after the fall

Well.....America drank the kool-aid. Four more years.

Though I was pretty sure that the election would go this way, I have to admit that in the past couple weeks I had allowed myself to hope for a different outcome. Working in a building that was also functioning as an early voting polling place, I saw the larger voter turnout here firsthand. People were waiting four hours or more to cast their votes, every day, and there was talk about large turnouts in the youth and first-time voter populations--groups who usually favour the challenger over the incumbent. However, I guess that living in one of the few Democratic areas in Florida skewed my perspective of the larger picture.

Watching the networks call state after state for Bush last night, I really felt a sense of despair. Our local "fair and balanced" Fox affiliate station was, of course, all but announcing a win for Bush by about 10 pm. Thank goodness I get better reception with my new rabbit ears and could switch over to ABC/Local 10 and Peter Jennings! I've never seen such biased coverage of an event--I was flipping between the two stations but when the Fox anchor prefaced the announcement of a new Bush state as "more good news!!!" I had to sign off in disgust--I'd rather sit through commercials than deal with that kind of biased garbage.

So. Here we are, having reaffirmed our isolationist America-rules-the-world unilateral attitude, spit in the face of the international community, and washed the States red with the blood of over 100 000 innocent Iraqi civilians. I really hoped that people were smart enough to see through Dick Cheney's "vote Bush or you'll be killed real dead" rhetoric; believed that the mainstream press exposure of the lies and manipulations and hidden agendas and brainwashing behind the invasion of Iraq was enough to convince even conservative voters that Bush was not working in the country's--or the world's--best interests; couldn't fathom how an experienced, decorated war veteran could really be seen as "softer on terror" and "less able as a commander in chief" than a drunkard who spent the term of his "service" avoiding duty in any way possible; thought that "nuanced thinking" trumped "sticking to your guns no matter how wrong you are." Stupid me. I come from Alberta: I should know how this works by now. The way you get elected is by pretending that you're "just folks" instead of a part of the highest, most priviledged social echelons; by pandering to the lowest common denominator possible; by putting on a rural accent, bragging about your lack of education and having one too many with the boys behind the woodshed.

Whatever.

Arabesque

Okay....

I. Want. This. Book!!!!

Not a lot to report except for the usual Gryphoemia with the usual round of coworkers/managers, which is why this blog has been quiet of late. I am trying to get myself more organized, so as to actually accomplish some of the things I keep thinking about, but as usual it's a long slow one-step-forward-two-steps-back process. Which leads to predictable ironies like sitting next to a kitchen full of dirty dishes and empty of useful groceries reading Home Comforts. Sigh.

Other than that...let's see....I attended an interesting video day at my bellydance teacher's house, where we watched lots of Turkish/Romany/9/8 performances. Michael and I bought tickets to see the Princess Diana exhibition at the Fort Lauderdale Museum of Art next weekend. Don't know how much Michael will be into it actually, but I guess he's humoring me :) Michael was also nice enough to let me henna his hand with a Moroccan-style design this week. If we get a picture of it we'll post it. Aaahh, my exciting life....

Wiggin' out

Here's a picture from a recent party at a friend's place. It was a wig party, but as you can see I had just taken mine off.

Gryphoemia

Wow, I finally found a word that describes precisely what living here is all about. Courtesy of The Henna Page:

Gryphoemia

A morbid affliction of one's patience. Outbreaks tend to be caused by too much time spent dealing with the stupid. Symptoms of a Gryphoemia outbreak can include increased heart rate, heavy breathing, severe headache, blurred vision and a driving urge to injure someone -- anyone. The most serious outbreaks have been known to cause smoke to rise from a person's ears. Henna artists are particularly prone to Gryphoemia when they've had to be enormously gracious to very irritating people under difficult conditions. Gryphomia can never be cured, but outbreaks can be suppressed by indulging in something you're NOT supposed to do ... like eating junk food, shopping, consuming or imbibing "attitude adjusting substances", and ..... whatever your favorite naughtiness happens to be.

(Definition by The Fabulous Gwyn)

Gwyn, I've never met you.....but thanks!

Interesting....

Check out Dilbert's Ultimate House!!!

Hey, I'd live there. Wouldn't you?

Spared again!

Well, South Florida got lucky...again. Hurricane Jeanne essentially followed the same path as Hurricane Frances, skipping lightly over us and slamming areas to the north. While many Broward residents lost power temporarily, and there were some nasty storm squalls throughout the weekend, overall we are okay.

I stocked up on canned food, water, dry milk, and other non-perishables late last week, and Michael and I rode out the storm at my place. Libraries and businesses were closed for at least Saturday, some into Sunday, and people were told by the County mayor's office to do their preparations, get inside, and stay there. We spent most of Saturday, especially Saturday night, tracking the hurricane on TV, watching reports as it made landfall up in Stuart and Melbourne. A pretty surreal experience, actually, as the weather was eerily calm in my neighborhood while they were getting hit. We emerged midafternoon Sunday, went to check Michael's apartment (which is much closer to the ocean than mine), and spent most of the rest of the afternoon hanging out at Starbucks with his new roommate.

Seeing the weather--and the damage--inflicted on other areas just drives home how incredibly fortunate this place has been. Florida has never had four storms make landfall in one season. The only other time it's happened in the U.S. period was in the 19th century! Just about every other area of the state has incurred major damage and flooding--some areas more than once--and the estimate for insured losses is in the billions. I didn't even have any power outages this time, and my neighbors told me that they only lost power for a couple hours total with Frances. I think we're all feeling pretty grateful right now even as we empathise with people up north.

In other news...

I hear Kerry is losing ground with younger, married women. This is apparently because this demographic, of which I am nearly a part, is looking for a "big strong protector man" in a president, and Bush is seen as better fulfilling this role. At least, that's what all the old white men newsanchors tell me. Excuse me....I suddenly got this strange foul taste in my mouth....

Mendhi!

My friend Diana came over and did some mendhi on my left hand last night. Here's some pictures she took after she applied the henna paste:

lovely, no? we wrapped my hand so I could wear it overnight. I scraped it off this morning, after it had been on about 12 hours. It's in the process of turning a nice deep brown :)

The weather finally turned nice enough that I could turn off my A/C last night and open the window. So I got to sleep in fresh air last night.

Other than that not much going on. I am battling some of the same old same old at work...mundane petty power struggles that really get me down. The worst of the latest seems to be over but I'm not convinced more crap won't start floating around at any minute. Fortunately both Michael and I have the entire weekend off, so hopefully we can relax, let go of work worries, and have a little fun.

Pretty much says it all...

Ivan the terrible

Well, we're back after a great Ottawa vacation. I got my new passport and visa with minimal problems, so I'm set for another year. My aunt and Jacque's apartment is really well situated in an interesting part of downtown Ottawa, within walking distance of Bytown Market, and we did a lot of sightseeing while we were there. We went into the Gatineaus, one of the area's spectaular parks, a couple of times, and we spent one late afternoon and evening in a small town called Merrickville for dinner and shopping. We took a trip to Upper Canada Village, which recreates an early settlers' farm and town with recovered and restored buildings, reinactors, and working shops and mills. Michael and I bought a handmade broom in the shop there to use in our ceremony next summer. We also spent an afternoon sunning on the beach at Meech Lake, and took a day trip to Montreal to tour the harbor and the historic area of Old Montreal. Our last day was devoted to walking around the market, taking a tour of the Parliament buildings, having lunch at Darcy McGee's (of course!), and some shopping. Michael found a book about Ottawa from Michael Horn's, a great local bookstore, and he saw a wedding band he really liked at Birks Jewelers.

Now we are back in Florida, only to find that although we missed Frances, we are right on time for Ivan, whose path gets closer and closer to Broward County with every renewed forecast. Someone must have decided that Florida was getting too complacent/forgetful of Hurricane Andrew, I guess--but three direct hits in a month seems a little much! County government was closed a few days last week because of Frances; looks like they may shut things down for a few days again until Ivan blows over. Guess I'd better get in line at the grocery store for nonperishable food and more gallons of drinking water and be prepared to hole up in my apartment for a few days with possible loss of power and phone. If not worse! One of the big worries is that there is still so much detrius on the ground from the last storm--tree branches etc.--that more high winds could lift it up again and do major damage. And of course the ground is so saturated right now that flooding is bound to be bad. Cross your fingers and hope that we survive this one relatively intact....

Evacuation time

Boy, did we choose a good time to leave town. Michael and I are sitting in Ottawa, tracking a storm the size of Texas as it slowly closes in on Florida. Experts still aren't certain on where it will land, but over a million people have been told to evacuate. This is the first time in 50 years or more that 2 storms like this will hit Florida at the same time. Frances is already a category 4 creeping up close to 5... just as fierce as Andrew was but over twice as big! Broward has been put into a state of emergency...county agencies, including the libraries, have been shut down. Guess this means they owe me a couple more days vacation :)

It's weird watching it from so far away. On the one hand, you're kind of divorced from the whole thing. On the other, you're on edge hoping that your home won't be destroyed while you're away. I'm pretty far inland; Michael's apartment, however, is on the main floor and only 4 miles away from the evacuation line. Makes me very, very glad we could travel together this year! On top of this, given the state of emergency and possible hit from the storm, we're wondering if we will even be able to get back when we planned to, or whether the airports will be closed! Not exactly the way that I'd choose to get an extended vacation.

As to our Ottawa trip, it's been nice and relaxing so far. We've been walking around downtown Ottawa, the embassies and Parliament. We also took a drive this afternoon into the Gatineau Park and saw William Lyon Mackenzie King's estate. Tomorrow I go to pick up my passport, and we may drive into Montreal on Saturday.

So much for that

Well, I got an email from our contact with the UAE Libraries Deanship today. She's so sorry that she didn't get hold of us earlier, but they have selected two other candidates for the Reference positions. I guess it's nice that they want to keep our applications active, "just in case," but this is the topper on a week that was already kind of depressing. All the more reason it's a good thing I'm leaving for Ottawa tomorrow.

The good news is that if Frances hits, I'll miss her. Though I suppose I should take the contact information for my landlord and my insurance company just in case. The margin of error on the projected path of the storm is pretty wide, so we're still not sure at this point exactly where it will come ashore.

long time no blog

Once again, it seems like a long time since I've posted here. Pretty much same old, same old, I guess, and I would rather be absent than boring!

School is back in. Though the kids don't seem to be as bad this year. Maybe it's because with the new time-management software they need to use their library cards to use the computers, as opposed to last year's video-arcade free-for-all. Don't know if it'll last but I'm enjoying it while it does.

Having the usual fun with my TN renewal paperwork. Thanks to a completely, totally, one hundred per cent incompetent secretary, my renewal letter had to be rewritten three times, under intense supervision. Oh, and did I mention her bad attitude and the rudeness and the fact that she argued that she was right and we were wrong when we pointed out basic mistakes like the fact that she got the name of the USCIS wrong??????. Don't ask me why I don't just get over this crap and not let it bug me....every year I'm stressed out by this stuff and my paperwork is never ever done until the last minute.

This year it's compounded by the fact that I am needing to also get a new passport. They tell me before I send in my application that it will be sent to the Miami Consulate when it's done. Then when I call to see why it is late they tell me they are waiting for me to confirm where I want to pick it up! Then when I follow the agent's instructions to arrange to pick it up in Ottawa I get a phone call 3 days later saying that that is a problem because there is no counter for exchange there (they need to invalidate my old one so I don't have 2 valid ones at the same time). Sigh. To give Justin credit he has promised me that it will be ready in Ottawa on the third, and that if he runs into problems there he will bend the rules slightly and have me come to his office in Hull so he can handle it personally. And both of these offices are less than 10 minutes of driving from my aunt's place. But still...come on...you've had an entire month!!

On top of all this other testing-my-natural-impatience stuff, I've just found out that the engagement ring that we finally found and ordered won't be ready until after we get back. And I want it now, darn it!!!!

hmph.

The good news is that I'm soon out of here for a week of heaven in Canada with Michael, who has been in Spokane the past week with his family. And I. can. hardly. wait!

BTW, if you're looking for some light entertainment to pass the time, may I suggest Etiquette Hell. I'd better warn you in advance though, the site can be addictive....

Thar he blows

Okay, this is just freaky.

We are all obsessively tracking Hurricane Charley, which is now a category 4 hurricane--winds up to 145mph---and twice as strong as originally forecast. Articles from this afternoon describe the kind of effects that places on the west coast, especially Tampa, may expect to experience. Want to see what he looks like? check the map from weather.com.

So far things here in Broward haven't been too bad. We had a heavy rainfall in the middle of the night last night, and things were sunny and calm this morning. However, the wind's been picking up dramatically for the past couple of hours and we expect more stormy weather to come. We are also under tropical storm, flood, and tornado watches until sometime this evening. Naturally, I have to be out tonight...hopefully I won't end up driving to my bellydance gig in the middle of pouring rain.

Here Comes Charley!

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5653487/

Forecast to just miss us, thank goodness!

Too bad the storms weren't named Bonnie and Clyde.... :)

Some small consolation

Well, my suspicion was correct. DHL responded to my complaint letter with....coupons! Somehow they just didn't get the "never using your services again" part, I guess. Oh well--at least they promised to investigate and take corrective action. Though promising and doing are two separate things. If you're interested, here's the complete text of their letter.

Feeling pretty tired and burnt lately, as I've been involved with a new software installation at work that has required way too many 7am start times. Not the morning person, just not. But I think that EnvisionWare will make our lives much easier. Much much less computer policework, no standing over patrons well after close telling them to get off the computer now, and so forth. Let's hear it for patron self-management and automatic terminal shutdowns at the end of the day! woo hoo!

The other big news is that SIAST offered me the job in Moose Jaw. But, I turned it down. I think it was the right decision, but it was still a difficult thing to do. It was hard to know that while it would have got me out of Broward County and back to Canada it was still not the right job for me. And the lack of opportunities--professional and academic--for Michael would have made living there difficult. Oh well. I'll just hold on and hope that the UAE works out, or, if not, something else does.

Testing Meme Propagation in Blogspace: Add Your Blog!

This posting is a community experiment that tests how a meme, represented by this blog posting, spreads across blogspace, physical space and time. It will help to show how ideas travel across blogs in space and time and how blogs are connected. It may also help to show which blogs (and aggregation sites) are most influential in the propagation of memes. The dataset from this experiment will be public, and can be located via Google (or Technorati) by doing a search for the GUID for this meme (below).

The original posting for this experiment is located at: Minding the Planet. (Permalink: http://novaspivack.typepad.com/nova_spivacks_weblog/2004/08/a_sonar_ping_of.html) --- results and comments about the experiment appear at that location.

Please join the test by adding your blog (see instructions, below) and inviting your friends to participate -- the more the better. The data from this test will be public and open; others may use it to visualize and study the connectedness of blogspace and the propagation of memes across blogs.

The GUID for this experiment is: as098398298250swg9e (Note: this replaces the longer, original GUID -- listed below -- which didn't format nicely in narrow column layouts. Those sites still using the longer GUID will still be found in the data set).

The above GUID enables anyone to easily search Google or other search engines for all blogs that participate in this experiment, once they have indexed the sites that participate, which may take several days or weeks. To locate the full data set, just search for the any sites that contain either the short GUID (above) or the long GUID (for your reference, the long GUID is a single 72 character string comprised of the following segments put together with the white-spaces removed: as098398298250swg9e 98929872525389t9987 898tq98wteqtgaq6201 0920352598gawst -- they are listed here as different segments so that they will format better in narrow column layouts.)

Anyone is free to analyze the data of this experiment. Please publicize your analysis of the data, and/or any comments by adding comments onto the original post (see URL above). (Note: it would be interesting to see a geographic map or a temporal animation, as well as a social network map of the propagation of this meme.)

INSTRUCTIONS

To add your blog to this experiment, copy this entire posting to your blog, and then answer the questions below, substituting your own information, below, where appropriate. Other than answering the questions below, please do not alter the information, layout or format of this post in order to preserve the integrity of the data in this experiment (this will make it easier for searchers and automated bots to find and analyze the results later).

REQUIRED FIELDS (Note: Replace the answers below with your own answers)

(1) I found this experiment at URL: http://www.podbaydoor.com

(2) I found it via "Newsreader Software" or "Browsing the Web" or "Searching the Web" or "An E-Mail Message": Browsing the Web

(3) I posted this experiment at URL: http://darcysworld.blogspot.com/

(4) I posted this on date (day/month/year): 04/08/04

(5) I posted this at time (24 hour time): 14:42:00

(6) My posting location is (city, state, country): Pembroke Pines, Florida, USA

OPTIONAL SURVEY FIELDS (Replace the answers below with your own answers):

(7) My blog is hosted by: blogspot

(8) My age is: 32

(9) My gender is: Female

(10) My occupation is: Reference Librarian

(11) I use the following RSS/Atom reader software: none/don't know (sorry for the illiteracy here)

(12) I use the following software to post to my blog: blogger

(13) I have been blogging since (day, month, year): 05/06/2002

(14) My web browser is: IE 6.0.2880.1106

(15) My operating system is: Windows 2000

Written ripostes and some small respite

Well, I played hooky from my dance class last night, because I was feeling kind of burned out and a little sick and just needed a chance to recharge at home alone. And for once, I managed to actually get some time to myself that was not just "crashing and burning." So after a little housework, some reading, some journalling, some at-home spa treatments, and some Chinese takeout for dinner, I feel much better and more prepared to face the world. I didn't even get angry when a big truck with a trailer cut me off with an ill-timed left turn on the way to work!

If you're interested in all the sordid details of my saga with DHL, here's a copy of the complaint letter that I mailed last night. As a footnote to this story, online tracking at FedEx.com shows that my package is moving right along with no problems whatsoever, having left Calgary this morning.

So there.

I hate DHL but I love Al-Ain

So it's been a long time since I posted here. Partly because I've been busy, but partly because some things I've been thinking and experiencing are perhaps better not discussed in a completely open forum. However, with that said, I'll update what I can:

Michael and I are, of course, back from ALA. The job fair was once again very small and very disappointing. Many employers that listed their jobs were not there, and the libraries that were there were the same big public systems that always show up. So unless one is interested in working in the Jacksonville, Las Angeles, or Atlanta-Fulton Public Libraries one is at a disadvantage. However, the sessions were much better overall than last year, so it kind of made up for it. I attended sessions on reinventing reference, the future of academic libraries, job searching strategies, and library technology trends like RFID. I also went to a science fiction panel discussion and got some groovy signed editions of the authors' latest works. Unfortunately, what I expected to be the highlight of my conference, Ben Bova's planned interview with Sir Arthur C. Clarke, didn't work out as scheduled due to technical problems with the audio feeds to and from Sri Lanka. The assembled panel of scientists, authors and librarians provided an interesting tribute and discussion, but it was a little disappointing nonetheless :(

One very interesting thing did come out of our conference time, though, because Michael ran into someone from the UAE University in Al-Ain, United Arab Emirates. They have five librarian jobs open right now. Naturally, both of us found this prospect interesting, and we applied with them as soon as we got back. We've had informal interviews with the woman who was our initial contact, which seemed to go well, but we won't hear anything further until the Dean and the rest of the search committee get back from their summer vacations. We are both pretty excited about the idea of being able to work in the Middle East, and the UAE in particular is apparently quite open and welcoming to Westerners. I am particularly hoping they will interview me for the Special Collections position they have open. Anyone who knows me knows that special collections work is my dream job, and getting overseas experience with that should certainly add an extra bit of spice to subsequent job applications!

The one hard thing is that moving there would kind of mess up our wedding plans. Such as they are at this point. We had finally set a date of August 7th, 2005, but of course if we moved to an Islamic country that operates under Sharia (Islamic) Law, we would want to get married before we left to prevent any problems or faux pas. Not that we've been able to make any specific plans up to this point...we haven't even been able to find an engagement ring! However, I'm getting a pretty good oneline education in diamonds thanks to sites like pricescope and Good Old Gold.

The other good news job-wise is that I actually got another interview this month, this time with the Saskatchewan Institute of Applied Science and Technology, in Moose Jaw. This job pays well, and after living in Overbuild Broward County Hell, the idea of being in a smaller city in a more seasonal climate appeals. If you're interested in learning more about the library, and the campus I've interviewed at (Palliser), you can check out the campus web site, the libraries web site, last year's Annual Report, and the college's current Business Plan, which has chapters for Palliser and for Libraries. One real drawback is the lack of opportunity there for Michael. He'd likely have to commute to Regina for work or for further education. The other sticky fact is that SIAST is likely going to be offering the job to their preferred candidate before the UAE even does their formal interviews! So we're not sure what we will do in the event that I'm offered the job.

Of course, given the difficulty I've had getting the materials they need to them, SIAST may never even offer. Hence the "I hate DHL" part of this installment's title. This post is already too long for me to detail the saga of my attempts to deal with them, but the short version is that SIAST has a DHL account and wanted me to send a 10-15 minute videotape of me teaching a class to them as part of the interviewing/evaluation process. Between the stunning levels of rudeness and utter incompetence at my local shipping outlet, and the slowness of DHL service, that tape still isn't in their hands after two attempts to ship via DHL, and the only way I could ensure it would actually get there at all, ever, was to take it to a FedEx store today, almost a week after it should have been sent, and pay to have it couriered. Needless to say, I am completely underwhelmed by this new "competitor" in the shipping field, my letter of complaint is in the process of being written, and I advise everyone I know to never, never attempt to do business with them.

That's long enough for now, I think. Signing off....

Fortune and Fame and smooth starting...

Hey, I actually got cited!! Too bad the U of A link to my capping paper is now dead. I should probably find a new home for it, but I have a terrible admission to make: I don't think I kept a local copy of the files. Which would mean pulling out my comp copies of The Progressive Librarian and retyping it all, then marking it up in html. Which is a project that I do not think will get finished anytime very soon. Oh well...I'll keep you posted.

Adventures in Car Repair this week. Poor Macha was long overdue for servicing, and her starter was sounding strange, so I took her into Michael's garage to be tuned up, inspected and repaired. Well, when I got her back, the starter, which had been replaced, sounded about a hundred times worse! It was so bad I wasn't even confident about the car being able to start reliably. I really don't like spending $200 on repairs just to find that I'm worse off afterwards, so I took her back. Well, if they'd done it right the first time and rebuilt my old starter rather than replacing it with an inferior one everything would have been fine...which it is, now that I have the old (fixed) part back. Somehow I think I'm going to be back on the trail looking for another new mechanic...sigh.

Michael and I are leaving Friday morning for ALA in Orlando. We have a pretty busy schedule there, and we'll be meeting up with Cynthia Wilson to let her photograph us for her I am a librarian project. I also plan to hit the job fair at least once...cross your fingers for me and maybe I'll find a good employer in the Pacific Northwest that's hiring.

Stormy weather

Well, the rainy season has finally arrived, and after a couple months of relatively enjoyable dry heat we are back to the normal summer conditions. Which means oppressive mugginess, and spectacular daily storms. Makes getting around Broward kind of interesting sometimes....one moment you'll be high and dry, the next in the middle of pounding rain so heavy visibility is restricted to about 30 ft. The storms are so local that you can literally be in a situation where your front windshield is so covered with water you can hardly see, and your rear windshield is dry! Amazing...

I remember the first time Michael and I went to the Everglades, we were woken in the middle of the night by a thunderstorm. Incredible lightening, deafening thunder, and winds so high we thought the roof might come off. We didn't get much more sleep that night! Kind of gives you a new respect for the power of nature.

Not much other news. I have been reading wedding planning books and they are making my head fuzzy. But in a good way, really! :)

stepping closer to financial freedom

Well, I did something exciting today. No, I didn't get an engagement ring or set a wedding date...I paid off my car! Doing it early like this will put a bit of a dent in my short term funds, but free me up to put my monthly payment amounts into savings for the events of the next year or so. The cheque, as they say, is in the mail.

Michael and I decided to set up a separate site for information and conversation about our wedding plans. Hopefully this will prevent our regular blogs from becoming boring for those of you who don't want to read all about the details of our planning process! It's called The Big Event, and I've got a link to it on my blog sidebar. If we can find a place to store photos and images, we will include some of those, too.

Big news and post-weekend catchup

Well, Michael and I are back from the Everglades. And we have some really exciting news to share: we got engaged on Sunday by Florida Bay! It still hasn't totally sunk in for me yet, I think--I kind of feel like I'm walking around in a bit of a daze most of the time. Strange how life can be the same yet totally different all at once... Those of you who know me know that I have wanted this to happen for a long time, and that I was actually starting to think that Michael would never be ready to propose! Happily, I was wrong, because he says he decided to ask me in the Everglades right after I suggested the trip. It was not a big, staged event or anything...I think he just waited until he felt like the moment was right and then asked me. Which is really, in my mind, one of the best ways to do it :)

Anyway, we haven't made any specific plans yet as to where and when and how, so I don't have very many other details to share. A lot will depend on where we eventually end up, and things like that. More information will be forthcoming, though I promise that this will not become a boring blog devoted to the minutae of the Wedding Experience. Sites like Going Bridal do it much better, and much funnier, than I ever would!

Anyway. About the rest of the trip. The weather was hot and sunny the entire weekend, with record highs for this time of year topping out in the low 90s. We took our time getting there on Friday, stopping at Homestead for lunch and antique browsing, and at Robert is here, the famous local fruit stand, for Strawberry Key Lime Milkshakes. We stayed at one of the cottages at Flamingo Lodge, which was walking distance from both the main lodge with the pool and the visitor centre and Eco Pond, a reclaimed area that helps filter local waste water and provide a home for wading birds and alligators. Because of the hot weather, we actually spent more time at the pool than we originally planned--the area was surrounded by bug screen walls and ceilings, which lowered the temperatures and kept the mosquitos and biting flies away. We did wander down some of the trails and boardwalks, though, picnic-ed in some of the rest areas, and spent a couple of hours canoeing in the Flamingo canal up to the backcountry. We wanted to take the boat up into one of our favorite ponds from last time, but we couldn't because the lakes were still dry! The rains have been late coming this year, which means some areas are still closed. Makes for good alligator viewing, though!

Our second night was interesting. A vulture flew into a park transformer, starting a fire and knocking out the power for about 14 hours! So we gathered with other guests by the pool and grilled our dinner on the communal barbeque. Things were back up by about 10 the next morning, fortunately, so we didn't experience too much discomfort.

So, all in all, it was a pretty good trip :) We wished we could have stayed longer, but it was back to work on Tuesday morning so no chance there. Anyway, the pool and much of the lodge is closed for the summer after June 1. We were also surprised to see that the Sunset Bay cruise (on an historic sailboat) and the 4-hour backcountry boat trip we took the first time we visited had both been permanently cancelled! Too bad, because we really enjoyed both trips. Guess it's good that we went when we did.

To end, a collection of links gathered from my catch-up on various emails and friends' sites:

• My latest Pause newsletter had links to the Slow Food and Slow Travel web sites. The last one looks particularly interesting. I've always thought that one of the best ways to travel is to take your time and actually get to know part of a place, and it's nice to know there are resources to help you do it.
• Randy notes that SCTV is up and ready for DVD sales. Yay for good Canadian Comedy!
• And also from Randy....make sure you're sitting down and not midway through a snack when you watch the video of Leonard Nimoy performing his seminal work, "The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins". It's funny enough to be dangerous to your health otherwise!

One Day More!

Okay...Three and a half hours and I will officially be out of here and on vacation. Wooo hoooo! Nothing but me, Michael, mosquitos and alligators for four whole days! :)

Of course, now we're down to the wire I am looking at my desk cluttered with the stuff I needed to get done beforehand and thinking I will never make it. Why I am stupid enough to procrastinate so much I don't know. I always know exactly what I have to do to succeed at any given venture...I just so rarely seem to be able to get myself to actually do it. And so the cycle of putting things off/guilt/recrimination/putting it off more perpetuates itself. Oh well.

The site is down right now because SLA is in the middle of a move, but their article on trends in blog searching looks like it might be interesting once it's back up (thx mom).

t minus 2 days and counting...sucked into the vortex without escape.

Two more days until we escape to the Everglades. Two more days, and I'm starting to wonder if I will make it! I am so tired and bored and directionless and unmotivated that it's becoming unreal. I read somewhere recently that boredom is really just anxiety in another form. Considering that the physical manifestations seem to be about the same, or produce the same result, anway, I'm ready to believe it. Hopefully four days of walking, canoeing, swimming, and relaxing by the bay in a *gasp* actual natural setting will readjust my brain.

Of course, I hardly need to visit the Everglades really because we are gearing up for the Annual Summer Bug Invasion and so I'm getting lots of visitors right here. Ants at my desk at work. Ants impervious to the usual ant bait/traps in my kitchen. Ants in my bathroom. Not to mention the increase in the local toad and lizard population. Oh well, it could be worse--a friend of mine has his car infested with cockroaches! Thankfully my apartment has been pretty much roach-free since the hole in my security closet was patched, though I have had to kill my share of 1 1/2 inch monsters in my time. Blech.

Comments have been slow lately. Maybe I haven't been saying anything interesting enough?? Please, make me feel loved! Leave a comment!

Links etc.

Cleaning out my email today, which means I have a bunch of links I kept and meant to post but never got around to. So, in no particular order....

Subversive cross stitch. Need I say more??? (thx mom)

And you thought six of one was bad...look at the "informational" web site/expose maintained by the good folks at the Atlanta-Fulton Public Library.

Does this piece of information have any relevance? You decide...

And cat lovers will be interested in hearing about the Kabul Cat Company in Afghanistan.

I'm still fooling around with my blog template, as I'm sure you can see. Hope you enjoy the (slightly) new look and the (slightly) enhanced content. I'm almost tempted to study the template codes enough to attempt making a totally unique template, but I think it will have to wait until I have more free time on my hands...

How Evil are you.....

Wow, This site is really too fun for words (thx Kim)..... going to have to work on my evilness factor, though! :)

Wild waters

Well, it's officially storm season again...welcome to Florida, land of the necessarily-weather-obsessed. We've been lucky ever since we moved here...though we've faced tropical storm conditions occasionally, we've never dealt with a full-blown hurricane. And, if we have our way, we'll move before we ever have to!

Blogger has an interesting new feature in which you can create and share a searchable profile...I've just met a fellow writer, Kim from Texas, who not only shares my interest in bellydancing, but some of my other hobbies, favorite movies, and favorite authors as well. Great minds and all that. Isn't online networking an interesting thing?

The high price of driving

Wondering how gas prices are down here? This image from CNN pretty much says it all. While regular gas is not quite that bad in my area yet, I'm pretty sure the operative word there is...yet. I paid $2.04 per gallon last week, and they're still on the rise.

Just in time to catch all the holiday travellers, too. You think that's a coincidence?????

Worked both Saturday and Sunday this weekend...had Monday off but, as usual, it doesn't seem to be compensating very well. Especially considering the fact that I can't seem to convince myself to sleep at night no matter how tired I am. I'm telling you, the Everglades cannot come soon enough...

DeKlein in intelligence, fruitless torture, and the image question.

Yep, that's my premier. That too. What a guy, eh? (thx randy)

An interesting article on Slate this week about why using torture in interrogations is not only ethically wrong, but also hinders attempts to put terrorists behind bars.

I sent an email to the author of I am a librarian today. She is an MLIS student and photographer working on a book about "real librarians," and she's looking for people to interview and photograph. I wonder if Michael and I will end up inside it? Guess I'd better pack my bellydance stuff for ALA, just in case :)

Mistaken Identity

So here's my story.

When I moved to my current apartment three and a half years ago (OMG has it been that long?????), I got what was obviously a newly-recycled number. So I kept getting calls for Nadine Curcie. As in, two or three calls a day, minimum. While the situation got really annoying, really fast, especially when the person on the phone pleaded with her to "call back, even if this is the wrong number," it was nonetheless interesting to track the progression of these calls. First, it was:

• "This is ABC hospital calling for Nadine Curcie. Please call us regarding your appointment...."
• "This is XYZ Equipment Supply. Please call and let us know how your wheelchair is working out..."
• "I'm calling on behalf of 123 Doctor's Group. Call us right away...."

Then, we got,

• "This is BlahBlahBlah Credit. Please call us immediately regarding your account."

And, finally...

• "This is John Doe, investigator for the Law Offices of Generic, Hancock, and Everyman. I'm looking for Nadine Curcie. Please call me back so I don't have to call you again."

Though I guess I got a vicarious thrill out of watching these bumblers try to track down someone who'd obviously skipped the state (if not the country) to escape her medical bills, the fact that the majority of my calls and voicemail were for someone that I had never even met made me feel like I was being subject to SPAM at home as well as online. So for the better part of three years, everyone who called my house got this message:

Hello. You've reached Darcy Sharman at (my phone number). If you are calling for Nadine Curcie, please be aware that she is no longer at this number, and messages left for her here will not be returned. If you'd like to leave a message for Darcy, please do so at the sound of the tone. Thanks; bye.

I kept this message for so long because, amazingly, it worked. My SPAM calls decreased dramatically.

You know where this is going. Don't you. Yes, within the last couple of months, after some gentle ribbing from friends, I decided to finally banish Nadine's name from my voicemail domain. Guess who most of my phone calls have been for this week?

Give them points for perserverance, I suppose...

Thank you, Kraft, McDonald's and Pepsico. You've helped us create a brand new word for a brand new world: 'Globesity'. Though the other factoid I read on this topic today said that while a huge number of Americans are trying to lose weight at any given time, only something like one in five of them try anything as crazy as...eating less and exercising more.

Not that I'm saying this in a sanctimonious, superior-lifestyle kind of way. I have as much trouble changing my habits as anyone, and it's really only by the grace of genetics that I'm still shopping at Old Navy instead of Lane Bryant. It just strikes me as absurd that people are willing to try anything to lose weight, no matter how crackbrained, unhealthy, or dangerous, except for the one sensible plan. Reminds me of my ex-boyfriend, who regularly went to the bar for a dinner of supersized loaded nachos washed down with 5 or more beers but wouldn't drink milk because it had "too many carbohydrates." Or the article I read in a recent Marie Claire magazine, titled "I gained 40lbs to lose 100," where a young girl, who definitely did not fit the profile for bariatric surgery, describes the tremendous abuse she heaped on her body in order to get access to the procedure. This woman was literally willing to eat herself sick for months in order to get her "quick fix," even though she herself admitted that she had only recently gained weight and that the extra pounds were due to new eating habits spurred by stressful circumstances. Argh....

I'm not a size 4 anymore, but at least I have the brains to know that should I want to change that, eating less, eating better, and getting my ass of the couch is a better option than the latest quick-fix pill, fad diet, or other insanity.

A nice break from the usual Florida Swamp Pit Conditions this weekend...milder temperatures, drier conditions and a nice cool breeze made it feel almost like a nice Edmonton midsummer day. We actually got to spend time outside without feeling like we were going to die of heat exhaustion, which was refreshing on a mental as well as a physical level. I really hate being cooped up at work or at home all the time...makes me grumpy :(

Of course, the weekend went way too fast, so it's up and back to work today, with the depressing prospect of having to work all this weekend looming ahead. Things have calmed down a bit at work lately, but I still feel overhyped somehow, and my regular days off never seem to be enough to refresh or recharge. As a consequence I seem to be getting nothing done, whether on work or personal goals, and spend all my off time crashing on the couch with today's choice of trashy fiction. Which is okay for a while, but not really fulfilling in the long run. And the guilt about not working on my personal goals, not getting my housework done, not doing anything productive on any level just worsens the stressed-out feeling. Ack! I need something to break this cycle and fast! Before I manage to convince myself that I'm a totally lazy, good-for-nothing loser.

Sigh.

Well, welcome to America, the land of the free...unless, of course, you criticize the Bushes.

Whatever.

You know, I was in a really grumpy mood earlier today. The kind of funk where even though you know objectively that your life is not too bad, all things considered, you can't seem to remember one thing that would make the whole thing worthwhile. But Michael and I made reservations to spend Memorial Day weekend in a cottage at the Flamingo Lodge in Everglades National Park. So we can spend the weekend canoeing and hiking and swimming in the pool and doing yoga on the bay and birdwatching and generally hanging out. Ahhhhhhhhh....I feel less stressed just thinking about it. :)

Tech support seems to be having a little trouble clearing Sasser out of our systems. Our lab was shut down entirely last night and this morning; half our public computers were taken out of commission for fixing tonight. Our printing stations seem to have been hit the worst--I think they don't have as much protection. Most patrons have been understanding, thank goodness, though after 3 days of malfunction some are getting a little testy. The old if-we-knew-how-important-they-were-we'd-jump-up-and-perform-magic-so-the-machines-would-work-just-for-them bit. :(

Other than that, same old same old....

You know, I couldn't tell you why, but the fact that the Olsen twins are worth over $150 million dollars each and just got their own star on the walk of fame is unaccountably depressing to me ...

Or maybe I'm just depressed by the fact that I know that, regardless of whether I'm interested or not. My friend Randy had an article on his blog this week that talks about this phenomenon, among other things.

A really really fun weekend at work here, as our systems have all been infected with the Sasser worm. And of course, since our 40 lab terminals need a password after rebooting, we have been up and down all weekend. The information I've seen about it so far indicates that the thing is fairly benign, but I don't know why someone would go to the trouble of creating a worm that would do nothing but periodically reboot your computer, so I am half expecting the "true nature" of this thing to be revealed at a later date.

Other highlights of the week: I danced at the Sawadee on Friday and actually finally felt like I did a decent job. The place was packed, and actually a lot of people said that they came that night specifically because there was dancing, so I guess the idea is paying off for the owners. My biggest fan, little five-year-old Richard was back, giggling all the way through my performance as usual. He is so cute ...

Work has been relatively stressless this week--my boss is back, and the Micromanager was out of the building for the week doing interviews for our open positions. ahhhhh....

And, best of all, after an interminable Sunday at work, it is finally nearing closing time. So I get to go have dinner cooked for me at Michael's, and, if I am lucky, I may even convince him to go hang out at Starbucks afterwards. The rest of the day is definitely looking up!

Well, I'm back.

Back? What do you mean, 'back?' You haven't been anywhere...unless you've been in the wardrobe. Phew, Lucy the Human Mothball!

Sorry...momentary Junior High Flashback. Let's all here it for school productions that turn Lewis Carroll into contemporary musicals...

Tampa was great. As a matter of fact, it was so nice that I really wish I was still there, relaxing by the pool, instead of back at work. No hot tub, no massage therapist, and there was that pesky meeting I had to go to, but overall the socializing and the relaxation were well worth the drive. I even have some fun stories about the Neilson Media trainees that now have the privilege of saying they "partied with librarians and know what we're really like!"

heheheheheheheh. If only they knew....

Things are calming down at work a bit, at least in the last day or two. My boss is finally back, and will hopefully not need any more long absences. The deadline on our database evaluation project was extended, so I don't have to worry about not getting it done on time. Now I just need to find a couple hours for the schedule and the statistics, and we'll be all set.

No other news, really, except I think I made my best attempt at shoulderstand yet in class Monday night.

Ouch.

This week I am feeling the burn. Constant tension in my shoulders, neck and back, daily headaches, constant fatigue ... I think it is a very very good think that I will be away from work for the rest of the week. The trip to Tampa is work, technically, but the meeting has a reputation for not being anything strenuous, and since we have a couple of days in this resort as compensation I am thinking relaxation will finally be possible! The pool, the hotub, the spacious 2-bedroom suite with a bottle of wine in situ... I just can't wait. If I'm lucky they may even have a massage therapist on staff!

Entertaining article on msn today about Blender magazine's list of the worst songs ever written. Why I am I not surprised to see Jefferson Starship on this list? “The truly horrible sound of a band taking the corporate dollar while sneering at those who take the corporate dollar,” indeed. The sad thing is I actually liked this song when I was a kid.

hmmmm...maybe I shouldn't have admitted that....

Danced at the Thai place again last night. This time the people I invited actually came, so we had a decent crowd for once! As usual, I felt like I was doing a terrible job, but the people in the audience liked it so maybe I am just too hard on myself. I know, I know, it's so hard to have people telling you you're good all the time, right? But I am feeling a severe lack of constructive criticism lately. I see the gap between my skills and that of advanced students and professionals--which is totally appropriate given that I've been bellydancing for less than 2 years!--but I don't know how to bridge that gap on my own. I know I should practice more, but what with work and other life stress and my own inertia often by the time I get some free moments I'm too tired to even think of moving. Or my household chores are long overdue and it's a choice between dancing or having clean underwear to wear and clean dishes to cook in. Plus I'm afraid that if I just keep practicing with bad technique, I'll just get better at doing the moves badly. If that makes sense.

Anyway, self-criticism aside, we had a good time last night and ended up closing the place with a Karaoke party. Which actually, seems to happen a lot when I'm there. The staff found out I sing, and now every time I dance there they fire up the machine afterwards and bug me till I go up and sing a bit. Then I get someone up after me, and next thing you know it's 11pm. Not exactly what I expected from a bellydancing gig but I'm not complaining!

Stress at work continues to abound. We're all feeling the burden of being continually understaffed and being worried about my boss, who is still out sick and going for a heart catheterization test early next week. He may or may not end up having some form of surgery the same day, depending on what they find. So he may be back in a few days, or he may wake up to find he's had a heart procedure done and needs to take more time off to recover. Add a couple of other supervisors that are sticking their micromanaging fingers into every pot, and things are not fun. We have just about reached the breaking point here, I think, and the worst thing is that I don't know how to stop it. I've already talked to our uber-manager, but while that finally got some things across it seems to have made other things worse. The stupidest part of it all is that I've kept my boss informed of everything I've been doing, and he's approved of every single thing, to the point of thanking me for sending particular emails or saying things that need to be said. So it's not like I'm out in left field, making naive and idiotic decisions. But the message I'm getting from others here is "stay in your place...don't try to do things that are above you...you are not important enough to be consulted about things that concern your staff or your department." AUGH!

Sorry. Can't discuss this situation without deteriorating into a rant. Some days I just want to pack up and go hide in my parents' basement until I can find another job...

Moving on to other, less depressing topics:

Song number 4 is in the can. I haven't heard the finished version yet, as we just recorded the vocal tracks last Wednesday, but so far it's sounding pretty good, if I do say so myself. I've been listening to the other stuff, and watching how our style/sound as a group is evolving. In the beginning, the vocals I was doing were really more ornamental, or embellishments to the sound, than anything else. Probably because Rob and Bill were used to working mostly in instrumentals. But as we go along, the vocal tracks are becoming more integral to the music and we're developing a bit more of a signature sound. It's an interesting process to participate in, anyway.

I'm In the middle of planning a trip to Tampa for the Florida Library Association Leadership Orientation next week. This is the event that's supposed to actually teach me how to do my job as Continuing Education Committee chair. We'll see if it achieves that objective...right now all I can see is a cheap trip to a resort hotel away from work on County Time. Woo hooo!

Just when you think you've heard everything...along comes something like this.

This has been a crazy week. First there was the time change...losing an hour always throws me out of whack for a little while and really, who has an hour to lose these days anyway? My boss is still out sick, which means extra business at work. And I've been having other problems at work as well--nothing I can really talk about here but the situation is making it reeeaallly hard to come in every day and be civil to the people involved. What with one thing and another I'm feeling a bit worn down right now. I can hardly wait for the weekend!

Michael and I have finally got to watching the DVDs of The Prisoner we bought so long ago. Every time I watch that show it makes me feel like buying a striped umbrella and going to Portmeirion. I must admit that I briefly considered joining Six of One, but I've heard bad things about them lately...

Well, I decided I needed to actually choreograph the dance I'm doing for the University Centre recital this weekend at about 5:30 pm yesterday. Now I just hope I will remember the thing. I brought my choreo. notes to review today, but between having to compile the building statistics and being on the desk 4 hours I may not have much time to read them over. Wish me luck...

Fortunately, the performances tonight and tomorrow afternoon should mark at least a temporary end to the crazy extracurricular schedule. I've only got two restaurant performances this month, and after February and March I decided to scale back on things a bit to try to get more balance. But then don't I always say that?

I was in the studio last week cleaning up a few vocal tracks here and there ... an interesting insight into the process: there's one high passage in our third song that gets up close to the top of my range, and has a lot of difficult intervals, so we decided to redo it. Seventy-nine takes and two hundred and thirty-seven high b's later, we may have finally got one I can live with. Whew!

And hey, I finally figured out that my book and movie review pages weren't archiving. So all of you people who are not reading my reviews can ignore the backfiles, too ;)

AAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!

O-kay, people!

< rant >

What part of the "Microsoft Office and Research only" and "no games allowed in the Lab" signs don't you understand??? You're using a computer, so I know you can read. Or did you blank out, selectively, on that skill?

Oh, and how about that cell phone? How many times have I and my staff told you, personally, that we don't allow cell phones in the lab? Did you think the rules changed today? Just for you?

WELL, YOU'RE WRONG!!!!!!!!!!!

Use this equipment for what it's meant for, or get the **** out. The library is not your personal video arcade. You do not have a constitutional right to view the Yahoo! personals or visit an AOL chat room. And while you are sitting there, taking up one of the few computers in our building that actually have more than general internet access, people who might actually be wanting to use the library for the purpose it was designed for are wandering around, futilely trying to find a machine to access the library catalogue from.

And you know, I hate being the Dragon Lady, or That Bitch Librarian Who Kicks Us Off The Computers, or whatever it is the charter high school kids are calling me now behind my back. I really don't want to develop such an adversarial relationship with these students, and/or convince them that the library is not a good place to be. But, you know, sometimes I want to call the parents of these "little darlings," the men and women that are so proud of their children, who studiously spend 3 hours at the library after school each day, and tell them what the little pissants are actually up to.

Hint: it's not schoolwork.

< /rant >

Hey, it's my birthday today!

Finally into a new week after an incredibly busy stretch. I worked all last weekend, then got on the road after work Monday to attend a conference Tuesday and Wednesday, back to work Thursday and Friday, plus performing at the Sawadee Friday and Saturday and trying to get into the studio earlier in the week. Whew! Of course, my one day off was spent housecleaning...but at least my apartment is now dirt-free!

Had an interesting time at the restaurant this Friday--there was a table made up of 2 young teenage boys (about 14) along with the mother of one of them, who had come specifically to see me. All righty. Let's just say the guys, um, really enjoyed my performance. It was pretty funny actually, what with all the comments and the shifting of chairs as I went by and the other antics. I was tempted to go up to them afterwards, and tell them I was old enough to be their mother and a librarian to boot, but I thought, nah, why bring cold hard reality crashing down on them? And they were nice enough to leave a tip, so...

Well, I finally finished Broward County's Positive Start Supervisory Development Series training. Let's see. In the past three months, I have learned:

• the four step communication process
• the six major communication components
• the eight steps of feedback planning
• the seven stages of staffing procedure
• the four steps of interview preparation
• the three-step change process
• the ten steps of delegating
• the three steps of performance planning
• the five-step ADA accomodation process
• the seven steps to creative problem solving
• the five step process for managing conflict constructively
• the five steps to progressive discipline
• the nine steps for avoiding litigation landmines
• the four-step civil service grievance process
• the three step motivation process
• the five steps of coaching
• the four stages of team development, and....
• the four strategies for building a work team

Gee, I wonder how I managed to live life all this time without knowing all these steps, stages, strategies, processes, and components. I feel so ... enlightened ...

Really, I can hardly stand it.

Scary news from a fellow TN-carrying coworker today--she heard a story about someone (out-of-county) who got denied a TN reapplication because an INS agent told him "he could not be on TN status with the same company for more than four years." Needless to say this is the first time I've heard of this so-called rule that I cannot find mention of in the NAFTA agreement or the U.S. government's web site. But, seeing as I am at the 3.5 year point with Broward County, with no immediate prospects lined up, I'm not to happy to hear about this situation/misinterpretation/whatever it may be. Of course, I expected many things to go differently when I came down, and I didn't really anticipate staying with this employer on this status for so long. But since my faith in my Division and the County to deal with this properly, or get the correct information, is extremely low to nonexistant, I'm not reassured.

Rob, Bill and I finished our second track, and are partway through our third. Which means Rob will be taking our stuff around to the label soon, seeing if they are interested. ack! Trying to let go of expectations, here, and accept that even if we do get signed immigration/work permit legalities may get in the way of me being associated with the final product. See above. Anyway, I'm pretty psyched about how good the music is sounding, and I'm really enjoying the recording process, so I'm doing my best to just stay in the moment and get everything from it that I can.

Michael and I are off to Daytona tonight for the Florida Library Association Annual conference. I had not planned on going, but it was decided that the committee I'm chairing should meet even though I don't get the leadership training that will give me the info I need to answer anyone's questions till April. Not that I am stressed about this ... oh no .... not that everyone on the committee has more experience and knowledge than me ... nope ...

Strange days....

There was an attack in Cameron Library at the U of A last week. I used to work in this building, and it's weird to think of something like a stabbing going on in a place I used to be in every day.

In addition, one of my coworkers here was assaulted, seemingly at random, and beaten so badly he needed stitches in his inner and outer lip. I think his face is still so swollen that they still don't know whether his nose was broken, and both his eyes are black. A more unlikely person for this to happen to you couldn't imagine--this guy is a thoughtful, gentle, considerate person who always is looking out for others. Yet someone felt the need to literally punch his face in.

Kind of depressing. Especially on top of the fact that all my friends seem to be going through emotionally difficult times, as well. Maybe it's something in the water?

Did my solo at our student performance party a little over a week ago. People I knew actually came this time, which was a change! I did a three part routine, starting with veil, then moving to a faster section, then a Saiidi section with a cane. My guests said that they thought it was really good, but I couldn't help but be disappointed. I still feel like I am flailing around throwing a bunch of random moves on top of the music, rather than using the dance to express the music. But I suppose that will come with time. I'm doing more gigs at the restaurant this month, and I said I would perform at the studio's biannual recital, too, so I have to try to come up with something for that. Somehow this seems to be taking over a large part of my life...but somehow I don't mind :)

You should look at this site. And this one. And this one too. They are all hilarious! (thanks to bhuz and randy)

Edited 22 March 2004 to update dead canada.com link...

Well, once again it's been a long time since I last posted. I'm still busy, obviously, at home and at work. My supervisor has been out sick for three weeks, so in the interim I am pretty much the acting department head. Which wouldn't be so hard, except that my supervisor has been pretty resistant to the idea of actually training me, his assistant supervisor, in any of the things he actually does. So, I've spent the time shepherding the lab through an equipment upgrade, writing evaluations, and frantically trying to figure out exactly how the Reference Department statistics that get reported to the State Library are calculated. Whew! I hear that once the guy actually gets back he's decided to let go of the need to do everything himself and start training and delegating. If he stays away much longer he won't need to because I'll have figured it out by trial and (much) error first!

In bellydance news, I found myself very glad that I had come across the costume I mentioned below last weekend, because I was offered an opportunity to do a gig at a restaurant on Saturday night! My teacher knows a local restaurant owner who used to take classes with her. The woman decided that she would like to give other students the chance to get some performing experience by inviting them to do shows at her restaurant. Needless to say I did not really feel like I was ready for this, but Myriam assured me that she was not expecting professional-quality dancing from us and that everything would be fine, so I went. I was pretty nervous the day before, but when we got there the place had slowed down for the evening and there were only 2 or 3 tables full besides Michael so I could kind of relax and try to enjoy myself. I did three sets of ten minutes each--which doesn't really sound so long until you get up there and try to do it and feel like you've run out of moves halfway!--with 2 costume changes. It probably wasn't the best dancing ever seen, but I had fun, the owner was happy, Michael said it was good, and apparently the customers said they enjoyed it too. I even ended up with a $5 tip in my gift basket. Neat!

Hopefully this will make the performance party solo tomorrow easier...though I'm still having visions of slipping up with the cane and accidentally throwing it at someone's head!

I have a rough cut of the instrumentals for the next song that my group is working on, but nothing finished as of yet.

So things are pretty good here. Which is good, because I'm happier, but not so good, because I'm busy enough to be distracted from the job hunting. It seems hard to find and maintain that equilibrium where you are at once actively seeking out things to make your life better where you are but still not losing focus on the eventual goal of leaving. And of course it seems like every time possibilities start popping up on the boards, opportunities/extra work/other distractions pop up here, too. I'm almost starting to wonder if there is not a message there, but I don't know for sure. And of course if I stayed here long enough the question would be moot, anyway, since sooner or later BCIS will decide my "temporary" status is not and kick me out.

Wow.

I don't know if I ever mentioned it on here, but I have a friend with a music studio in his spare room who's been working on some original compositions lately and wanted me to sing on some of his tracks. We've fooled around with it a bit, but nothing serious... Well, lately, this friend has hooked up with another musician/sound engineer friend of his, and they've been significantly revamping his stuff. I was over at their studio last night to rerecord vocals for the track I was originally involved in, and...wow. They took what was originally a fairly simple acoustic guitar-with-electronic-underchording arrangement and turned it into something reminiscent of Delerium, and it sounds amazing. Absolutely incredible. And my vocals are on it now, which I still have trouble believing! Anyway, this second guy apparently has a few label connections, and after we put together some more songs they are planning on shopping it around, hoping to get us signed somewhere.

Needless to say this is very weird for someone who had pretty much given up on the idea of getting anywhere past the occasional amateur side project to prevent her from going insane. Not that I'm walking around figuring that I'm a few hour's work away from a big-time contract that's going to make me rich and famous, but along with the fact that my bellydance teacher thinks I could have the potential to go professional in that area, too, it's almost making me rethink this whole giving up on the artistic career/selling out idea. Or at least giving consideration to reorganizing my priorities a bit. Doing this kind of thing in the U.S. would be difficult until/unless I got a green card, of course...but if nothing else it's nice to know that doors I thought were slammed shut may instead have cracked themselves back open and waited for me to notice.

In other news...amazingly, there are actually some jobs out there for me to apply for this week! Now I just have to find the time to put the applications together. I'm still suffering from the scattered focus I talked about last week, and it's getting really, really frustrating. Day after day I look back and find that nothing I wanted to do--whether personal or work-related--seems to have gotten done, even though I feel hectic and busy all the time. This is especially annoying because I was pretty successful last month in getting on track with planning and achieving some small steps towards some of my various goals. Now February seems in some ways to be one huge setback and time is slipping through my fingers before I can get hold of it. Maybe some sleep will help bring some clarity.

Finally, I am pleased to announce that I bought my first professional dance costume this week! My teacher knows a dancer who is moving to Tampa and selling many of her costumes, accessories, and music before she leaves, so she referred all of us students to her. I've been thinking of purchasing a bedlah (the embellished bra-and-belt set that makes up the foundation of many dance costumes), but I've been having trouble finding one that I like that is not too expensive. Needless to say, when I found that this woman had one lovely silver set left that fit me as if it was made for me, and was selling it complete with accessories for a ridiculously low price, I jumped at the chance to pick it up. Insert yet another promise to get photos up on the web as soon as I can get around to it >here<.

Whew. Life is strange. Add one or two new things to your schedule, and it seems to shake up your whole life. And you seem to have no time to do anything until the dust settles. February hasn't really been all that busy a month, objectively speaking, yet I am struggling--and sometimes failing--to squeeze in all the things I want to do or should be doing. Who knew that starting a yoga class and attending a meeting or two would make such a difference?

Well, I guess it doesn't help when the meeting is a weekend meeting, in a city that's over 4 hours away, and you have to drive up after working all day Friday. That was my first weekend this month. After a couple months of asking for information, not getting any, and starting to despair that I will ever figure out how to be the Chair of the FLA Continuing Education Committee, things finally started happening. One of which was that I was suddenly told I am also automatically a member of the 2005 Conference Planning Committee, and they have their first meeting in Tampa on the weekend, and gee, I know it's short notice, but couldn't you please come? Going was a good experience, but wow, that's a lot of driving. Added to the fact that since all the deadlines had passed for travel leave applications, and since I sure as heck wasn't using my vacation time, I had to manipulate my schedule to be able to go on personal time. So it went something like this: Friday: work 9-5. Hop in car. Drive 4.5 hours. Check into hotel. Fall asleep. Saturday: Wake up. Attend 5 hour meeting. Hop in car. Drive 4.5 hours home. Meet Michael at his place. Drive to downtown Hollywood to attend a drum/dance party for his drumming class. Sunday: Wake up with pounding headache (too many drums in too small a space for too long). Take Advil and relax a couple of hours. Shower and get made up and costumed for Harmonic Motion's monthly performance party. Drive to NE Ft. Lauderdale, attend event. Drive home. Shower and fall into bed. Monday: back at work. Not that it wasn't a good weekend, of course--it was. But I really could have done without all that driving....

Michael and I had a pretty good Valentine's Day. He had to work during the day, but we made a dinner date at a favorite restaurant in the evening so we had some quality time together at least. Sunday, we attended the Florida Renaissance Festival, where we walked through a maze, drank some mead, watched a demonstration about training and flying birds of prey, saw bits and pieces of some smaller shows and and did lots of shopping at the various vendor booths. Well...I did most of the shopping. But then, my goal this year was to spend lots of money, so I guess I achieved it! :)

And now I'm back at work. Sigh. Someday I'm going to get this getting-paid-for-not-working thing figured out. But until then....

This story has got to be the best thing coming out of the whole Janet Jackson/SuperBowl disaster....

Argh argh argh...still grumpy and getting tired of the bad mood. Don't ask me why--if I knew that, I could deal with it and be done. Instead, I seem caught in Blue Funk Limbo, irritable all the time with no good reason. Sigh...

Job boards are still empty of postings that can apply to my education and experience in any conceivable way. When is that projected job boom that I've been hearing about for five years now ever going to happen??? Am I really going to have to move back into my parents' basement and work retail to get back to Canada??

Maybe I should just stop this post right now, before I get sucked into a completely boring self-pitying rant...

Okay...long time no blog. Guess I've been a little distracted since coming back to SoFla. Sorry about that, all my legions of devoted readers breathlessly waiting for an update on my oh-so-fascinating life ... :)

You'll notice my comments have changed a bit ... found out the hard way that BlogSpeak is now defunct. At least as a free blog commenting service. It's been taken over by a different site, HaloScan. The good news is that they took over BlogSpeak's accounts and preserved the comments on our sites. The bad news is that the free service is a bit more limited style-wise, so I get the basic black-and-white rather than a customized display. At least, that's what it looks like at first glance ... still need to exolore the HaloScan site a bit and see what it's really like.

So, what's been going on here ...

I've had a hard time getting back into the swing of things at work since we got back. I'm experiencing a total lack of motivation to do anything useful, and though you'd think that would jumpstart my job search, I'm also dragging my heels on that. Not quite sure what's up with this--feeling renewed culture shock/alienation from my trip home or something?--but hoping to get out of the rut soon. Having to go through Broward County's mandatory three-month supervisory training program--Positive Start--is maybe, just maybe contributing to the cynicism. I'll spare you the details. I only wish I could extend myself the same courtesy.

I volunteered to do another solo for my dance class' monthly performance party in March. Of course, I did this before the instructor told us that future solos would have to be longer, incorporating three sections instead of two. Argh ... my dance friend Jamie and I are thinking of trying to put together a duet on our own, but we haven't had an opportunity to get together outside of class yet. Everytime we make plans we run into unforseen circumstances that force us to cancel.

In accordance with one of my New Year's resolutions, I started Iyengar classes at the Yoga Institute of Broward. So far it's going really well--I like the teacher a lot, and the poses are posing a fair challenge to my poor desk-job body. The first class I went to was packed full, but we have already seen a big drop in attendance, so hopefully it will continue to be smaller. I brought Michael yesterday, and he liked it, so he's going to rearrange his schedule so he can come regularly too.

You've probably already seen it, but this article is causing quite the stir within the library world. Just another example of routine idiocy. This commentary really says it all ...

Well, Saturday morning I drove to the Edmonton International Airport in minus 41 temperatures. Saturday night I drove back to Michael's place in plus 25 celsuis. Not too much of a discrepancy there....no, not at all...

Interesting time getting back actually. Our flight was cancelled, so we were rushed into an earlier plane that had been delayed 2 hours. Nothing like running through an airline terminal at 7 am with a ticket agent urging you to go go go!!!! now!!!! every step of the way to start your day. Then our second flight was also delayed. Amazingly, despite all this, we got into Miami on time.

Thank goodness we missed Operation U.S. Visit. My coworker has been caught in Customs for about a full day now as she tries to get back home from Colombia.

Whew. I think I'm reaching my holiday feasting limit. I feel like I'm not going to have to eat for about a month after I go home as it is, and I still have a couple of new year's parties to go to! Help! I'm going to need a plain, light diet for some time to recover this year, I think.... :)

Interesting to see my brother's band, Nothing At All, last night. He is a pretty charismatic performer--one of the more interesting people to watch in his band--and he really gets into the music. I don't listen much to the kind of hard-rock/"alternative"/whatever they're calling it now that he plays, so I'm probably not the best judge, but I thought they were really good. They have a female lead singer who reminded Michael and me a little bit of Gwen Stefani, which makes them stand out a bit in the male-dominated world of hard rock bands. They did a good job, and sounded really good despite the fact that I'm not sure the sound guy did them too many favors (guitars drowning out vocals in places, everything very very loud, etc.). They did ask him to change their levels more than once, but...what can you do. Probably the only thing more irritating than being a sound guy who keeps being told what to do by the band is being a performer who also knows how to do sound and not getting what you want for your show.

Anyway...there was a fair crowd of people there, and Patrick's band was really the only one that got them up moshing/"hardcore dancing"/again whatever they call it now/not that I'm feeling out of touch with youth culture, oh no. He seemed pretty happy when it was over. Hopefully this went well enough to compensate for the bad performance at their last gig. Patrick has been doing a lot of songwriting in the past year or two, and I hope that some of them make it onto their new album.

Strange to think that we'll be flying back to hell in a few days. I don't really feel like I've been here almost 10 days already. Not really looking forward to leaving winter and being back in SoFla, though it will be a bit of a relief to get back to my own apartment. I love my family but I'm not used to living with other people anymore! Plus the freedom of a vehicle is always a bonus.

Ahhh....minus 14 celcius, hoarfrost, and a light snow. I feel great!!!

trying to find some bellydancing shows to go to before we leave...unfortunately it looks like weekday shows at restaurants are sparse. I suppose that's really something I should have anticipated...we'll have to plan to go out the night before we leave, I guess.

Well, here I am in Edmonton, posting from my dad's computer. Dial up connections...whew...forgot how slow they can be! I'm trying to check my hotmail, and it's a sllloooowww process. I'll probably be done writing here before my inbox loads!

We've had a pretty good Christmas. The weather has been neither as cold nor as snowy as we'd hoped--it's only been a few degrees below zero--I haven't had to wear my winter coat once! We spent Christmas Eve on our own this year, instead of the usual visiting with cousins, and then had people over Christmas Day, instead of being on our own, which has made the holiday seem a little different and strange. Boxing Day we were out to see Michael's family, and I was out with friends yesterday. Today we're just hanging out at home. Michael is over, finishing the chess game he and my dad have been conducting over email for the past month or so. Nice to have time just to relax...I always anticipate visits here as being restful, but then between jet lag and running around trying to get to see all my friends enough before I go there's not much down time!

The thing I'm really excited about is going to see my brother's band play at the Sidetrack on Tuesday. They have been touring here and there, and they just got a grant to record a CD this year, which is cool. I've actually never really heard him play, past the annoying electric guitar practice when we were teenagers, so I'm really looking forward to seeing them, and i'm impressed they have a gig at what is a pretty major venue for local music here.

Woo hooo! Getting on a plane to go home tomorrow!! Why do I get the feeling I'm not going to get much done at work today.... :)

Michael and I had a pretty full weekend. We hosted our annual pre-Christmas get-together at my place Saturday night. Ergo, I spent all of Saturday catching up on my housecleaning, which has been sorely neglected this past week or two...it turned out to be a bit smaller of a gathering than we had originally anticipated, but we still had enough guests to make it feel like a party, and we also got to see some people that we hadn't got together with in a while, so it was all good. I made my family's traditional christmas apple cider--cinammon sticks, allspice, cloves, brown sugar, and sliced lemons and oranges simmered in apple juice and served with rum--which went over pretty well.

Sunday Michael and I exchanged Christmas gifts (only time we could devote to it before we left), and as usual, though he always complains that he isn't good at shopping for gifts, the things he got me were great! I have a new set of instructional bellydance DVDs to play with, as well as a couple of good CDs to dance around to. I got Michael a drum to learn to play Middle Eastern rhythms on, as well as an instructional CD, so we can do stuff together. He was also really happy with the tickets to the Panthers-Rangers game that I gave him. Hopefully Messier won't retire before March!

Of course, the big thing this weekend for me was that I made my solo improvised bellydance debut at the holiday performance party my teacher threw at the Chocolate Moose cafe. It went pretty well, I think, probably in part because I had so much else to do and think about this past few weeks that I didn't have much time to get nervous about it. I started out with a slow veil piece--which is my stronger suit, I think--and then a shorter faster section. I finally had a chance to use one of my newer silk veils! I also ended up kind of improvising a duet with one of my teacher's more advanced students for part of one of the open dances, which was neat--it's fun to have a partner to play off of just to see what happens. Of course, I did so much dancing that my back is a little sore today...but it was worth it! Michael took lots of photos--if I have a chance I'll scan some at my parents' over the holidays, and post some links for you.

t minus 4 days and counting...and boy do I need my coffee this morning. I didn't have time to make my usual thermosful before leaving for work today, and considering the amount of sleep I got last night I'm anticipating a day of grumpiness and caffeine withdrawal headaches. Times like this I really wish I could stomach the Folgers crap that is sitting in the workroom across the way. Unfortunately, the watery, bitter, acidic taste of canned coffee that's been sitting open in a cupboard for months (they buy in bulk) just doesn't sit well somehow.

one of my favorite retailers, despair.com, was featured on NPR this morning. Apparently, more people than just me can actually be motivated by demotivational merchandise. Who knew.

Weather has been "colder" in SoFla lately--going down into the 40s and 50s at night, with highs in the 60s during the day. Of course, at this point, that's not that much different than what's going on back home, which pisses me off to no end. I've been looking forward to winter for a couple months now, only to find that when I finally get back up north they're going to be in the middle of a thaw. grumblegrumblegrumble...

with apologies to T.M. Shine...

Typical day in my life this week:

• 4:00 am: neighbor's alarm goes off, dragging me from a deep sleep.
• 4:05 am: beep beep beep....
• 4:10 am: beep beep beep...
• 4:15 am: I'm outside, wandering through my apartment complex, looking for the alarm that has gone off for an hour every day at this time for a week, to the accompaniment of beep beep beep...
• 4:18 am: found the place. Of course no one is home. beep beep beep...
• 4:20 am: I'm back at the house searching for paper, pen and scotch tape. beep beep beep...
• 4:40 am: affix a note on the apartment door. Go home to the sound of beep beep beep...
• 5:00 am: beep beep be--...quiet. FINALLY.
• 5:30 am: still not asleep. Stomach is in queasy knots from tension and lack of sleep.
• 6:00 am: now the rest of the neigborhood starts getting up. beep beep be--. Car starting up. People talking outside my window. beep beep beep beep be--. There's a radio. There's a shower...
• 7:00 am: Well, there's the sunrise...
• 10:48 am: drag myself out of bed, after managing maybe 2 hours more sleep. I have a vague memory of being partially wakened by the phone, but there's no message so I disregard it.
• 11:30 am: phone rings. Again, I disregard it, figuring it's the usual telemarketer or wrong number.
• 12:05 pm: pick up the message from a half hour before. Surprise, it's the one call in a thousand that was actually for me. And both my calls this morning were from work. Guess who was supposed to come in early today? Oops.
• 1:00 pm - 6:45 pm: drag myself, exhausted, through a normal work day, which at this point essentially means babysitting teens after school until their parents deign to pick them up in the evening.
• 6:45 pm: taking a break on the balcony with my immediate supervisor, with whom I have a friendly work relationship. We're bitching about the ineffectiveness of a committee we have to work on.
• 6:46 pm: said supervisor's wife drives by in the parking lot and beckons him to come down. I return to my desk.
• 6:48 pm: said wife is now in my office space. "I want to tell you something, and you are going to listen. You are not going to speak to my husband again."
• 6:49 pm: Maybe you don't understand. I have to talk to him. He's my boss, and we have to work together.
• 6:49:30 pm: "but you are not going to talk to my husband again."
• 6:50 pm: whatever.
• 7:00 pm - 9:00 pm: learn waaaaay more about my supervisor's home life than I ever really wanted to know.
• 10:00 pm: get home, fall into bed, thinking about all the things I have to do but have no energy for. My house is a mess, my dance solo for Sunday unplanned, my Christmas party on Saturday night unprepared for, my sink is full of dishes...but I'm too tired to move.
• 10:30 pm: call Michael, who is still at work, and speculate about who smashed his car's rear window earlier in the week.
• 12 midnight: desperately tired but still can't sleep.
• 1 :00 am: ditto.
• 2:30 am: finally drift off.
• 4:00 am: beep beep beep...

oh well...

But here's the good news:

1. t minus six days and counting till I'm home in Edmonton.
2. Southwest Regional's Adopt-a-Family holiday project was a success. My co organizer and I collected over $400, and we were able to provide 2 toys from each child's wish list, new clothes for each of them, and gift certificates for the grocery store and Bath and Body Works (a store like the Body Shop) for the mother. We had a lot of fun collecting, shopping, and wrapping; hopefully the family will enjoy their gifts.
3. we're finally getting new security at work, to replace the old guy who was totally ineffectual and spent all his time reading the dictionary and compiling lists of people in the library he hated rather than keeping the kids in line.
4. I finally finished my Christmas shopping!
5. Did I mention I'm going home soon???

whew... life is getting busier over here! I'll update the review pages sometime...honest I will...

Breathing a bit easier this week, for the most part--I can get to sleep all right at least, except when my neighbors play their rap music till 4 am :( Anyway, being able to put the sinus medication away for a while is a relief.

My Christmas shopping is finally getting done...though a couple people are proving difficult and, as usual, I'm finding it easier to find gifts for myself than for them! I should just never go into SteinMart at all, I guess, even when I'm shopping for other people. It's the kind of place where you find something for a ridiculously low sale price, and bring it up to the register only to find there's an additional discount today, and, well, faced with such cool stuff, what else can you do? This week I found a sleek black lamb's leather jacket, regularly $290, and I only paid $100!! woo hoo! I've also been shopping for my library's adopted family, which has been fun. We managed to collect quite a lot of money for the project, so we should be able to do pretty well by them, I think.

Michael and I were at a hockey game last night...we usually go see the Oilers when they play, but this year they didn't come down so we had to settle for the Habs. I enjoy watching hockey live much more than on tv, but I must say that it seems like Canadian hockey teams are getting pretty depressing. Florida is not a good team at all, yet they seem to win just about every game against a Canadian team that we go to see. I mean, honestly, what kind of world is it when FLORIDA and DISNEY WORLD beat Canada at it's national sport???? And a WINTER sport at that??? Argh....

My other big news is that I got my hair cut this week. Those of you who've known me for any length of time will understand exactly how much of a loaded statement that is. I haven't been in a salon chair for over 2 years. It's not much different, just missing some split ends and cut in some long layers, but somehow it's still a big deal :)

Hey, that medicine you're taking? Odds are it doesn't work. And little did we know it, but while we were sleeping, some developing nations tried to convince the U.N. to take over the Internet. Isn't life fun?