Gone Fishin'

Yep. I'm a big ol' failure with blogging lately. Life has been pretty stable, and a little disappointing, so I have little content to write about. The most exciting thing that has happened lately has been watching reels of paper spin fiercely around on a ceiling fan, nearly causing pupil papercuts, so you can see why my blog has been full only of chirping crickets.

The big (and only) disappointment is that our house-buying plan is on stand-by (thanks, cushy job, for having a twelve-month probation period, forcing me to wait a year to be elligible for a mortgage). We were so close we could taste home ownership, and having it ripped away on a stupid technicality has been a tough pill to swallow, for myself in particular because it's my fault we're stuck waiting. I'm just in a period of mourning for a few more days before I start chugging away at the For Rent ads for September.

Adam, my lovely, awesome-not-just-because-he-did-the-dishes roommate is no longer my roommate. He's doing this whole "adult" thing, too, wherein he gets a career (!) that affords him living on his own in the nation's capital. The apartment is a little emptier, and things are a lot quieter as we're no longer a social hub.

We're all growing up. On the one hand, it feels like it's about damn time we're all responsible-like, thinking about the future and contributing to society (hello, taxes). On the other hand, I wish it still were the days we spent passing notes in class and loitering in the playground at night, when our main responsiblity was making sure no one got nabbed from the coppers doing their drive-by spot-checks.

Perks.

My job has awesome perks:
1. I could take any of the classes we offer for free.
2. The people I work with are awesome.
3. We sometimes take long office lunches and call them "morale building exercises."
4. Our boss heavily encourages office pranks.
5. Our regional boss wants to sanction weekly mini dance parties.


I also have an office assistant, like everyone in the office. Hector was assigned to me on my first day, and he hasn't left my side since. Hector is very valuable to me; not only does he wipe my monitor when it's dirty, he also sits at my desk and offers me advice. Yes, he even has his own ID pass.


Yesterday, he was especially useful because poor Ms. Piggy got sick and I was asked to make her a surgical mask, so I used Hector as a mannequin to fashion the mask before we gave it to poor Miss Piggy.



I love my job. It's not all fun and games, but it's nice to know that we can have some fun once in a while.

PS: You should meet Daisy the transgendered bullcow.

Homeward bound

I've been preocuppied lately. Not just with work, but with planning for the future. Being a grown-up is so much harder than I thought! You have to plan for stuff and take on responsibilities and be dependable. It's tough, man.

Of course, I'm not making it any easier on myself. See, we're buying a condo. Our lovely, dishwashing roommate Adam has, sadly, been called away to Ottawa to be a cog in the governmental wheel in a couple short weeks. There's no way the two of us want to continue renting our current place, especially after they told us they're increasing the rent by the end of our lease. So, the past couple of months we've been weighing our options, and we decided to stop renting and dive in to buying our own place.

"It'll be an investment," we say. "We'll build credit and build our finances for the future." We tell ourselves that it makes more financial sense, to be paying less money toward something that we own instead of throwing our hard-earned cash into a hole. You know, all those smart reasons that come with Big People Decisions. Of course, for me, the big drawing points bouncing around in my head are, "I can paint! I can buy new furniture! I can decorate!" Numbers and rates and mortgage information are competing for headspace against paint samples and colour palettes, and whether to go for a contemporary or modern decor. (Yes, there is a difference.)

I've been spending most of my free time browsing through the MLS site and preparing to contact financial branches and realtors. It doesn't help that I've fallen head over heels in love with a condo here in Halifax based solely on a few drive-bys and their online listing. And the fact that it has a dedicated dog park. And an in-building gym. And a fireplace. And a deck. And, and, and... we're jumping the gun a little, but I wish so much we could skip the financial finagle part of the process and go straight to the moving in stage.

Maybe I can force myself to put down the paint chips and blog instead. I think tomorrow I will introduce you all to Hector.

Yawn.

Every where I turn today, everyone seems to be in quite a panic about this Swine Flu that is spreading from Mexico City. Personally, I think it's a little huffed and puffed and blooooown out of proportion*, but I'm still going to wash my hands a little more frequently and smell like Eau de Purel for a bit, just to be on the safe side.

What no one seems to be discussing is the rise in something that is gripping the blogging world: Blog Fatigue. I've been afflicted by it, and every time I open my reader, there's at least one more blog with a "gone fishing" post to explain an upcoming or ongoing hiatus. Bloggers are dropping like flies, and I'm wondering if I should start quarantining Google Reader before I get too desperate and start heading to Metro News for something to read.

What seems to be the reason behind this ? Has blogging passed its peak in popularity, now that there are too many people competing for audiences to read about The Jonas Brothers and terrible transit systems? Could it be that microblogging tools like Twitter, now somehow rendered mainstream by Oprah's blessing, are making the longer format of expressing our every whim take too much effort? Or could it be something simpler, like warmer weather making us pale-faced zombies wake up and acknowledge that we need to abandon our computers and seek more Vitamin D?

I don't have the answers. All I know is, I can't be arsed to write these days, and too many of my favourite bloggers are dropping out of sight and leaving me with nothing to read at work during downtime. Too bad we couldn't ask for a government bail-out to send every blogger on a "blogosphere morale boost" retreat.** Cristal served at the swim-up bar and Swedish massages on the beach for everyone. What say you, Prime Minister Harper? Oh, right, blogging falls under the Arts and Culture banner. There goes that idea.

*Yeah, I went there.

** Oh, wait, that's called the 20SB Meet-Up I won't be able to attend...

Happy Blog Swap Day!

(Today is the 20SB Blog Swap! You can find me over at John's blog today!)

Greetings Pants Folk! This is John from Phampants. Jenn & I are participating in the 20 Something Bloggers Blog Swap 4! You can read her blog post at my blog. But before you do that, I hope you enjoy my post as I share to you part of my experience during my trip to Australia last summer.

Reason #21 Why I Can Never be Australian

Vegemite.

I never heard of vegemite until watching Caitlin Hill’s (aka theHill88) video about Vegemite over two years ago. She wonderfully demonstrated to the whole YouTube community how one should properly eat vegemite. She got me curious enough to wanting to try it.

Aussies eat this as if it was butter. I’ve heard otherwise from other people that it’s the vilest thing they ever tasted. Then I saw Mr. Safety’s Vegemite spoon prank video; let’s just say I was preparing myself for the worse. Apparently, Americans do not have the acquired taste for vegemite. However, I’m very open and daring into trying new things.

So I was with MOzzie and Mordini in Sydney at a Sycthian concert. While the band was setting up for the show, we ventured into the free snacks room. Waiting for me there was my sought after vegemite. I had to try it. I want to prove to myself that Americans can enjoy something like vegemite.

Two lovely Australian girls were kind enough to explain to us the wonders of vegemite. They would say that vegemite brings back happy childhood memories. Vegemite is not only good for you, but it tastes good too. I was sold.

The girls kindly prepared the Australian delight for us. They warned us that there’s a good chance that we wouldn’t like it since we were Americans. However, we politely told them that we were into trying new things. Then we took a whiff of it.

OH MY!

Seeing how actions are more powerful than words, why don’t you watch and see how we reacted to the wonders of vegemite.

To better staple those TPS reports with.

Easily, the best part about starting school each year was the purchase of brand new school supplies. Who didn't relish individually labelling each newly-sharpened coloured pencil? Who didn't love the look of the crisp white corners of a new Staedler eraser, waiting to erase its first error? Who didn't buy different coloured pens and designate each colour to a different subject? Was that just me? Maybe I sniffed one too many Staedler Lumocolor marker in my youth.

I'm the kind of gal that uses different coloured Post-It notes for my messages--yellow for lists, pink for phone messages, blue for reminders--and

So, working at a school within the government has given me a wealth of office supplies to sniff play with. However, my boss just became my favourite person in the world; she dropped off a office supply catalogue and told me to order what I want. My only complaint is that it's not the Think Geek catalogue, because the Staples catalogue doesn't offer Swingline staplers in red.

What kind of office supplies would you order? Pretty much half the Think Geek catalogue is on my wish list.

Noticeable.

I've started settling in to my new job, here. Since it's my first Real Adult Job (forget the three years I spent goofing off at the travel agency), and I'm the youngest in the office, I wanted to make sure that I will be taken seriously.

First off, I made sure that I had enough clothes that weren't t-shirts with M*A*S*H logos and hem-ripped jeans. It was hard to part with the comfort of my skull-patterned brown skate shoes, but my new work shoes have little stars and bows on them for a nice compromise.

Then I moved on to decorating my little space. I wanted people to get a sense of who I am, but covering my workspace with Star Wars bobbleheads and BSG memorabilia would probably send the wrong message. No one here needs to know how much of a nerd I am so soon. So, I chose some minimally-dorky photos of some of my friends and framed them. I was given an awesome framed photo of fall leaves to also hang on my desk and to show that I know what nature is, even if I don't like surrounding myself in it. Aside from the few biting sarcastic comments I let slip from my newly guarded tongue, the only obvious signs of my quirky behaviour are the wooden cat statue I have perched above my computer, next to where my framed ModDog cat print will hang. I'm hoping it exudes more "hip pet lover" than "crazy cat lady." These are all safe conversation pieces.

Showing off part of my personality without scaring them off with my abundant nerdiness: Check.

On Thursday, there was an all-staff video conference called for every office in the Atlantic region. The first order on the agenda was to introduce new personel (me) to the rest of the staff. I practiced the understated head nod/hand wave combo to reduce my chances of making a fool of myself and branding me as a shmuck in front of every branch employee and my superiors. Little did I know that my manager had other plans to make sure that everyone would remember me as the new girl. I was introduced to the group, yes, but I also had to wear a bright orange and purple foam masquerade ball mask for part of the meeting.

So much for being taken seriously. Too bad hiding under office desks isn't part of my job description.

On Friday, the cool girls asked me out to lunch with them. I guess in an office that boasts personal mascots for everyone, a little masquerade mask wearing isn't going to deter my office mates from befriending anyone. Maybe I will bring in my Starbuck action figure to work tomorrow.