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?

Back to work this week after a relaxing Thanksgiving vacation. We spent most of the first two days on the beach at Naples and Marco Island, swimming, reading, and collecting seashells. Saturday was cooler--quite chilly for Florida, in fact--but we had already planned to spend that day shopping so we didn't mind. We managed to get a bit of our Christmas shopping done, and I don't think we thought about work once! What a relief! Now, if only I could have the hotel's hot tub in my backyard...

Been busy with holiday planning this week. I decided to volunteer to organize my library's participation in a County Holiday Project, so we arranged to adopt a family with four kids for Christmas. We get to provide each child with two presents, and we're going to include a Publix gift certificate for the mom as well. Morale has been a little low at work lately--we've been shortstaffed for a while now, as well as dealing with various policy changes and edicts that seem designed to make our work lives harder--so I thought that this project might be one way to raise people's spirits a bit as well as doing something good for the community.

Life has been harder on other fronts lately, as I'm still battling what now seems to be chronic sinus problems rather than allergies. Without decongestants, I can't breathe through my nose at all, and experience a lot of discomfort from sinus pressure/swelling as well. So, in the short term at least, I have a choice between dealing with constant unbearable symptoms, or drugging myself up with OTC products 24 hours a day. Boy is my doctor going to get an earful when I finally get to his office in January!

Well, thank goodness for that.

3 more hours and Michael and I will be on the road to Naples. Can't wait to get away and not have to think about work for a while. Just going to read by the pool, walk on the beach, and shop for Christmas gifts in the historic district. We had a few invitations for Thanksgiving dinner, but I can't really get into it this late in the year. Thanksgiving for me should be a three-day holiday in October, not a four-day one in November. Oh well...I'm certainly not going to complain about the extra weekend off! Though if one more person asks me if we have Thanksgiving in Canada...sigh...the "what do Canadians have to be thankful for?" question ranks right up there with "does Canada celebrate the Fourth of July?"

And yes, I've been asked both, at various times, by people ostensibly smart enough to know better.

Ugh. A barely tolerable day today, after not being able to sleep all last night. My allergy symptoms decided to flare up in a massive way last night, with the end result being that I couldn't breathe through my nose at all for most of the night. Gave up around 2:30 am and took some Claritin, which then proceeded to keep me awake for the rest of the morning without making a measurable difference in how I felt. I seem to remember having similar problems around this time last year...though sinus congestion is now a year-round thing for me, and the only allergy my dr's tests can find is household dust. Right.

On the bright side, our new security guard started today. Or, rather, the guard who is filling in for the guard we hired, who happens to be on vacation right now, started today. All of us are now gleefully rubbing our hands together picturing the snot-nosed teenage regulars that make our lives miserable getting the boot from someone in uniform. And, I had a pretty relaxing weekend. Myriam's monthly bellydance party was this past Sunday, and since I got my mehndi supplies from Castle Art & Import earlier in the week, Michael and I got to play around with that as well. I did a design on my palm that stained really well, especially considering that the paste was only on for about 3 hours! The ones on Michael's arm and my back are not as dark, but that's to be expected given the different skin texture, I suppose. Didn't do the best work with my palm design, but it's not too bad considering this is the first time I've done any mehndi in 2-3 years! Maybe someday I'll be this good....

This is too weird.

So, art meets life in strange ways. First, this poor guy at The Onion had his mom find out about his blog. Next, a Microsoft employee gets fired for posting innocuous-seeming information about work. However, if you're worried about getting caught blogging by your boss, you can always check out the web fire escape :)

Good news at work this week, as CTC staff learn that we can *finally* limit the use of the only terminals in the building that have Office products to no games. Normal people would think that it wasn't all that strange to have library computers reserved for library work like looking up books, using databases, and typing assignments or resumes. But, here in Broward County, the norm is to have fifty terminals tied up by kids playing Age of Empires or giggling in chat rooms while the lineup at the reference desk of people who need to know where the books are stretches out the door. Does this make sense? Well, no. Is it typical Broward County decision-making? Well...

Anyway, the good news is we can start clamping down on what I still insist on believing is misuse of library resources, if only in a small way. Between that and the security guard we're getting back after a disasterous first term, perhaps the hours between 2 and 5 will seem like less of a zoo. Maybe reference desk staff will even be able to hear the patrons who call in on the phone! Am I asking for too much?

It had to happen sometime, I guess...darcysworld is now officially listed in google. Still doesn't come up in the early listings if you just type my name, though, which is good. Searching on my first name brings up some...interesting...selections. Like Dame Darcy. Or the Darcy School in New Jersey, that aims "to promote intellectual and emotional intelligence of the highest quality for children of all abilities by creating a nurturing environment that celebrates and values each child as a unique learner filled with extraordinary potential." Not to be confused with the Jim Darcy School, of course, which "believe[s] each student belongs and has a right to be safe,respected, and successful ... [and] create[s] a caring place where students maximize their unique talents and capabilities on a life-long learning journey." Darcy Hordichuk plays for the Florida Panthers...who knew?

You can get your daily dose of culture from the D'Arcy Museum of Art. If your tastes are more lowbrow, check out the movies of Darcy Demoss, who "has spent much of her time becoming your quintessential B-movie actress, her roles include getting killed, beat up, and/or naked." Even seedier than that, I suppose, is darcy-escort.co.uk, which is for those 18 and older and which I don't dare open at work.

And before you leave, don't forget to pick up your pollution control equipments and absorbents from Darcy Products--"The most comprehensive range of equipments to enable you to avoid incidents likely to result in prosecution"!!

So I'm having these recurring dreams in which I am about to participate in a bellydance performance, but I've forgotten my costume, I'm struggling to get it on properly as my musical cue comes up, or I can't find a place to change in time to go on. I know I agreed to do a small solo at our performance party in late December, but could I really be working out nerves so soon? what's up with that?

Read in the news today that Michael Jackson wants to adopt more children. A lot more children. Am I the only one scared by this prospect?

well, back to work. Thanks to the midweek paid holiday, I'm a little bit thrown off schedule...like I have no feeling for what day it is. Weird...

Went to my zill workshop this weekend but unfortunately it was too basic for me to learn much. I seem to be in a bit of an awkward phase with my dance classes now. Due to my former dance and music experience, I don't have a problem learning choreography or zill patterns. But those are the points that my classmates all have the most trouble with. So we end up going over and over things that I already know, instead of doing the things that I need to do, like work on isolations and technique. It's not that I'm a more advanced dancer than the others in class...I just need different things and I'm not getting them. Trying to find another class to supplement what i've got, but everything is either on days that i work or waaaaay down in Miami. Sigh...

Irrational Patron Incident today. A woman was in the lab, with a noisy baby. Somehow one of our staff member's request to keep the child quieter or take him out of the lab was interpreted as her and her child being kicked out of the library. So after her very long-winded complaint I now know all about her lovely, just-divorced, used-to-work-in-library-tech-services, non-functional-home-DSL life. Oh, did I mention how much of today was spent discussing the incident and writing up reports, seeing as how she threatened to write one of our senior administrators?

And just don't get me started on the daily after-school antics of our 500 Charter High School freshmen...hello, my name is Darcy, and yes, I got a Masters degree so I could yell at other people's teenagers all day. Oh, and do the cleaning crew's work, because the new contract says they "can't do" a bunch of things...like clean the lab computers. Tell me again why I prefer academic work?