So I got a Christmas card in the mail yesterday. It was exciting. I love getting mail (in case you haven't already gathered that). It was from my friend A, who visited towards the end of my time in York with her family. In it was a picture she took on that visit - she's a talented photographer, and no, I'm not just saying that because she reads this blog. It's true!

It's a photo of me, sitting at the base of the statue of Constantine outside York Minster, mimicking the grandiose, relaxed posture of someone who knows they've got it made, given to this statue by the sculptor in an effort to represent York at its height of Roman power. I love this photo, and it's only now, after thinking about it for hours and sleeping on it that I've figured out why.

I don't look like a model, I'm not thin, I'm not even looking at the camera - hell, I don't even have my eyes open. It's not really a picture of beauty.

But I don't have my eyes open because I was laughing so hard at that moment that I couldn't keep them open.

I was happy.

A managed to capture me in a truly happy moment. A moment I was just being myself, goofing off in front of friends I hadn't seen in years - but it seemed like I'd only seen them the day before.

I wish I had more of those moments captured on film - I look good.

*Thanks, Our Lady Peace

Is the sign I'm replaced by when I'm not at the uni. It's reassuring to know that I can be replaced by inanimate objects (which reminds me that I need to take the sign down. I'm here now, after all, aren't I?).

I have only three more days to get through before I get a blessed day off - yup, you guessed it, Christmas day. I then get Friday next week off, too, which is stupidly exciting. Two days in one week! Whatever will I do? This is my tenth straight day working after one day off...

So very tired... was at work at FEP until 10 last night (means getting home nearer 11 p.m.), then up at 6 this a.m. to get ready for uni work - a grand total of about 5.5 hours sleep, and I go until 10 again tonight. I HATE having to get up to drive my mother to the bus station - it just makes my day so much longer...

They want me to go out to some Newfie bar after work at FEP tonight, but I'm not sure I'll last that long... Luckily I don't have to be at work at TBS until 1:30 p.m. tomorrow. That's a slight saving grace - I'm not looking forward to it, though - the last Saturday before Christmas? Eep! Hopefully the people will be nicer than they have been so far this week. We've had the parents bringing in the kids that needed to be babysat while Dad shopped, the customers that are frustrated that we don't have stuff in stock, the customers that won't listen when I tell them that our store has never had a certain item (maybe they saw it at WEM?)... Bastards.

That rant aside, the people at FEP last night were the sort that make being at FEP entirely worthwhile. I'm not a huge fan of the storytelling that's happening in St. A's this year, mostly because it seems like a bit of a cop-out after Gift of the Magi, but whatever - the folks last night were actually interested and attentive to my stories. And the fact that I snagged the fedora to wear when I went outside was kinda fun, too (me, materialistic about my costume? Nah...).

And I don't imagine I'm going to be particularly busy today. So maybe, as the IT guy just suggested, I can curl up under the desk and nap. Maybe the "ring bell for assistance" sign isn't so bad after all...

**So, looks like I won't be avoiding the bitchy people after all... Just had a guy come in pissed off that we wouldn't let his daughter back into her room to get some stuff she'd left behind - Yelling is a bit of an understatement, and it just HAD to be the day our resident 5-0 officer wasn't in... go figure... Luckily we didn't end up having to call 5-0, but it was a pretty near thing.**

So with the U of A, I trained myself to say "convocate" instead of "graduate". Now I have to retrain myself... U of York students just plain old 'graduate'. Ah well. But as it turns out, I'm GOING to the ceremony! Yay! So on the 28 of March, I'll hop a plane with my parents (this part I'm a little doubtful about...) get to London on the 29th, and wake up first bloody thing in the morning on the 30th to collect my gown, get pictures done, etc. and go graduate. Much like the first time I gr... convocated... I'm having mixed feelings about this one.

a) I hate having a fuss made over me and my achievements. I'm not all that special or unique. Thousands of other people get Master's degrees each year, so I don't see why they need to make that much fuss, put me in the limelight, take pictures (I'm totally UN photogenic). Not looking forward to that.

b) TOTALLY looking forward to being back in York. I miss it. Much as I was longing to get home, there's something to be said for wandering down thousand-year-old streets each day and having a Starbucks coffee in a 400-year-old house.

c) Don't know what I'm going to do with the 'rents on the Saturday. They say they'll be fine wandering around without me, but I don't know. I feel fairly guilty abandoning them in a foreign country (although having said that, they're sending me home early so that they can gad about in Britain for an extra week and I can come back to work... *sigh*). Especially don't like the fuss they'll be making about me. Drives me nuts. Absolutely nuts. I wish they could just sortof let me have the robes so I could take pictures (to satisfy the 'rents) and then give me the degree with no real ceremony (although if I'd gone to Cambridge, I'd go to the ceremony! It's all in Latin!) and let me go on my way. But, no, I need to go to the ceremony (in the ugliest building on Campus, by the way), have photos taken, go to the luncheon afterwards, schmooze and just generally make myself pleasant for an entire day.

d) have a feeling it's not going to be enough time - I'll get there on Thursday, graduation is on the Friday, Saturday is free, Sunday I'll have to head back to London and then fly out on Monday back to Edmonton...

e) Get to order my graduation robe rental from a place called Ede and Ravenscroft - who've been making graduation robes since 1689 (according to their website...). How cool is that?

f) York's robes are unfortunately ugly as all hell.

So there you have it, folks. I'm sitting here about to bawl and I'm not entirely sure why... I guess it's 'cuz after this I'll have no excuse to head back to England at all in the near future... and I'm not sure when I'll get to go back again at all. Lord knows I'll still not be making enough money to put a lot away for savings... I guess as long as graduation was still just a "way off in the future" sort of thing I could just pretend that it hadn't all really ended and now I can't get away with that any more.

And on a completely unrelated note, if I hear "All I want for Christmas Is You" by Mariah Carey one more time, I may shoot myself.

Yup, it's a day.

Yup, I have three jobs.

Yup, it's nearly Christmas. There are presents to pay for, parties to attend, and a huge amount of general busy-ness.

And where am I?



Yup.


I'm at home, in my pyjamas at 11:30 a.m. (They're sweet-ass flannel La Senza pjs in brown-and-white Hawaiian print, too, that I got on sale in a random fit of girliness, but maybe that's TMI).

You see, UPS was meant to be bringing me my boxes of stuff that I shipped home from England. Yesterday. And so I was prepared to wait at home until the last possible moment before I had to leave for work so that I could get my stuff, sign for it, and run away (when you work retail from 1:30-9:30 p.m., this is a slightly feasible plan). I watched UPS dude pull up outside the house at about noon, and watched him unload box after box.... (ok, there were only 8 in total) expecting the doorbell to ring any second so that he could collect that all-important signature from me... And then I watched him pull away.

Yup.

He'd piled the boxes around by our garage door, and just left.

Asshole. I didn't even need to be around. And I didn't need to change my shift (I could have been off earlier and avoided the hassle of closing the store). And I... hey, wait a second... there were meant to be 9 boxes...

A quick check of UPS's website confirmed that one box has somehow been diverted to Calgary and won't be arriving until today.

Now, I'd told my boss at the uni that if the boxes didn't come on Monday or if they wouldn't let my dad sign for them if I wasn't there, I'd likely have to wait at home on Tuesday and not come in. So without really telling her a lie, I told her that only 8 of my 9 boxes arrived and that I'd be sitting at home waiting for UPS again today. Which is true - I don't want my box sitting out there in melting snow all frickin day!

It also means I've got a day to just do whatever the hell I want. And I'm not sure where to start. It's my first day completely off since the 2nd of this month, and what do I do first? Do I catch up on television that I've not touched in 2.5 weeks? Do I watch some of the DVDs that have returned home to me? Do I embroider? Do I knit? Do I clean (my bathroom could use a scrubbing... well, the sink anyway... pink eyeshadow and cream sink do not a happy couple make)?

Or do I help decorate the Christmas tree (which is up, lit, but sadly bare of ornaments)?

AAAAAAAAHHHH!!! Stop the insanity!!!!!

Edit - 3:58 p.m. - As it turns out, all I've managed to do so far is have a shower, get dressed, rescue my 9th box from beside the garage (ASSHOLE!), help decorate the tree, and promptly fall asleep on the couch in the living room with my computer playing Christmas music. Having said that, the decorating bit was quite nice - I missed it last year, being in England and all, and so it was like being a kid again, helping Dad decorate the tree...

So we decorated the office at the uni for Christmas today. This involved an early morning trek deep into the bowels of the residence boiler room complex (I say complex, because there is not simply one boiler room...) to the cages where random storage occurs. We retrieved a few small boxes of stuff (yup, three boxes... four people on the trek... you can see how busy we are in this office) and returned to the office to set up. We were done in an hour. I'm not sure what to say about the results, except that it has a mini light-up porcelain Christmas village as part of the scheme behind my desk. It's not my style (last time I checked velvet-textured bristol-board snow men weren't quite on the list of most classy Christmas decorations ever), but, y'know, it's Christmas. And it's nice that I got to help decorate.

It's my first Christmas shift at FEP tonight, as well. I'm looking forward to it - not in costume today, but will be tomorrow. I got bonfire and tour-guide duty this evening. I'm a little nervous as I haven't really bothered to read the information they gave me about Christmases past in Edmonton; that might be my task for this afternoon, since there's really not much work-work to be done in the office here.

It's also jeans day. But I forgot my money, so no jeans for me (not to mention that I forgot to wear jeans... I could have scrounged something up in terms of cash).

And we're going out for lunch! Yay!

And that is all.

So for someone who was complaining a month ago that I wasn't able to find a job... I now have three.

Granted, two of them will more or less end when the Christmas rush does, but that means I'll be stupid busy in the mean time, working 4-5 days a week at The Body Shop, 2 days a week at the uni and some evenings down at Fort Edmonton Park.

My apologies if the blogging suffers as a result. I may have to blog at the uni job to keep sane there, but I'm not sure what the uni's policy is on that yet - so until I do, I'll play it safe.

Take care, all.

1. Yourself: cold
2. Your boyfriend/girlfriend/spouse: what?
3. Your hair: ponytail
4. Your mother: cook
5. Your father: silent
6. Your favorite item: books
7. Your dream last night: unknown
8. Your favorite drink: Pepsi
9. Your dream car: unbroken
10. The room you are in: bed
11. Your ex: whatever
12. Your fear: loss
13. What you want to be in 10 years? established
14. Who you hung out with last night? coworkers
15. What You're Not? stupid
16. Muffins: cranberry
17. One of your wish list items: margarita
18. Time: evening
19. The last thing you did: supper
20. What you are wearing: redt
21. Your favorite weather: hot
22. Your favorite book: Penman
23. The last thing you ate: pizza
24. Your life: overrun
25. Your mood: bored
26. Your best friend: few
27. What are you thinking about right now? bed
28. Your car: none
29. What are you doing at the moment? one
30. Your summer: boring
31. Your relationship status: scarce
32. What is on your TV? black
33. What is the weather like? better
34. When is the last time you laughed? work

35. Who did you steal this from? Delly

That the Weather Pixie doesn't point out.

The Wind Chill Factor.

Yup. Today, it's -28 degrees. With the wind chill factored in there, it FEELS like -40.

That's -40. That's the same in both Fahrenheit and Celsius.

I am not looking forward to going out and facing the day.

Check the weather pixie. The temperature is in degrees Celsius. It hurts.

So...

I got a full-time job.

Am I happy? Not particularly.

It's at the University, and I know that I like the people, and the work won't be difficult. It also guarantees me about 35 hours a week and pays nearly twice as much as TBS. There's benefits, and possibilities for advancement. It's great.

So why the hell do I feel like such an ass?

I'm loving TBS. I'm not even quitting TBS. I'll work at the uni one or two days a week for training until the end of December, then start full-time. I was never guaranteed that the TBS job would last past Christmas anyway, but I'm hoping that I might be able to keep the odd evening or weekend shift, since I'm rather liking it there (see last post).

Money sure is nice to have, since it pays the rent and all that... but it sure as hell doesn't make you happy.

Seriously.

I'm enjoying my work at The Body Shop. Whattup with that? I have goals that I can aspire to (ie: dollar value of sales I make...), goals that I can accomplish... goals that are tangible and that I see fulfilled in every end-of-day report, goals that I feel a little sad when we don't make (ie: today we were aiming for a certain amount, we ended about $1500 short of that).

The lighting in the shop mimics natural daylight, so it feels like I'm out in the sun each and every shift. My coworkers are nice, if some of them are a little young (ie: 17 and 18). No one has gotten pissy about the errors I've made yet, as we're all just learning. Even the district manager is supernice, and I ran into her at a completely unrelated store the other day, and she made time to chat for a few minutes! Having her in the store monitoring us is a pleasure!

I wish there was a way to make a career of it. But unfortunately it doesn't pay as much as I would need to, oh, say, make a living. I've been asked to interview for a position with the University (non-academic, I'm afraid - in the Housing office) over here, but don't want to take it until January so that I can continue to work at The Body Shop and get in some hours at FEP for Reflections. It pays nearly twice as much an hour as TBS does, but I'd have to commute in to Edmonton for it... We'll see how things pan out...

On a completely different note, I've learned that a glass of wine after 8 hours on my feet with very little to eat makes things very fuzzy...

My mom told me today that one of her coworkers has cancer.

Problem is, I know this coworker. I worked in that office one summer, and it was 4 months of sheer hell, with a few bright moments along the way. I was The Student, The Inexperienced, The "She's only here four months, no point training her, or letting her do anything remotely important."

There were, however, a couple of people in that office that went out of their way to teach me new things, let me do new tasks, learn about the ins and outs of that particular governmental department. Kathy was one of those bright spots. Her bubbly personality made it a pleasure to work with her and she continues to ask after me and find out how I'm doing.

And now she has cancer. Not "oh, good thing we caught it early, so let's eradicate it" cancer. Not "Hm, this doesn't look good, but we have several options available" cancer. Nope. It's "this is bad, we'll try chemo but..." cancer.

And she's alone.

Her kids have moved out, scattered across the country, and she's divorced...

And there's not a damn thing I can do about it.

Why does it always take the good ones? Why did it mess with Vicki? Why did it take Bev a little over a year ago? And why Kathy now? Why can't it mess with someone in my life that I can just go "oh, that's too bad", and leave it at that?

Dammit, I feel so bloody small and useless...

No, really, I hurt.

The store I'm now working at is in the mall nearest my 'rents, as mentioned previously. It is also brand-spanking new. As in, it finally opened at 11 a.m. yesterday, a mere 1.5 hours behind schedule. Now, this in itself is not a bad thing. In fact, it's a good thing. We've been wanting a Body Shop in this neck of the woods for a long long time... What is a bad thing, however, is the pain I've been through in the last few days as a result of working my ass off to help ensure that that 1.5 hours wasn't any longer than it was.

I went in on Tuesday for 8 hours. This mostly meant ripping open shipment pallets, opening cardboard boxes, hauling cardboard boxes from the loading dock to our store half way down the mall, generally wrecking my hands in the process (seriously, they look like I've been taking paper to myself and just cutting back and forth). Wednesday was 12 hours of the same. Luckily I at least got to wear comfy shoes, but let's face it, I'm a pampered office girl. I'm not used to 'hard labour'. I work in places where you get to sit down. And then 6 hours yesterday in high heels, followed by 8.5 hours today (switched shoes to flats halfway through)... My feet, legs, and back are killing me, my arms are an interesting pattern of red, black blue, green and purple (and other fun bruise-y colours), and I'm ready to curl up in a little ball and sleep for a week. I know it'll get easier, and I'm still enjoying the job (yeah, I know, I've only been on it less than a week - but guess what?! I've already been promoted to keyholder!), but I could really use a massage right now...

I got an email today from my classmate R. I'd always sort of thought it was just me, 'The Foreigner', having issues adjusting to York.

Apparently not. I wasn't the only person who found it had an inhospitable and cold atmosphere at the Uni a lot of the time.

So now I'm strangely reassured...

Holy crap. 200 posts! Wow...

Anywho. I really don't have much to say, except that I got a job. I am now sortof proudly going to be working at The Body Shop in the mall nearby. Woo... I go in for training at the WEM location tomorrow for a few hours, and then I get to more or less wing it after that.

And yesterday evening, who should show up at Spook but Chautauqua Girl, Mr. Spaans, and our friend M! How exciting! I really wish I'd gotten the chance to slack off and chat more, but quite frankly I was freezing, muddy, and wet. Thank you all for the lovely compliments in spite of the fact that I'm sure I looked freezing, muddy and wet. Never fear... when I have a chance (and midterms are over) I will certainly organize some sort of social event in which we can all hang out and chat - and there's always the craftiness on Tuesday!

Yup. In 7 hours, it'll have been one week since I got off the plane in Edmonton. Let's sum up, shall we?

Thursday, Oct 19: Kate arrives at the airport. Wishes her dad a Happy Birthday. Realizes one of her bags hasn't made it on the flight from Calgary. Decides it isn't worth waiting for, files claim with Air Canada, and goes to her 'rents. Bag arrives later that night ("Oh, this happens all the time in Calgary". Go figure).

Friday, Oct. 20: Kate wakes up at 2 a.m. Jet lag! 'Cuz 2 a.m. is 9 a.m. in England. Attempts to go back to sleep with limited success. Spends day moping around house, but breaks free around 6 p.m. to attend Spook rehearsal. Sees some old friends and has a great day! Is offered her Park Host job back. Doesn't accept, but mentions this to her mother, triggering a rather vehement disagreement.

Saturday, Oct 21: Kate wakes up at 3 a.m. Slightly better. Birthday celebrations for her father ensue at the Keg restaurant. Yummy steak for the first time in 10 months. Joy! Slightly marred by the fact that Kate has a sore throat and is stuffed up. Seems that cold she got in Newcastle hasn't entirely gone away yet.

Sunday, Oct 22: Kate wakes up at 4 a.m. Kate's parents have saved Thanksgiving dinner for her. Yay! Dead bird! Joy! Also has friend, S, over for dinner.

Monday, Oct 23: Kate wakes up at 4:30 a.m. Kate is going stir crazy in the house, so she wanders over to Sherwood Park Mall to look for "Help Wanted" signs. Picks up applications and information from The Body Shop, RnR, Cotton Ginny, and La Senza. Figures if she sells out to a soulless corporate chain it had better be a soulless corporate chain whose products she likes. Also picks up applications for Zellers and Carlton Cards, but isn't likely to be handing those in in the near future. Kate also spends the afternoon driving all over Edmonton picking up last minute stuff for Spook with her former supervisor, M, who has no vehicle, and the evening at FEP wishing that Spook rehearsals were more organized. Ah well, what can you do?

Tuesday, Oct 24: Kate feels miserable. Cold has caught up with her, she aches, she hurts, she wishes she could sleep but was up at 5 a.m. She has little to no voice and hopes that this won't screw up her Spook role. She calls her mother to beg her mother to bring her cough syrup. Spends evening huddled in armchair watching Sense and Sensibility on Vision TV. How sad.

Wednesday, Oct 25: Kate feels slightly better. The cough syrup worked and she managed to get 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep. Unfortunately those 8 hours began at 9:30 p.m. So, yes, she was awake at 5:30. Attempted to go back to bed with limited success. Counted down the hours until she got to leave the house and go see people she liked at Spook rehearsal. Spent many frustrated hours at disorganized Spook rehearsal, but nonetheless got to see Bonobo, albeit briefly, which was a bright spot in her day.

Thursday, Oct 26: Kate wakes up at... 5 a.m. What the hell?! Regression?!?! Bugger!!!!! She takes more cough syrup in an attempt to knock herself out a bit longer. No luck. Is up by 9 a.m. Is still not dressed, but has printed out resumes for RnR, Cotton Ginny and La Senza and has emailed one to The Body Shop. Will hopefully get dressed and go to mall shortly to drop of resumes. Is afraid she'll be rejected outright when it is discovered that she has a Master's degree. *sigh*. Still avoiding the thought of having to apply to work at Zellers or at Superstore or some other similar location. Hoping things don't get that desperate. Off to check federal, provincial and municipal government websites for job openings.

Pray for me.

So I've been home less than 48 hours, and my mother and I have already managed to have a... well, not quite a fight... but a definite disagreement. She knew, and I knew, that it wasn't going to be convenient having me live at home again. The house is really only meant for two people - it isn't quite big enough for three (ok, that's a lie, it's plenty big, but it really doesn't FEEL that way).

I have no job, and don't want to be stuck doing something I hate. I've been offered my Park Hosting position back, which, while the pay is shit, is at least something I enjoyed doing - a position with good company. Enter the big dilemma. The park is 35 minutes drive away from this house out in the suburbs, the bus service is shit (ie: doesn't run after 7 p.m.), and we only have one vehicle between the three of us. I mentioned the very possibility of getting that job back and was basically told that having to have the vehicle on evenings and weekends to get to that job would pretty much ruin my mother's routine and that it was completely unacceptable

Well, what the fuck does she expect?!?! If I get a service job or anything that's not within walking distance of this house, I'm going to need a vehicle and that's all there is to it. And unless I'm working 9-5, which is highly unlikely if I have to take a retail or service job, that's going to involve evenings and weekends. I haven't accepted M's offer of my PH job back yet, but I'd rather be doing that than working in some soulless corporate retail chain at the Sherwood Park Mall, and my mother doesn't seem to understand that sometimes money ISN'T everything.

I volunteered for Spook again this year, since I wanted to do something productive with my gainful unemployedness, and the battle over that has already started raging. Yes, it's 4 evenings this coming week, and maybe Monday afternoon, but it's not like I'm doing anything else, and if I just sit here in this house all week, I'll go absolutely fucking nuts.

I'm already feeling like the biggest imposition on earth, and I don't have the money to move out to a more convenient location yet. I'm stuck. Completely and utterly stuck. 48 hours and my life is turned into an absolute hell already. I'm afraid to drink the last cup of coffee from the pot, afraid to move anything, afraid to use anything, afraid to upset their precious routine. It was like this last summer as well, and I don't want to have to go through this again.

Well, folks...

I'm sitting in Heathrow airport waiting for my flight's gate to be announced and I'm bored as all hell. Thank God that I've got the laptop back and am able to use the lovely services of BT Openzone to kill some time.

I'm having very mixed feelings about today in general. I've had a great last month in the UK, seeing friends, meeting new people, catching up with people I hadn't seen in a long time. I was in Cambridge until yesterday evening and so got to see our beloved Crispy and my friend T... It was probably the best time I'd had in my month of touring so far, just because I was surrounded by people I knew well (not to mention that Cambridge is pretty damn awesome - I wish I'd had more self-confidence when applying for the MA and actually applied for Cambridge and Oxford - I might actually have gotten in!... Ah well, maybe if I ever get back on the academic bandwagon...).

I do love England. The weather's great... the people are mostly friendly, and in spite of their oddities (who the hell puts SUGAR on popcorn or sweetcorn on pizza?!?!?) have been quite welcoming for the most part... This island is beautiful, and while there are things that drive me nuts about it, it's mostly the things that I take for granted at home, I suppose - space, for example. You just don't get as much in England. And yet at home I whine about how far I have to go to get places. Can't win, I guess. I love pub culture. There's something about just being able to sit and CHAT whilst drinking... I love that people care about football (How the HELL did Chelsea win last night, by the way?!?!).

I really miss my friends and family though, and can't wait to get back to see them... but I'm nervous. It's been 10 months since I've seen them all. A lot has probably changed. A lot can happen in 10 months. Where am I going to fit in to it all?

I'm going home to NO plan. I have no job lined up, no idea what to do with myself, nothing in my future for the first time. It's fucking scary, to be blunt.

Anywho, the ZoneAlarm update wants me to restart my computer, so I'm off to do that, and the next time I post I will be in North America, shivering in the +2 degree weather, and probably wishing I was back in England.

Go figure.

Made the leap from Scotland down to Devon, and spent yesterday in the North Devon Records Office researching my family tree. Afraid I didn't find much. Off to go tombstone searching today, I think.

Take care, all

I don't know what I was expecting from the Isle of Lewis. Whatever it was, though, I didn't find it. *sigh* I explored Stornoway (the largest town in the Western Isles at 6000 people) on Tuesday, and then wandered over to the west coast to take in some of the sights on Wednesday.

Hired a car - it was a Nissan Almera (closest thing in North America is the Versa). We need to import those into Canada 'cuz I liked it. Driving was easier than I thought it would be, although after 9 months NOT being behind the wheel at all, it was a bit of a learning curve again - the worst bit was just the unfamiliarness of the car itself, though, I think, rather than any British foibles (I've figured most of those out from being a passenger).

First stop on Wednesday was at the Standing Stones at Calanais. Pretty nifty. I think I was expecting a metaphysical frisson or something but it didn't happen. Next stop was Dun Carloway broch, an iron-age tower. Also pretty nifty. Next was Gearrannan blackhouse village - pretty cool, but as I was there in the off season it wasn't all that exciting. I think I was again expecting a metaphysical frisson of some sort or other as I looked at the sort of house in which my great-grandfather would have been born. Similar reaction with the Blackhouses at Arnol. Took the obligatory picture of teh Whalebone arch and was back in Stornoway by 4 p.m.

The ride back on the ferry was nice - I slept for the first hour, drugged up on Boots' Travel Calm tablets... I was nearly sick on the way in, as the sea was extremely choppy (even by people who regularly do that trip's standards), and I think it was just sheer willpower that kept me from puking. The trip back was much calmer and much more tolerable, although that may be because I really wasn't having any luck keeping my eyes open.

Am in Inverness for one night - am glad it's only the one night as the B&B isn't all that hot - the one in Stornoway was much nicer - before heading to Edinburgh for the weekend, and perhaps a bit of Monday as my friend B/H and her boyf are coming up from London on Monday a.m.

Take care all,

-K

I'd written a great post, but the stupid internet Kiosk wouldn't let me finish it. Bastards.

Am still sick - woke up on Thursday feeling like ass and have felt much the same since, so am living mostly on Powerade. Had a great time at Durham Cathedral, Hadrian's Wall, and a shitty time in York - was travelling with an American who's American in the worst sense of the word - loud, insincere, obnoxious, disorganized, etc. I'd only ever spoken to her via email before, and she seemed nice, but ended up being like all those evil Collette tourists. Lots of jewelry, flashing her money about, letting her mobile ring and ring and ring and ring and ring in a CHURCH of all the fucking places... I was right pissed by the end of the day and was glad to have escaped her.

Will be sleeping well tonight. Am at a youth hostel in Inverness (spent the day on a coach trip out to Skye and had a good time) and they've tried to keep me as isolated as possible after I explained I felt like ass - I only had 2 roommates last night (the room sleeps six people) and so far haven't had any show up this evening. There are selfish and unselfish reasons - a) want a good night's sleep, b) don't want everyone else in the hostel to get sick.

Tomorrow I'm up bright and fucking early to catch the 8:05 bus to Ullapool to catch the ferry over to Stornoway on the Isle of Lewis. I'm renting a car there and attempting to drive for the first time in the UK - luckily I'm on my own schedule, no timetables, so if I make a wrong turn here or there there's no worries. Also not worried about driving over there as a traffic jam will be someone herding sheep down the road. Seriously.

Take care all,

-K

I haven't slept properly since Monday night (was less than sober on Tuesday and with snorers Wed and thurs).

Have caught a cold.

In Inverness.

15 secs left on internet cafe

I'm in an internet cafe, and have 40 mins for 2 quid, so here goes.

Left York about noon on Saturday. Surprisingly enough, I'm not all that sad to have left. I'm sure it will sink in at some point that I'm not going to be going back again (although I do hope to get to my graduation in March, we'll see...). Got to London about 2:30, and if you've ever done hiking/backpacking/camping, you'll know that carrying a backpack that's a ridiculous weight on your back when it's 20-odd degrees celsius (in the 70s fahrenheit) isn't all that much fun. Got to R's flat and was a sweaty gross mess. Way to make a first impression with someone you've only ever talked to online, eh? R is a fellow historian, and was absolutely fantastic about looking over my dissertation - she's also a Baptist minister, and so I was left to my own devices on Sunday, but more about that later.

Once I'd cleaned up we (being R, R's husband and myself), went for a walk and I got to see St Bart's hospital, the Old Bailey and the courts, and then we wnet over the Millennium Bridge - nope, hadn't been before. From there it's only a hop skip and a jump to the Globe, where we had tea and cake in the cafe, and mosied down to Blackfriars, over the bridge, and back to the flat (which is light, lovely, and full of Ikea furniture).

On Sunday, I decided to head out to Hampton Court. I went, got there about 11:30ish, and was there until about 5 p.m. The Tudor Kitchens are fantastic, and I picked up a facsimile of a "Working Class Cook Book" published in 1861. I was proud of myself. The rest of the palace was pretty nifty as well. Afterwards I met A.S. for dinner (some of you may remember her as Mrs. Ottewell from a couple of summers ago), which we had at a place called Busaba Eathai, which has great Thai food.

Monday again, left to my own devices. Decided that I hadn't been to the Globe Properly the Saturday night, so went there and took the tour and got to go inside and such. Unfortunately didn't get to see any plays - sold out until October - but was extremely intrigued about a new one they were staging this summer - "In Extremis" about Heloise and Abelard. Bought the t-shirt, 'cuz the t-shirt is damn cool.

Also went to St. Paul's. I'd never been in. Climbed all 500-odd stairs to the top of the dome, and hugged the dome as I made my way around. The view is probably well worth it on a clear day, but it was grey, misty and gross.

I left London Euston at about 20 after 5 p.m. and made my way up to Chester, where M and her husband greeted me at the station. Hers isn't far from the station at all, so last night we just sat in and watched Spooks! I was so happy to be watching Spooks (I missed the first two episodes of this series, but wasn't all that far off picking it back up).

Today M took me 'round Chester. She also has an MA in History, so she's been able to spout off all sorts of great historic facts as we've walked round the city walls (much more complete than York's, although I think York's are prettier) and the Cathedral (the cloister garden is lovely, but again, I think York wins) and through town. I've spent most of the afternoon in the Grosvenor museum, which has an astonishing collection of Roman tombstones that were preserved by being used face-in on the walls. Not much impressed with the rest of the collection, though.

Tomorrow it's off to Newcastle via Durham to meet another M who's here from the States. Will hopefully find someplace with Internet whilst there or whilst in Inverness. The next post may be a ways off, and I'm afraid that I've left my USB cable in the boxes I shipped or with my laptop in London, so no downloading any photos until I get back to my laptop and card reader/USB cable.

Take care, everyone.

In Chester, but hosts are on dial-up. More about my adventures in London and Chester when I hit somplace with broadband, I promise!

The whole point of coming to the UK to do an MA was to learn, right? To learn about history, to learn about another culture (YES, the English ARE another culture. Trust me.), to learn about myself.

I go offline tomorrow, and internet access will be sketchy until about Oct 20 as I wander around the UK, tracing the footsteps of my vaunted ancestors...blahblahblah... (honestly, my ancestors included silk weavers, silver maids, herring cannery workers, and 'agricultural labourers'. Not so vaunted, really). You can definitely expect a full report from me when I get home, if not some tidbits in between, and the fact that the year is over definitely doesn't mean that I'll stop blogging, although I have a feeling my life will get even MORE boring once I get home. I'll have to sign up for harp lessons or something equally entertaining to keep me amused. Maybe I'll take piano and voice again - it's been a while. The future holds many possibilities, mostly wrapped around how much money I'll be earning when I get back. The job market in Alberta at the mo is disgustingly in favour of the seeker of low-order service jobs - with Superstore paying $9.40 an hour to start, they're so desperate for staff, so I'll find something without too much difficulty. I was, however, hoping for something a little more illustrious than grocery store cashier.

So now that I've handed in my MA dissertation, and my bags (and boxes) are packed and waiting to be picked up tomorrow, I've got a bit of time to reflect on what the last year has taught me.

• My first entry after I arrived speaks about how bare my room is and how I'll need to accumulate stuff to make it look more like home. I now know that I accumulate way too much stuff in a year and need to figure out how not to be so pack-rat-y.
• I don't deal well with boredom. I think I knew that already, but this year has definitely confirmed that I need my life to be overscheduled and I need to be run off my feet to be comfortable and happy.
• I'm definitely not entirely over the depression I thought I'd battled. The tone of most of my personal postings here over the year has been tinged with definite shades of grey, made more intense by periods of homesickness, bad weather, loneliness, etc. I may need to try counselling again when I get home.
• I've learned that NOT having a definite plan for the future isn't the end of the world. I think I'd LIKE to have a plan, but NOT having one isn't the end of the world, and that's what matters.
  
• I've learned that the pressures of Academic History aren't for me. Not now. Maybe not ever. But I need some time out. I've been a student for 20 years now without a break and it's time to quit for a bit.
• Tiny differences add up when you're away from home. I would kill to see a Terry's Chocolate Orange that says "Whack and Unwrap" rather than "Tap and Unwrap" at this point. Honestly. And I would love to see a good old north americal electric socket. I want to use the $ sign rather than the £ again. I want to see a kid sledding on my 5 note. I want 25 cent coins.
• I don't make friends easily. I still don't have anyone on this side of the ocean that I'd consider a very close friend. There's the odd person who's just so damn nice that I think I could make an exception, such as A, the assistant librarian at the Minster, but I've only known her since the end of June, and unfortunately the out-of-work friendship has only really developed over the last month. I have a secret hope that her computer science PhD husband will come work at the U of A. I doubt it'll happen, though. But hopefully we'll keep in touch. Other than that, though, there's not really anyone on this side of the ocean that I 'connected' with on a really good, 'we have stuff in common that doesn't involve history' level.
• Some prejudices just don't go away. In Canada, I'm "in". Here, I'm a foreigner. And a North American foreigner at that. Not even a respectable European. I haven't gotten the vibe from a lot of people, but it's happened just enough that I can tell the Old World vs. New World prejudices aren't entirely gone from the world. Neither are class prejudices. Around here, your accent can make or break you if it comes down to that. And that makes me sad.
• I have learned to take initiative. Because I've been on my own so much here, I've had to do things myself and keep myself amused. The one thing that I regret NOT doing was heading to Pickering at some point after I heard about it to see the church there. That was laziness, though, as I couldn't be bothered getting up early in the day to catch the bus there and make a day of it, and I only heard about the church two weeks ago. Otherwise, I've done more things on my own than I ever would have thought possible. It _IS_ all right to do things by yourself.
• Not getting a particular job is not the end of the world. I would still like to get a good job, but as mentioned above, I'll have too many problems finding something to tide me over until I earn the £9500 required for the book conservation course I want to take.
• I care more about football than I ever thought I would.
• Things never turn out the way you expect.
• Crying and wallowing in emotions can actually help in the long run
• Happiness is at least partly an illusion, and ignorance is, in fact, bliss
• American Senior Citizen Tourists will always be the most inconvenient people possible, especially when in enclosed spaces or when told unequivocally to "stick together".
• Intra-linguistic differences can be funny. If not embarrassing.
• I need space. A one-bedroom apartment all to myself is about right. One bedroom in a crowded college hall of residence is not enough.
• Goodbyes aren't any easier than they were a year ago.
  

I ran out of paper. Bugger. So I went and got more this morning. Then I printed the rest of my dissertation. THen the guy who was buying my printer came and got the printer. Then I handed my dissertation into the binder's. Then I discovered that "The Brotherhood of the Wolf" is actually "Le Pacte des Loups" and made the agonizing decision to watch it for the first time with English voice-over. Oops. Then I ate pizza for dinner and now I am bored. I have packed most of what can be packed until the last minute. I have watched all my un-packed DVDs several times ("Quills" for the fifth time this evening, perhaps?). So I knit and blog surf. Tomorrow I pick up the dissertation and hand it in.

I think I've gone mad with the giddiness of being done the damn thing.

Only minimal changes required! I should be able to print my dissert and take it to the binder's tomorrow!

Is gorgeous.

This photo is taken by my friend A's dad from the hotel they stayed at last month. (I added the Copyright bit, sorry - I know it detracts from the photo, but it's a GOOD photo and I don't want randoms stealing it). The bridge is Lendal Bridge, and the building on the river bank is the Guildhall.

Of my life at the mo:

Supervisor still hasn't read my draft of my dissertation. I get it back on Monday at 3 p.m. which leaves me Monday night and Tuesday to get any corrections done. Needs to be in for binding on Wednesday. Hope there aren't any major corrections that need to be done! Head hurts just contemplating it.

Am packing. Suitcases and boxes litter what little floor space I have. Not pretty. US Customs forms ('cuz for some reason my shipment to Canada clears Customs in the states) impossible to figure out. Head hurts.

Overwhelmed by caulking fumes. The contractors just re-did the sealant around my window. My head really bloody hurts now.

Off to find some pain-killers.

I'm sure I will post at least once again between now and Sept 22 when I unplug my laptop and go cavorting about the UK. But just so that I don't forget, here's what I'll be up to:

Sept 23: to London
Sept 24: Visiting Hampton Court/Windsor Castle (likely the latter, with Ms. A.S. our dear FEPper who lives in London, I hope).
Sept 25: more London, then up to Chester.
Sept 26: Chester
Sept 27: to Durham for a quick stop at the Cathedral, then up to Newcastle
Sept 28: day trip to Hadrian's Wall
Sept 29: day trip to York to show an American friend around
Sept 30: to Inverness
Oct 1: Tour of Skye
Oct 2: to Isle of Lewis
Oct 3: wander around Lewis
Oct 4: more wandering around Lewis
Oct 5: to Inverness
Oct 6: To Edinburgh
Oct 7: Edinburgh
Oct 8: Head to Glasgow
Oct 9: Glasgow
Oct 10: Glasgow
Oct 11: to Barnstaple (Devon)
Oct 12: Hanging out in the North Devon Records office doing family history research
Oct 13: Exploring the Barnstaple area
Oct 14: To Bournemouth
Oct 15: Bournemouth
Oct 16: To Cambridge to see T and Crispy
Oct 17: Cambridge
Oct 18: To London
Oct 19: Fly home.

There's a legend in Greek mythology that's particularly interesting. It's a set of legends, actually, about what happens to people who are particularly nasty in life when they die and how they're punished in hell.

From the "Encyclopedia Mythica":

Sisyphus is the son of Aeolus the king of Thessaly) and Enarete, and founder of Corinth. He instituted, among others, the Isthmian Games. According to tradition he was sly and evil and used to way-lay travelers and murder them. He betrayed the secrets of the gods and chained the god of death, Thanatos so the deceased could not reach the underworld. Hades himself intervened and Sisyphus was severely punished.

In the realm of the dead, he is forced to roll a block of stone against a steep hill, which tumbles back down when he reaches the top. Then the whole process starts again, lasting all eternity. His punishment was depicted on many Greek vases. He is represented as a naked man, or wearing a fur over his shoulders, pushing a boulder.

Watching the folks at the Minster library these days is a bit like watching Sisyphus. They labour putting out plate after plate of silica gel, fans, dehumidifiers. They finally got the Upper Hall down to a decent humidity level - under 60%. But the Anteroom has spiked now, and it's getting up towards 70% again. I imagine if they begin to focus on the Anteroom, and ignore the Upper Hall for a bit again, then the same will happen - the Anteroom will be under control, but the Upper Hall will spike again. Especially since it was ominously humid outdoors today.

I don't for an instant envy them having to deal with this Sisyphean task (is there such a word as Sisyphean? If not, there is now). A, the assistant librarian there, is looking a bit haggard, in fact, especially frustrated by her coworkers' inability to seem to recognize the problem and do anything about it - the librarian himself if somewhat hopeless, and the other two individuals that know what to do are only part time and not in to monitor the situation every day.

I'm going in again on Friday to play in the Conservation Studio, and will hopefully not spend the entire day baking silica again. Not that I minded - someone's got to do it, right?

It's such a shame that such a beautiful building is so completely inadequate for the function its meant to serve. Apparently they weren't thinking about book conservation 900 years ago or whenever the building was built. Go figure. Nevertheless, I hope that something can be managed whereby the historical setting for the books can be preserved as well as the books themselves.

Yay!

New keyboard and everything! Woohoo!

Spent the day at York Minster library - I was meant to be going in just for the morning, to check out the Conservation Studio there where Mary works on all her stuff... but spent a fair chunk of the day helping them deal with a humidity problem. We were setting out plates of silica gel (you know that stuff that comes in those little packets in with your shoes that says "Do Not Eat"? Yup, that stuff) to absorb the moisture from the air. Interestingly enough, it changes colour and becomes lighter as it absorbs moisture, so every so often we'd take the old crap down, throw it in the oven to dry and become bright orange again, and replace. Unfortunately the efforts to date don't necessarily seem to have gone all that well - there were a couple of books that got mould on them anyway. Fortunately, the Minster seems to be willing to put a coating on the stone wall that will help keep moisture out. Hoepfully it won't rain this weekend... *knock wood*.

It's probably fake - you'll notice how all the pandas have exactly the same physical pose... but this is just too damn cute:

http://my.opera.com/bcdc/blog/show.dml/298579

From the "News" article:

SICHUAN, China -- One zoo in southwest China has its hands full with 16 baby pandas. The Sichuan Wolong Panda Protection and Breed Center is dealing with the results of a breeding boom -- 16 pandas have been born since July, 2005. The brood includes five sets of twins. The cubs are weighed and measured every five days by a special panda nurse.The heaviest tips the scale at just over 24 pounds, while the lightest weighs about 11 pounds. The pandas are due to stop being suckled by their mothers in February, 2006 just about the time they'll start learning to walk. Once weaned, the panda cubs will attend panda kindergarten. In the meantime, more little ones are expected at the center, since 38 giant pandas were artificially impregnated.

"This is to advise you that all candidate assessments related to this process have now been completed. Unfortunately, the selection board found that you did not meet all of the qualifications for this position."

I feel like an absolute failure.

How hard is it to learn how to fire a gun?

No, I'm not about to shoot myself or anything stupid like that. I may be applying for a job with the Canada Border Services Agency, and Firearms Safety Certification is part of it, although they recommend you actually learn how to fire a gun as well as just theoretically learning how to be safe with guns. Which is almost easier said than done in Canada, but what the hey?

Yes, that's right, Canada may, in fact, be arming a lot of its Border officers. With more than pepper spray.

Feel free to email your answers to katcall 42 at hotmail dot com. Put something like "blogger" in the subject line so I don't delete it as spam.

So, due to the wonders of planned obsolescence, my laptop has decided to start falling apart.

All right, it's not that bad, but the 'U' key has popped off and refuses to pop back on properly again (ie: the clips have broken), so every third time I hit u now, the key pops off leaving me with a blank, empty space. And my card reader hasn't been working for a while but I can work around that. The 'u' thing, on the other hand.... Oy.

So I'm meant to be having my laptop shipped off in the next couple of days for repairs - it's either get them done now while they're under warranty or pay through the nose when I get home. I've not been entirely impressed with Toshiba's service to date, but it's this or nothing. I could probably replace the key myself but was kindly told that would probably invalidate the warranty (which expires at the end of Sept, I think). The card reader I can't do - so the slow death of my keyboard has prompted me to finally send it off for repairs.

So I may be posting from computer labs and whining incessantly about how hellish life is without my laptop/dvd player/stereo/television/internet access/communication module.

Just a warning.

It's over. Went up to Edinburgh AGAIN on Tuesday, although this time it was to meet my friend, A, whom I haven't seen in 7 years. We've definitely drifted apart - 12 years of living 3000 km away can do that to you, but it wasn't as awkward as I expected. Yay! We didn't do too much, which was fine - we ended up mostly wandering around on the Tuesday, watching the street performers, which was fine by me!

We went to see Macbeth Re-arisen, which was super! If anyone ever manages to get the chance to go see a production of it, I'd highly recommend it! It wasn't as much of a stretch as I thought it might be ("Macbeth?! Zombies?!"), and I laughed quite a lot before heading back to the U of Edinburgh for the night to sleep. Well, sort of sleep. I never sleep well when I'm away from home.

Wednesday we went to the National Portrait Gallery - saw the zillions of portraits of people, but the best bit was probably the Harry Benson exhibition. Benson is a photojournalist who started taking photos in the 50s and has continued since, and he's managed to be in some incredible places at some amazing times. The photos were awesome. We did the city bus tour, wandered through the Book Festival (meh... probably would have been better if we'd had time to go to the workshops/speakers, but other than that it was just a giant book sale... and I don't have that much money to spend on books at the mo) and the Film Festival (again, nothing on that looked particularly good) and the craft fair outside St. John's church.

Photo is of St. Cuthbert's church, with the Castle in the background.

Thursday we went to Mary King's Close, where the guide was incredibly sexy..., wandered down through Victoria Terrace and Victoria Street to the Grassmarket, up past Heriot school, and back 'round to the Museum of Scotland, where we took the "highlights tour". We spent most of the rest of the day shopping. I forget that some of the High Street stores here aren't available in Canada (seriously, I don't know what I'm going to do without Monsoon - not that I've been able to afford much from there with the Canadian dollar being all crap and such, but I've amused myself browsing on many an occasion... and Next... and Oasis...). I caught the train back to York at 9 p.m., and had an entertaining trip, as an NUFC game must have let out just before we got to Newcastle, and a whole swarm of black and white shirts poured onto the train (most got off at Durham and Darlington, which was nice - glad I didn't have to deal with them!).

Friday, A and her family were meant to be coming to York. She was going to call me when she got here, which shouldn't have been later than 1-ish. I finally called her dad at 4, who said that A and her brother had headed out to the Uni and had apparently misplaced my phone number. Fortunately she had the presence of mind to ask for me at the Porters' lodge, and at about 5 p.m. my landline rang, saying she was here. I showed her around campus (she's considering coming here for an MA in a few years) and the village and we walked back into town for dinner afterwards.

Saturday we started at York Minster. A and her brother were fairly interested in the whole thing, but they're not history geeks like I am. And I'm afraid that if you're not a history geek, York is sort of boring. So I rather imagine that A and H had a bit of a dull time here, to be quite honest, but I did my best. We went to Jorvik afterwards. I warned them it was cheesy, but they seemed to find the cheese funny, so it was all good. Then Amy and I went shopping, and did the walk around the walls of the city - some fantastic photo ops I never would have known about otherwise, like the one on the left - York Minster from the walls of the city. The evening was spent having dinner with her family again and then it was on to the Three Tuns for a couple of pints with A and H.

On Sunday we started out with a sightseeing bus tour of the city, which was more informative than I thought it would be, to be quite honest. Yah learn something new every day, I suppose, and I learned even more new stuff yesterday than I probably normally would have. We then went on to the York Castle Museum... Then did more shopping. Since everything in York closes at 5 on Sundays, we then did a boat tour, on which I learned a few more things and saw some stuff I hadn't seen before, then it was dinner again, and good-bye.

Today's a holiday in the UK, so I'm kicking back, resting my sore tour-guide feet, and then tomorrow it's back to my usual routine.

Hope everyone is well.

I need to get packing.

Three guesses as to where I'm going yet again.*

I'll be back on Friday.








*Hint: I was already there twice this month.

I don't know if everyone feels this way, or whether it's just me, but there is something particularly irksome about the vast majority of streetcorner buskers. I have a very modest amount of musical talent myself (which would probably be helped along if I practiced, but I mostly can't be bothered), and can recognize a talented musician when I hear one.

Hence, most buskers drive me nuts. They're not talented. They can play an instrument, but they don't know what to do with it to give it that special quality and head-snapping, double-take-inducing sound that I really love from musicians. Not only that, but a lot of them sit there sullenly looking like they don't really want to be there. They have no notion of performance. I would be one of these. This is why I haven't taken to singing on streetcorners. I'm good, but I can't connect with people just walking by that way. I have busked once, with hand bells, but that's a novelty that'll get anyone talking (seriously, where have you EVER seen a handbell group on a street corner busking?). But I digress

York is a haven for buskers. On the odd day you can walk by and count 8-10 acts in the city centre alone. Usually they're crap. There's the guy who plays the fiddle with the devil puppet on his knee... the dude who plays the harmonica and makes his dog bark along... the university students that aren't music students but just want some extra cash... The guy who plays nothing but the Beatles... I don't know if he counts as a busker, but the guy who's painted himself entirely purple and looks all windblown is there nearly every day in Stonegate... Oh, look what you can find when you search Flikr!


Today, as I walked through town, there was a kid with a trumpet and his ...[older brother?]... playing the keyboard to accompany him.

I went into Borders to purchase some fun fiction (Love in the Time of Cholera, in case you're interested, is what I walked out with), and emerged to the sound of trumpet. I thought it was the kid again. But, no, my musical spidey-senses were tingling. It wasn't just the sound of one trumpet, it was the sound of several brass instruments. I turned the corner past Betty's, and voilà! - three young men (about my age, and not too shabby-looking either, I must say, and there's something extremely hot about a guy with musical talent... but I digress again) were standing outside Betty's playing. And not just playing - playing well! There were dynamics, subtleties, nuances, emotions... So I sat and listened. Not only were they good musicians, but they also played the crowd quite well.

I know they'll never read this blog, but, hey, if ya do, know I really rather enjoyed myself and wish I could have heard more.

I Am Reading
Baudolino, by Umberto Eco

Having been asked about the axe incident mentioned in the last post, I started to write a loooong comment reply. Then I realized Blogger would just cut off the best bits of my reply, so new post it is!

So, UP, you did not miss any sarcasm. And if you know me from FEP, you can skip this, you've probably heard it a million times.

At work last summer part of my job involved chopping wood so that I could start a fire in my wood-burning stove to do things like.... oh... boil water to make tea. Bake. Heat the house in which I worked.

To chop kindling, one generally takes smaller logs, holds them upright, takes the axe (nope, not hatchet, full-size axe...) and taps at the edge until the axe causes the wood to just sort of sheer off on one side, so you get nice, thin pieces of wood.

This time, whilst chopping kindling it was at 5:30 in the evening when we were all tired and ready to go home... I tapped the admittedly quite narrow stick (but how else are you supposed to get nice, thin kindling?) with the axe a little too hard, the axe chopped the stick a little further than I was expecting. Yes, that's right. It slipped down to where I was holding the stick in my hand, between my index finger and my thumb, until a combination of friction from the wood and me dropping the stick as a reaction to the pain in my index finger stopped its motion.

It actually bled quite a lot. I was impressed. Thank god for those aprons we all wore all the time when doing domestic things. Mine became quite stained (thank god for Shout!), although if you didn't know where to look, you'd never have guessed (dark plaid... good for concealing blood). I learned that I'm mostly OK with the sight of my own blood, although after about 5 minutes I really did need to sit down.

It was quite humourous, actually, the reactions that everyone had. J immediately tried to get me to put her chickweed grease on it (um, no.) but I did let her wash it out with some herbal antiseptic she'd made. B was slightly more helpful and went for the First Aid Kit.

Interestingly enough, it took my supervisor an HOUR to get to me to fill out all the accident report forms and the like. I was thoroughly unimpressed.

I probably would have been fine, but every time I tried to un-bandage it, it would start bleeding again, so after calling my friend S in tears (she and I were supposed to meet for dinner that night, I was really quite upset that I wasn't going to be able to make it), I drove myself to the ER (yup, drove MYSELF... by the time I'd filled out those forms everyone else had left for the night) where I waited from about 7:30 until well after midnight to have the edges of my cut glued together - it was probably just as well I'd driven myself. Such is the Canadian medical system at the mo (see why I cancelled dinner instead of just postponing?). I got home to my 'rents place sometime between 1:30 and 2 in the morning. And had to get up for work the next day. Wee!

And you've not had fun until you've attempted to cover up modern bandaging and one of those stupid plastic finger condom things (not allowed to get the glue 'stitches' wet!) so that your injury looks historically accurately bandaged. The little bits of canvas on my hand looked FILTHY and DISGUSTING by the end of the day.

And that is all.

So I've figured out how to make my camera do in-focus closeups.

Amazing what reading the manual can teach you, eh?

I tried to take a pic of the scar on my finger from where I chopped myself with the axe, but I need to work on contrast before I manage to get a decent picture of that.

Instead, I decided to take a nice, detailed picture of one of the smallest objects I own. My I present my high school graduation ring.




Now if only I had better lighting...

**Please note that if you read this on Sunday, I've now added some photos below, due to the amazing awesomeness of "change date/time" of posts on blogger.**

My Saturday night was spent up in Edinburgh.

I met a friend, K, at about 5 p.m. We grabbed coffee at Starbucks, sat down on the curb on the Royal Mile, and chatted for a while, and she told me that she needed to be off to meet her boyfriend's parents. They were going to have dinner, then go see her boyfriend's show at the Fringe. She asked what I was up to until the tattoo began, and I told her not much, probably find a pub somewhere for dinner, maybe sit and read for a while, get a good spot in the queue... And I was promptly invited out for dinner at the Sheep Heid pub/inn in Duddingston, and to see as much of D's (the boyfriend's) show as possible.

That pub was INCREDIBLE! If you visited the website, it dates from at least 1360, which is great (the Golden Fleece, York's oldest known, is only from 1503), and it's small, cute and quaint inside. I fell in love and could have wandered around just staring at the photographs and knick-knacks all over the place.

D's parents were lovely, full of questions, conversation... And they wouldn't let me pay for my dinner! They said that they'd recently been in Canada and that they'd paid for almost none of their meals, the hospitality was that fantastic, and that there was no way they weren't going to return the favour, in spite of my protests.

A quick walk away was Duddingston Kirk Gardens (Ed. Fringe Venue 121 - absolutely flippin' beautiful!), where D was performing the role of Antonio in The Tempest. I only got to see the first half before I had to leave (where else but in Britain do you get a "tea tent" at intermission?!), and someone told me as I was running away "but you'll not find out how it ends!". I looked the man straight in the eye, smiled, and said "somehow, I think I'll figure it out...".

Took a cab from Duddingston to the Royal Mile.

I got there, and was faced with this:

Yup. See all those people? They lead up the Royal Mile from as far back as St. Gile's cathedral all the way up to the Castle. I'm always amazed at the logistics of the whole thing - they manage to get thousands of people onto the Esplanade and seated in about 45 minutes. It's incredible.

So. The tattoo. The core is military, with pipes and drums. I was having some issues with my camera, so I'm afraid the video has no sound (boo!!!!!! Boo-urns!!!!!). The best acts were probably the New Zealand Army Band for comic value (I don't know any other group of grown men in military uniform that will put down their instruments and dance around flapping their arms like ballerinas while the rest of the band plays excerpts from Swan Lake), while for impressive technical skill and 'holy shit that's awesome' value, the "Top Secret Drum Corps" from Switzerland were the best. Seriously, click on that link and watch the video - they're fucking amazing!

So then I took some video with my camera, to give you an idea of what I was watching...

Swiss Drummers:

Projections on the Castle:

The cast performing "Can you Feel the Love Tonight?"

The cast:

The lone piper:

So, this morning UK Police, Scotland Yard and MI-5 managed to foil an alleged terror plot to blow up half a dozen planes on the way from the UK to the States.

I have nothing really to say about the political implications, the international relations, etc. You can read about what's going on at

BBC News (United Kingdom)

CNN News (United States)

CBC News (Canada)

After reading all this, my biggest concern became this (and I'm sorry that my brain is so selfish and me-centred, but perhaps that's my way of dealing with this sort of thing):

If the new security measures continue through October 19, how the hell am I going to get my laptop home? I'm not about to trust it to a baggage handler at Heathrow, then some at Calgary, then one at Edmonton. No. Uh-uh. I've seen what they do to bags. No way. I may have to send it via DHL - I still have the box and padding from when I had to send it away for repairs.

Concern number two would be how I'm going to spend 8 hours on a flight without a book to read.

I'm such a bad person.

I Am Reading
Academically: Not a damn thing. Although I should really work on a paragraph of my dissertation. In fact, I think that's what I'll do now.
For Fun: Victorian London (Liza Picard).
Pile of Books on my Windowsill: Um... dunno... 6 or 7 (they're not all actually on my window sill at the moment)

So...

Like I said, my supervisor more or less liked my first draft of my dissertation. Yay! The problem is, however, that I don't know whether he hasn't pointed out all sorts of flaws because he just can't be bothered or whether it's because he actually thinks it's good. Or whether he thinks it's as good as my work is going to get. Either way, I don't have that much in the way of editing to do, so I've been sitting here with nothing to do most of the time.

I ordered a complete Seasons 1-7 DVD set of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but that still hasn't arrived (and if it hasn't by the end of the week, I'm cancelling the order - it's money that I could use on something else if the DVDs aren't going to be around - I've been waiting a month already because it was on back order... stupid Region coding... My laptop will only play me Region 1 DVDs so I can't just walk into HMV and buy something here. Frustrating!).

I've worked on some transcriptions for a genealogy project. In 1678, after St Paul's burned down, a whole bunch of parishes all over the UK got together and said, hey, let's have everyone contribute a few shillings to rebuilding St. Paul's.... and so there are lists of these donations, but they're all handwritten in 17th century handwriting - like this one:

So we've been transcribing them and uploading them onto the internet for other family history researchers to take a look at and use as a resource. But even that hasn't been taking up too much of my time, as I've only had a few parishes to tackle.

If you think you might have ancestors from Devon, UK, at the parish of Beaford from around 1678, their names might be on that list...

But, anyway...

I'm still volunteering a day a week at the Minster Library, so that consumes my Mondays, at least.

None of the clubs or anything are still running on campus, what with all of the undergrads gone home, so I have no more bells to play, and I can't even take an aerobics class without walking 45 minutes to get there, and that sort of defeats the purpose... I might as well just walk for 45 minutes. In that regard, I can't wait to get back to Edmonton.

I've been cross-stitching as well, but the problem is that I usually cross-stitch whilst watching TV or a movie or something... but I've not got a TV and I've watched all my DVDs, like, 5 times. I was told I should post some 'completed' shots... So here you go:

The first one is "Twilight Angel" by Dimensions Gold Collection. She's cute, she's fun, and she made me hate French knots even more than I already did.

The second one is an initial 'D' from the Book of Kells (now in Trinity College library in Dublin. Both are on aida, as I'm still getting over my fear of linens and the like. I have on the go a wedding present for my friend A who's getting married on September long weekend (it's so not going to be finished in time...) and one that a friend T sent me after she visited a few weekends ago as a thank-you gift. I'm going to owe her rather more bigtime soon enough, as she's going to be proofreading my dissertation for me and letting me come visit her in Cambridge later on this year. I'm looking forward to it!

I've also got a crochet sweater on the go, but I'm having a bitch of a time with the neckline, so i might give up for a bit (I've ripped it out three times already and don't really want to have to rip it out again).

So, yeah, if I'm not blogging very often it's 'cuz, as I mentioned a few posts ago... I've not got a lot to say. I'm taking boring to a whole new level these days.

You can almost hear the Celine Dion in the background, can't you...? The song they used for that god awful Air Canada commercial? Yeah, yeah, that one. *shudder*.

So, I got on the train, made it up to Durham, then the train stopped. I was worried. A train in front of us had broken down and was waiting for a tow. I was a little concerned. I gave myself a shitload of time to get from Waverly to the consulate (ie: about an hour for a walk that only takes 15-20 mins), but was nonetheless concerned. The last bloody thing I needed after all the fucking hassle to set this damn thing up was to have my train be late and me miss or have to reschedule the bloody thing. Luckily the delay was minimal, and I made it to the consulate with a ton of time to spare.

I was stuck in a small room (although they fed my sparkling mineral water!) that was unbelievably FREEZING! I curled up in the chair and I'm sure the people that walked by wondered who the hell I was and what I was doing huddled in a little ball in their office room. Esp. since I decided to be all classy and stuff and was wearing nice officy-business-y clothes in spite of the fact that the peeps in Canada definitely couldn't see me (you never know, could have been a video conference... it's happened before...). Then, they were late. Not too long, but late nonetheless. The phone call came about 10 after 3. It was fairly straightforward, the set of questions, although when they asked about a tough decision I'd worked through and how I did it, I foolishly decided to use the example of coming to England for my masters. I nearly started bawling in the middle of the interview, as I'm homesick to begin with, and describing the trouble I had leaving everyone behind to come over to this random country where I knew no one, etc... Oops. And this was right after I'd had to tell them how capable I was of being a cold bitch (yup, seriously... "sometimes the things we do are hard, heart-wrenching, but we have to do them anyway. Can you give us an example of a time when you've had to do something that was extremely hard, even though you might not have wanted to...?"

I'd prepared kick-ass answers for 'what is your greatest strength' and 'what is your greatest weakness', and they didn't ask. Argh!

But anyway. It was over by 4 p.m., including my questions about the selection process (which has changed since I last worked for the department), so I wandered around a bit, had dinner, and am now on the train back home to York. Yay WiFi! Yay GNER!

I Am Reading
Academically: My dissertation
For Fun: Suite Francaise/Plain Truth (by Jodi Picoult - I didn't bring Suite with me on the train so bought Plain Truth at Waterstones.
Pile of Books on my Windowsill: Unchanged

Went to see The Breakup in the cinema this evening. It was bad.

But, it got me out of my room and doing something other than thinking about the bloody fucking goddamn piece of shit interview tomorrow that suddenly has me unbelievably fucking nervous.

Now that I really think about it, this is only the third job I've really had to make an effort to get.

Dairy Queen - didn't even have to interview. Boss just asked her other staff what they thought of me (small town!) and I got the job.

Government - my parents both worked in the department in question. The interviewers knew me, and the interview was a formality. After the first summer I didn't need to interview again for the next two.

Alto section lead - My voice teacher knew I needed cash and offered me the position.

Admin Assistant pt. 1 - lived with my boss. Not in THAT sense. She lived down the hall from me in Residence.

Floor Coordinator - knew the people hiring me from the admin asst. job.

Visitor Services - this one I actually had to interview for with strangers.

Park Host - Boss-to-be was one of my VS coworkers. We could barely keep straight faces during the 'interview'.

Academic Guidance - strangers.

Admin Asst. pt. 2 - knew the people hiring me from my floor coordinator and admin asst. pt. 1 days. They'd practically begged me to apply when they heard I was interested.

Historical Interpreter - went through an interview as a mere formality - it was the same people who'd hired me two summers earlier as Visitor Services.

Volunteer Coordination Assistant - was asked to take the position by HI bosses, who knew I was looking for extra hours/cash for this whole going to school in England thing.

So, anyway, I really need to stop feeling sick to my stomach, suck it up, realize I'm completely competent and can do this job with the proper training (I almost did it summer #3 in government), know that if I don't get the job it isn't the end of the world and I can always be a barista at Second Cup, praying that the other job I applied for comes through for me (competition doesn't close until December 31, though, so I likely won't hear before then).

You may get another frantic "oh dear god I'm going to cry" post from me tomorrow as I'm taking the laptop to hopefully do some work on the dissertation on the train, and GNER has apparently equipped a bunch of its trains with WiFi.

Otherwise, wish me luck. And now I think I need to find some gravol or something similar, because I'm REALLY feeling nervous...

I Am Reading
You expect me to read when I'm this nervous? You're fucking kidding me, right? Fine, fine...
Academically: My dissertation - "Something snazzy here: Religion, authority and the public execution in Tudor England"
For Fun: Suite Française encore. Je pense que quand je retourne au Canada je vais essayer de trouver un version français... c'est très bon, ce que j'ai deja lu...
Pile of Books on my Windowsill: 6. Again with the skimming for pertinent information rather than the actual reading.

So. If there is something I have learned in life, it's that whining on my blog solves bureaucratic red-tape issues within a few days. Remember the passport issues? I blog about it and a few days later things work out. I blog about the job interview shit, and a few days later it works itself out.... If only my love life worked that way...

I received a phone call from the Honorary Consulate up in Edinburgh today, and they were more than happy to accommodate me. This means that my job interview is on Friday at 3 p.m. British time (8 a.m. Edmonton time). In Edinburgh. I just booked my train tickets. Luckily there were a few Saver Return tickets left, and so I'm not totally broke now (45 quid return! yay! That'd be about 90 bucks Canadian, in case anyone's interested).

They've now had the gall to tell me, though, that I might miss this selection round and have to wait until the next one since I won't be coming back to Canada until mid-October.

And they WON'T pay my travel costs. Stupid government. Or my cell phone bill. Bastards. But whatever. The pay's decent and the benefits are nice. And the job itself ain't half bad.

So I'm heading up on Friday morning and coming back on Friday night. After my interview I may try and find the B&B where I'm staying next weekend when I head up for the Tattoo...

So, wish me luck, folks!

So I got an email from the lovely folks at the government department for which I applied to work. Finally! Considering my interview was supposed to be LAST week, and this week is almost over... It basically said "Hi, Kate, we'd like to call you - is there an embassy or something nearby where you can go? We want the interview to be next week"

To which I replied, "Sure, there's Canadian High Commissions in London, Edinburgh and Birmingham, and it's about equally easy for me to get to any of those. But if you want, you can just call my mobile." And I gave them my phone number.

"That's great, Kate, but we need someone to confirm your identity, so can you make arrangments with the High Commission and get back to us with the number we'll need to call you at?"

So I called the High Commissions down in London. After much on-hold-ing and being passed back and forth (I was initially sent to the department for which the job interview will be, then to consular offices, who decided that since I didn't cause an international incident, they didn't want to deal with me, then back to the department in question), it was decided that London didn't want to have to start IDing random interview candidates and so they basically emailed the folks in Canada and politely told them to F off. I'm still waiting to hear Canada's reaction to this one.

This seems to be particularly problematic.

Edinburgh and Birmingham are just Honorary Consulates, so I'm not sure what facilities they have, and if LONDON isn't willing to accommodate me...

But that's just the start: what if I'd just given the folks back in Canada my land line number (which, ironically, is less reliable than my mobile in terms of connection quality when dealing with transatlantic calls) and gotten a friend to be the 'consular official'? Seriously, ANYONE could have taken the interview for me, and the lovely folks in Canada would have no way of knowing. Surely they should have arranged with one of the offices in London in advance and told ME where to be and when, and that I would need to take ID. I'm not their HR girl. Maybe if I was being paid by the government for any of my expenses in this matter, I'd feel differently, but right now I shudder at what a last-minute train ticket down to London or up to Edinburgh is going to cost me, knowing that there will be no reimbursement... not to mention the credit I've used up on my mobile making all these calls...

I'm now stuck, since my contact in Canada is out of the office until Monday. How great is that - 'let us know where to call you, but I'm not going to get your email until Monday anyway'. So that leaves me all weekend to agonize over this.

I don't know whether to start studying for this interview or not, since I have no idea when or where it would be. And I don't need my brain to be full of that for any longer than a couple of days - otherwise I need to be thinking about death and blood and burning.

Not to mention that the appeals process for competitions has changed, so if I don't get the job I can't even whine about what a shitty process the competition was, how badly organized, and how many loopholes there were.

My mother (who happens to work for the department in question) has offered to intervene and ask London again for me. I asked her not to, though, as I don't want to be seen whining to my mother (I will gladly whine to her in private, but I don't need her meddling in this). That would look really great, wouldn't it? The responsible, mature, self-starter's MOTHER had to arrange her job interview.

Oh, and my supervisor mostly liked my draft of my dissertation, so at least that's one thing to worry less about.


I Am Reading
Academically: Nothing. Nada. Zilch. And it's great! (Although I'll have to start editing soon...)
For Fun: Suite Française (Irène Nemirovsky) - I copped out, I'm reading the English translation.
Pile of Books on my Windowsill: 8 - Mostly unread, but skimmed for pertinent information.