Finally I can say something about it...

Last week I had an interview at a educational software company. The interview went really well but I felt uneasy about it. The job is in a different city. The next day I was subbing and I realized that I would miss being in a school too much. I got a call today to tell me that I have been shortlisted for the position. I informed them I was no longer interested in the position. It has been absolutely stressing me out.

Oscar Silliness

I have felt a little aimless lately. I don't want to talk about it though. On with the silliness.

I did not have the patience to watch the Oscar's this year but the pictures from it always amuse me.

Winner Brad Bird polishing his Oscar



Samuel L. Jackson peeking around the corner. It seems to be the new award show trend.

Robert Richardson - winner of "Best Supporting Magician"

Apologies, Apologies

Sorry I have not updated my blog much this week. I have not felt up to it. It is been a strange week.

A brief overview of my week:
- had a dinner party on Tuesday and it was awkward
- subbed on Friday and had a modified math class that entirely consisted of grade 9 boys. That is cruel and unusual punishment because grade 9 boys are a special breed of stupid. It was a good day though and had no problems.
- had a girls' night on Friday we called boys we knew and sang to them
- watch my brother play soccer
- almost finished the mural at church

The rest of my time in Regina was rather nondescript. Glad to see the family but not really story worthy.

When I got home to Saskatoon there was a message from the vice principal at Allen School. She said she would like for me to come in for all day Monday and I needed to call her by 11. I called her at 10:30 and she had already found someone else. If I would have phoned her 15 minutes sooner I could have work on Monday. Not much I can do.

Last night while I was trying to get to sleep I had the song "Die Harmonie in der Ehe" (Harmony in Marriage) stuck in my head. It is one of the pieces from choir. Nothing like a German song about a husband and wife who like to count money to help a girl go to sleep. I woke up at 5:30am with the song still in my head. I couldn't get back to sleep so I watched TV.

Hopefully we are having company over for supper. I have only told a few people so I hope the others can still come.

grrr

I went to the allergist today. He told me I need to start allergy shots again. Right now I have these drops that I take but they seem to be rather ineffective.

After my appointment I did a little shopping. I bought a bamboo cutting board, marble mortar and pestle, a pizza cutter and ice cream scoop. My other ice cream scoop bit the dust on Sunday. I can't wait to use my mortar and pestle; I've always wanted one.

My newest amusement is Pseudodictionary.com.

Congratulations to my sister on finishing the first chapter of her thesis.

I just found out that this summer my friends Dave and his wife Catherine are moving to Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates. That is insane. They will be both teaching at an English private school for a minimum of two years. Right now they live in rural Nova Scotia. I am convinced I will never see them again.

Today is the first day of my "no possibility of work" week. The schools around here have the week off so teachers can attend convention.

Yesterday Ang and I invited people over for lunch. There were about 8 of us. We played games for most of the day including Tribond, Canasta and Trivial Pursuit. I continue my sucking streak in Trivial Pursuit. I don't know what happened to me. It seems like the last couple times I have played everyone else but me gets questions I know the answer to.

I leave for Regina tomorrow. Hopefully fun and good times will be had.

For those interested parties

For those fans of the show "Lost", here is a fansite for Charlie's band Driveshaft.

Sorry about taking so long for my next posting. I had just been so down about not working I didn't feel much like it. However that has changed...

My friend/cousin Ky and I had made plans for me to stay over at her place on Wednesday night. Her roommate is out of town on a ski trip and I was going to keep her company for at least one night. As I was getting ready to go, I got a call from the Saskatoon Public automatic dispatch system (ads) asking me to sub on Thursday. Even though I was going to work the next day, I still went. It might have been a mistake because I got a horrible sleep. Of course with my track record lately I might have slept horribly at home.

The sub placement was for senior math and calculus. The calculus class had 47 students! Definitely the biggest class I have ever taught. The day went well. I even got to teach lessons for 3/4 of the classes which makes it a little more exciting than just supervision. The staff was the friendliest that I have encountered so far. I hope I get to work there again soon.

When I got home from school one of our new cable boxes was not working at all. I called the technical support line and we were not able to remedy the situation over the phone. They were going to send a repairman the next day. We arranged for him to come on Friday morning. I set my alarm for 8am (the earliest he could show up).

My phone rang at 6:30am, it was ads again. I was quite prepared to have to change the time when the service person was going to come by. When I checked the assignment it was only for the afternoon. So it worked out to do both. Of course I could not get back to sleep until right before my alarm went off. After the repairman had come and gone I was able to go back to sleep for another hour.

I was a little nervous about subbing yesterday afternoon. It was the afternoon before the week long winter break. Students (and teachers) can be a little crazy. Both classes had assignments to finish before the end of the day. The only people who were done we the "good" students. It was a very quiet afternoon. The last class was so uneventful and quiet that I read drafting manuals to keep from falling asleep.

Around supper time I was starting to get a headache. I took it easy last night. I watched a little TV then went to bed early. I slept 10 hours last night. I needed it.

Tonight, we finish the mural at the church.

Chocolate was a bad idea.

Stephanie, Joel and I were the only ones that showed up for the afternoon shift for painting the mural. We stopped working around 5. We picked up subway for supper and played canasta until it was time for the young people's meeting.

Once everyone was there we got a lot of work done on the mural. We are nearly done now.

argh

I only got two and a half hours of sleep last night. I do not know what my problem is. It is 6:30 am and I have been wide awake for an hour and half already. I took a Claritin Liberator yesterday morning. I have felt buzzy since supper time. One of the rare side effects is "unusual excitement, nervousness, restlessness, or irritability" but that is not really how I feel. I have dry mouth and I know that is from the Claritin but it has never effected my sleep before.

After days and days of beautiful weather, it is cold again. A lot of the streets were clear and today we got 10 cm of snow. I got stuck in my parking lot twice.

My cousins Bronwyn and Lyn came to the city for the weekend. They met me at a restaurant for supper then they came over to my place for part of the evening. Bron and I played scrabble. I was being dreadfully boring. I had horrible tiles so I was taking forever for each turn. I finally told Bronwyn that she could go into the living room and visit during my turns.

Tomorrow I am supposed to work on a mural at the church. Should take up most of the day.

I completely rearranged all my furniture in my bedroom today. It was a monumental task. My bookcase was blocking one of the heating vents and my room has been way too cold the last couple days. I needed a change. I am still not done yet. I need to put everything back on to my bookshelves.

I called Sasktel today and arrange to get cable from them. I had enough from Shaw. Someone is supposed to come Tuesday evening to set everything up.

I have the house to myself tonight. Fun and good times shan't be had.

"Sweet Lincoln's mullet!"

From my point of view, the fondue party was a great success. I even managed not to drop any of my food in the fondue. We had 16 for supper and two that came later. Eating a meal entirely cooked by fondue takes a long time. After the meal we played "I Have Never..." and then four on the couch. Over all a good, fun time.

I am really upset with my current cable provider. Yesterday, without warning, they changed the channel lineup. Now channels we got before, we would have to pay extra. I was already annoyed because they increased the rates last month. I am considering a change.

Today is our big fondue party. We are throwing it to celebrate our friend Kelly's birthday. There is a lot of things to do to prepare: clean the house, prepare the food and finish fondue menus.

On Friday I finally watch the show Numb3rs. It is about an FBI agent (Rob Morrow) who gets help from his genius mathematician brother (David Krumholtz) on cases. I thought it was good but I might be biased due to my undying love for mathematics. My question is when did Fleischman become hot? Maybe it just because he playing a cop.

Casting Tease

So I WILL NOT BE AN EXTRA IN A MOVIE next week. This is sad. I got an email yesterday from the casting director saying she wanted and needed me to work Monday through Wednesday. She was supposed to call me last night with the details about what to wear and when to show up. She never called. When I got home there was an email from her saying they do not need me next week but will need me for the skating scene. I am supposed to call her about it.

I have been sick so I decided to not go to Regina until mid-February. I was overwhelmed with the urge to be responsible. I still need to go for an appointment with the allergist sometime plus I want to see my family.

Last night I went 5-pin bowling. The first game I did poorly, only bowling 106. This is well below average for me. The second game I did much better. I bowled 216 and had 4 strikes in a row. This is my third best score and only the third time I have bowled over 200. Congratulations me! I know I can be a good bowler, I just don't get to do it often enough. A lady who worked there told me that she was sure that there was league bowlers that would pay me to do as well as I was. That was encouraging.

I woke up with a sinus headache this morning. I was still feeling queasy so I took a Dayquil on an empty stomach. I was a little buzzy today. I felt like my brain was detached from my body. Like I was watching someone else's life.

I was so sick last night. I started to feel queasy two days ago. I thought I was feeling better yesterday until after I got home from tutoring. Last night I was running a fever. I felt cold but to touch my skin it felt like it was on fire. I slept with two comforters on my bed last night and wore fleece pjs. I'm trying to take it easy with the eating today.

I got a call from a good friend. She is going to be in the city for the day. I'm going to tag along while she shops.

"Every night has it's dawn"

It is almost finalized for me being an extra in the movie Just Friends. I received an email today from the casting lady. I might be in two scenes. I would do the first one next week on Regina. The next one would be in the middle of February in Moose Jaw. The one in Moose Jaw is an exterior shot and requires extras that can skate. Should be a fun time. My cousin/friend Lyn was supposed to send in her info to be an extra also. I don't know if she has heard back yet. I hope I won't be by myself. We need to have a Janny/Lynnie adventure.

There is a slight chance I might be an extra in a movie. I find out for sure tomorrow morning. I'll keep you posted if I will or not.

The world traveller returns

I typed this big long blog after my trip and then Firefox froze and I lost everything. I have been procrastination since then to write it all over again.

My trip to Calgary was fun. On the way there the roads were not great for about the first 150km of the trip. We ended up taking an hour longer to get there because of the roads. We had supper at 10:30 our time then we went out to met up with our friends.

We got directions to the house where everyone was from the people we stayed with. When we arrived at the house we were unsure if it was the right place because all the lights were off. We walked up to the door and saw people we knew moving around inside. We knew it was the right place. There were some people playing sardines but no one was looking for them. I find that to be rather funny. They were in their hiding spot for a long time before they came out. After some visiting, we went to Denny's to eat.

The next day we went over to our friend John's house to help him fix up his kitchen. After much discussion John decided on yellow, red and caramel for the paint colours. During the day people came and went to see the progress of the kitchen, to visit but to offer little or no help. At 8pm, I stopped working because I was tired and had been working all day. Everyone else had breaks running errands. I left my car and went over to my cousin Stephanie's place. We mostly played games and visited. I was a little disappointed that I missed out on a monopoly game. I did get to play Cranium (Ky was on my team) and we won. The win was cheapened by the fact that we had many of the questions before. At least we won.

The next day at church, I was completely shocked when I was called up to hold the microphone while the children said their verses. My friend John was leading the meeting and when he called my name I was stunned. I figured I must of heard wrong. When no one else was going up I figured it must be me he called. I was so nervous all I could think was "Keep the microphone 2 inches from their mouth". Those years of vocal jazz training have done me well.

After church, people were going to eat at Wendy's. They were going to ministering at a nursing home in the afternoon and the Wendy's is near by. We were following people (boys) there and got lost. They didn't get lost, we got lost. They were racing each other. We were told were the Wendy's was and we thought we knew where to go but we turned the wrong way on a road. We had to call John to ask for directions. We were convinced everyone was going to be gone by the time we got there. Everyone did leave shortly after we arrived but quickly returned. The got a call from the nursing home saying that too many residents had the flu so they were going to cancel for that week. We had a good visit.

It was after 4 when we left Calgary on Sunday. We didn't get home until after midnight.

Monday evening on my way to choir I got stuck in the snow. I live in an area that is right on the edge of town. Last week, with all the snow and wind, we got lots of snows drifts in our area. It took 6 people to get me out. I arrived at choir over a half hour late.

Tuesday evening I tutored twice. My brain was so fried afterwords. For one of my tutees, this was our last time meeting. She had the final for her class on Wednesday.

I found out that the new boy I tutor is the son of a former professional hockey player. He retired from hockey in 1997 and now he is a resort developer. I found out his wife is a cousin to my uncle. It is a small world after all...