At college I learned how to use a binder. How dividers can be placed, how to pick out what goes where, when a topic has graduated to its own binder, when to shrink down to just one. How to title page, to colour coordinate, to spine label and to index.
I grew to like putting them together. I'd even say I loved doing it. Often, in english* to "love" something gets overused, but I'd say I loved it. Definitely a deep like.
I'd fall asleep with them spread out around my room, think about them first thing in the morning and bring them everywhere I went. I would be a wreck if I happened not to bring them with me, and the ones I didn't need to have with me I'd think about all day anyway.
So when someone at my office the other day talked about one of my binders, one that I created and packaged and beautified, as if it was the new guy's binder I just about died.
<i>There weren't even binders here when I arrived four months ago. He's been here three days and all of the sudden it's his?</i>
I clenched my fists for a moment to ease my jealous burst.
<i><b>It's just a binder. Everything will be alright. He leaves before you, and when he does you can put it back on you shelf. </b></i>
My hands relaxed and colour flowed back into the room.
For a moment I went back to what I was doing.
Then I heard my 3-hole punch crunch on a stack of paper which shouldn't have happened because it was MY 3-hole punch and it was sitting on MY des-
<b>Grrrrrr...</b>
*and I have no reference point from another language to work from; other than chatting to italian families and people who speak more languages than i
written
with the help
of
a thousand monkeys
Tuesday, September 20
Saturday, September 10
Friday, September 9
Needy, so needy
quietly, in the background
"...oh, it must be that guy..."
I smirk. It's me she's talking about, and obviously doesn't realise that I wasn't put on hold, only set down on the counter.
In her defense, this is the third time I've called today and the fifth time this week. Had I not've lost my glasses (in a golf cart related incident) I wouldn't be in such need, or be so needy. I feel a bit like a boy who's waiting for his first crush to call him after making that first move toward her locker.
Who am I kidding, I still feel that way. It's becoming more and more apparent to me how much I value constant connection. It should have been known to me sooner, and I should have dealt with it sooner too. I have been blogging for a while now, and the medium requires tough skin. I don't know if anyone reads this, there's a stats page that I can check but I have no idea who reads it, or how often, or for how long they stay, where they're coming from, why they're here, why they stay, why they come back - if they come back...
... man. I am needy.
The lady at the glasses store recovered quickly, quicker than I did. I awkwardly laughed every few seconds trying to show who not-unimpressed I was she basically called me annoying in front of everyone she works with.
I was hoping I'd draw out of her that she was sorry to have said it, but she never did. She just kept a steady voice for as long as I was on the phone, rolling her eyes as soon as the handset was in its cradle then carrying on with her next customer, one that was in front of her and not calling from some starbucks, somewhere.
I would tip her if I thought a person tipped glasses salespeople, and if she wasn't making commission off this sale. The easiest sale ever, might I add.
(However the easiest sale ever is making for a boring entry. If you've stayed with me this far into the post you'll be prepared for the image of me with my new specks that'll come shortly after me putting them on)
"...oh, it must be that guy..."
I smirk. It's me she's talking about, and obviously doesn't realise that I wasn't put on hold, only set down on the counter.
In her defense, this is the third time I've called today and the fifth time this week. Had I not've lost my glasses (in a golf cart related incident) I wouldn't be in such need, or be so needy. I feel a bit like a boy who's waiting for his first crush to call him after making that first move toward her locker.
Who am I kidding, I still feel that way. It's becoming more and more apparent to me how much I value constant connection. It should have been known to me sooner, and I should have dealt with it sooner too. I have been blogging for a while now, and the medium requires tough skin. I don't know if anyone reads this, there's a stats page that I can check but I have no idea who reads it, or how often, or for how long they stay, where they're coming from, why they're here, why they stay, why they come back - if they come back...
... man. I am needy.
The lady at the glasses store recovered quickly, quicker than I did. I awkwardly laughed every few seconds trying to show who not-unimpressed I was she basically called me annoying in front of everyone she works with.
I was hoping I'd draw out of her that she was sorry to have said it, but she never did. She just kept a steady voice for as long as I was on the phone, rolling her eyes as soon as the handset was in its cradle then carrying on with her next customer, one that was in front of her and not calling from some starbucks, somewhere.
I would tip her if I thought a person tipped glasses salespeople, and if she wasn't making commission off this sale. The easiest sale ever, might I add.
(However the easiest sale ever is making for a boring entry. If you've stayed with me this far into the post you'll be prepared for the image of me with my new specks that'll come shortly after me putting them on)
Thursday, September 1
Don't Panic
The security guard at the airport drop off saw us coming, well before we saw him. Regardless, we were well on our way to where we needed to be, and we weren't going to stop to talk to him. We hadn't a moment to spare and he would have had too many questions, all of them rhetorical.
"How are we doing for time, Bird" the Boss said to me, fifteen minutes later than he should have. I raised my brow in such a way so as to demonstrate a sense of urgency.
I assumed the urgency part, he was the one who did the math. I couldn't remember it.
"We gotta go", I stated simply. There was no other way to say it. We were trying to impress a client, and panic doesn't sell anything.
We shook hands, grabbed papers and made for our Sewing Machine of a rental whom we would, quite shortly, be testing every ounce of its strength.
Mrs Boss called at 6:42 "Is Boss there?"
"Busy dropping the car off" I replied. Mr. Boss smirked at me, knowing full well he was not and wouldn't be for at least another ten.
"Sorry" I said. "Don't tell her I did that"
"I won't till tomorrow"
The Security Guard at the airport drop off moved like a second baseman who knew the shortstop had under shot the fly ball. He started slowly from his perch, and by the time I saw him he rounded a column and we rounded the rental lot's median. I didn't see what did after that, none of us do. We knew very well we were driving the wrong way, but we had to get the rental back, and I'll be damned if we were going to circle the airport again.
Phone rang again "is he there now?"
"Bathroom."
(I was more articulate than that, but that's the important bit. I wanted to demonstrate the urgency of the situation, without losing the cucumber cool I had on the phone)
"Who was that?" "Farked if I know, park this flaming thing" I snapped in my head, but didn't actually say. Instead I just smiled.
A Greyhound staffer at the airport drop off watched the whole scene unfold. She cocked her head to one side as we second guessed the parking lot entrance, and exhaled with a smirk as we rounded back again two wheels.
Boss went into Rental Co to toss the keys, I grabbed the bags and ran for our gates.
Twelve minutes left.
I was flustered when I got to the desk, which was quick given there was no line and I had ran full tilt from the Rental Co office, but before I could get too far into the scenarios running thru my head-
.... leaving Boss there ... "Indian jones"ing onto the plane .. Bribing them at the gate .
-Boss was standing next to me.
"Hey" "Hey"
Stamp. Sticker. Stack.
"Where do we-"
"Toward the escalator please, si-" and I was to the top before she hit the last syllable.
Long story short, we jumped over the customs line. I was doing well till Security made small talk about my hard hat and I couldn't remember what it was I used it for.
"You had to think about that?" He asked, raising an eyebrow and reaching into his pocket. Rubber gloved scenarios ran through my head as I moved faster than I thought I could.
"Did I make it" I asked the woman I was about to bribe.
Make it? You've loads of time. We START boarding at seven.
"Well", said Boss "we'd better go get a fast one, shouldn't we? That'll take this edge off"
I really wish I had a less cheesy way to end this. I don't. It's all about the journey anyways, right?
I'm laughing now because I'd forgotten Short Stack was even with us.
It's a good thing he was able to keep up.
www.salutmaman.ca
Friday, August 5
Qqch
There's something refreshing about reworking a resume. It's not that new content's been added, it's the fresh reordering of the same junk. Sort of like the way I clean a room, or a drawer... which isn't at all. I push and pull stuff to different places which tricks me into thinking that there's something new in front of me.
No, I take it back. There's nothing refreshing about reworking a resume. A resume shouldn't just be reworked, it should be overhauled. It should be tore down, re-framed, painted then traded in for something worth while.
A new template is a great place to start. At least, it makes me feel better. I'm sure it feels better for the same reason shoe companies rotate their designs out every 3 months. People come in, see the shoes they just bought don't exist anymore, they feel out of date and buy new shoes.
What we don't seem to notice is that in the end they're all still shoes; laces, soles, tongues, etc.
In the end, it's still a resume; name, work history, impressive adjectives, etc.
The overhauled resume works to make an old idea new again. New ideas come more readily from new people, which is why having someone other than me*
have a look at it works so much better than these eyes.
That's a ton more refreshing.
(cry ... every night...)
[You're welcome]
Meanwhile, elsewhere in my psyche this is going on:
There's something wonderful about thinking on a full stomach. Currently I am not, and thus have no reference point in recent memory; but I'm sure there is something wonderful about it.
I would hope there's something wonderful about it because there sertanly isn't anything wonderull about thinking on and am tease tomb ache.
...
...what was I writing about?
something...
*later I will edit this to be a link because currently I'm ecrising this dans a noir-berry. I don't think including html will work when I send this via email**.
**though, I do so very much hope it does.***
***it didn't
No, I take it back. There's nothing refreshing about reworking a resume. A resume shouldn't just be reworked, it should be overhauled. It should be tore down, re-framed, painted then traded in for something worth while.
A new template is a great place to start. At least, it makes me feel better. I'm sure it feels better for the same reason shoe companies rotate their designs out every 3 months. People come in, see the shoes they just bought don't exist anymore, they feel out of date and buy new shoes.
What we don't seem to notice is that in the end they're all still shoes; laces, soles, tongues, etc.
In the end, it's still a resume; name, work history, impressive adjectives, etc.
The overhauled resume works to make an old idea new again. New ideas come more readily from new people, which is why having someone other than me*
have a look at it works so much better than these eyes.
That's a ton more refreshing.
(cry ... every night...)
[You're welcome]
Meanwhile, elsewhere in my psyche this is going on:
There's something wonderful about thinking on a full stomach. Currently I am not, and thus have no reference point in recent memory; but I'm sure there is something wonderful about it.
I would hope there's something wonderful about it because there sertanly isn't anything wonderull about thinking on and am tease tomb ache.
...
...what was I writing about?
something...
*later I will edit this to be a link because currently I'm ecrising this dans a noir-berry. I don't think including html will work when I send this via email**.
**though, I do so very much hope it does.***
***it didn't
Tuesday, June 14
A Nanny, perhaps?
Dear Dinker,
On the weekend was around a few babies ... two of them were yours. Well done you.
Dad says congrats as well, although he also says that he still beat you. Just like you, he couldn't celebrate his first father's day ... he wasn't a father. By his second, just like you, he was father of two.
He says he wins because he didn't have twins.
I can't wait to see your daughters again. They're really cute and cuddly, and for the most part they just lay there. Lilly was flailing around, trying to look at as many things as she could, which isn't very much, as far as I know.
Though what I know about babies that age is limited.
Well, what I know about babies is limited.
I know how to hold them. I have to support their neck. I don't know how old they are when they can hold their own necks but I've figure it's safer to hold every baby as if it can't hold its neck up. At least until it proves itself.
When I was holding Lilly on Saturday we were having a grand old chat. I was going on about the headaches you'll have over the next eighteen years, how you'll take her to soccer games and show her how to do long division and she smiled back as if to say she knew exactly what I was talking about.
Her grandmother said "You're pretty good at holding her. You'll be invited back again next weekend."
She also said that I was keeping her up by talking to her, that she should be fast asleep by now since she was just fed.
I was just super thrilled to have such a small person so entertained by me. Maggie, who was also very cute, was sleeping the whole time she was waiting for Lilly to finish her meal.
If Lilly sleeps through the night I'll be praised forever. If she doesn't I may not get invited back again for a while.
It's Tuesday and I haven't heard from them about next weekend. I don't know what to think.
On the weekend was around a few babies ... two of them were yours. Well done you.
Dad says congrats as well, although he also says that he still beat you. Just like you, he couldn't celebrate his first father's day ... he wasn't a father. By his second, just like you, he was father of two.
He says he wins because he didn't have twins.
I can't wait to see your daughters again. They're really cute and cuddly, and for the most part they just lay there. Lilly was flailing around, trying to look at as many things as she could, which isn't very much, as far as I know.
Though what I know about babies that age is limited.
Well, what I know about babies is limited.
I know how to hold them. I have to support their neck. I don't know how old they are when they can hold their own necks but I've figure it's safer to hold every baby as if it can't hold its neck up. At least until it proves itself.
When I was holding Lilly on Saturday we were having a grand old chat. I was going on about the headaches you'll have over the next eighteen years, how you'll take her to soccer games and show her how to do long division and she smiled back as if to say she knew exactly what I was talking about.
Her grandmother said "You're pretty good at holding her. You'll be invited back again next weekend."
She also said that I was keeping her up by talking to her, that she should be fast asleep by now since she was just fed.
I was just super thrilled to have such a small person so entertained by me. Maggie, who was also very cute, was sleeping the whole time she was waiting for Lilly to finish her meal.
If Lilly sleeps through the night I'll be praised forever. If she doesn't I may not get invited back again for a while.
It's Tuesday and I haven't heard from them about next weekend. I don't know what to think.
Monday, June 13
For H.E.
Dear sister H,
It's your birth and grad day today. Hope it goes well. Don't keep my roommates out too late tonight, they have to be able to do chores tomorrow.
--bbb
It's your birth and grad day today. Hope it goes well. Don't keep my roommates out too late tonight, they have to be able to do chores tomorrow.
--bbb
Saturday, June 11
Grown men
"Grown men" is an oxymoron. At least, I like to think so.
Take the job site, for instance. It's basically a playground for grown men. At the start of the day we're given a game to play during recess. It's a game with a few rules, some powerful tools and a goal to reach. Best part is we get. a recess that lasts all day. We take a lunch, but all we talk about is how we've played the game so far and how we're going to play after.
Kids spend their time at school planning for recess. Desk time is just an annoying inconvenience, a necessary evil to be entertained so as to be allowed back out the door.
It was neat to see some of the same games being played as we played when we were in school. Ten or twenty years hasn't changed the fact that snow forts are built by a staff with a hierarchy, in kindergarten everything is a gun and the first kid to the playground gets first pick for his team.
Some kids would use their class time prepping for recess, to better use the time they had outside. Teams might be picked before hand, or at the very least captains. The more aware kids would have their desk work done first so that when the boss came around they would either not notice the extracurriculars, or not care.
Some kids will grow up to be in a hotel near Nashville with their wives, and after an early breakfast, will lean in to their middle aged buddy, fake a conversation and flip a back hand at his personals.
This is how I know there aren't any grown men.
At least I hope not.
Take the job site, for instance. It's basically a playground for grown men. At the start of the day we're given a game to play during recess. It's a game with a few rules, some powerful tools and a goal to reach. Best part is we get. a recess that lasts all day. We take a lunch, but all we talk about is how we've played the game so far and how we're going to play after.
Kids spend their time at school planning for recess. Desk time is just an annoying inconvenience, a necessary evil to be entertained so as to be allowed back out the door.
It was neat to see some of the same games being played as we played when we were in school. Ten or twenty years hasn't changed the fact that snow forts are built by a staff with a hierarchy, in kindergarten everything is a gun and the first kid to the playground gets first pick for his team.
Some kids would use their class time prepping for recess, to better use the time they had outside. Teams might be picked before hand, or at the very least captains. The more aware kids would have their desk work done first so that when the boss came around they would either not notice the extracurriculars, or not care.
Some kids will grow up to be in a hotel near Nashville with their wives, and after an early breakfast, will lean in to their middle aged buddy, fake a conversation and flip a back hand at his personals.
This is how I know there aren't any grown men.
At least I hope not.
Thursday, June 9
To Mands, from the road
Happy birthday.
It is the co-author's birthday today, though it's been a while since she's contributed a story here. She says she writes better from the road, but that only means she needs to hit the road.
I know I have more to write about when I'm on the road. I can't imagine I'll keep up this pace once I return home again (in 24 hrs. ish). I don't want to say I'll try because trying doesn't get posts posted.
Lee told me once that no one cares what you almost did, Bird and she is so very right.
Wasn't this a post about Mands, not about your posting habits?
i think it was meant to be, but i don't know what happened.
nevertheless, happy bday. hope it's a good one.
--bbb
It is the co-author's birthday today, though it's been a while since she's contributed a story here. She says she writes better from the road, but that only means she needs to hit the road.
I know I have more to write about when I'm on the road. I can't imagine I'll keep up this pace once I return home again (in 24 hrs. ish). I don't want to say I'll try because trying doesn't get posts posted.
Lee told me once that no one cares what you almost did, Bird and she is so very right.
Wasn't this a post about Mands, not about your posting habits?
i think it was meant to be, but i don't know what happened.
nevertheless, happy bday. hope it's a good one.
--bbb
Wednesday, June 8
jittery, from the road
sbux is our new office on the road. we usually stop at one part way through the day, or when we've reached a point in our day where we've exhausted our research and the locations we want to hit and need a moment to recharge, cool off and, most importantly, spend some time outside of the truck.
we both agree, and the Boss figured when we left, that the hardest part of this trip will be the time spent driving.
.. and we've spent a lot of time driving; on average 400 km/day.
We figured that out on this morning's two hour drive/math refresher course. (I'll get to that in a moment.)
Just as we haven't spent longer than one night in the same hotel (save for one set of nights), we haven't made one sbuxs our local brew hut either. However, there's one in every major city and, quite often, one at every major intersection. They all serve basically the same things. Some people do different things, but over all it's the same. I've learned that they have the right things to make a dairy-free, soy-free smoothie. It's not on the menu, but when you're as versed as I am with the ingredients of all the smoothies, and there's a creative person working on the beverages, we can come up with something.
The first dude .. (man I wish there was a story developing here, but there doesn't seem to be. I was going to write about the math review that Sweet and I had going down I40. He wanted to use a calculator to figure out our daily average, I said we should use our heads, or at the very least a pad of paper and he couldn't understand why. Turns out it was because he'd forgotten how to use long division. After a few minutes I had him convinced that I thought he couldn't do it, which was the tipping point to put his pen point to the paper.)
[I know; nice alliteration, right?]
(we worked on a small problem, which he got right. we learned how to check our work and then he went to work on the problem at hand. It was an honour to see him light up with the answer he got, especially after looking over after a couple of minutes to find a confused look on his face because he couldn't figure out why 8x4=34, but 8x7=56.)
<<It doesn't compute he said, and I can't figure out why>>
(Eventually he got it, the right answer and a flood of other thoughts about teaching styles and learning habits. It was refreshing to hear someone talk about all this with such interest and passion, but without the cliche buzz words that practicing teachers find themselves using among other practicing teachers.)
(Road trips make great think tanks, it's unfortunate that it takes a week to get warmed up to it)
.. something about making a smoothie that isn't interesting anymore and wasn't interesting in the first place. Thanks for reading.
8x4=32
we both agree, and the Boss figured when we left, that the hardest part of this trip will be the time spent driving.
.. and we've spent a lot of time driving; on average 400 km/day.
We figured that out on this morning's two hour drive/math refresher course. (I'll get to that in a moment.)
Just as we haven't spent longer than one night in the same hotel (save for one set of nights), we haven't made one sbuxs our local brew hut either. However, there's one in every major city and, quite often, one at every major intersection. They all serve basically the same things. Some people do different things, but over all it's the same. I've learned that they have the right things to make a dairy-free, soy-free smoothie. It's not on the menu, but when you're as versed as I am with the ingredients of all the smoothies, and there's a creative person working on the beverages, we can come up with something.
The first dude .. (man I wish there was a story developing here, but there doesn't seem to be. I was going to write about the math review that Sweet and I had going down I40. He wanted to use a calculator to figure out our daily average, I said we should use our heads, or at the very least a pad of paper and he couldn't understand why. Turns out it was because he'd forgotten how to use long division. After a few minutes I had him convinced that I thought he couldn't do it, which was the tipping point to put his pen point to the paper.)
[I know; nice alliteration, right?]
(we worked on a small problem, which he got right. we learned how to check our work and then he went to work on the problem at hand. It was an honour to see him light up with the answer he got, especially after looking over after a couple of minutes to find a confused look on his face because he couldn't figure out why 8x4=34, but 8x7=56.)
<<It doesn't compute he said, and I can't figure out why>>
(Eventually he got it, the right answer and a flood of other thoughts about teaching styles and learning habits. It was refreshing to hear someone talk about all this with such interest and passion, but without the cliche buzz words that practicing teachers find themselves using among other practicing teachers.)
(Road trips make great think tanks, it's unfortunate that it takes a week to get warmed up to it)
.. something about making a smoothie that isn't interesting anymore and wasn't interesting in the first place. Thanks for reading.
8x4=32
Tuesday, June 7
haphazardly, from the road
The road to Missouri (MO) is a long one; 12 hrs long to be exact(ish). It involves rounds of driving of about four to five hours, which are juxtaposed by rounds of sleeping haphazardly while the maniac sitting next to you drives like he's in a race car.
It's a crew cap truck, Sweet. There's no pit crew and you're not going to get sprayed with champagne when we get to the next checkpoint.
I deal with it best while I'm sleeping haphazardly. It's during those times that I can't feel the truck swaying as he changes the music on the eyePod.
Currently we're in Guthrie, OK which is about an hour north of Oklahoma City which is the least likely place I thought I'd run into Vancouver Canucks fans. Turns out that there's a few anti Boston fans. Had I* been in OKC three weeks earlier I might have been invited to a basketball game, "the city nearly shuts down, as I'm sure these two can tell you".
She was motioning to the two sitting behind her, the pair of reception like people sitting just behind the board room table her and I were standing at. The man looked up and nodded eagerly in agreement, the woman didn't look up from her computer but smiled politely, nonetheless.
"would you like another coffee?" he asked, equally as eagerly. I remembered back to when I first sat down and he offered me the first.
"no thanks" i said, i'm still wearing most of the original "I should get going."
I know none of them had seen me cross my legs into the cup of coffee he had so generously offered me. I was glad because I went as red as the couch I had just spilled it on, and I hoped that it was coffee heating my leg.
Leaving meetings like this one have made this trip worth while. I know I enjoy talking to people, but having to sell myself is stressful, and I've learned that I don't know if I could do it all the time. At least not this road trip version. The road trip itself is going well, but it's such a rough ride emotionally all day. We stopped at more than 15 places in the morning and I got a different feeling about each one. The good feeling lasts until the next place we stop, but the bad feelings last the whole day.
But hey, I've crossed three states to my list (though I haven't found a badge for any of them yet) and there's a chance I'll get another two if the trip goes the way I think it might. (However in truth I don't have a clue where the trip will go from here. Sweet and I have been sitting at this cafe for two hours now waiting on orders from base camp.)
When I learn how to make the good feeling last all afternoon I'll let you know. I'm sure a few of you are thinking of suggesting that I drink, but that wouldn't help much since they don't put alcohol in their beer here.
*I had an urge just now to write this sentence out as "had I a been" or "had i of been" but neither would have been correct. It's taking me a while to figure out what is correct, in fact I haven't written the rest of the sentence yet and I have no idea where I'm going to go with it. I think it must be a colloquialism, or a rural thing. Any thoughts, dear readers**?
**speaking of which ... yesterday, apparently, there were 49 of you. I don't know who you are, or where you're coming from, but thanks for stopping by. I hope you like it.
It's a crew cap truck, Sweet. There's no pit crew and you're not going to get sprayed with champagne when we get to the next checkpoint.
I deal with it best while I'm sleeping haphazardly. It's during those times that I can't feel the truck swaying as he changes the music on the eyePod.
Currently we're in Guthrie, OK which is about an hour north of Oklahoma City which is the least likely place I thought I'd run into Vancouver Canucks fans. Turns out that there's a few anti Boston fans. Had I* been in OKC three weeks earlier I might have been invited to a basketball game, "the city nearly shuts down, as I'm sure these two can tell you".
She was motioning to the two sitting behind her, the pair of reception like people sitting just behind the board room table her and I were standing at. The man looked up and nodded eagerly in agreement, the woman didn't look up from her computer but smiled politely, nonetheless.
"would you like another coffee?" he asked, equally as eagerly. I remembered back to when I first sat down and he offered me the first.
"no thanks" i said, i'm still wearing most of the original "I should get going."
I know none of them had seen me cross my legs into the cup of coffee he had so generously offered me. I was glad because I went as red as the couch I had just spilled it on, and I hoped that it was coffee heating my leg.
Leaving meetings like this one have made this trip worth while. I know I enjoy talking to people, but having to sell myself is stressful, and I've learned that I don't know if I could do it all the time. At least not this road trip version. The road trip itself is going well, but it's such a rough ride emotionally all day. We stopped at more than 15 places in the morning and I got a different feeling about each one. The good feeling lasts until the next place we stop, but the bad feelings last the whole day.
But hey, I've crossed three states to my list (though I haven't found a badge for any of them yet) and there's a chance I'll get another two if the trip goes the way I think it might. (However in truth I don't have a clue where the trip will go from here. Sweet and I have been sitting at this cafe for two hours now waiting on orders from base camp.)
When I learn how to make the good feeling last all afternoon I'll let you know. I'm sure a few of you are thinking of suggesting that I drink, but that wouldn't help much since they don't put alcohol in their beer here.
*I had an urge just now to write this sentence out as "had I a been" or "had i of been" but neither would have been correct. It's taking me a while to figure out what is correct, in fact I haven't written the rest of the sentence yet and I have no idea where I'm going to go with it. I think it must be a colloquialism, or a rural thing. Any thoughts, dear readers**?
**speaking of which ... yesterday, apparently, there were 49 of you. I don't know who you are, or where you're coming from, but thanks for stopping by. I hope you like it.
Monday, June 6
A word from my cousin
Hello everyone,
My good friend, Anna, is participating in the relay for life this coming Friday. She will be shaving her head, and as one of her team members, it is my responsibility to help collect pledges! It would be much appreciated if you could make a simple contribution, I need all the pledges submitted by tomorrow night. So, lets raise some cash for cancer!
Follow the link below to donate online!
Thank you very much,
Tom
http://convio.cancer.ca/site/TR/RelayForLife/RFL_ON_odd_?px=4097999&pg=personal&fr_id=8764
Sunday, June 5
stale, from the road
Our road to Joplin, MO began six days ago. An early morning at the shop where we grabbed the essentials out of the yard (baseball gloves, golf clubs, cellphone chargers) and took the non-essentials out (empty candy wrappers, crusty coffee cups, smelly work boots) and took to the open road.
Twelve hours later we arrived in St. Louise to drive past the Gateway, maneuver around Cardinal fans and shack up for the night.
Now, that might seem like a bit of a jump, the skip over the twelve hours in the truck without any mention of a funny thing that happened, but the reality is that nothing much did. Traveling, a lot of the time, consists mostly of boring, mundane details that provide little entertainment to anyone, especially those experiencing it.
There was a great deal of mp3 shuffling, some chatting with the boss man every couple of hours with nothing more to report than our new location (which could have been guessed at with a quick calculation and an online map) and cracking juvenile jokes about everything and anything.
I learned the trick to starting the truck after putting new fuel in it: turns out one has to hold the pedal down to the floor, turn it over for thirty seconds then let the RMPs hover around 4000 for ten seconds. That got us a lot of looks, even the odd cheer, from fellow roadsters.
We would pause every so often at chain sandwich shops, or coffee huts, or road side trees to change up the pace. Sometimes when the Boss man called we'd say we were in a completely different state.
He didn't like that and told us so.
I learned to use the messenger system on the work phone, however if you're not in the crackberry club then I can't get in touch with you in text form from that device.
In closing, we rested a moment in St. Louis, ate a burger and tried to chat with friendly wait staff who were in no mood to chat with anyone because they worked at a bar that was next to a hotel and got all kinds of crazy come in the door. We spent the basketball game nibling quietly on a burger and talking about the people around us in hushed voices.
Sweet is learning to use his inside voice quiet well.
Twelve hours later we arrived in St. Louise to drive past the Gateway, maneuver around Cardinal fans and shack up for the night.
Now, that might seem like a bit of a jump, the skip over the twelve hours in the truck without any mention of a funny thing that happened, but the reality is that nothing much did. Traveling, a lot of the time, consists mostly of boring, mundane details that provide little entertainment to anyone, especially those experiencing it.
There was a great deal of mp3 shuffling, some chatting with the boss man every couple of hours with nothing more to report than our new location (which could have been guessed at with a quick calculation and an online map) and cracking juvenile jokes about everything and anything.
I learned the trick to starting the truck after putting new fuel in it: turns out one has to hold the pedal down to the floor, turn it over for thirty seconds then let the RMPs hover around 4000 for ten seconds. That got us a lot of looks, even the odd cheer, from fellow roadsters.
We would pause every so often at chain sandwich shops, or coffee huts, or road side trees to change up the pace. Sometimes when the Boss man called we'd say we were in a completely different state.
He didn't like that and told us so.
I learned to use the messenger system on the work phone, however if you're not in the crackberry club then I can't get in touch with you in text form from that device.
In closing, we rested a moment in St. Louis, ate a burger and tried to chat with friendly wait staff who were in no mood to chat with anyone because they worked at a bar that was next to a hotel and got all kinds of crazy come in the door. We spent the basketball game nibling quietly on a burger and talking about the people around us in hushed voices.
Sweet is learning to use his inside voice quiet well.
Friday, June 3
Planning
i don't have a plan. i don't use capitals often. at least not when i write Here. I'm sure it's cause my fingers haven't practiced using the SHIFT key enough to make it part of their typing routine.
I'm writing as if I could ask them. If they could answer I wouldn't have to ask them directly because they'd already have replied by giving up writing what I'm telling them to and stare directly at them.
Perhaps that's what it means "to fing", for digits to cease what they've been told do in protest of being spoke to in passing.
If they could comprehend orders they'd likely respond the way that annoying guy on the bus does when you indirectly tell him to stop tapping his hand to the beat of Adele on the seat next to him by leaning over to your friend to speak in a loud whisper: embarrassing disgust. He knows he should have know better, that it was entertaining to anyone else, but he's had to be told by some complete stranger and now everyone around knows he's been scolded.
I find myself leaning over to complete strangers, sometimes even an empty seat, just to make my point.
... What was my point?
Oh, right. I don't have a plan.
Although here I've learned that not having a plan can still lead somewhere entertaining.
Can I go nowhere with you?
I'm writing as if I could ask them. If they could answer I wouldn't have to ask them directly because they'd already have replied by giving up writing what I'm telling them to and stare directly at them.
Perhaps that's what it means "to fing", for digits to cease what they've been told do in protest of being spoke to in passing.
If they could comprehend orders they'd likely respond the way that annoying guy on the bus does when you indirectly tell him to stop tapping his hand to the beat of Adele on the seat next to him by leaning over to your friend to speak in a loud whisper: embarrassing disgust. He knows he should have know better, that it was entertaining to anyone else, but he's had to be told by some complete stranger and now everyone around knows he's been scolded.
I find myself leaning over to complete strangers, sometimes even an empty seat, just to make my point.
... What was my point?
Oh, right. I don't have a plan.
Although here I've learned that not having a plan can still lead somewhere entertaining.
Can I go nowhere with you?
Wednesday, May 4
Semantically yours,
"because I like your name I'm going to talk to you a lot today, Murray"
Is that so? I replied. I was busy going over the plans for the new overpass going in and hadn't much time for chitchat. It was looking like it was going to be a busy day, what with the labourers about to go to snack, and the unannounced t-Rex/deloposaurus parade it was hard to get any blocks laid.
"yep. And because you know so much about star wars. I know more, but you know a lot too"
I suppose so, Winston. Did I tell you that I think your name is pretty neat?
"is it because il named after Winston Churchill?"
Perhaps, I smirked. Perhaps. Do you know what know what next week is, Winston?
"no I don't, Murray. What is is?"
Star Wars day.
His eyes would have lite up if he wasn't a forty year old business man who had unfortunately been trapped inside a five year olds body and sent to senior kindergarten. Instead, he cocked his head to one side, confused.
I'll show you. Ms Quid, do you have a calendar?
"Sure do Mr Murray, just over there." Winston and I went over to the month of May.
That's the first of May, or May the first. What comes next, Winston?
"May the second?" yep, and after? "that's May the third, and that's May the forth and that's ... "
His head cocked to one side again. "that sounds funny, may the fourth. Why does it sound funny?"
I was smiling. I wasn't sure if he'd catch on, but then he started chuckling. It wasn't quite a laugh, I heard him laugh later that day when his mom picked him up and he was running around the tables pretending to be at a convention with his uncle where they had light sabers and costumes, but is was a good hearty chuckle.
"May the fourth be with you, Murray"
May the fourth be with you, too.
Saturday, April 30
bikes, big and small
I was at home for Easter and Dad wanted to go for a bike ride.
"don't we have two red ones?" he asked, not knowing how much I didn't want to talk about it. "what do you mean it got swiped too?"
Of course he knew exactly what I meant, he was just venting slowly, just as I did here, so that there wasn't a crater left in his spot when our conversation ended. He wasn't mad at me, it was the city that had eaten three of his bikes.
Well two, but I wasn't about to slow his roll. It didn't want there to be a crater named after me either.
I had came out on top with the first one going missing, the second one put us a bit behind. Especially since I had spent all of the cash we got for the first one on my new one. The second one going missing hadn't been planned for and thus I had let it disappear into the night without more than a wisp of ones and zeros on a blog buried deep in the blogger-verse.
A part of the blogger-verse that I was confident he rarely read when I was in the same province he was.
So now, at his suggestion, I'll be spending the last little bit of insurance money he thinks remains replacing a bike that I want to forget ever existed.
I am excited that he wants to get into biking, even if it is to the barn and back. I think eventually he'll get up to an around the block trip1.
Something for him and you to work up to.
In a related story, he has a spot in the garage cleared for his big bike. I had gone out of a ride around the block, I had intended to go farther and see more people but as luck would have it I left the little bit I need to put more air in the tires at home and had to get back early. When I did, I found a nice, big bike sized spot open in the garage when I could put my little bike.
"You parked your bike where I park mine" he said when he returned.
I simply nodded. The playoffs were on and, mostly, I didn't want to make eye contact with him.
"It struck me as funny, that's all." Slight pause and small snicker. "You have a bike and I have a bike."
I smirked back.
"Don't scratch mine when you get yours out from under it" He would have thundered had he been anyone else. Since he wasn't anyone else other than who he was he said it in a gentle, loving way that let me know he meant absolute business and I'd better not mess around.
I didn't dare scratch it, just as he didn't dare park on top of mine.
1 around the block means five miles, not two minutes
"don't we have two red ones?" he asked, not knowing how much I didn't want to talk about it. "what do you mean it got swiped too?"
Of course he knew exactly what I meant, he was just venting slowly, just as I did here, so that there wasn't a crater left in his spot when our conversation ended. He wasn't mad at me, it was the city that had eaten three of his bikes.
Well two, but I wasn't about to slow his roll. It didn't want there to be a crater named after me either.
I had came out on top with the first one going missing, the second one put us a bit behind. Especially since I had spent all of the cash we got for the first one on my new one. The second one going missing hadn't been planned for and thus I had let it disappear into the night without more than a wisp of ones and zeros on a blog buried deep in the blogger-verse.
A part of the blogger-verse that I was confident he rarely read when I was in the same province he was.
So now, at his suggestion, I'll be spending the last little bit of insurance money he thinks remains replacing a bike that I want to forget ever existed.
I am excited that he wants to get into biking, even if it is to the barn and back. I think eventually he'll get up to an around the block trip1.
Something for him and you to work up to.
In a related story, he has a spot in the garage cleared for his big bike. I had gone out of a ride around the block, I had intended to go farther and see more people but as luck would have it I left the little bit I need to put more air in the tires at home and had to get back early. When I did, I found a nice, big bike sized spot open in the garage when I could put my little bike.
"You parked your bike where I park mine" he said when he returned.
I simply nodded. The playoffs were on and, mostly, I didn't want to make eye contact with him.
"It struck me as funny, that's all." Slight pause and small snicker. "You have a bike and I have a bike."
I smirked back.
"Don't scratch mine when you get yours out from under it" He would have thundered had he been anyone else. Since he wasn't anyone else other than who he was he said it in a gentle, loving way that let me know he meant absolute business and I'd better not mess around.
I didn't dare scratch it, just as he didn't dare park on top of mine.
1 around the block means five miles, not two minutes
Friday, April 29
searching for the organic
[note: I wrote this a while back, saved it to draft and I'm posting it now. I share these sentiments, however I don't remember what interview it was for. enjoy]
damn it.
why can't I have a good answer for what leadership means to me? i was asked in an interview last night and I totally froze. It was as if I had never heard the word before or that I didn't know they were going to ask me a leadership associated question.
my resume, as resume's should be, is riddled with evidence of a past of leadership. I have a past of leadership, a lot of it ... but I couldn't tell them what leadership meant to me.
what does leadership mean to anyone?
this post isn't going to solve that for me, I really just have to sit down and write an answer for myself that I can talk about in my next interview. If I delve into it now it will sound too mushy and forced.
That's it - I didn't know how to answer it because I didn't want to sound mushy and forced, I wanted to sound organic and honest.
instead I sounded like a bumbling baboon.
and how do you motivate people, birdley?
.. i uh .. i talk to .. find .. uh .. them tick ..
I have a smashing resume and I'm bountifully articulate, but I can't talk about it for the life of me.
damn it.
damn it.
why can't I have a good answer for what leadership means to me? i was asked in an interview last night and I totally froze. It was as if I had never heard the word before or that I didn't know they were going to ask me a leadership associated question.
my resume, as resume's should be, is riddled with evidence of a past of leadership. I have a past of leadership, a lot of it ... but I couldn't tell them what leadership meant to me.
what does leadership mean to anyone?
this post isn't going to solve that for me, I really just have to sit down and write an answer for myself that I can talk about in my next interview. If I delve into it now it will sound too mushy and forced.
That's it - I didn't know how to answer it because I didn't want to sound mushy and forced, I wanted to sound organic and honest.
instead I sounded like a bumbling baboon.
and how do you motivate people, birdley?
.. i uh .. i talk to .. find .. uh .. them tick ..
I have a smashing resume and I'm bountifully articulate, but I can't talk about it for the life of me.
damn it.
Wednesday, April 27
at a coffee shop, avec pants.
pants. check
bike, helmet, gloves. check.
weather. ... che-hit.
It's nice to have a bike in a city because I can get nearly anywhere I want on my own schedule, most often quicker than transit can, sometimes even quicker than a car can.
However, the other two will make sure I'm dry when I there.
I'm not prepared to bike through this weather. I bring clothes with me when I take my bike to work - I don't like walking around in swassy clothes for an entire day - but I don't have the wet pants or the rubber shoes or the fenders or the [insert other items].
Like I said, I bike because I like keeping my own schedule. With that said, I was texting a new friend just now, explaining the liking of biking and the complaining of raining when I thought to myself ...
It'll be nice when I decide to leave here because I'm not going to have to be on the move immediately. I won't be rushing around through traffic and arrive home in a huff and a puff and an exasperated sigh. I can take my time and get there when the people in charge of getting me there feel like getting me there. I have no where to be and thus no reason to be rushed.
Then I laughed at the irony of how my version of rushing around is someone else's Sunday afternoon bike ride. The most stressful thing in my life is how I get to the next coffee shop1.
I felt defeated when I climbed my stairs, after helmeting up, only to find that it was raining quite a bit more than I had thought which was not at all. I had been trapped in my basement room for the duration of the day where my only access to the outside a six inch window that I use as a book shelf for my dictionaries. It took me a good three minutes of standing on the little stoop inside the door that lead to the rain to decide that going out was still an option, even without my bike.
If it wasn't for leaving the house despite not taking my bike I never would have heard the guy seated behind me say to the girl seated with him "do you understand how much I cherish you?" I've experienced a few tid-bits of relationship blossoms while at this brand of coffee place. I'll share another with you in a few days.
My coffee has gone cold, but I'm pretty sure my jacket has dried off. Perhaps it's time to go get it damp again. There's a crowd gathering just outside the window where buses have been stopping all afternoon.
Cheers!
1 this, of course, is not true. the most stressful part of my life is that I have two degrees, I'm trained in something I like doing and it's unlikely that I'll find work in this province any time soon. Of course, this isn't really that stressful because I got into this knowing it. Perhaps I didn't understand the degree of difficulty, or how much I would want to work in Ontario. Worst case scenario, I go somewhere and apprendre une neuveau langue.
bike, helmet, gloves. check.
weather. ... che-hit.
It's nice to have a bike in a city because I can get nearly anywhere I want on my own schedule, most often quicker than transit can, sometimes even quicker than a car can.
However, the other two will make sure I'm dry when I there.
I'm not prepared to bike through this weather. I bring clothes with me when I take my bike to work - I don't like walking around in swassy clothes for an entire day - but I don't have the wet pants or the rubber shoes or the fenders or the [insert other items].
Like I said, I bike because I like keeping my own schedule. With that said, I was texting a new friend just now, explaining the liking of biking and the complaining of raining when I thought to myself ...
It'll be nice when I decide to leave here because I'm not going to have to be on the move immediately. I won't be rushing around through traffic and arrive home in a huff and a puff and an exasperated sigh. I can take my time and get there when the people in charge of getting me there feel like getting me there. I have no where to be and thus no reason to be rushed.
Then I laughed at the irony of how my version of rushing around is someone else's Sunday afternoon bike ride. The most stressful thing in my life is how I get to the next coffee shop1.
I felt defeated when I climbed my stairs, after helmeting up, only to find that it was raining quite a bit more than I had thought which was not at all. I had been trapped in my basement room for the duration of the day where my only access to the outside a six inch window that I use as a book shelf for my dictionaries. It took me a good three minutes of standing on the little stoop inside the door that lead to the rain to decide that going out was still an option, even without my bike.
If it wasn't for leaving the house despite not taking my bike I never would have heard the guy seated behind me say to the girl seated with him "do you understand how much I cherish you?" I've experienced a few tid-bits of relationship blossoms while at this brand of coffee place. I'll share another with you in a few days.
My coffee has gone cold, but I'm pretty sure my jacket has dried off. Perhaps it's time to go get it damp again. There's a crowd gathering just outside the window where buses have been stopping all afternoon.
Cheers!
1 this, of course, is not true. the most stressful part of my life is that I have two degrees, I'm trained in something I like doing and it's unlikely that I'll find work in this province any time soon. Of course, this isn't really that stressful because I got into this knowing it. Perhaps I didn't understand the degree of difficulty, or how much I would want to work in Ontario. Worst case scenario, I go somewhere and apprendre une neuveau langue.
Tuesday, April 26
Guilt
It was supposed to rain today, so I didn't bike. Usually I take about 20 mins in the morning to bike to my placement, this Koenig I'm taking the bus.
Usually I have my headphones in for the commute, this morning it's just me and the birds and the tires on tarmac.
It was supposed to thunderstorm this morning. I'm sure it will. I hope it does. If it doesn't I'll feel pretty guilty today. Well, a little guilty. For a few weeks one summer, between undergrad years, I took to biking a trail every morning before work. It wasn't a commute. It was for the exercise; for the birds, the fawns and the foxes; mostly for the smoothy at the end of it all. I went everyday for three weeks. One morning it was raining a bit and I took the morning off.
"you deserve it" said the part of me that likely knowing full well I'd never get back on that trail.
Other parts of me either didn't know, didn't care or agreed and didn't want to say why.
Thats twice that I know of where I've used "usually" to describe something that clearly wasn't, or isn't. At least not yet.
Ils vas faire du pluie a demain, aussi. Je n'aime pas du pluie, At least not while I'm on my bike.
(I was going to touch on the irony of <i>music while I ride and nature while I bus</I>, but the story moved away from it.)
Monday, April 25
today...
Today is the day i sit around in my underwear and write and write and write. (I apologize for the visual, but that is what today is about.)
Today is also about haircuts, cleaning and making lists of lists on giant whiteboards. Today I wish my whiteboard was a giant tablet that allowed me to write as clearly as I do on a whiteboard but also let me save my scribbles as a jpeg.
(wouldn't that be cool!)
today is a day for deciding my three day old beard needs to be shaved off because the transitional period of itch isn't worth it. i don't know how I ever convince myself that it is. I look forty and I have to keep it trimmed. If I don't, I look forty and homeless.
Today it will dawn on me that in a week I'll be homeless.
Today might be the day I learn to use the SHIFT key instead of powering over letters that need capitalized. When I write I get lazy and never touch it. THen I go back over my post and have to highlight and delete and change and I am just as bored correcting it as you are with this sentence.
Today I might go to a coffee place and write and write and write. But first, the pants.
Thanks for reading.
Today is also about haircuts, cleaning and making lists of lists on giant whiteboards. Today I wish my whiteboard was a giant tablet that allowed me to write as clearly as I do on a whiteboard but also let me save my scribbles as a jpeg.
(wouldn't that be cool!)
today is a day for deciding my three day old beard needs to be shaved off because the transitional period of itch isn't worth it. i don't know how I ever convince myself that it is. I look forty and I have to keep it trimmed. If I don't, I look forty and homeless.
Today it will dawn on me that in a week I'll be homeless.
Today might be the day I learn to use the SHIFT key instead of powering over letters that need capitalized. When I write I get lazy and never touch it. THen I go back over my post and have to highlight and delete and change and I am just as bored correcting it as you are with this sentence.
Today I might go to a coffee place and write and write and write. But first, the pants.
Thanks for reading.
Monday, March 14
... the race is on
my summer reading list ...
1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - C.S. Lewis
34 Emma -Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - A.A. Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Inferno - Dante
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert (En Français!)
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - E.B. White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery (En Français!)
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shaskespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo
... 21/100. it seems we're evenly matched. the italics are the ones I'm either working on or started at one point.
... I don't understand why Hamlet is its own number outside of the Complete Works of WS, or why LWW by CS Lewis is its own outside the Chronic(what)cles of Narnia.
on your mark, get set ...
1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - C.S. Lewis
34 Emma -Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - A.A. Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Inferno - Dante
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert (En Français!)
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - E.B. White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery (En Français!)
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shaskespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo
... 21/100. it seems we're evenly matched. the italics are the ones I'm either working on or started at one point.
... I don't understand why Hamlet is its own number outside of the Complete Works of WS, or why LWW by CS Lewis is its own outside the Chronic(what)cles of Narnia.
on your mark, get set ...
Saturday, March 12
and then there were three
[My apologies for the brief interruption in service. I forgot to renew my account with salutmaman.com]
[It makes me feel good knowing that people check in enough to notice that the site is down for a day or two.]
Currently I'm sick. some trouble breathing, but no trouble heating up a glass of water and adding some neocitron which I told my housemate that it tastes like sick.
I meant that it tastes of the reminiscent of being sick, not of an upset stomach. She had told me to add sugar or sweetener to take the edge off the tea, I said like liked the taste of sick. When we realized the miss-communication i chalked it up to her being british ... in reality it was me not thinking clearly because I was sick.
It's not that i'm actually sick though either. I am recovering from an evening with three cats whom I always forget that i am allergic to. In fact, it was only this evening that i realized there were three of them, every other time I've stayed I had thought there were two ... although the other times knocked me out for a couple of days too.
It wasn't that there was three this time because there's always been three and I've always got sick because of it.
It wasn't that there was three, it's that i think i am stronger than my allergy and i can force myself out of it.
It wasn't that there was three ... it's that i can be a bit daft some of the time.
I didn't help either that I went out last night. It was the last night out with my B.Ed buddies because we finished the uni part of our bach of ed. I think we all had fun.
I could tell that some had more fun than others. The ones not having fun were either a) swaying to the beat of music that can only be described as anything other than what was currently playing while they starred disconnected off to the back wall and beyond, or b) the friends that were taking care of the people swaying to the music of some other party.
Those having fun were somewhere in between. Luckily, that was most of us.
[It makes me feel good knowing that people check in enough to notice that the site is down for a day or two.]
Currently I'm sick. some trouble breathing, but no trouble heating up a glass of water and adding some neocitron which I told my housemate that it tastes like sick.
I meant that it tastes of the reminiscent of being sick, not of an upset stomach. She had told me to add sugar or sweetener to take the edge off the tea, I said like liked the taste of sick. When we realized the miss-communication i chalked it up to her being british ... in reality it was me not thinking clearly because I was sick.
It's not that i'm actually sick though either. I am recovering from an evening with three cats whom I always forget that i am allergic to. In fact, it was only this evening that i realized there were three of them, every other time I've stayed I had thought there were two ... although the other times knocked me out for a couple of days too.
It wasn't that there was three this time because there's always been three and I've always got sick because of it.
It wasn't that there was three, it's that i think i am stronger than my allergy and i can force myself out of it.
It wasn't that there was three ... it's that i can be a bit daft some of the time.
I didn't help either that I went out last night. It was the last night out with my B.Ed buddies because we finished the uni part of our bach of ed. I think we all had fun.
I could tell that some had more fun than others. The ones not having fun were either a) swaying to the beat of music that can only be described as anything other than what was currently playing while they starred disconnected off to the back wall and beyond, or b) the friends that were taking care of the people swaying to the music of some other party.
Those having fun were somewhere in between. Luckily, that was most of us.
Thursday, February 3
A bus ride
Snow-boy ... I would have liked that snow day (yesterday) better if had been a snow day, yet as a Wednesday it was still pretty good. Ive an essay due today that I started yesterday, first-drafted by nine and final pencil version was done by 830 this morning.
All because of a little bit of snow that kept students out of their school and thus outside of the gym after the school day as well.
Also, tutoring was postponed until tonight.
[I started this this morning, I've picked it up again sitting on the bus en route to bball prac]
We had a class today on Amish communities and I doodled an Amish man on my feedback sheet. The class is usually boring and I get all my best doodles done during it. I told my art teacher this through my reflection paper and she wrote back that I was "too funny". I had a teacher in Gr 11 who would give us bonus marks for doodles we added to tests or in class assignments.
I think I'll do that in my own class, in fact I may do that in my next placement.
At practice tonight I'm going to have them moving with more conviction and more speed. Not dashing around like maniacs, but when the whistle goesthe balls stop, when I call for a huddle they won't walk or lag. If anyone does we'll do three push ups together, and we'll keep doing it till we move the speed I want us to.
That's one goal for today, I'll set a second one before the bus ride ends.
--b
All because of a little bit of snow that kept students out of their school and thus outside of the gym after the school day as well.
Also, tutoring was postponed until tonight.
[I started this this morning, I've picked it up again sitting on the bus en route to bball prac]
We had a class today on Amish communities and I doodled an Amish man on my feedback sheet. The class is usually boring and I get all my best doodles done during it. I told my art teacher this through my reflection paper and she wrote back that I was "too funny". I had a teacher in Gr 11 who would give us bonus marks for doodles we added to tests or in class assignments.
I think I'll do that in my own class, in fact I may do that in my next placement.
At practice tonight I'm going to have them moving with more conviction and more speed. Not dashing around like maniacs, but when the whistle goesthe balls stop, when I call for a huddle they won't walk or lag. If anyone does we'll do three push ups together, and we'll keep doing it till we move the speed I want us to.
That's one goal for today, I'll set a second one before the bus ride ends.
--b
Wednesday, February 2
When the chips are down
Is there a commercial about eating chips in a quiet place, like a library? I am sure there is and I am sure that if there isn't there will be one out next week. Then, if the latter is true, I am sitting through the taping of said future commercial.
If it is candid and if it does air next week I am going to be the blurred out face with the beeped out dialogue that kicks the chair out from under the star of the commercial. She'll land on all fours with the chip bag next to her, the chips in a mess around her like a bowl of corn flakes that dropped on the floor. She'll look dumb-founded up at me and make as if to explain about the commercial and I'll lean over all smartly and say something like
"I'll bet you can't eat just one ... off that floor."
and i'll pick one up and crush it in my hand, letting the bits fall to the carpet again.
While I walk away you'll be able to tell that I know I picked a dumb thing to say but we always pick the dumb things to say in a moment of confrontation and edit them in our heads for the next several days.
At least I do. I'm still thinking about a group of dudes at the bar last week. There was an improve group on stage and the dudes thought that everyone wanted to hear their stories about girls and drinking. I wanted to tell them that it wasn't their show, so I did.
It felt awesome. For a moment. Then the dudes realized that I hadn't taken away their ability to from words and began forming some in my direction.
Amazing what a little motivation can do to an inarticulate group of young men. Before I told them that no one wanted to listen to them they were quite happy calling each other inappropriate names, now they were even more happy to have someone that wasn't them to call these things.
It took them a bit to say more than oddly placed nouns and verbs, but once their balls got rolling again they appeared able to take on anything. Luckily my table was filled with Anythings, and the table to their right was filled with more Anythings.
Nostalgia tells me that I coolly reminded them that it still wasn't their show and they should take their conversation outside to where no one would listen. Then I smirked at my table of Anythings and turned back to the stage and gestured to the improve team to continue with the show. Later that night we all shared a beer and told our own versions of the story over and over again, changing it a little bit at a time to include the knocking over of chairs and a small stand off of some sort.
Of course the real thing went nothing like that and was significantly less eventful, just as is the case in the library right now. The boys likely said something back to me, but I had no idea what they were saying because I was still shaking from the nerves that were building up. The chip eater has long finished with her snacking and has gone home having already finished the assignment that I've been writing this post instead of.
If it is candid and if it does air next week I am going to be the blurred out face with the beeped out dialogue that kicks the chair out from under the star of the commercial. She'll land on all fours with the chip bag next to her, the chips in a mess around her like a bowl of corn flakes that dropped on the floor. She'll look dumb-founded up at me and make as if to explain about the commercial and I'll lean over all smartly and say something like
"I'll bet you can't eat just one ... off that floor."
and i'll pick one up and crush it in my hand, letting the bits fall to the carpet again.
While I walk away you'll be able to tell that I know I picked a dumb thing to say but we always pick the dumb things to say in a moment of confrontation and edit them in our heads for the next several days.
At least I do. I'm still thinking about a group of dudes at the bar last week. There was an improve group on stage and the dudes thought that everyone wanted to hear their stories about girls and drinking. I wanted to tell them that it wasn't their show, so I did.
It felt awesome. For a moment. Then the dudes realized that I hadn't taken away their ability to from words and began forming some in my direction.
Amazing what a little motivation can do to an inarticulate group of young men. Before I told them that no one wanted to listen to them they were quite happy calling each other inappropriate names, now they were even more happy to have someone that wasn't them to call these things.
It took them a bit to say more than oddly placed nouns and verbs, but once their balls got rolling again they appeared able to take on anything. Luckily my table was filled with Anythings, and the table to their right was filled with more Anythings.
Nostalgia tells me that I coolly reminded them that it still wasn't their show and they should take their conversation outside to where no one would listen. Then I smirked at my table of Anythings and turned back to the stage and gestured to the improve team to continue with the show. Later that night we all shared a beer and told our own versions of the story over and over again, changing it a little bit at a time to include the knocking over of chairs and a small stand off of some sort.
Of course the real thing went nothing like that and was significantly less eventful, just as is the case in the library right now. The boys likely said something back to me, but I had no idea what they were saying because I was still shaking from the nerves that were building up. The chip eater has long finished with her snacking and has gone home having already finished the assignment that I've been writing this post instead of.
Friday, January 28
some questing
A bunch of us went to laser tag last night, about 30 or so. all teachers college kids, which we in chorus told the Marshal in the prep chamber. We played three games, each time they did an introduction to the game and an overview of the rules. The first time he made a small faux pas, and Jeff corrected him. The guy said "what, are you a teacher?" and Jeff said "actually, yes."
"you look like one too" the guy replied in reference to the shirt and tie he was, like a few others, including myself, were wearing. I had got a text earlier that day: "you better suit up".
The suit turned out to be a bad choice because A) it gets really hot inside the vest we wear while running through a maze full tilt for fifteen minutes. I was sweating buckets through my blue and white striped shirt, which was problem B) because, unbeknownst to me, laser quest arenas are lit with black lights and I stuck out like a florescent sore thumb.
The second time through the Marshal made a comment about how we weren't paying attention and asked where the teacher was from before and if he could help out. The Marshal was knocked back by the booming "we all are" that we responded with.
In the cafe today we all reminisced about the ambushes and misshapes from the night before, and the injuries that showed up this morning when we tried to get out of bed.
"you look like one too" the guy replied in reference to the shirt and tie he was, like a few others, including myself, were wearing. I had got a text earlier that day: "you better suit up".
The suit turned out to be a bad choice because A) it gets really hot inside the vest we wear while running through a maze full tilt for fifteen minutes. I was sweating buckets through my blue and white striped shirt, which was problem B) because, unbeknownst to me, laser quest arenas are lit with black lights and I stuck out like a florescent sore thumb.
The second time through the Marshal made a comment about how we weren't paying attention and asked where the teacher was from before and if he could help out. The Marshal was knocked back by the booming "we all are" that we responded with.
In the cafe today we all reminisced about the ambushes and misshapes from the night before, and the injuries that showed up this morning when we tried to get out of bed.
Monday, January 17
iMail
Mom,
my mail won't work, but mostly I hadn't thought of a subject heading yet and that was the first thing that came to mind. I haven't been bothered too much by it to look further into fixing it because messages still come to my phone and logging on to the web version is just fine.
it stays open all the time though, and that bothers me a bit. when i alt-tab it's always there ... staring at me .. mocking me ...
WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME iMAIL?
mostly I spent today planning escape and bus routes. in art (which reminds me that i have to add it to my todo list) we drew stone henge. how we did it is just as mysterious as the building of the real structure so I won't be able to divulge any more details about it in this message. I also had another class, it was math and we learned about protractors.
where the hell was that a month ago?
it makes total sense now and i was going about it all wrong. hopefully those kids recover and learn from their grade 6 teacher how those half circle things work (actually, they didn't call them half circle things at all. i consider that a victory for me).
Then we had basketball and lost, but the team did alright. I would rather have time with them at practice then all this time at games. I see a ton of things we could work on and not being there hurts. I'm sure they wonder what my role is too.
right now i'm the guy that shows up to the games and tells them to do things that don't make sense.
I am smiling. I don't know if that's evident in what I've written, but I am. Because at the end of the day I did a bunch of things that I like doing .. including catching the right buses every time.
things are turning up Murray.
--b
my mail won't work, but mostly I hadn't thought of a subject heading yet and that was the first thing that came to mind. I haven't been bothered too much by it to look further into fixing it because messages still come to my phone and logging on to the web version is just fine.
it stays open all the time though, and that bothers me a bit. when i alt-tab it's always there ... staring at me .. mocking me ...
WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME iMAIL?
mostly I spent today planning escape and bus routes. in art (which reminds me that i have to add it to my todo list) we drew stone henge. how we did it is just as mysterious as the building of the real structure so I won't be able to divulge any more details about it in this message. I also had another class, it was math and we learned about protractors.
where the hell was that a month ago?
it makes total sense now and i was going about it all wrong. hopefully those kids recover and learn from their grade 6 teacher how those half circle things work (actually, they didn't call them half circle things at all. i consider that a victory for me).
Then we had basketball and lost, but the team did alright. I would rather have time with them at practice then all this time at games. I see a ton of things we could work on and not being there hurts. I'm sure they wonder what my role is too.
right now i'm the guy that shows up to the games and tells them to do things that don't make sense.
I am smiling. I don't know if that's evident in what I've written, but I am. Because at the end of the day I did a bunch of things that I like doing .. including catching the right buses every time.
things are turning up Murray.
--b
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