Circular Motion

Then: I was feeling trapped in a job with no immediate career path out of it, with little to no direct supervision or direction from my boss, trying desperately to get rid of my company laptop, thinking that the only long term solution would be to pursue a Certified Associate in Project Management or Project Management Professional designation and move into the Project Management field, but not feeling overly excited about it.

Now: I am doing a job that I mostly love, although it has no immediate career path out of it. My supervisor sits in an entirely different building, so I talk to her every couple of weeks or so, and get very little direction from her. However, when I do get a chance to talk to her, she's awesomely supportive, and freaking hilarious. I have just requested and received a company laptop, so that if it snows like crazy, I can still get my work done instead of calling it a day and going back to bed. Finally, I have just been approved to take an intro to Project Management course, 'cause I think that's the career direction I want to go in.

It's interesting how sometimes the more things stay the same, the more they change.

Making a brighter day

I've been thinking all morning about what I should write about today. Do I write about Barack Obama? Do I write about my disappointment that Prop 8 in California passed? Do I write about my feelings about politics, and the state of the world?



Do I write about the fact that my weigh-in yesterday didn't show me the numbers I wanted, or that I've stepped up my exercise, or that I need to remember to find my tape measure so that I can track my quest for a healthier body that way? Do I write about my struggle with not labeling my food choices as good or bad, and working on not being ashamed of the food choices I make?



Well, at some point, I'll likely write about all of it (and I was worried I wouldn't have anything to say! Ha!), but today didn't feel like the right day for an in depth look at any of it, as I'm suffering from a bit of an emotional hang-over. So I wondered, what the heck would I write about?



Then, around about 10:30 this morning I wandered into the kitchen at work to rinse out my yoghurt cup and I saw the woman who does the cleaning in my office building. I am ashamed to say that I don't know her name, but we have been exchanging pleasantries every weekday for the past six months. When she was gone for two weeks a couple of months ago, I worried that I wouldn't see her again, that she had been transferred to a different building. When she came back, I told her that I had missed her, and found that I meant it. She had been on vacation to South America, her place of birth, to see her family. It was the first time she'd been home in fifteen years, and she told me how much she enjoyed seeing her mother and siblings, and her daughter who had stayed behind when she came to Canada.

This morning, she said to me "You weren't here last week, and I missed you." It brightened my day to know that I am a part of her world, in the same way that she is a part of mine. I think that tomorrow I will introduce myself properly.

ETA on Friday: her name is Marta.

Personal Vending Machine

One of the perqs at work is that we have subsidized vending machines (yes, this is actually listed as a perq in our benifits rundown). This means that instead of paying $1.10 for a bag of chips or a chocolate bar that takes me 1.5 seconds to inhale, we only have to pay fifty cents. Which is great...except that I have been spending up to $1.50 a day on junk, resulting in me feeling bad about myself (food issues, yay!), and also throwing away my spending money.

My friend suggested I set up a personal vending machine instead. I have stocked my desk with some small cans of tuna, 100 calorie granola bars and chippy things, weight watchers cakes, and some cheese and crackers thingers. I also brought in a coffee can, and put a photo of the Slayer Scythe on it. Every time I want a snack, I pay myself the fifty cents, and hopefully by next year I will have collected enough to buy the replica to hang on my wall.

Excellent Perqs!

So the new company I work for isn't giving us a Christmas party this year.

Instead, they booked the Air Canada Centre in Toronto for a private concert.

The Tragically Hip

And Van Halen!

They were both fantastic! Traffic getting into Toronto was super stupid so we missed about half of the Hip, but we still got to hear Bobcaygeon and 100th Meridian, and I found out from people who got there before us that they didn't play either of my favourite songs before we got there, so I don't really feel like I missed anything.

At intermission we discovered that we'd been sitting in the wrong section! That's why the photo of the Hip is at a different angle than the other ones. As it turned out our actual seats were even better than the ones we accidentally stole. I couldn't figure out how to get the BlackBerry camera to zoom in more, so it looks like we were farther away than we were. The seats we had would have cost over $200 each at a regular concert!

For a group that's been playing since 1972, Van Halen is still just so fantastic! I actually think they may be better musically now that they're living less of the "rock star" kind of live. David Lee Roth and Eddie Van Halen are in phenomenal shape (one was in leather pants, the other shirtless - my friend Leslie was thrilled!), and David can still get those high-kicking split jumps going! Eddie's 16 year old son is touring with them playing the bass. From his stage presence he seems shy, but wow! what a talent that kid has! And I can only imagine how amazing it must be for him and his dad to be touring together, and sharing this passion.

This is Leslie being thrilled. *grin*

The drummer (Alex Van Halen, Eddie's elder brother) did a 15 minute drum solo that I thought was going to be the highlight of the night. Then David told a story and sang while playing an acoustic guitar, and I thought that was going to be the highlight. THEN, Eddie did a 20 minute lead guitar solo that, well, as Leslie said "I didn't know it was possible to make that many different sounds with one instrument!" It was awesome, in the proper sense of the word. They saved "Jump" for the encore, and pretty much everyone in the stadium (14000 people) were on their feet for it.

It was definitely better than any Christmas party could ever be!