Sebastian 

A Waddle to Ease the Boredom

Today was easily one of the most boring days of my life. There isn't much going on at work, and I'm at a point in my projects where I can't do anything until I get things back from other people. I try to be diligent and keep myself busy with reading 'work-related' things, but there's only so much I can do before my head hits the keyboard and my waffle face gives me away. I ended up reading work docs and clicking over to rate stuff on Worth1000 and editing some pictures for the scavenger hunt online album. Guilt, guilt, guilt. But what's a girl to do?

Deena's off to Ireland today - her flight leaves later tonight. I do envy her - just for even having the money to travel. I have to do be doing something wrong to be as broke as I am all the time.

One of the few bright spots that stood out from the dullness of today was when I was driving home along the West Mall. I had to stop traffic to let a family of geese cross the road. The goslings weren't the cute, fluffy little balls of feathers and feet anymore - they were the gangly adolescents that waddle/stumble/walk after their parents, making you want to laugh, rather than 'awwww....'.

Down in the Dumps

Things that smell: dumps, me after being in a dump all morning

Wow. You understand that there's a lot of garbage in the world, but until you're actually standing next to a mountain of cardboard that is being reordered by an enormous bulldozer, you just don't get it.

It was also quite disturbing to see how close the dump was to Lake Ontario. REALLY close. A door was open at the back, and looking through it, you could see that the lake started just a few feet away. A beautiful view of downtown Toronto and Centre Island, mind you. But the smell kind of distracted from the view.

I've spent the rest of the day watching my stats from the photoshop contest. I was ninth out of 71 at one point, which I was very happy about, considering this is my first entry. I may be hooked. I'm trying to be inspired by the next image up for 'shopping. Inspiring inspiration doesn't work so well.

Small Victories - Big Payoffs

Yay! My 'Worth1000' photoshop image got positive comments! That's the way to start a day. Now, I don't care (as much) about my final rating. I'm just glad people didn't think it was horrible.

A couple of things that affronted me: one other person (at least) used the same idea of using 'Sunday Afternoon' as an inspiration. Grr. Also - and this is more funny than mildly disconcerting - someone used the same old guy that I was going to use in their image. They did what I had initially started to do - an old guy fishing, unknowingly pulling something huge and scary out of the water. I figured the idea was kind of trite and unoriginal. Guess I was right.

Now to face a day of sauce squishing.

It's back! It's bigger and better!

No, it's just back.

I've been thinking about getting more involved with photoshop fun. I've been spending a lot of time at www.worth1000.com, and I actually became so bold last night as to put in a submission in one of the beginner contests. Then I had nightmares about how everyone would tell me how I did things poorly or incorrectly and that I wasn't good enough to submit any more entries and could I please just leave.

And an odd thing I did today - I was so cold at one point today that I couldn't hold my pen to write anymore. Odd, because it's the middle of June in Toronto, and we're having an extreme heat wave. I didn't realise that we'd be working in refrigerated storage when I left the office. But the fun part is tomorrow, when we go and watch them smash the recalled product. Why? Because I wanna see it.

Tonight is Cell, and I'm happy to be seeing everyone again - I ditched too many meetings and now I feel all out-the-loopy again. Doesn't help that people do things like get pregnant and sell their houses when I'm away for a week and no one tells me. Ah, well - my own fault, I suppose. But it's hard to be part of a community when you live 45 minutes away. I need some local friends...

Time to make dinner and then try to figure out the traffic-lightest way to get to Hamilton.

Tara.

This is crazy. I am moving again. Clearly, I must be stopped.

But, this time there's a twist. The company is paying for me to move, and so they are paying for a moving company to come and pack me up. This has thrown me completely for a loop. I mean, I knew in theory that they would pack for me, but I don't think I'd really accepted it until today when I was talking to the amazingly cheerful man at the moving company. I asked, 'So should I pack anything?' , to which he replied, 'Oh no! Of course not!'

This has just messed me up. I'm at a loss as to what to do with myself. I envisioned the next two weeks being immersed in boxes and tape guns - or, at the least, the next two weeks filled with some hard-core procrastination followed by one mad day of packing.

This is great! Still not sunk in, but great nonetheless.

Now, if only I would hear for sure that I have the apartment...

Fear.

It really does look like I'm quite likely getting that job in Toronto. Today, Darren basically told me that it's mine if I want it, and the only thing I have to do to reach out and take it is be sociable and show them that I'm excited about the job.

Yikes.

Sociable? With a bunch of very important people I don't know? And excited? About a job that quite frankly scares me? And moving AGAIN?

I can do this. I'm just hoping that they'll help me to move - otherwise I'll need to get a loan. And I hope that the job will hold off until April, so that I don't have to pay rent in both places, as my lease here won't be up yet.

I just keep staring off into space, trying to take it all in. I keep focusing on little, unimportant things - like how I'm splitting cable with my house-neighbour, and what will he do if I'm gone? I'm scared to face the bigger questions - where will I live? Will I enjoy traveling a great deal? Can I be an auditor? How will I handle meeting new people ALL the time?

That's just it, isn't it? Maybe this opportunity is exactly what I need. It will force me to move out of my comfortable little isolation bubble and learn how to interact with other people and be in different places and do difficult things. I've become very lazy in those ways. Guess that'll have to change.

This will be good for me. And I'll get to be behind the scenes of many different factories and see all that goes on - literally. And it's not like I'll be using my own opinions to rate these places - I'll be using laid out standards and principles. I'll see how other places do things and share their knowledge to make the industry overall better by bringing the best practices of all the plants together.

I can do this. I can be good at this.

I can get excited about this.

Thanks.

So now my life is changing again. I feel like I have no life whatsoever - it's wasting away right now. During the week I long for the weekend, then when the weekend comes, I waste it entirely, goofing on the computer, reading fanfic, watching stupid television shows so mindlessly that I don't remember by the end of the commercials what I was watching.

And now this autonomy of being may be disrupted once more - by - what? A move to Toronto. Say it ain't so. I still don't know if I really want the job, or if I just feel obligated to go for it, because it would look odd if I didn't - indicate a lack of ambition or drive.

Eh. Whatever. (see: irony)

At this point, I'll just go with the flow (hate that expression). What will come, will come, and I will deal with it then.

I've decided that I need to have a purpose. I used to have one - several, in fact. But lately, nothing. Since the new year (refuse to call it a 'resolution') I've decided to live more deliberately, with more intention. The problem with that is that I need to have an intention to begin with. So far, all I've achieved is that my house is generally cleaner and I cook more than reheat. Not so much to get excited over.

But right now is a hard time to motivate, too. The world is covered in an icy slick. An unbroken expanse of whiteness obliterates the landscape, leaving so little detail that I can't even be sure that I'm on the road.

One thing that did delight me this morning was a leaf. Such a small thing. As I drove (crept) carefully along River Road (I love that I take a road called 'River Road' to work) I saw a small dark blur of movement crack the whiteness in front of me. A small, shrivelled and withered brown leaf fluttered across the roadway, tugged along by the wind. It seemed to me to be a brave and fortunate object - somehow escaped from the depths of cold and snow that have locked the world in bleakness.

Small things. A good start, I think.