I may never buy another book again

I love to read. But I never understood why my brother would read e-books that he downloaded from the internet. Until today.

See a couple of weeks ago he bought an e-book reader. It cost a lot of money and he doesn't really read much anyway but today he let me borrow it and I've got to say it's growing on me. I have 3 book shelves full of books in my apartment and everytime I move I have to haul these books around with me. But the process would be so much more simplified if all I had to do was pack up a couple of flashdrives or an external hard drive.

So I may have to go out and buy myself one of these e-book readers. Is there any new technology out there that you want to try? The i-pad for example.

What I want this week

I have been known to be impulsive from time to time. I've also been known to become obsessed with things that I want but don't yet have. The sad this is that it's not that I can't afford these things but just that I know that I don't need them, so I try not to buy them until they are all I can think about.

Take my new purse for example. I went to visit it in the store on a Friday. Then spent the whole weekend stalking it via the Guess website until I couldn't take it anymore and broke down and bought it.

This week's new obsession is these earrings. I found them yesterday while I was digging around the NCAA store. It's not the greatest picture in that you can barely make out the Musketeer in the middle of them, but that's what it is. It's the mascot of the Xavier Musketeers. I have absolutely no connection to Xavier University, hell I don't even know anyone from the state of Ohio but I love these earrings. The closest I come to a connection with Xavier is picking them to go one round too far in the NCAA tournament every year and cheering for them simply because thier mascot is D'Artagnan. This makes so much more sense once you know that my favorite book is The Three Musketeers. There was a similar pair for Purdue, which would make so much more sense given that I still harbour a dream of going there for grad school but they didn't have the Musketeer awesomeness. They aren't terribly expensive either it's just a matter of convincing myself that it's okay to spend $12 on shipping for a pair of earrings that only coss $16.

We Start Volleyball Today

I've been trying to come up with something to post about that didn't involve Jon Scheyer, Gordon Hayward or Kyle Singler gobbling like a turkey (don't ask). But ever since that crazy game on Monday night I haven't really thought about much else.

Until today. My brother and I signed up to play rec co-ed volleyball for the next 8 weeks. I'm really excited. My brother is really good, he even played in college. I on the other hand haven't played volleyball (or sports in general) since I was in high school. So I'm terribly out of shape but hopefully I don't totally suck.

I'll keep you posted.

Butler is just too adorable

I was going to try not to post until after the national championship game but I felt that I needed to tell you what was going on in my head.

First of all I find myself cheering for Duke mostly because it's Scheyer's senior year and I'd like to see him win a national championship. Most of the Bulldogs are still in their early years so they at least have a chance to make it back to the final, regardless of how unlikely that is considering how tough the tournament is.

But Butler is just too cute. Everything from the bulldog logo to the actual bulldog is just adorable. For a school of just over 4,500 just getting to this point is amazing. Then there is Gordon Hayward, he really doesn't photograph well so finding the right picture to capture his cuteness is not so easy but this one is not bad (right). He's only 20 and super humble. Also he's apparently a computer engineering major (thank you wikipedia). And then there is the Butler coach Brad Stevens. He's only 33 and pretty cute in his own right.

So mostly I've just been cheering for Hayward when he has the ball and cheer for Duke the rest of the time. We'll see how it ends up. Right now it's a really tight game.

Everything's coming up Milhouse

If you didn't get it that was a Simpson's reference. There aren't many times when I can say that things went exactly the way I wanted. Especially when it comes to sports. Mostly because I have no control over them. But today turned out pretty much perfectly. Sorry I'm talking about the final four here.

Frankly I didn't really care whether Michigan State or Butler won the first game. I probably could have been equally happy regardless of the result. But I am glad that Butler won. I've already decided that Gordon Hayward is going to be my college basketball boyfriend next year once Jon Scheyer has graduated. Provided he doesn't go to the NBA next year. I might cry.

As for the Duke/West Virginia game I was totally pulling for Duke in that game. I think I've made it pretty clear that I love Jon Scheyer but it never hurts to keep mentioning it. The rest of the team is growing on me too. But besides being the home of my basketball boyfriend I kind of share the rest of the world's hatred of Duke, just on principle.

So now I'm not quite sure who to cheer for. I fully expect Duke to win the National Championship and I'd love to see Scheyer win the title in is senior season. But Butler has the sort of Cinderella story going on. I might just have to see what happens and be happy either way. Or I just go with the Bulldogs. But I'm not going to cry if Duke wins. Go Bulldogs!

We've gone wireless

Well actually we've been wireless in our apartment since we moved there. But the big news is that my mom and dad are wireless now. The internet is still impossibly slow but now I'm able to sit in the living room and type this without disturbing my mom's game of freecell.

I'm so excited. This can only mean that I'll be able to blog more while I'm on the road.

The funniest thing I've seen so far today

What's a girl who isn't working and doesn't have anything to do all day going to do to waste time? Apparently read the CBSsports one blogging moment blog. Not everything on there is hilarious but some of it is good. And sometimes they find social media (youtube, twitter, facebook) source material that is worth sharing.

Like this gem from the Duke basketball team:

Granted it's terrible but it's got some things going for it. For one the production value, it's well done even if the acting is terrible. And two, it features Jon Scheyer who should probably not take up acting as a career but makes me love him more every time I see him. Third, the sweaty johnson! And Kyle Singler being attacked by lemurs. This is great stuff.

I'm going to miss the tournament when it's all over and my basketball boyfriends retire from college hoops.

I am about to propose the most ridiculous thing ever

I don't remember if you guys have heard my rant about strollers on public transit. The essence of the rant is that I don't think people should be allowed strollers on the bus. But I deal with the fact that some people just need to use public transit. I try to do this mostly by assuming that these people actually own a car but it's in the shop or something so they had to take the bus this one time. But today takes the cake, there was not one or two strollers on my bus home today but 4. Four freaking strollers, which means 10 people were unable to sit to accommodate this contraptions.

I've had the stroller argument probably a half dozen times and my basic argument is that if you can't afford a car then you can't afford a baby. To which someone once pointed out that probably 90 percent of pregnancies are unplanned (hopefully this is a gross over estimation because if only 10 percent of children are actually born to parents who intended to have a child then there are some even more serious issues in this world. But here's the thing about unplanned pregnancy, there are options. Now I don't generally agree with the big option, but the fact is that abortion is legal in this country and maybe more people should be using this option. Or you know stepping up their birth control.

Now to my really crazy idea. Remembering that I say this somewhat if not completely tongue in cheek, there should be an economic cutoff for parent hood. If your household income falls below a certain level you should be forced to at least give up for child for adoption. It's for the child's own benefit you just can't provide everything that a child needs. Sorry a kid can't be raised on love it actually costs money. Clearly there should be other considerations for who should be allowed to be a parent, just because you're loaded isn't going to make you a good parent.

I'm kind of getting off topic here and clearly this idea is in the controversial pile. If my blog were more popular I'm sure I'd get all sorts of comments about how elitist this post is. Let me state for the record that I don't come from money, we were amazingly middle-class. I had student loans just like everyone else (still paying them off as a matter of fact). I think I've said it enough times but just in case it comes back to bite me as some point I feel that I need to point out again that this post is just something to think about and does not even receive my own full support. I'm just putting it out there. I also realize that such a policy could and should (probably) never actually be put in place in Canada. It probably violates a number of human rights laws, but I'm not a lawyer so I don't have to worry about that stuff.

Wikipedia is the greatest invention ever

In a world in which we are constantly stimulated visually, audibly and even olfactorilly (after much discussion of what we should call nasal stimulation this is what we came up with), sometimes I get bored. It's at these times that I turn to Wikipedia to learn random stuff.

Here's the great thing about Wikipedia, you can start with one topic and end up somewhere completely different. I don't usually go with the random article button. Usually I have something that I want to start off with and just follow links from within the article to other articles.

Sometimes the connections that are made from where you started to where you end up are truly amazing and sometimes even a little bit horrifying. You can get off topic pretty quickly but you might be surprised at what you might learn.

So is this something that you do? Or am I just some kind of weirdo? Wait don't answer that last part.

Your NCAA basketball update

Just in case you were wondering why you haven't gotten any bracket updates this year it's because both my hotness bracket and my actual bracket were horribly busted after the first weekend.

Last night's Duke-Purdue game pit my two current college basketball boyfriends and seniors, Jon Scheyer and Chris Kramer against each other. Why do I have two college basketball boyfreinds? Mostly because I couldn't decide between the two. Duke won and so that's the end of Chris Kramer's college career. Poor Chris Kramer, but if he's in need of some comfort I'm available.

As for the teams that are left. I'd like to see Duke win if only so that I can continue to see Jon Scheyer. Butler because thier mascot is a bulldog and come on they are adorable, also because Gordon Hayward is the leading candidate to become next year's basketball boyfriend he's also adorable. Michigan State because I just prefer that they win than Tennesee. And I could really care less who wins between Kentucky and West Virginia although the Mountaineers have provided some entertainment this week with thier twitter videos which I found while incredibly bored yesterday.

Wonderful Randomness

I had the most wonderful surprise today. I was standing in line at the cafeteria listening to the conversation of two med students when I hear someone call my name. I turned around to find one of my friends from residence who I hadn't seen in months.

So we had lunch together. It was really nice being able to catch up with someone that I hadn't seen in a while. I should really do it more often.

Everyone else leads such interesting lives

Hey sorry I know it's been a while, I just haven't had anything to say. My life has been pretty boring lately.

Last week started with me finishing off my hotness bracket, just in time for games to start on Thursday. Which lead to a weekend of me watching college basketball. I'm super excited that both Duke and Purdue made it to the Sweet 16 and will be facing off against each other on Friday night.

On another front I've been trying to decide the extent of my feelings for office crush. This crush has been going on for far too long and it hasn't really followed the pattern of previous crushes. Usually once I tell a friend about a crush it quickly dissipates and becomes a non-issue. This one has managed to stick around for much longer than I would have ever thought possible. So what's with the sudden need to define my feelings? Well it has to do with moving forward. Something someone said to me in the other day about how nothing good happens unless we take chances. Whether I'm willing to take that chance or not is yet to be seen.

It's College Basketball Time

It's that wonderful time of year again. The time where I spend 4 days a week on my couch watching every possible college basketball game I can get my eyes on.


Although for some reason I'm not quite as excited this year. Yeah I filled out a couple of brackets and yes I did do my "hotness bracket" again this year but for some reason it just doesn't feel the same. Both my hotness bracket and my real bracket predict a Kansas victory.

And who is this year's hottest player? Purdue's Chris Kramer. You may remember him as the guy who looks like Keith. There are actually a lot of look a-likes this year. I pronounce "he looks like..." several times as I made my way through the teams.



Anyway I'll be sure to keep you updated as to how my bracket is doing. Are you doing anything to celebrate the NCAA Tournament?

I'd rather not know

I've discovered something about myself recently. This story is going to sound totally pathetic and it kind of is but at the same time totally revealing about some things in my life.

On Thursday night I was supposed to meet someone for dinner. I don't want to exactly call her a friend. We used to be friendly but then we both got busy and sort of fell apart. This was supposed to be our second meeting since the Facebook reconnect. I hadn't been feeling well all week and came close to cancelling a few times but didn't. Anyway I showed up to the Olive Garden where we were supposed to meet and an hour and two drinks and two bowls of soup later she still hadn't.

So what's one to make of this situation? My first thought was "well she must have got stuck in traffic". That lasted for about 15 minutes. After half an hour I figured I must have gotten the day wrong, but I was almost certain I hadn't because I double checked before I left. After an hour I figured she must have had some kind of emergency and there would be a call or an e-mail waiting for me when I got home. It's 4 days later and still no call or e-mail. So I sent her a Facebook message and tried really hard not to sound too pissed off.

Here's the thing though, at this point I'd rather not know what happened. At least if I don't know there is a chance that it was an emergency and she didn't just forget about me. I'll feel pretty bad if it was that she just didn't remember that we had plans and went ahead and did her own thing.

I also realized that there are other things that I don't want to know. For example ,I still harbor my office crush. Even though I haven't been at work for nearly a year and therefore haven't seen him I have attached certain events to him. So when I think about those things I think of him. Anyway I've decided that I'd rather not know if he likes me, than find out that he doesn't. Or if I would get accepted to my choice of graduate schools, right now I have the hope that I would, if I apply and don't get in I'd be upset.

Is there anything you'd rather not know for certain?

To Prague or not to Prague

First of all let me say that this is my 400th post. I can't believe that I've had enough to say to write 400 posts. Okay moving on.

Ever since I went to Scotland last summer I've caught a bit of the travel bug. There aren't a lot of places that I'd really like to go. I'm not a fan of tropical or hot places so I'm not really big on the idea of South America or Australia. But one place that I have wanted to go is Prague. I don't know why exactly Prague. I'm not Czech, I don't speak Czech and while I love history there are a billion other places in Europe with the kind of history I crave. Anyway that's where I want to go.

But the tour plus the flight is $8000, which I don't have (yet). Anyone wanna come? Is there one place in the world that you want to go more than anywhere else?

ain't it pretty?

Handbags for all

I've needed a new purse for a while now. I broke the last one by shoving 3 pairs of shoes in it and then attempting to close the zipper. Oops. I went back to using an old one that I don't really like and isn't' exactly wintery. So I've been on the look out for a new one.

Here's the thing though, I'm sick of buying cheap purses only to have them break on me. Granted the last one was totally my fault but still. So I'm looking at Guess purses, I found one that I really like but I just can't wrap my head around spending that kind of money. So right now I'm in a holding pattern. I want it but I'm going to wait it out and see if it's just an impulse thing or if I still want it in a week.

Is there anything that you want but haven't bought yet because it's too expensive?

They're here, They're here

My DVDs came today. I'm totally surprised by how quickly they arrived. Now the hard part will be forcing myself to do anything but watch them.

There was a little hitch with having the Gilmore Girls shipped via UPS. See I wasn't home to receive them so the UPS guy left them with our neighbour. I was NOT pleased. But our neighbours seemed really nice in the end and I've got my videos now so it's on to the watching. After we finish watched the last episode of the last season of Supernatural, the 8th season of Smallville, The entire series of the British Office, and the 4th Season of Psych.

Boy, that's a lot of TV to watch. Do you watch any of these shows? What series would you most like to own?

Online Shopping is the Devil

Today I decided that I was going to do something nice for myself, so I decided that I would go shopping. But by 11:30 I had decided that I also didn't really want to leave the house. I certainly didn't want to go to the mall just to find out that what I really wanted wasn't in stock. So I looked at BestBuy.ca to find out if they had what I wanted in stock at either of the stores in the city, they did not. So I turned to online shopping.

20 minutes and $300 later I had ordered the complete series box set of Gilmore Girls from Amazon and all 4 "series" of Canada A People's History from the CBC store. These are sure to bring me hours of entertainment once the Olympics are over. Now I just hope that they get to me alright.

Was That an Ice Dance Gold Medal?

Why yes, yes it was. Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir won Canada's first ever gold medal in ice dance. Sadly I missed their free dance. I fell asleep during the warm up for the final flight. Actually for that matter I missed their compulsory dance too. But I saw their original dance and they were amazing. So let's hear it for another gold medal for Canada. I would say this is a top three Olympic moment for me so far. The other two would be Alex Bilodeau's gold medal to kick start the Games and Canada's 5-3 loss to the USA in men's hockey (not because I'm happy about it but because it's a big deal). Did you see them dance or did you miss it too? What has been your highlight of the Olympics so far?

Yeah, I don't miss that

I have obviously been watching a lot of Olympic coverage, since it's on all the time. And I love it I do but the last couple of days I've been watching figure skating.

For the men's short and free skate I joined the women of Ladies... for a live blog. It was a good time even though I think that Plushenko should have won (and Elvis agrees with me ). I mean how do you not even try to go higher, faster, stronger at the Olympics. Maybe it's just more figure skating is not a sport fodder to think about.

Anyway today the compulsory dance is on tap. I figured skated for 8 years and frankly I hated the days when we did dance. I just thought it was so boring. I have to admit though that watching it at this level is amazing. It's just so pretty to watch. Dance is clearly not the most exciting of figure skating competitions. I mean the first part is everyone doing the same dance, but it does get slightly more exciting after that I promise. I don't expect any spectacular falls in this event though.

So do you have any thoughts on figure skating? Sport? Non-sport? Quad or No Quad?

Why Am I Not at The Olympics Right Now?

Obviously the Olympics have been going on for the last couple of days and I'm absolutely riveted. I love every event. Well except maybe the cross country skiing, it's just so boring, but biathlon is awesome.

The Olympics are in Vancouver and I'm not there. It's kind of like when I was in Scotland during
Wimbledon but didn't get there.

What about you, are there any sports you're following at the Olympics? Or is it all just a waste of time in your eyes?

Bloggers who take themselves too seriously

So as I start my foray into discovering other blogs I've found that some bloggers seem share my opinion that blogging is just for fun. It's a simple way to keep people in the loop even if you can't see or talk to them very often. Others on the other hand think that they will be discovered through thier blogs. I'm not saying that it's not going to happen, because you hear about it from time to time. But the majority of these people are just fooling themselves if they think they'll be making a career out of this.

What do you think? Do you view blogging as a career or a past-time? Or some combination of the two?

Moguls Skiers are Flipping Crazy

I just finished watching Alexandre Bilodeau win the first Olympic gold medal for Canada at the Olympics. Last night I watched Jennifer Heil win the silver medal in the women's event.

I can't even imagine doing what they do. Ski-ing down a crazy bumpy course AND taking to the air and doing flips all in less than 30 seconds.

Before the event CTV did some profiles of Alex and his relationship with his older brother who has cerebral palsy. Oh and now he's crying during his interview with CTV. That's it people I think I've found my moguls "boyfriend".

The picture by the way is from CTVolympics.ca. So what about you guys are you watching the Olympics? What's your favorite event?

Goal of the Week

It's been a long time since I've done a goal of the week but here I am. I also have to admit that I'm setting myself up for failure on this one but I'm going to try it anyway.

This week I want to post a comment on at least one blog per day. I do read a lot of blogs but I don't often comment, but since I've joined 20-something bloggers I feel like in order to get myself out there more I should contribute to other people's blogs as well as my own.

The only thing that's going to hamper this is that I'm heading out to the farm tonight so I'll be internet free for the next couple of days. But after that I'll go whole hog.

More Car Problems

I don't even know why I have a car it seems to be nothing but problems. First the battery thing , Then a flat. And now another flat. All within the first month of 2010. Boy am I glad I have CAA. But they only allow 4 free calls per year and well this would be my third.

Hopefully my brother can change my tire for me. I'd attempt to do it myself but it's not something I've ever done before. Maybe I should just stick to the bus from now on.

Edit: So I did call CAA and then went to the tire place. Where they did the repair for FREE! He said it was a customer appreciation thing since I dropped $300 on two new tires there the week before last. Either that or he was flirting with me.

Why It's Okay that the Saints won the Superbowl

I think enough mourning time has gone by that I can write this post without starting to tear up uncontrollably. As a Colts fan I really did go against the grain and cheer against the Saints. I had to.

But anyway I think this picture from the New York Daily Times explains exactly why I'm okay with the Saints victory.

It's Drew Brees and a baby. His baby but still. I've said it before and I'll say it again I love Drew Brees. And what's cuter than a baby?

Pre-Olympic Reminder

The Olympics start on Friday. I'm not quite ramped up for them yet but I expect I'll get there soon. But I thought I should mention that my "curling boyfriend"* Marc Kennedy will be competing in his first Olympics as part of Team Canada. Oh also it was his birthday last week. Did anyone else notice that he lists country as his favorite type of music. This is anotherone of those the more you know the more you like them situations.

I borrowed this picture from someone else. Hey I don't put this stuff on the interwebs I just find it and use it. Hey at least I'm giving credit. Don't judge me.

So Go Canada!

*Not my actual boyfriend. I have a "boyfriend" for nearly every sport I won't get into it right now but ask me about it if you want to know more. Also for the record I'm not a stalker, I have my own life to attend to thank you very much.

What I'm Reading Now

Sometimes there's nothing better than sitting down with a hot cup of coffee and a good book. Sometimes I'll substitute hot chocolate or red wine for coffee if I feel like it. But there is a good chance that I'm in the middle of a book at any moment in time.

So I thought I'd share with you what I'm reading now. Don't worry this isn't going to be a book review type thing, though there are several wonderful book review blogs and when I come across some good ones again I'll add some linkage.

And now on to the main attraction of this post, what I'm reading now:
I just started Nicholas and Alexandra by Robert K. Massie. It's not fiction about the end of the Romanov dynasty. I'm totally into history so I'm looking forward to reading more of it. I'm only on page 27 right now.

What about you dear reader, what type of books get you going? If you were on a deserted island what is the one book you would want to take with you?

Sports Karma

I don't know if you've noticed but I sort of like sports, just a little. Today I'm a little worried. It's Superbowl Sunday, which is huge. But it's also the finals of the Scotties Tournament of Hearts, the Canadian Women's curling championship.

I'm watching the final and it's a really close game between Canada and PEI. How is PEI playing against the country its in you ask? Well because the previous year's champion comes back the next year wearing the maple leaf. This year Canada is represented by the Jennifer Jones (pictured left) team out of my home province of Manitoba. So I'm cheering for them. And it seems to be working. It's the 10th end (the last end barring an extra) and Canada is up by one point without hammer. If you don't understand curling basically hammer is the last rock which is really important.

But am I using all my sports karma on this game? Will there be enough left for the Colts to win the Superbowl tonight? Am I possibly insane? Wait don't answer that last question.

Some New Things

In case you haven't noticed the badge on the right side I recently joined 20something bloggers. If you're bored and looking for something to do I recommend clicking on it and checking out some of the other blogs out there. You never know what you might find.

To Write a Thesis or not to Write

So in all of my thoughts about grad school and where I should go I some how blocked out the thought that I'm going to have to write a thesis.

This hit me hard as I was looking at different school and the profs at those schools. It's not that I had totally forgot about it but just that I hadn't really given a lot of thought to it, what with the writing entrance exams and figuring out application deadlines and having to get references.

So how does one psych themselves up to write a thesis? Well my method is to go through papers that I wrote for my undergrad. And not to toot my own horn but, I wrote some pretty kick ass papers, some of which I totally forgot about.

I still don't know what I would do my thesis on but it had better be something that I love because it's going to be with me for 2 years.

How has no one noticed this?

The Superbowl is just days away and I haven't said a damn thing about it. And nobody noticed. Or maybe someone did notice and was hoping that I just forgot.

There isn't much for me to say about the Superbowl that hasn't already been said. But I have to say this is going to be a tough one for me. I think we all know how I feel about Peyton Manning (love him) and the Colts are my favorite team, but I also love Drew Brees (pictured right). So I guess I just have to cheer for whichever offense is on the field at the time.

The Colts should win this one. And that's all I'm going to say about the Superbowl.

Where does the time go?

Here it is February and I barely noticed. There has been a lot going on with me and not a lot all at the same time.

On the treatment for my illness side I was hospitalized for about 3 weeks and now I'm just waiting for my outpatient treatments to start. I'm also trying to normalize my life. Things just kind of got out of control, particularly while I was in hospital because I couldn't do anything at home.

I'm trying to reconnect with some people that I haven't seen in what seems like ages, but it's more like the fall. It just seems like everyone is busy this time of year, what with school starting again and job opportunities to apply for.

As for what I'm up to, this week is really a take it easy and watch curling week. Oh and keeping up with Superbowl week.

My love-hate relationship with CAA

I have CAA, not because I'm a bad driver but because I have bad luck. Some days CAA is great. Like last Friday when my battery was dead.

The driver told me that the battery was frozen because the car had sat dead too long. First of all I knew my battery was pretty much dead and I hadn't driven in a while, but who knew batteries could freeze. Anyway the guy took it out, took it to the shop charged it up and it was working fine so he re-installed it on Monday in near blizzard conditions.

Today CAA wasn't so great. I had a really flat tire. I mean really flat. Again because had left it sit too long. I knew I had a slow leak and had just been filling it up with air from my air tank but because I hadn't driven in a while it went right flat. My theory was that I would just drive to the service station up the road and pump it up but when I got there, there was no hose on the air compressor.

This is where CAA comes in. I am probably the only person in the world without a cell phone but luckily the service station had a pay phone from which I could call CAA. So I did but because I didn't have a phone they couldn't give me a five minute warning call so they gave me an hour and a half window. So I sat and sat and sat some more. Finally half an hour after my window I called to see what was up. And wouldn't you know that once I called and was waiting on hold the truck came to change my tire.

Today has been a good day

I haven't had a lot of good days recently so it's good to document the ones I have so that I can refer back to it later.

It started this morning. My brother and I watched some Smallville and this British show called "the IT crowd" it's pretty funny. After that we played a game of hockey on the Playstation. Oh and then I watched some curling. I'm totally crushing on Marc Kennedy. Then I hunkered down with my bag of chips and watched the Colts beat the Jets to head for the Superbowl. Now I'm watching the NFC title game. Go Saints! Or Geaux Saints if you want to play up the frenchness.

Yup good day.

the scary thing about the internet

Even though there are all sorts of wonderful things about the internet I find it scary how much of it is accessible to everyone. I'm never really sure what could be used against me in the future. I mean things like Facebook which was developed with the intention of connecting people can be used by future and sometimes even current employers to determine an employees character outside of work.

What I'm thinking of now is actually about my illness. I've been struggling with it for a long time and being able to talk about it openly might help someone in the future who is dealing with the same thing. But I'm too afraid to talk about it here on my blog because someone might find it and it might prevent me from living the life that I may want to lead in the future.

more blogcation

Well I made it back from Regina in one piece. A very tired piece but still together. As for my health well that's not going so well right now. I was pretty good through our whole trip but since I've been back it's been pretty crappy.

Anyway I think I'm going to take a break from blogging for a while. Just until things settle down a bit.

Going to Agribition

I am so excited about going to Agribition it's really the only thing that has gotten me through the last couple of months. This is the first time in the history of me that my family is taking cattle to show in Regina. It's a big deal and there is lots of work to be done.

The cattle are going tomorrow and I'll be arriving on Wednesday. Then the show is on Thursday and the sale on Friday and then home again. I'm going to attempt to blog this trip on my travel blog. This is my first real trip since I went to Scotland. Well actually that's not true. I just haven't taken my camera along on some of the others.

So wish us luck and follow along if you'd like.

It appears that I have gone missing

Hey there,

Listen I'm just going through a prolonged period of illness right now. Things seemed to be getting better and then they got worse. So what does this have to do with you? Well mostly I just wanted to let you know what was up since I disappeared rather suddenly. It's hard to get to a computer when you're not feeling well, even though I have two of them. So I really do apologize if anyone actually kept checking to see if I'd written something new.

So thank you for supporting my blogging addiction. I promise I'll get back to it as soon as I can.

Lots of Love,

Janalee

Looking for ideas

Along with a whole lot of other things in my life my inner blogger is broken. I don't know what to talk about. I try to keep my blog mostly positive, but lately I'm seeing only grey. So commenter is there something you'd like me to talk about? Some subject I've never touched on but should? Something that I've mentioned and since forgot about? I'm throwing this over to you because you make the effort to read at least occasionally.

That's it next year I'm getting Sunday Ticket

So it's football season again. Actually we're almost half way through the season. Up until now I've been able to find a game to watch on Sunday. Considering that there are 4 teams (Indy, New York Giants, New Orleans and Chicago) that I will watch if I can find their game. However this week they aren't showing any of those games in my area except the Giants game which is the Sunday night feature.

My brother has NFL Sunday Ticket which allows you to watch any game you want, which is pretty sweet. But I didn't want to spend the money to get it. Maybe next season I'll re-think that.

Sometimes you just get bored

As you probably know by now I watch a lot of TV. When I'm not watching TV I'm probably watching something that I downloaded so that I can catch up on past episodes. As you can imagine from time to time I get stumped about what to watch next. It's time like these I turn to my friends.

A friend suggested that I check out Castle. I was a little skeptical at first since I'm not big on cop shows, but I have to admit that I really like it. So what about you? Have you watched it? Do you like it? What else would you recommend for the next time I run out of ideas?

Week 2 is in the bag

It was pointed out to me recently that it's been a while since I posted and well it has. I just haven't had anything exciting to say. I really do try to leave a lot of my personal drama out of my blog simply because I don't want to bring people down.

So my only new is that I got through my second week of return to work. Tuesday was a little wavery but I powered through. Hopefully I can get back to full time soon.

Wine-ing, Dining and nearly getting electrocuted

I've been driving for nearly 10 years, more than that if you count illegally hitting up the back roads back home, so you'd think that I would know well enough not to leave my lights on. Well then you would think wrong.

I went out for dinner with an old friend that I hadn't seen in more than 2 years. We went to the Olive Garden which is my all time favorite restaurant. I don't much like driving in the city to begin with and we went to the one that's on the opposite side of the city so I had to meet her there. I was a little nervous but it turned out that it wasn't a problem.

We had a nice dinner and tasted some wine. I couldn't finish my meal though since I filled up on soup, breadsticks and appetizers, so I've got left overs for tomorrow.

Then after our meal we walked outside to the over-flow parking where incidentally we had both parked when I realized I had left my lights on. So I sort of panicked. Well on the inside anyway outwardly I was pretty calm. But I have no clue about cars so I didn't know what to do. So I asked my friend and she thought we could probably boost it.

In my nearly 10 years of driving I've had my car boosted probably half a dozen times but I've never done it myself. I have a general idea of what to do but I'm certainly not confident enough to do it myself. Did I mention it was dark because that's probably an important part of the story. So anyway we connected the cables red first to her car and then mine. Then we tried the black cables in the same order. And let's just say the sparks flew. Luckily no one was hurt.

Anyway we were just about to give up when I decided to try my car one more time and by some fluke of nature it started and I was on my way.

Our Technological Age

You know that game you play where you pick 3 things that you couldn't live without on a desert island? Well I had a random thought while I was getting ready to go out for dinner with an old friend, I think all of the things I couldn't live with out require electricity.

Seriously how did we ever live without internet? Or cell phones (I actually do live without a cell phone but only because everyone else has one so if I need to reach them I can)? Or a flat iron?

So what can't you live without? Do tell.

This would only happen to me

So now that I've started a travel blog I wasn't sure if this would fall under my regular everyday blog or that one. But since this is strictly a shopping trip and not a sightseeing adventure it's going here.

Anyway my brother and I had a fairly uneventful trip to Fargo. The first thing we did after we checked into the hotel was check out the pool facilities. This included a fairly decent sized pool, a rather luke-warm hot tub and a sauna.

After my initial disappoint at the hot tub we tried out the sauna. And I managed to blister my back by laying down on the hot bench. Yup, this could only happen to me.

Maybe it's never the right time

I've been thinking a lot about fate lately. It's my way of getting through a lot of the tough things in life. I don't believe in God per say but I have to believe that something is guiding us to certain things.

Take the relapse of my illness. It doesn't just happen. It showed me that I needed to make changes in the way I'm living my life. It was really crappy timing what with my promotion and everything but it is what it is. Maybe it will lead to something wonderful. But then again maybe not.As I said previously there was a job opening that I was interested in, but this just isn't a good time for me.

I have a friend who talks about going back to school but just hasn't found the right time to take that leap.Maybe the challenge is not so much finding the opportunities that we want as overcoming the problem of bad timing.

Soothing Words

Has anyone seen the movie Sidney White? No well it's a kind of modernized version of Snow White. It stars Amanda Bynes where instead of 7 Dwarfs (dwarves?) there are 7 Dorks (which I would be reminded actually means whale penis) and the mirror is a Hot or Not page. It's kind of amusing in a fluffy trying to kill time kind of way.

Why am I giving you a movie review instead of doing a blog post, you ask? Well see the Witch in the movie (Rachel Witchburn) has soothing words like Gucchi and Prada. And after today I had to come up with a few of my own soothing words.

Jay Cutler's Pouty face:

Shoe Shopping:

Starbucks Coffee... or anything really. And meeting friends for coffee or lunch. Now mind you this is not in anyway a comprehensive list. It's just a few random items to keep me going until the next time.

That didn't go as well as planned

Today was a big day for me. It was the first day that I was back at work after an extended leave of absence. It was really weird walking in there after all of this time. Everyone seemed happy to see me and when people asked about my health I gave them the stock answer "getting better".

Which got me thinking why do people even ask "how are you?" the expected answer is either good or fine. Anything else and you become something of a Debbie Downer.

Anyway I didn't realize how much I missed everyone until I saw them again. I guess if nothing else I can enjoy the social atmosphere at work.

Watching Baseball

I can't believe I watched baseball last night. I hate baseball. To be completely honest I was also watching the Colts game so it was kind of a flip back and forth kind of deal. So what was I doing watching baseball then?

Well see it started because I was out at the farm for the weekend and my dad was watching the game. So I sat down to watch with him until the football game started. That's when I realized it was the Twins vs. the Yankees. Now because I don't like baseball and therefore don't follow it the only player I knew besides Jeter and A-Rod was Joe Mauer of the Twins.

So Lisa if you're still following this one's for you. I've been trying to get you a Joe Mauer bobblehead for the last year but the 2009 versions are terrible so here's a picture instead.

Just another reason to get on with my GRE studying

You know you've been away from the real world too long when you don't even realize that one of your favorite (but then again I have lots of favorites) players switched teams in the off season.


Martin Havlat signed with the Minnesota Wild in the off season. So I guess that means I'd better get studying so that I can move to Minneapolis.

Actually I'm going to Minneapolis next weekend. Well if we aren't shopped out by the time it's time to go there.

I guess it wasn't meant to be

I tried really hard in the middle of the night last night to order a Jay Cutler Chicago bobblehead for my desk at work. But since I'm in Canada I wasn't able to complete the purchase. So I called in today to order. Turns out shipping on the item is as much as the actual item. So I decided to skip it. My desk will just have to continue to be bobblehead-less.

In the Christmas spirit... in October

I know it's still over 2 months away and it's not even Halloween but I can't stop thinking about Christmas. I love Christmas. The lights, the smell of spruce trees, the turkey, wrapping presents. I love it all. I especially love shopping for gifts for everyone else. Well that and it's the only time that my whole family gets together anymore.

I am commencing Christmas shopping next week and hope to be done by the end of October. Now I don't expect anyone else to have started their Christmas shopping yet, but have you started thinking about what you want to receive? Or who you might shop for this year that wasn't on you list last year?

You might say it's too early, I say bring it on.

My 2009-10 Fantasy Team

There is only one word to describe this year's team and that word is suck. They suck, which I guess means that I suck since my team has yet to win a single match up AND I've got the fewest points in the league.

I do however have a much more clever title for this year's version. Last year I called my team "So Bad" as in "this is going to end so bad". This year I named my team "Off Constantly" which means that whenever someone is talking about when they beat me they end up saying "I beat off constantly". I can't take credit for this brilliance though. I have to give it all to my younger brother since he thought of it first.

I don't even have any bench QBs to be excited with this year. Last year I sort of fell in love with Jay Cutler (even more so now but that's a story for another time).

Instead I get this:



and the incredibly old Kurt Warner.

Have I mentioned that my team sucks?

Paralyzed with Fear

Maybe it's fate or kismet or the universe trying to tell me something, I just wish I could figure out exactly what that is. Just as I'm planning returning to work after my sick leave the job of my dreams opens up. In fact this job is the one that I said I wanted in my high school yearbook.

But I'm not sure what to do. In the past when I've applied for jobs and not gotten interviews I got upset. But when I have gotten interviews and don't get the job I'm even more upset. I wish there was some way for me to only apply for jobs that I'm going to get. I also don't quite know what to do about references. It's always a bit of an issue when you're in a position and applying elsewhere, do you ask the boss and risk pissing him (or her) off or do you try to find an older reference hoping that they will at least give you a glowing recommendation.

Anyway the details of the job go like this:

• Small-ish town, which is totally perfect for me since I hate living in the city
• perfect fit for my education and training, even if the advertisement says Master's preferred
• 2 year term, so I'm not going to feel like I'm stuck if I don't like it and it ends with just the right amount of time off before I'd head off to grad school
• Much better salary range than I currently make, but then again I'm over qualified for the job that I have.

New boots for all

Okay well maybe not all, but definitely me. See I was having a rough day so I went to visit my brother's girlfriend just to hang out for a while. But she happens to work in a shoe store. So I may have purchased the boots below. Did I need 2 pairs of boots? no. Did I need even one pair of boots? Probably not. And yet some how I ended up with them both. Sometimes you just have to do something nice for yourself even if your feet don't agree that it's nice.

The First Hurdle to Cross

The last time I talked about getting serious about going to grad school I was looking at writing the GRE. Since I've been studying for the GRE for a while I realized that I don't seem to be doing very well. I'm doing practice questions now and well I kind of suck.

So now I'm thinking maybe instead of killing myself to do well on the GRE so that I can get into my dream schools, maybe I ought to be looking for schools that don't require the GRE. None of the Canadian school that I would apply to require the GRE and some other schools like Oklahoma State and North Dakota State don't require the GRE. So maybe I should just take the easy way out. Then again I might kick myself for not at least trying to write the GRE.

Alright that's 7 mentions of the GRE in one post. Far more than enough.

I've started writing again

If you've been reading this blog for a while you already know that I'm a terrible writer and if you're new well I guess I just spilled the beans. Despite this fact I occasionally enjoy writing. That's part of the reason I started this blog.

I've also been known to write short stories. Terrible, awful short stories. I don't do it with the hopes of being published or anything like that. I know my limits. These stories are just for fun. The last on I wrote was back when I was in University. It amused the other girls in residence and gave me something to do when I was bored in class.

When bad TV shows happen to good movies

Now I'm no TV critic but I do watch a whole lot of it. Recently I downloaded the show "10 Things I Hate About You". Now I really enjoyed the movie so I had high hopes for the show. But sadly it blows and yet I still intend to watch every episode.

I do have to say though that while I've seen a lot of books turned in to movies, this is the first show I've ever seen based on a movie. Or at least that I can remember. Can you think of any?

Are we heading to another election?

Didn't we just have one of these? See, this is why the Canadian electoral system is kind of screwed up. For those of us who went and did our civic duty last fall, we told our MPs exactly what we wanted. Essentially we said "hey look go back there and act like adults." Clearly they aren't.

Although it sounds like the NDP isn't going to go along with the Liberal plan. Which is good because instead of spending money on an election the government should just cut a check to every adult in the country.

Slight Delay on the Dream Train

Alright so now that I've decided that I'm going to apply for my Master's degree I'm starting to get into a little bit of research. If I intend to apply for next fall I need to be able to pay for it. As of right now the only place I will be able to afford is right here at home. In order to afford anywhere else a year from now I'm going to have to live off Kraft Dinner for a year.

So now I'm thinking I should be looking forward to the fall of 2011 so that I don't have to be completely miserable for a year in order to afford the next two years. That takes a lot of the pressure off since now I'm giving myself another year the prepare for the GRE. It also means I'll be 29 before I'm finished grad school.

Just trying to keep it together

I just don't know what's wrong with me. No actually that's not true I have a diagnosis so I know exactly what's wrong with me. What I don't know is why I feel so bad. A week ago I was on top of the world, now I want to go jump in front of a moving vehicle.

Actually I saw a bad car accident today or the wreckage at least. A van had into the back end of a semi-trailer. Scary looking stuff though my brother figures that only a couple of legs were broken based on the condition we saw the cars in.

I guess I just have to focus on one day at a time and hope things work back.

That's a scary thought

You know how I was talking about my job here and some of the crap that happened while I was away? Well I had a little chat with my boss and they've already filled the position that I was in and he said that the person that they hired is over qualified for the job and probably won't stay long which got me thinking.

If people in my industry are applying for jobs for which they are over qualified doesn't that mean that there aren't many jobs out there. And perhaps rather than complaining about my job all the time I need to realize that at least I have a job. It also puts into rather sharp focus the importance of going to get my Master's degree before it's too late and I do actually have to compete for jobs with the over qualified.

It's finally here...

... well almost. And it is football season. The first game is tonight and it's Pittsburgh vs Tennessee. It always seems so long between football seasons and being sick all this summer didn't exactly help either.

I am participating in the fantasy pool this year with the guys from work and this year we have another girl playing with us. Look like maybe I should be thinking about organizing a girl's pool for next year. I thought about doing one and a whole draft based on hotness but everyone else would have to share my level of commitment to make it work. I'll try to get it going for March Madness and the hotness bracket this year. Of course now it's getting to the point where it's creepy for me to say that Freshmen are hot. So this will probably be the last year for hotness bracket... sigh.

What was I worried about

I've finally gotten around to studying for the math section of the GRE and let me just say I wish I had taken this test right after grade 9. But then again I've also taken Stats and Calculus at the university level since grade 9 so this just seems easy.

Has anyone noticed that they always put the verbal section first in these GRE study books. Of course that's probably because the verbal section is first but I feel much more confident having completed one math chapter than I did after the whole verbal section.

Sometimes you just need the right motivation

So I have many times mentioned the passing thought that perhaps I should apply for grad school. Well yesterday I made the decision to get really serious about it. I know I've said that before but I'm pretty sure it will stick this time.

See work has once again screwed me over with their HR policies and so I'm being demoted because I got sick. But the thing is I deserved that promotion. I put a lot of work into it and now it's all gone by the way side.

And so my renewed commitment to higher education.

I swear computers were invented to make me cry

So I finally got my laptop back which is super exciting. yay! But it took me 4 hours and a phone call to Shaw in order to get internet. But now we have internet set up and that's awesome. Which means I can probably start doing more regular posting again.

Another birthday another U.S. Open

Is it sad that I think the best thing about my birthday is that the U.S. Open will always start just shortly after?

It was my birthday on Thursday and I didn't do anything really exciting but today the U.S. Open started. Now that we've switched to Shaw I don't have to miss a single point (well that's not exactly true since they don't televise every game). Not only can I record the games but I can also watch them in HD (provided my brother doesn't want to watch wrestling).

Last night I watched my first football game in HD. It was pretty awesome, even if it was only pre-season.

The 3 month itch

That's right it's been 3 months since I've been to work. Everyone tells me that I should take it slow but now that I'm starting to feel a little bit better I want to jump right in with both feet. I've been having a little trouble with staying on task the last couple of days though, hopefully that will get better. Anyways I've got 4 weeks of treatment left and then hopefully I'll be ready to go back. I'm just getting bored.

Oh I wish I had my laptop back. I've been using my brother's computer to do stuff but it's really really really slow and crappy and I miss the portability. I've considered getting a wireless card for my desktop but then I think what's the point since I won't use it once my laptop comes back. Have I mentioned that I hate computers.

Every day it gets a little bit easier

I was a little bit skeptical about starting these new treatments but I think they're helping. I'm starting to feel somewhat normal again. I'm getting excited for football season and the U.S. Open tennis and even hockey season.

A couple of days ago I saw people from my work on the bus and I didn't quite know what to say. I wasn't sure how much they already knew and I didn't want to give out more information than I needed to. So I just didn't say anything. Today I saw someone else that I work with on the bus and I even got up and moved closer. It was good that it was someone that I'm really comfortable with and who kind of knew what was going on without me really having to tell her and she seemed genuinely excited to see me too.

So yeah some day I might be able to transfer buses infront of my work and not feel like I'm about to bawl. And that will be the first sign that maybe I can think about going back. Until then I'll just continue to take it one day at a time.

Folklorama Llama

I love Folklorama. For those of you who aren't from Manitoba and don't know what Folklorama is it's a cultural celebration over 2 weeks in which residents of Manitoba celebrate their origins. Or something like that. It's broken up into different pavilions where you can buy food and souvenirs and watch entertainment provided by cultural groups representing their pavilion (a lot of singing and dancing).

This year I've been to 7 shows. Columbia, Belgium, Slovenia, Alpine (Switzerland/Austria/Germany), and 2 different Ukrainian Pavilions. I'm going to take in one more show tonight and that will be the end of Folklorama for me this year. If you ever get a chance to go to Folklorama you should do it. They often have bus tours that bring people from all over Canada and the United States. But be prepared to spend money. I've had to go to the bank twice since it started to get more money for the shows.

update to arrg...

I talked to the company that I bought my computer from and they said that they were able to ship it off to the manufacturer today. Hooray.

The Mid Summer update.

I know it's been a while since my last post but a couple of things have been happening. First is the still unresolved computer issue. The second is that I've started a new treatment for my illness so I have to go to the hospital every day. Don't worry though it's just until things stabilize a little bit. But anyway that's why I haven't been around much.

I have been reading up a storm though. I've been thinking that maybe I should start a book club. It was be more of a social activity than I'm used to and I DO love to read. Anyone interested?

arrg...

So you know how I was saying last year that I love my laptop well now I don't. It's got major crashage issues and because I decided not to run internet into my bedroom and just went wireless I don't have internet so I stuck using my brother's crap-puter. No seriously this thing is a piece of junk and he's constantly trying to download stuff so it's always really slow. And the company I bought my computer from is having trouble communicating with the company that made my computer and I'm stuck in the middle sans computer.

I miss the old days. When life was simple and my parents fought my battles for me. Or at least owned everything I used so they were responsible for getting things fixed.

It's so boring at home

In case you've missed it the first several times I mentioned it I've been off work since the end of May. The first month flew by but July seems to be going on forever. I'm hopefully going to start a day program in August which will at least keep me busy and hopefully help me with some of the stress issues that I've been dealing with.

But for now I'm bored. I used to think that I wanted to work until I had enough money to retire and then just sit around and read books all day but even that has lost it's appeal. I've been doing alot of knitting lately but even that's boring. I guess I'm going to have to take up some other hobby.

Things I wish I was at work to say

I've been off work for almost 2 months now and despite what you might think it kind of blows. The highlight of my day is going to Tim Horton's though I have to say in a fight between the Starbucks Caramel Machiatto and the Timmy Ho's iced Mocha I'd pick the Mocha every time.

That being said there are some things and people at work that I miss. If I was at work right now some of the things I would say are:

• My trip was amazing. I love Scotland but everything is uber expensive
• Shark week starts on August 3rd (KEG tell Mike I told you to tell him this, he'll know what you mean)
• I'm with the guys on switching to Shaw, which I will be doing at the end of August
• I miss everyone terribly and I'm hoping to come back soon

but the first thing I'm going to do when I get back is give people my home e-mail so that I can get e-mails. I miss getting random follow up e-mails about random topics left over from our lunchtime debates.

I must look like I need saving

Okay I don't often discuss religion but I'm going there today. I am an atheist. There have just been things in my life that some people would call "challenges" that have lead me to be a non-believer. But I certainly don't discourage other people from believing. I know a lot of people for whom their relationship with God has been a great strength and I am extremely happy for them. I just don't like people pushing it on me.

If I want to hear about your beliefs I'll go to church or temple or whatever with you. But for some reason I seem to be approached by those spreading the word of God more often than the average person and frankly it makes me a little bit angry.

The Update

Alright there has been a lot of stuff going on recently so I'm just going to try to throw everything into this one post.

• On the illness front I'm still off work. I'm hoping to return late this summer or early fall but we'll see what the doctor says.
• My laptop is broken. Well not completely broken but it's randomly shutting down for no reason and I haven't been able to get it down to the shop for repairs yet. It's only started doing this since we got back from our trip.
• I currently have 3 books on the go. That's reading not writing. One is the next Diana Gabaldon book from the Outlander series. One is a history of Scotland and one is a romance novel that I borrowed from the library.
• I got a new cat. and by new I mean new like I got him today new. The Humane Society had a sale on cats and since I wanted a new one anyway this seemed like the perfect opportunity. I've named him Davey Crockcat. Yes I'm just that geeky.

It's almost over

2:59 Pm London Time

We're back in Glasgow now and we've parted way with the others. We fly out of here tomorrow and spend about 19 hours before we get to our final destination.

I have some more pictures to add to my blog but I left my SD card upstairs in our hotel room and I don't really want to go up and get it so I'll add them later. Since wireless is only available in the hotel lounge.

We're staying in the same hotel that was stayed in at the beginning of our trip so it's like we're back tracking our steps now which is kind of neat.

Our day in Edinburgh and at the show

7:01 PM London Time

It's been a while since I did an entry. There has just been so much to see that the days were packed and I have been really tired. Today was a shorter day. Mom and I went into Edinburgh city centre today where I bought a new ring and bracelet as well as some souvenirs for my brothers at home. We saw the castle and Holyroodhouse Palace but we weren't able to enter them because the Queen was in residence at the palace and we ran out of time at the castle.

As for the Royal Highland sow it was pretty damn good. The show itself was interesting. There were a lot of things that they did differently over here than we would but overall it was mostly the same. As for the grounds they were pretty huge. There was all sorts of things to do and see. There was a sheep shearing competition and crafter's tents and an outdoor living section with chainsaw sculpting demonstrations and pole climbing exhibitions. It was very interesting. Oh and the Queen was at the show too but we missed her.

Tomorrow we head up to the Highlands. It's supposed to be beautiful scenery and I'm sure there will be lots of pictures taken.

9 Pm London Time

Yesterday we were in Portree in the Isle of Skye. We took a drive around the island and then returned to the hotel. I'm now done all of my gift shopping so anything else I buy should be just for me. Today we're just outside of Fort William at a B&B. Fort William is an outdoor town.. It's right on a lack and the highest mountain peak in the UK is right here. I of course hate the outdoors so this is not my kind of town.

Also our traveling companions are starting to get on my last nerve. I don't want to stereotype Americans because I do know a lot of really nice ones but these ones are obnoxious. For example we left the Isle of Skye early this morning and hopped on the ferry back to the mainland (or at least as much of a main land as you can consider a larger island). Anyway we arrived at the B&B an hour before check in which I knew would happen because we left so early. So we drove all the way back to Fort William for an hour of shopping but only an hour because our driver was tired. And he wanted to come back and unpack the van and then maybe we could drive back to Fort William. It turned out okay though because daddy and me took a little nap before supper and mom did some reading.

For supper we took a ferry to a little restaurant/inn. It was really nice and I got to see most of the Andy Roddick/Lleyton Hewitt match on the TV in the bar. Roddick of course won. I can't believe I'm in Britain during Wimbledon and I'm not there.

In search of Nessie.

5:39 PM London time

Today was probably the best day of our trip so far. it started off a little shaky, I got up really early, unnecessarily. And then we got out of the hotel too early and nothing was open which meant a lot of useless walking around. I should be used to this walking around by now. My mother loves to just walk around. Personally I'm not a huge fan AND the blisters on my feet were screaming at me to stop. Then we got on a Jacobite tour of Loch Ness. First we bussed from Inverness to the Loch. Then we jumped on a boat to go to Urquhart Castle which is really just the ruins of an old castle but that's what you see in a lot of pictures of Loch Ness. Anyway then we hit up the visitors centre there before getting back on the bus again to get to the Loch Ness exhibition centre. It was really interesting. I'm rather convinced now that the Loch Ness monster is a giant sturgeon.

Then we came back to Inverness on the bus and found a used book store where I picked up some book including a history of Scotland. I love books stores. I also love museums which is what we did before returning to our hotel.

Our vacation Act II

8:31 London Time

For those of you who have been trying to follow my trip each day I do apologize for the sparseness of my blogging. I have only had free WiFi at one hotel that we've stayed at and well frankly I don't want to spend the money for the ridiculous internet rate over here. So that's what's been happening. That's also why you'll see some backdated entries.

Okay now on with the vacation update. Today we drove from Edinburgh to Inverness. The day started off kind of disastrous. We didn't get as big of a vehicle as we thought we would and we weren't sure if we could fit all the people and luggage into the van (there are 6 of us traveling in a 7 passenger van). But we packed it in there pretty tight and just barely made it.

The people we're traveling with are kind of difficult. Although this trip has been pretty difficult for me since I was the only person under 50 on the first part of the tour. One of the people that we're traveling with makes me particularly uneasy. And given such close quarters it's difficult to avoid him.

Tonight we actually went for supper at a restaurant owned by the cousins of one of the farmers we went to see on the earlier portion of our trip. It was very good. Funny story we ran into a tour guide outside the visitor's centre and told him where we wanted to eat and he laughed. He said he'd never been asked where that particular restaurant was and asked who recommended it. Then we had a nice little chat and we might go on one of his tours tomorrow. We'll see how we feel.

Tomorrow we're going to try to get on a boar cruise of Loch Ness. Of course I'll be keeping an eye out for Nessie. I'm almost done all of my shopping for this trip, at least the souvenirs for other people part. The rest of it I haven't quite decided.

Cattle Day

10:54 PM London time

Today was the first day of the cattle portion of our trip. I haven't been on the farm fr a while so I've kind of lost the ability to pick a good animal in a herd, but anyway. There was nothing really eventful today. Although I've noticed that they feed you really well on this trip. I do love e some food. We even had entertainment for our evening meal. It was a jazz band, they were pretty good for all I know about jazz music.

The first day of the rest of my vacation

9:05 PM London time

So we've left Scotland and come back south to northern England to meet the rest of our crew. We're in the lake district and well these lakes are not exactly the most awesome lakes I've ever seen. I live in between 2 lakes that would be considered ginormous compared to these. Here's a picture that I took of the lake.

Here's another little detail that I failed to omit in my previous post mostly because if I had he would have read it over my shoulder but my seatmate from Montreal to London was super cute. I chatted him up for a while but it's hard to be flirty when your father is sitting in the seat in front of you. Anyway he was on transit to Israel and his name was Zach.

Alright moving on. Today we went to Gretna Green to meet the rest of our tour. Here's the deal with Gretna Green, way back in the day people didn't exactly have weddings. They just kind of said "hey we're married". Then a law was passed in England and the legal age was 21 and you had to get married in a church. But the law didn't apply to Scotland and the age of consent was 16. So English couples would trek over the border and Gretna Green was the first town they'd come to, so they'd get married in the Blacksmith's shop. We saw a mock wedding and visited the little shops and museum. One cool thing is that you can still get married or blessed there. Oh and they had a bagpiper (left) that you could hire out.

As I said we're in England but we're going back to Scotland the day after tomorrow.

Welcome to Scotland

8:47 PM London Time

I think I'm going to like it here the first thing I saw once we had gotten through the baggage claim here in Glasgow was Starbucks. It's reassuring that even so far from home I can find something that's just like home. That's the joy of the franchise industry. It's built for people exactly like me. Here's a picture we took of the special Scottish Edition Starbucks mug.

We just got back from supper in the restaurant in our hotel. Now I don't know if this is just a kind of high class establishment or if there really isn't anything like a hamburger in Scotland. Here's what we hate from supper.

Salad with Goat Cheese, Lamb Chops and Stuffed Chicken Breast

In the Middle of the Night

7:08 PM Montreal Time, 2:08 AM London Time

Wow it sure does get dark when you travel forward into the night. It's probably about midnight outside the plane right now even though it's only 8 PM back home. We're supposed to be landing at 7 AM in London so we've got another 5 hours on this place. Actually it'll probably be a bit longer since we got off a little bit late.

Is it pathetic that I've only been away about 12 hours and I'm about ready to come home? It's just been a long day is all. One down, 10 days to go.

Success!

7:08 Montreal Time

So I've made it to Montreal and now we're on our way across the Atlantic. It's pretty insane, but I'm super excited. The first part of our trip has not been without it's ups and downs. First of all my mother and I got into a bit of a row on the tail end of our last flight. Then mom and dad got into it just a little.

Everything at the airport is s incredibly expensive. Here I was thinking $25 was plenty of domestic currency to leave with me since after all we would be overseas after the first day. Clearly I was wrong about that.

I'm seated in the window seat and my poor seat mate is going to know more about my bathroom habits than anyone should about a complete stranger but I have been informed that he's not one for sleeping on planes so at least I know he'll be up. It's also really noisy since it's a large plane and I'm right behind the engine. Good seating choice mom/CAA. But at least my seat mate is cute.

It's here it's here it's finally here

Well actually it doesn't arrive until tomorrow, and "it" is my first trans-Atlantic trip. I have seriously been planning and saving for this trip for well over a year and now it's finally arrived. We fly to Montreal and then to London and on to Glasgow tommorow and then return on the 3rd of July. I'll try to post some stuff while I'm over there but I'm not making any promises. I suspect there will be little to no internet access at some of the places we're going but we'll see.

I'm so excited I may not be able to sleep tonight.

Why you shouldn't hang out with your brother's friends

I have a few brothers. Usually far more than I want to have but I'm pretty close with them. I'm particularly close with my younger brother, and since my friends can really only handle me in small doses I don't have a lot of people that I go out with regularly. So sometimes I end up hanging out with my brother and his friends. Which is fine until you realize that the guy you've been chatting up all night is 19. Of course this would never happen with my older brothers since they still refer to me as their little sister even though they date women younger then me and we don't hang out very often anyway.

I changed my background again

The other one was super pretty but it just didn't do the things I needed it to do. So I've discovered this one which is oddly exactly what I'm all about. Yeah yeah I realize it just looks like a bit of denim to everyone else but it says something to me about my roots.

I might just have to switch back

Alright the new background is awfully pretty but I just can't get the date stamp to work correctly. It's making me crazy. I just can't figure out how to change it without completely ruining the integrity of the template. So I might have to change it to something that I can control a little better.

See I can do some basic HTML stuff but I haven't really done a lot of it since high school and this is a lot more complex than anything I've ever done before. So depending on how fed up I get with it you might be seeing even more changes in the near future.

More changes

It's May long weekend and in honor of such I thought it was about time for a little spring cleaning. Also spring is supposed to be about flowers and such so I changed the blog background. I can't believe how much cool free stuff is out there. I borrowed this one from the Blogger Templates site.

I actually really like this one and might have to take a look at it the next time I feel up for a change.

Goal of the Week

It's been a while since I've done one of these but this week's goal is to finish reading Trial by Fire by Nancy Taylor Rosenberg. It's a pretty good book and I'm about 3/4 done so it shouldn't be hard but I guess it depends what else I do this weekend and the rest of the week.

It's time to get down to work

I've been talking about it for a while now and well I think it's finally time to get to work on writing that GRE. I've pretty much had it with work and now that I've got enough money for my trip I can start to focus on saving my money for grad school.

Last night I had a dream that I just blew up one day at work and quit. You know I'm not very far from it right now. I'm not actually feeling as bad as I have in the past when I get home from work but I am having some trouble containing my anger. I'm terrible for bottling up my emotions and then letting them bubble up and get the better of me.

And so it's time to go. I just don't know where. But this is the first step.

Book of the day club

Some of the women in my department at work have been doing a book trade for as long as I have been working here. Recently they've included me in their regular rotation. But it takes me forever to read the books I'm given.

It's not that I'm a slow reader it's just that I don't commit myself to a book. First of all I have to be in the mood to read. I go through stretches where I read a lot and then others where I just won't even think about picking up a book.

I'm also often busy doing other things that aren't exactly conducive to reading. Watching NHL playoffs for example. Although I've developed a system for this now. I mute it during TV time outs and intermission and read rather than listen to Don Cherry gripe about how soft Europeans are.

Countdown to travel time

I'm sure I've mentioned it a couple of times but I'm going to Scotland in 6 weeks. Well 38 days to be exact. It seems like I've been talking about it forever and now it's almost here. I guess it's about time to get excited.

I haven't had a real go away type vacation in about a year and a half. The last time was when I went to Quebec with my parents. I actually like traveling with my parents because they like to see a lot of the same things that I do. I really like history especially Canadian history so when we went to Quebec we did things like visit Old Quebec and the Citadel and the Chateau Frontenac.

A few years before that we went on a trip to Saskatchewan. It wasn't very exciting but we did get to see some cool stuff. We went to Batoche and then the Saskatchewan Western Development museum in Yorkton. Yup we're dorky like that.

I'm just hoping we can get some of the historical stuff in too while we're there. We are going to Loch Ness and I'm pretty sure there is a museum there. Even if it is dedicated to a fictional lake monster. I totally want to go.

I guess I'm just not a Cosmo Girl.

I have been known from time to time to buy random issues of Cosmo. It's never my intention when I walk into a store, but excellent product placement and a workforce of bored looking teenagers is sometimes enough to get me to buy.

Funny thing happened this time though. It was Saturday afternoon and I had spent most of my day catching up on the current season of Gossip Girl (hey don't judge me I was bored), so I thought I'd pick it up. But once I got home and started to read I realized that it just wasn't holding my attention. Even the Cosmo confessions seemed boring and uninteresting. Seriously the guy confessions were mostly about getting caught cheating. Super classy.

I think this experience was enough to convince me to avoid Cosmo from now on. Unless there is a really good celeb interview or something.

Cabin Fever

It seems to me that everytime I ask someone what they're doing this weekend the answer is "going to the cabin". So I started thinking about it a little bit on my way home.

I guess I don't really understand the allure of the cabin. Perhaps this is because until I was 18, I lived less than 10 minutes from a lake. Sure I thought I was pretty but I never had a desire to own a piece of it. Additionally I'm not the most outdoorsy person, so sure the cabin is better than say camping but still, no electricity, no running water. Nope not for me.

Then I thought about it some more and I realized just exactly how far I've come. You see the other people at work who are my age have family cabins, that is cabins that actually belong to their parents. I realize that not all cabins are created equally but I can't help but think that perhaps some of these people come from money and got where they are because mommy and daddy helped them. I had to earn it.

I can't help but think now about the cabin people who came in to my town in the summer and referred to us as "townies"meaning it entirely derogatory, as if somehow we weren't as good as them. But you know what? I think I've just proved that I AM better than them.

What I've been up to

I'm going to have to apologize for not writing more frequently. Things have just been a mess lately. I also don't really have anything interesting to say. I've been watching a lot of hockey lately, which isn't all that surprising given that it's playoff time. I've also been catching up on the new episodes of Greek, which is good times.

Oh and I found an ice cream place I really like.