confessions of an A.R. person...

Hi there folks, Some of you have made a few pointed jabs at the fact that I have not been updating my blog at all in the last few months. I keep meaning to get to it (to the point of pencilling it in my calendar), but as of yet have not. I have about 10 posts that I created titles for, some which I have made notes for, none of which are finished... I have a problem, I can't bear to have a big gaping hole of 3 months missing in my blog, and because of this, I am overwhelmed and unable to get past the looming sense of dread and actually write a post! Is that A.R. (which stands for anal retentive, a phrase I picked up in BC this last visit) or what? It bugs me that my archive doesn't have at least one entry for each month! I feel at least somewhat justified in my not posting because my life has been the craziest, and most hellish experience ever this past semester (school & personally), BUT the gaping hole also reminds me that I am failing miserably at leading the balanced life that I strive and ache to create. It is time to take action: I am going to resolve this problem by turning one of said titles into a published post every weekend. You are going to hold me to it. At the end of this I will feel better, and then I will set up some kind of goal or schedule for new posts. On a lighter note: I have gotten back all my marks from last term. I had straight A's!!!!! I have to say that this is a complete act of God because I was really having the worst time of my life. My head & heart were not in school mode, I didn't read textbooks, could hardly take notes, was just generally distracted and listless. I should not have gotten A's based on my diligence with school, and yet I got better marks than I normally do when I'm working hard and reading all my textbooks. So, praise God! (and thanks for teaching me the lesson that it's ok to let loose sometimes & not hold everything together, You really are Big Enough!) Disclaimer: I want you all to know that while I like to have at least a B in all of my classes, I do not cry myself to sleep when I don't achieve that, I have gotten some lower grades that I was quite proud of because I knew that I had worked hard and put in all that I had.

ice skating...

Ok, so this winter Michael and I had a new past time...ice skating. We managed to find my skates this summer (at my parents, where we had looked at least twice before) which had been missing since I moved home to BC in 2004. Michael also got a very very nice pair of skates for Christmas courtesy of myself and some gift money from his boss. (thanks Roger!) Anyway, since skating is free in Winnipeg on the river, we went whenever we could and whenever I didn't wimp out because of the cold. And, we skated in Austin quite a few times, thanks to Michael's Mom who bought a family pass for the season. So, guess what!?! I finally learned to stop! I feel much better about skating now that I don't feel like a mortal threat to everyone on the ice who might possibly get in my way. If you look carefully at the picture above you will see a circle that my skates made in the ice, that's how I used to stop, but spinning in a circle. Here's a clip to prove that I really can stop. (sorry that there's no river skating pictures...we are not very good at using the camera, even when we do remember to carry it with us!)

second week of classes...

Well, classes for my final semester as an undergrad student have begun. I am taking four courses that I think will provide a good mix of subjects. I realize I may bore some of you with this, but I find it interesting, so here we go. I am taking a Small Business Finance course, which I expect will have some personal application some day down the road (Michael would like to be his own boss again, and even I am entertaining the idea of running my own business as a professional organizer). Our major project for this course is to write a buisness plan, my group has chosen to do one for a self-storage company. I am also taking Consumer Behavior which is a continuation of the marketing course I took in the summer. I have the same prof which makes it really nice to know what to expect. This is course is pretty introductory, but it's interesting even if it is pretty easy in terms of course load. The course I was probably least interested in is the Family Violence course I'm in, this is also a second year course and I'm in it because it fit in my schedule and filled up the credits I still needed to get. The class has actually been better than I thought, although it's tough material to digest in terms of clinical descriptions of the types of abuse and so on (I have found this course harder to process than the death & dying course from last term). The prof provides excellent skeleton notes in powerpoint in class, so it's very easy to take good notes. For this very reason, I decided to be a volunteer notetaker with disability services, I scan and email my notes to them and they pass them on to a student in my class that needs assistance with notetaking. It is quite the motivation to take good, legible notes, and be in class everyday. And, last but not least is Pattern Development! I had no idea what this course was really about, I just registered for it because it is a course that I am required to take. It is a hands on drafting course. The first day of classes we were each assigned a dress form and we've measured them and will be developing actual patterns for clothing from the measurements and designing different garment patterns. It's been pretty interesting and relatively easy because of the sewing background that I have. The terminology and contruction techniques are familiar to me, which is a big advantage, some of my classmates are struggling. So, that's my courses in a nutshell. I think it will be a good term! For now, I must sign off, we're having pizza for supper tonight and it's time to get started!