so it wasn't a waste to have it.

[okay, back to invoicing...]  | ¶ 1:05 p.m.

  lately I heard you were doing well, though I don't know how that feels I feel like I'm sleepwalking through my days lately. I'm practically bored to tears with my new job. It's a strange phenomenon, this new company. "Here, here's a bunch of money, and why don't you try out our fantastic benefit package, order yourself some gear, look into some training (gotta use up those budget dollars!), and while you're figuring stuff out, you might need to sit at your desk day after day doing pretty much NOTHING. Hope you're okay with that."

What's my job...? Don't ask me, man. It's been five weeks and I'm still trying to figure that out. The killer this morning was when Bob came out and said, "it's going to be a slow couple of weeks..." Slower than what - this hectic pace we've been maintaining...? Kill me now.  | ¶ 12:39 p.m.

  all I see is I don't need this Since VCRs are going out of style these days, you can some good steals on video cassettes that are being sold off at discount prices. I noticed an entire bin of yoga and pilates videos at London Drugs recently going for two or three dollars each, so I stocked up. Lately I've kinda slacked off on more intense forms of exercising - like jogging - but I still do quite a bit of yoga, so it's nice to have some new routines to try. The plan this weekend was to try and do yoga twice a day, and I did that Friday and Saturday, but it seems my new routines involve a lot more arm work than I'm used to, so I was pretty sore today and completely opted out of any strenuous activity.

Contributing to my sore arms was likely the silly, drunken arm wrestling and push-up contest that took place at Woody's the other night. We were having another celebratory get-together for Tone-L (he's got a new job, don't you know), and people were getting silly with rounds of karaoke-singing and a bunch of arm wrestling. Next thing you know Roz is down on the floor showing off her push-up ability. She did nineteen and then it was my turn (don't ask me why - nobody else was jumping in there). I did not manage to do nineteen push-ups, but I was a little annoyed with the whole thing, because I tend to do perfect push-ups, and Roz was hardly even bending her arms to a ninety-degree angle the entire time. I hate that. I think I'll practice my push-ups. I want to win the next competition.

I don't have to work tomorrow. Yay, me.
  | ¶ 1:50 a.m.

  Charlie said he wanted to get married,
but we were only ten so we had to wait Last night's barbeque was really good. Dalt made his usual scrumptious burgers, we had pasta salad and vegetables, and Devin made his famous dip to eat with chips. His layered sour-cream-salsa-red-pepper-olives-cheese dip was always popular when he made it for poker games at Scott's place last year. Except the time we drove all the way to North Hatley with the stuff leaking and dripping all over the front seat of Tom's car. Not so popular that day. Everybody seemed to like it last night, though.

We played a bit of poker after dinner last night, too. froo was the big winner of the night, taking home a pot of... well, nothing. Fake bets with fake money results in a fake winning pot. I really gotta hit the real casino one of these days...

After poker Gina brewed up some coffee (not "Full City" this time, though) and we sat around the table chatting a bit until Devin needed to leave to pick up Cheryl at the bus station. I dropped the two of them at his place, then went back to to the compound to visit a bit more. I missed most of the good TV shows last night but Gina was watching the end of Survivor, so I got to see tribal council with her.

I don't drive a heck of a lot these days, but even the short drives to the compound and bus station and back reminded me that Fred's muffler issues are getting worse all the time. I have this ambitious plan to put as much of my disposable income towards student loan debt re-payment, but it appears that I'm going to have to invest in some more car repairs, which I kinda dread tackling. I never know if I'm getting ripped off, you know...? For instance, when the dude at the shop told me I needed a new catalytic converter (when I got my brakes done), he said it was an expensive piece and estimated it would be roughly $600. Eep! But I did a little bit of internet research and found prices like this. And then I'm confused about how to proceed. Do I buy the part myself and just take it to be installed? Or do I challenge the price I'm quoted...? I really don't have the energy to drive around getting different estimates. I blame my lack of assertiveness in these situations on being female, but maybe that's a weak excuse, but seriously, how the heck do I know...? So I told my brother that I might take him with me the next time I go in for car stuff. Soon.

So begins my four-day weekend. I'm going to be, like, SO productive this weekend.  | ¶ 12:57 p.m.

  I know the one thing that would never change This is a pretty pic taken two years ago on the Berkeley campus of the University of California. Pammy and I were visiting our friend Dave (that's him with me on the bench) and we were lucky enough to have some spectacularly gorgeous days during our visit there. It was early October and temperatures were still in the high twenties. Awesome trip.


Another book I've been reading recently is a book of stories called Kitchen Table Wisdom: Stories That Heal. I found this passage to be rather insightful and thought-provoking:

Judgment does not only take the form of criticism. Approval is also a form of judgment. When we approve of people, we sit in judgment of them as surely as when we criticize them. Positive judgment hurts less acutely than criticism, but it is judgment all the same and we are harmed by it in far more subtle ways. To seek approval is to have no resting place, no sanctuary. Like all judgment, approval encourages a constant striving. It makes us uncertain of who we are and of our true value.

I think it would be an extremely challenging task to try and get rid of all feelings of judgment about others. It's almost counter-intuitive to imagine that feelings of approval for another person are still a manner of critical thought.  | ¶ 1:58 a.m.

  sundown in the Paris of the prairies You know what's genius? Windows offering you the choice to use your photos as a screensaver. I don't know if they've always had that option, but I've recently discovered it and I just love it. The danger is that you sit at your desk (at home or work) and just watch a slideshow of your photos instead of doing something productive. Yay, pretty pics!

You know what else is good? As part of my management of the "legal services" budget, I have to let Bob know if we have un-spent money in any categories that we've designated cash for. One area that needed attention was the "corporate merchandise" category. It was decided that since I'm a new employee without any corporate gear, I could select a few items for myself. I thought a jacket, a bag and a baseball cap would be a good start. The jacket was delivered yesterday and it's really nice. It's a winter / ski jacket with a zip-out fleece liner, waterproof, windproof, breathable. I was worried that maybe spending $100 on a jacket was a bit much, but I showed Bob and discussed the price and he was cool with it. Yay, gear!

In good weather news, it's all Chinook-y here today. Fourteen degrees last time I checked. So we're having a barbeque at the compound tonight. And then I've got a four-day weekend. Yay, long weekend!  | ¶ 5:00 p.m.

  I could write a song a hundred miles long I was reading my book at lunch, in the chapter on discovering what your passion is, that one dude knows that something has met the "passion test" if he loses track of time while engaged in it. Time flies by because you're so engrossed in it, and find satisfaction in being fully absorbed by it.

In other news, today has been, like, the longest day ever.  | ¶ 5:37 p.m.

  cotton candy clouds against the blue St. Francis Xavier ranked top undergrad university for 4th year by Maclean's

Maybe I'll go there next.

How does it work when you go back to school after having one undergrad degree already? Does it shorten your curriculum any...? Or are you basically starting from scratch?  | ¶ 3:48 p.m.

  nobody moves without making a sound My plan to travel to Vancouver doesn't look like it's going to happen this weekend. Originally I was going to take a nice four-day long weekend, rent a car and drive through the mountains. But this plan included deVaughan, and his working schedule is a little less flexible than mine, so I decided that he better not risk annoying his boss with too many days off. I don't really want to do the drive by myself (it's close to twelve hours), but by the time I considered the option of flying to Vancouver instead, we had already passed the point at which I could get cheap flights. Bad planning on my part. So I'll be having a nice relaxing long weekend in Calgary, it would seem.

It might be more responsible of me to spend my money on debt re-payment instead of rental cars and plane tickets, anyway. Maybe I'll treat myself to a massage, too.  | ¶ 2:06 p.m.

  come and tell me something new about you, baby I really like that show "Grey's Anatomy". Tonight's episode was really good, but kinda heart-wrenching. Poor Meredith is walking around in a daze after her boyfriend dumped her for his wife..(!) Imagine meeting a guy who acts like he's available only to find out that a woman from his past isn't quite done with him yet. And she wins. Ouch.

I've been doing some re-organizing and cleaning up today - the kind of settling in that a person usually does soon after moving into a new place. I hung pictures and mirrors, I moved a bunch of furniture, I vacuumed. I have my own tool box, so I got out my hammer and level and pounded in lots of nails and made sure stuff was hung nice and straight. I've decided that I need a few more tools, though. First, a drill. And second, a stud finder. Is that what it's called - "stud finder"? That could have multiple meanings... Well, I do need to find me some studs... I still need to put up some shelves, but my place is looking a lot better already.

...a "holding pattern" is a flight path which can be repeated until the aircraft has been granted clearance for landing...  | ¶ 12:10 a.m.

  I ran as fast as I could
through the tall grass and the midnight woods Poker night tonight. A friend of a friend of a friend built his own poker table, so Pammy P, Tone-L and I headed up north (of Calgary) to play a bit of Texas Hold'em. I haven't played with live people since leaving L'ville, so I think my poker skills are a bit rusty. And I tend to be impatient. Sometimes you have those nights where you're getting dealt a lot of shitty hands, and you just want to play, so you maybe take some chances on some cards that aren't really worth it. I did not win tonight.

Dale lives at a decent elevation with a pretty nice view of the city from his patio. It's nice to take in that clear view of the flickering city lights on a crisp winter-y evening.  | ¶ 3:13 a.m.

  I know I could always be good Last night I went to the liquor store to buy some wine. I was wearing yoga pants, a baggy Bishop's hoodie, and a rainbow-striped toque. I think it was the toque that made the dude ask to see ID. Hello! I'm THIRTY-ONE! Funny.  | ¶ 11:27 a.m.

  I've made it this far without crying a single tear At my new company we all get a parking allowance. And my boss made sure I got a parking spot when I got hired. So I've been driving to work for the past few weeks. But I've decided to switch back to transit. Today I took the train again. And I think I'll stick with it, due to the following factors:

1. My route to work is right through the core of some of the worst rush hour congestion in downtown Calgary, so I end up sitting a lot.
2. When you're sitting in traffic, you can't even read.
3. In Fred, when you're sitting in traffic, you can't even listen to the stereo because the radio doesn't work.
4. Instead you are forced to listen to the deep rumbling of an exhaust system with many holes.
5. One of these holes means that nasty fumes come IN the car.
6. On top of it all, it's kinda lonely. On the train at least you're surrounded by tons and tons of strangers.
7. Oh, and I get to walk a few blocks on either end of the train ride. It means I get a bit of exercise, but also that I'll have to endure some bad weather occasionally.

  | ¶ 1:19 a.m.

  in crash test blues I paid those dues Serious disillusionment is what I'm feeling these days. This job just isn't going to cut it long-term. I remembered at lunch time Starbucks why I took this job, though. To slow down the pace of my life, earn a bit more money, and figure out what my next step is. It makes me cringe when somebody at work tells me that "in a year" I'll have a certain task mastered (i.e. our department budget - accruals and variances, etc). Although the status quo might realistically be unchanged for a while, I'm not really in a place where I like hearing that phrase.

I'm letting myself indulge in a few treats since I got my first paycheque at the new income bracket on Friday. Along with the previously mentioned super-soft Serasoft blanket (seriously, you need to feel it), I picked up some new books on the weekend. One of them is called "Conquering your Quarterlife Crisis", written by one of the authors who penned the original "Quarterlife Crisis: The Unique Challenges of Life in your Twenties".

I've probably been having a bit of a recurring quarterlife crisis on and off since I left university the first time. Where am I going, what am I doing, what do I want to do...? It's frustrating not knowing how to answer these questions. You'd think at thirty-one I'd be a bit closer to figuring this stuff out. I read some thought-provoking stuff in my book while sipping my maple macchiato, though. The section on "what if I don't know what my passion is" speaks right to me, because that's a big one. And some of the people sharing their stories confirmed that idea that I have that you must pay attention to what makes you feel most alive and figure out how to keep doing it.

It's hard for me to figure out what I love to do. I like simple things, like cozy blankets, playing poker, eating mashed potatoes with cheese, drinking good wine, feeling fit and strong. But what are my "hobbies", the things I like to DO...? I really don't have many obvious ones. Writing, sometimes, I suppose. Exercise. And keeping up with current political and world news. I don't do crafts. I don't create.

So I went back to school already. I graduated. And now I make more money, doing a slightly more complex version of a job that I did when the first time I left school and came to Calgary at 23 - assistant to the company's corporate counsel. Deja vu, man. This is hardly my passion. What I need to do is go BACK TO SCHOOL for a new major. That was my mistake, maybe - just finishing off the psychology thing instead of starting fresh down a new path. I chose the easiest upheaval.  | ¶ 7:36 p.m.