So.

The show is over. At least for me. It was good times, helping out backstage for some friends. I learned a lot about how a more professional theatre production than my grade 11 play functions - it was fabulous! Hopefully I can work on some more productions in the future.

Tomorrow I leave for San Francisco. I don't have much planned - I get to see radiohead while I'm there. Possibly the only band I would literally pay an arm and a leg to go see. But I only paid for plane tickets to SF, the concert ticket, and food and such while I'm there.

It's going to be great! I'm so looking forward to it. This is the first summer vacation I've had since I was in grade 11. I've always been working. Or working on a dissertation. While I've had time off, and breaks, I've never had a SUMMER break. Summer after high school - working. Summer after that, working. Summer after that, working. Summer after I finished my degree? Working. Summer after I finished my second degree? Working. Sure, while I was in the UK I made a point of taking some time off and doing fun things (a weekend here, a week in Ireland, a month backpacking when I was done my dissertation - and yes, the week in Ireland was the first real holiday I'd had since starting university), but during the summer, I was still working on my dissertation.

I shall post photos when I return!

Ladies and gentlemen, yesterday was my last day at my previous job.

I am now off on two weeks' worth of glorious vacation time before commencing the new job. YAY! I asked the folks at work to keep my departure low-key, and they definitely complied (thanks to them for that - although none of them read this blog!), although I still walked away with a small fortune in Chapters gift cards to fuel my bibliophilic addiction.

I can tell I needed the vacation pretty badly. Last night after work, I started to feel a bit ill. So I took a quick nap, but I'd promised a friend that I'd be at her birthday celebrations down one of the major bar-filled streets here in town, and had to be there to meet her around 6:45 p.m. We had dinner, and the stomach wasn't feeling any better. And the exhaustion was setting in. So by the time 9:30 rolled around, I was nearly falling asleep in my chair (after all, it was past my bed time!). A headache was also starting to develop.

They moved from the nice Irish pub where we started to another bar nearby near 10:30 or 11. No air conditioning. Pounding music. I couldn't take it. I mean, I'm not the sort of person who goes out drinking and dancing, getting horribly hammered and doing stupid things to begin with... but throw in the heat and the noise and the fact that I wasn't feeling well to begin with - it was either get out or pass out. I left and was home by about 11:30. I felt like ass. And I felt like AN ass. I've missed this particular friend's birthday several years in a row now due to whatever circumstances have popped up, and was really trying to make an effort to go out and enjoy this one. I know she was really disappointed when I left and now I have to figure out a way to make it up to her...

My Templar Knights that I adored so very much a few posts back are unfortunately out of my price range.

I maybe would have spent up to 125 Euros plus shipping, but they're going for 190, and I can't justify spending that on a stuffed toy. Especially when I need to buy a new printer.

Ah well. Maybe some day.

For now I shall have to pine away in longing...

Ever wanted to update your facebook status to say what you were really feeling, but then decided it probably wasn't a good idea to broadcast those thoughts to the world?

Yeah, so have I.

And yet I'm going to do it anyway, 'cuz it needs to happen somewhere.

The Tudor Rose:

• Is sick of sleeping alone
• Does not necessarily think that your kids are cute
• Is ridiculously happy that you're happy, but is still so jealous she could cry.
• 's feet stink
• Has the worst cramps she's had in a long time (apologies to any male readers)
• 's office is a revolving door - so many people are leaving (and no wonder!)
• is #*&^%& #)*@#$&
• Could not care less
• Wishes that certain of her coworkers would just stay on vacation
• needs you to get off you bloody high horse.

Having said all that, I'm doing pretty good these days. My work life is more or less balancing my social life. I've met the guy who will be my boss in a month and a half, and he seems pretty cool. I'm going to get to set my own hours in the fall, so as long as I average out 37.5 hours/week over every 2-3 weeks, I can keep working a compressed schedule. I know how it works so I get a day off every two weeks, so w'ell see if that works. :) I only have 15 more business days left at my current place of employment! Woohoo!

And it's the type of place where they won't care if I'm 15 minutes late coming back from lunch so long as I make it up somewhere else. Magnolia, that means we can start doing lunch again in September!

I went to Taste of Edmonton twice (ok, granted, the second time was just after work today to get some Green Tea Ice cream, 'cuz I don't get to Kyoto much...).

I'm looking forward to some amazing Indian cuisine at a coworker's place tomorrow evening, hosting an event on the History of Beer down at FEP next week, and having Friday off next week to go get a massage and my hair done.

I have the last two weeks of August off. I figured I'd be doing nothing of particular importance, so I volunteered to help out with a friend's Fringe show - that'll be superfun!

It's a little under a month before I head to San Francisco for a 4-day vacation, and I get to see Radiohead while I'm there! My favouritest band ever! And then I get to do some more vacation-y sorts of things, and then I start the new job.

Things aren't perfect, but they're pretty damn good.

So I went to the cemetery. I was there for more than two hours. I went into the mausoleum. And it didn't really freak me out too much.

Or so I thought.

I did wake up about 3 in the morning, thoughts racing, heart beating quickly, breathing rapidly, thinking about that damn cemetery.

But it was nowhere near as bad as last year.

I was able to fall asleep again pretty quickly, and while I didn't get ask much sleep as I would have liked last night, I think I'll be able to do this.

I've asked to be the principle tour guide's backup, so I probably won't have to do the tour much more than once or twice more this summer, but it's reassuring that I can actually hold it together long enough to do it.

Even if I do have to drug myself to sleep afterwards.

So, I've gone back and looked, but I didn't blog about it.

A year ago today, I was having a bitch of a time. It was ridiculously hot outside, I wasn't sleeping properly, I was trying to balance three jobs... It was roughly a year ago (I don't have the date marked in my calendar or anything, but I know it was around the middle of July) that I got as close as I had ever been to a nervous breakdown.

I finished a cemetery tour, walked home, had a bath, went to bed... I couldn't sleep. For the umpteenth night in a row. My mind was racing, and my stress manifested itself in an intense paranoia of the mausoleum at the cemetery - it was like a malignant presence had followed me home and wouldn't let me rest. At about 2 a.m., I wrote an email to my boss and quit the cemetery tour contract. At about 4 a.m., still not able to sleep, I called in sick to work for the day. At about 8 a.m., I called my mother at work and arranged to meet her for lunch. I ended up sitting at a picnic table near Winston Churchill square munching on Taste of Edmonton Food, across from my mother, and bawling my eyes out. I made arrangements to sleep in their basement as much as possible for the next few weeks. The day after, I went and saw my doctor, who prescribed sleep aids to be taken on a short-term basis (there were 15 pills in the bottle, now, a year later, I've still got 9 left...). I slowly got better. With sleep and only trying to balance two jobs, I felt relaxed again.

My cemetery tour boss was quite understanding. I've been blessed with supervisors that are wonderful and empathetic. My supervisor at the U was the same.

Nevertheless, another summer is looming, and I have signed myself up to work cemetery tours again. I would like to say that I'm not terrified. I would like to say that I'm confident I can do this and that it won't negatively affect me. After all, I'm getting good sleep this summer (yay air conditioner!), I'm not trying to balance three jobs, I have a social life, I know that I have friends and family that are there to support me.

But that's one of the catches of having a mental illness, I suppose. Whenever I feel achy or tired, I wonder if I'm falling back into depression. Whenever I think of the cemetery and the mausoleum, my confidence takes a nosedive and I wonder if I'm really up for it. So far I'm only scheduled to be there one night, and with someone else, so we'll see how it goes. I'm trying to convince myself that I will kick this things ass and get past it. After all, the way to tackle a phobia is to face it and deal with it, right?

Either way, good vibes would be extremely welcome for me from about 7 - 8:30 on Wednesday night. And if you're interested, there's a super-awesome tour of Edmonton Cemetery (117 Street and 107 Ave) this Wednesday at 7 p.m. for only $5.

I think I'm in love. No, seriously. This also proves just how nerdy I am, but I don't care.

A friend of mine posted on facebook that she had discovered these guys. And I want one. I really really really really want one. Or many. But one will do.



Behold....




The Knights Templar!




More information on these guys can be found HERE.