a spot in the shade where oranges fall I really do love the transit in Ottawa, but my recent job assignment has me working in a spot not so well served by the main routes. So what happens is, I take the bus downtown to the Rideau Centre and power-walk from one end to the other before exiting at Wellington and Sussex for the next part of my journey. The Rideau Centre, for those who are not familiar, is a large downtown mall (with an excellent selection of shops), but doubles for many Ottawa-Hull commuters as a pass-through point twice a day. I am one of those lucky few this week who get to seek shelter inside for a few minutes before braving the brutal winds that blow up Sussex Drive.

Yes, Sussex Drive is where the Prime Minister lives, and I do keep an eye out for him, but I don't actually pass his house, nor have I seen him drive by in any of the many chauffeured cars passing by. I have, however, seen a Saudi Arabian man in the backseat of one car, which makes sense since the Saudi Arabian embassy is right around the corner from my workplace. Right across the street is the Kuwaiti embassy, too. I have to wonder how representatives from those countries like living in Ottawa, especially this week, the week of frigid winds.

Lucky me, I also get to walk by the American embassy twice a day. It's a fortress. One day I saw the security guards having a wicked snowball fight, and another day I saw them searching a car for bombs as it entered the garage. They don't mess around at that place - you should see the various poles and barriers that prevent anyone from even getting a vehicle close to the actual building. I don't usually walk on that side of the street.  | ¶ 11:57 p.m.

  everyone is talking about me I've been meaning to post this for a while, so here it is. For anyone who reads here solely via RSS, you're probably missing out on my oh-so-active comment thread provided by Haloscan. Okay, the truth is that we're not so active with the commenting around here, but every once in a while there's something to see, so I am giving you the address of my comment thread for your continued reading enjoyment. It is this: http://www.haloscan.com/members/rss.php?user=franchesca.

You are so very welcome.  | ¶ 12:18 p.m.

  when you speak the words you know to those who know the words themselves For those who think that more choice is better (a la "triple Venti nonfat half-caff soy latte, low foam, non-fat whip, extra-hot steamed milk"), this is an interesting article.

Xiang Yu was a Chinese general in the third century B.C. who took his troops across the Yangtze River into enemy territory and performed an experiment in decision making. He crushed his troops’ cooking pots and burned their ships.

He explained this was to focus them on moving forward — a motivational speech that was not appreciated by many of the soldiers watching their retreat option go up in flames. But General Xiang Yu would be vindicated, both on the battlefield and in the annals of social science research.

  | ¶ 11:02 a.m.

  I'll help you feel young again Weekend report in photos:



Kyle turned 11 on Saturday. I wasn't in Calgary for the celebrations, but it probably looked a bit like this.





We skated again today. It was a lovely day.





I've been asking him for a while, and Devin finally gave me the pictures he took in Calgary over Christmas. The entire set is here.  | ¶ 11:41 p.m.

  okay, we'll do it your way, but this is the last time
It's a good thing it's our "spring" break at Carleton this week, because I haven't been so good at attending to any school work while I've been at my temp job. Fortunately the work is going pretty well. I went into the job blind because my [useless] agency didn't even explain what I was being sent in to do. Turns out that one of the executive assistants was going on vacation, so she spent the first day training me to do her job, then took off to Hawaii (sweet). The job consists mainly of answering the VP's phone and arranging her meetings, as well as keeping her on schedule. She's a super-cool lady who happens to be a bit of a social butterfly, so her meetings neither start nor end on schedule, as the talking before and during said meetings tends to run a little long. Ah well.

In other job news, I spent one morning this week attending another ridiculous test and interview for a different government department. It's interesting that so many of these jobs use the same type of questions to test your abilities. Proofreading, a short writing exercise, then way too much time to review interview questions in advance of the actual interview. But there again, a list of administrative tasks that one is supposed to prioritize and explain reasons for the choices. I used fifteen minutes of my allotted hour to do the test and interview prep, but then left my solitary confinement to seek out my interviewers early. I did not want to waste forty-five minutes of my morning in that room. Argh. I won't even get into the part about being interviewed by young French girls who could barely read the English interview questions to me. Good times.

My kitties are missing me this week; they've been spoiled by an unemployed person being home to chill with them all the time. That's Silker trying to look cute enough that I'll stay home with her. Nice try, Black!  | ¶ 10:58 p.m.

  you're a lovely creation and I like to think that I am too There has been a disturbance in the force. Last week I kept getting calls from one of the agencies I registered at a year ago, and wonder of wonders, they're sending me on an assignment this week. It's even a government job without a French requirement. Oh wait, I think it might actually be a crown corporation, so maybe things are different there.

So if you're looking for me, I'll be the girl reminding herself what it feels like to work for a living.  | ¶ 11:14 p.m.

  funnyman, got a plan to be something wonderful I like this idea:

From today to Feb. 24, Ottawa residents caught doing something kind might receive a Kindness Citation from a police officer.

Sounds like a fun plan. I'd read about it so when I was out earlier I helped a woman struggling with a grocery cart in a shopping plaza. I opened the doors for her and helped her drag it through, since it was one of those ones with the locking wheels that you aren't supposed to remove from the store. Eep.

But a kindness mission sure makes more sense than this other nonsense going on in Quebec: "Irish pub not French enough for language police".

I'm becoming so anti-French, anti-bilingualism, anti-Quebec living in Ottawa. I want to initiate a referendum for the rest of Canada to vote Quebec out of Confederation if they insist on continuing this tomfoolery. Would that go against a kindness mission..?  | ¶ 11:58 p.m.

  even when she breaks my heart, it's music to my ears
I think I've almost mastered the making of a good butternut squash soup. I'd experimented with various pureed vegetable combinations before, and I think I was getting overly ambitious and mixing too many together, so this time I kept it simple. After baking a buttercup squash and a butternut squash, scooping out the good stuff and pureeing it, I also boiled a couple potatoes and pureed them. The whole mixture was blended together with a bit of milk, margarine, chicken broth and pepper, and I have to say that my soup is just about perfect this time.

The funny thing about squash soups is that they do not need cheese to add to the flavour. I typically put cheese on everything, so I did try it with one batch, but it's really not necessary, so I'm foregoing it this time.

This concludes your soup report.  | ¶ 11:09 a.m.

  I never meant to make you cry
"Well, your timing couldn't be worse."

That's what froo was told by her VP yesterday when she quit her job. I thought it was a lovely, lovely sentiment.  | ¶ 11:34 a.m.

  unpacking the bags and setting up It was chilly night on the canal tonight - very painful windchill. But when they said "ice conditions: excellent", I couldn't wait to get out there, especially since I went and got our skates sharpened today. Tonight was the first night I've skated the entire length of the canal, too, so we covered ten kilometres in that biting wind! Here is a fun little video just as we reached the home stretch.

  | ¶ 11:19 p.m.

  even if you try and hold me back there's nothing that you can gain In December when I was writing exams, one night Devin came home with two cups of coffee from Tim's and handed one to me, saying, "this one is the decaf". He's got a serious caffeine tolerance so it doesn't matter to him if he consumes coffee before bed. I'm like the old lady who can't drink coffee after 3 pm. That night I sat in bed wide awake watching the hours tick by and knew there'd been a mistake. Which wouldn't have been a massive problem if I didn't have an exam the following evening that I was counting on getting rested up for. So be it, somehow I get through these things.

Yesterday around dinner time Devin brought me the cup of coffee I'd asked for a couple hours earlier in the afternoon. And I always forget that he makes his espressos with two shots, so they're that much more potent (he says that he made it half-caf this time, but I'm not so sure!). I could feel it kicking in as we made our way on the bus to the canal to meet Rama-lama for some skating. And I could feel it bouncing around inside me around 1 am, 2 am, 3 am. Even the after-skate wine didn't take the edge off that caffeine jolt.

And wouldn't you know it, I had a midterm tonight that I was planning to get rested up for. So I did some late-night studying, some early-morning studying, some mid-morning napping, and then some afternoon review. And you know, somehow I get through these things.

I can't help but think there's some kind of conspiracy to keep me from sleeping before my exams, though...  | ¶ 11:47 p.m.

  I don't want to fall another moment into your gravity I spent the last two days preparing for an accounting midterm this evening. My study habits are not quite the ones of the committed student I was back in 2004-5, however, so there were lots of breaks and even a nap as I did my final review today. It's too bad I don't take the school thing more seriously because I find myself thinking that the material is actually pretty interesting as I learn it for the first time just before exams. Okay, that's not quite accurate - we do weekly accounting quizzes online so they kinda force you to have at least a little familiarity with the material as we progress. Who knew that Managerial Accounting was so nice and logical?

One thing I find funny about my TV classes is that I get so used to seeing my professors on the television screen that when I get a glimpse of them at exams, there's this moment of "...hmm, that guy looks familiar; I think I know him from somewhere..." And then when it hits me, it's like they're celebrities and I want to go introduce myself.

If you haven't heard the songs of Sara Bareilles, check her out. She's got a song on the radio these days called Love Song, but my personal favourite is one called "Gravity". I have probably listened to it two hundred times this week. Devin knows it better than he would care to.

Now that it's February, I'm making a new year's resolution, and it is this: I resolve to sit up straight and improve my posture. I think I'm developing a nasty slouching habit, so if you see me slouching, give me a slap.  | ¶ 11:58 p.m.

  I'm trying to let you hear me as I am Proof that I'm French-er than they think:

  | ¶ 4:36 p.m.

  set me free, leave me be I shouldn't whine about it; it's the system. But you get the call, the one opportunity you're still holding out for, because nothing else seems to be happening, and the story they tell you seems unbelievable somehow.

"You were are our star candidate, and you were aces in the interview, but since you didn't score high enough on speaking french we can't offer you the job."

I did the French oral assessment yesterday and it wasn't pretty. I knew it didn't go well, but it still kinda takes the wind out of your sails to hear something like that.

I think the universe is telling me something, and it goes something like this: Ottawa can suck it.  | ¶ 11:53 p.m.

  here I am and I stand so tall, just the way I'm supposed to be Weekend report in photos:


We had a snowstorm on Friday. That didn't stop us from going out for after-work drinks, though.





My brother dropped by for a rushed breakfast.





One of the resident cats needed a mode of transportation, so I picked up this nifty bag.  | ¶ 1:11 p.m.

  they tell me to breathe easy for a while Here's a new stunt done by the same group who does a recurring no-pants day on various cities' public subways. They're called Improv Everywhere, and this is a pretty cool trick they pulled off.



(via Kottke)  | ¶ 1:12 p.m.