Why I'm going to be wearing turtlenecks for the next few days.

For work, I have a key I have to carry around. It goes to my cashbox, and to reduce the chance I loose it I wear it on a lanyard. All nice and logical, no? Well, logical if you're me. If you're not me you might carry the key with your car keys or something. Anyhow, being me, I choose to carry mine on a lanyard, around my neck. 

Then this evening, after five hours at work, one of the Brownies asked why I had green on my neck. Me: "Green?" *runs for the washroom* My first thought, given my prior history, was that I had poked at my sore neck with a green indelible marker. But no, the truth was much more subtle and devious than that. Instead, the lanyard had diabolically decided to leave a line of corroded metal around my neck. It's just about the colour of copper that's been left outside for five years, and shows up nicely on my pasty skin. For those who do not have quite my skin tone, that is also the colour that bruises make after they've started to heal. As one of the leaders said, "it looks like you had something around your neck and someone really yanked it off."

Which leads me to postulate that high collars are totally in this month. All the best people are (going to) be wearing them!

"There has never been anything false about hope?"

We've been talking politics at the breakfast and supper table again, which is lovely. Nothing like a healthy dose of cynicism and conspiracy truth to make you cheery! *big grin* On a totally unrelated note; to my friends in the states, we have a spare room in the house and a lot of places in town are hiring! We could hang out! Ahem.

Moving right along...

My brain has been feeling muzzy for days, but on Monday it really got bad, due to a touch of the flu that's going around. By bad, I mean I was having serious difficultly telling reality from imagination. By process of elimination I'm pretty sure the time in line in Toronto Airport was not real. But other than the physically improbable events, I kinda have no idea what I did. If I talked to you on Monday, I'm sorry. I don't know what I said. *cough* But then I slept for fifteen hours and now I'm fine! *is normal and borderline sane*

What else is new? Oh, I'm starting to think about what I might possibly do after I pay off my debt! One big option is to go to a university. My year at Augustine is worth a year and a half on transfer in at least one place, which is quite good. However, I'm not really a big fan of the post-secondary to get a high paying job school of thought. For one thing, I'm not really feeling called towards any degree program that does promise high wages upon graduation, and I don't think I have the dedication or talents to get my doctorate and teach within a college. Which leaves the earn-a-philosophy-bachelors-to-get-a-high-paying-job option. Somehow that's not calling me very loudly either. However, someone, (you probably know who you are,) pointed out that you can ALSO go to university for the pure joy of learning! *vistas of joy open up*

And then, I looked at costs and asked some people in University their opinion of it from the inside. I'm looking at about fourteen thousand a term, with tuition, living expenses, books, travel, and occasional entertainment. *enthusiasm dampens somewhat* Moreover, the reaction from most of the people I asked about university from the inside was "good idea to go back to school! (watch out for debauchery.)" *enthusiasm dampens more* It was rather startling how uniform the reactions were, really, after being adjusted for dialect and personality. 

So now I'm leaning more towards option two; Backpack across Europe! It costs less, with the right travel companions you learn as much, and it makes for much better photo albums. Also I want to clamor around in castles again. And I could learn languages! *enthusiasm is fanned to full flame* Does anyone want to come with me? You don't need a Visa!

Yesterday I walked to the other end of town and back, which is a fun walk. (The turn around point is Tim Horton's, for one.) I decided to be wild and crazy and wear my lovely new red coat and my pin-striped fedora, so I got a lot of stares. I do tend to dress a little different from the average citizen of this town, it's true. Walking out of Tim's was especially amusing, given all the puzzled and/or shocked eyes on my back. I was also wild and crazy in that I was carrying my camera, so here are a couple pics of my walk! (The order got jumbled, I'm not sure why.)

The Government Wharf

Busy Downtown!

Yes, we have proper snow clearing equipment. 

Yes, those are rabbits, hanging off a step ladder. 

"Is this my thing?" "Sam, put down the poker!"

Let's see, what's going on? Let me think... Oh! Yes. Mommy and Daddy and Fraulien have gone into town for the weekend, so I'm in charge of the house. *chortles* The small ones are all being farmed out to family friends this evening, so it will be just the Walrus and I tonight, tomorrow, and Sunday morning. Should be interesting, no?

I will admit to being primarily frightened by the prospect of keeping the fires going, and managing the circulators for the radiant heating, but I made it through one night, and I can make it through two more, no? Yes, to anyone I was freaking out at on the internet last night, we did all survive, with absolutely no frostbite. 

"You tell us if you have any issues, okay?"

I gave blood for the fourth time yesterday. Thankfully, this donation continued the trend of my third donation, and didn't hurt. I mean, if it's at all possible, I'd prefer not to be clenching my jaw and counting heart beats for fifteen minutes. :D Fraulein came as well, but unfortunately since she had a cold they wouldn't let her donate. This continues her string of bad luck, since last time she had a reaction and had to lie down for half an hour. I mention this only because we look alike, as also previously mentioned. 

Moreover, Fraulein has a medium skin tone. Myself; on a good day I'm approximately the colour of a saltine cracker. (Complete with speckles.) This led logically to the nurses and volunteers asking me if I felt all right- every two or five minutes- for an hour. *takes a deep breath* But despite looking like I was going to keel over any second, I felt fine! I even walked home over the back hill. :D

Wow, I also had an epic laughing attack that morning. I say epic, because I really couldn't stop laughing, despite the fact it hurt! I was crying primarily from pain by the end of it, but I still couldn't stop chortling. Twas very strange. 

There you have it, the news of the day.

"Extra-Curricular Girl meets Audio/Visual Man- no, that's really not cliche."

I fell down the stairs today. This has led me to realize I have one of two reactions to falling any distance. I either a.) Laugh, or b.) Get Angry. Today's incident was of type b, for no discernible reason. But there was no lasting damage to either me or the steps, so I think we're good. Oh, I also walked through town and looked for birthday presents for those my friends who have upcoming birthdays, (you know who you are.) However, when I realized I was seriously considering red alligator-clips, I decided it was time to go drink Chai at Tim's and wait for Fraulein and Mommy. They met me ten minutes later, and we had a jolly conversation about many things. Who we would be if we were superheros came up, for instance. Hence the quote which is my title. :D

Life has been ticking along, even without me chronicling it. There just hasn't been a great deal I've felt compelled to talk about. I'm back at work, which has been fun, in a work-ish way. I've been learning about the new Visa chip cards- to replace the old magnetic stripe-signature ones- and about stop payments on money orders and such. I'm continually amazed at how much goes on behind the scenes in banking. Not that I even see most of it, but I'm learning about it! 

Last night we watched First Daughter, which was fun. Fraulein and I watched Chasing Liberty in St. John's, which has basically the same plot, but is much much worse. FD is actually mildly believable, for example, with characters who act like real people might, and recognition of morals. Hmmmm. I was going to talk about the movies, but now my brain has just gone into caffeine low and I am thinking in words of one syllable. So that's not going to work.

But I'm still alive, in case anyone was wondering, and life continues!

"Oh everyone believes/ in how they think it oughta be/ oh everyone believes/ and they're not goin quietly.."

As you may have noticed, last night was New Year's Eve. The night for ROWDY PARTIES. Following in that honourable tradition, my family watched Wall-E. And to top it off, we had popcorn. Living on the wild side, I know. Then Fraulein and I watched Stick It, which was entertaining. In retrospect, if has occurred to me that I've never actually gone to a "New Year's Party." Probably because I've gone to very few parties in general. Ahem. But after the countdown, I happily received a phone call from Em, Moon Unit, and Moon Unit's friend Zaktrik. They're in EST, so they had an hour and a half to spare for chatting, which was very fun. Though I'm afraid, due to the hour, I wasn't very coherent. *offers apologies*

Something that I forgot to mention, is that PT was home for Christmas, and then his GF came to visit for several days afterwards. I chiefly forgot to mention it because it was so natural to have them around. They're both very fun people. And I'm not just saying that becuase PT's my brother. :D

Seeing the date, I suppose this is the time for me to offer up some New Year's Resolutions, eh?

1. I have eight grand left on my debt, and I'd like to have that gone by the time I've been at my new job a year. Yes, that works out to a grand a month, with one month's leeway. 
2. Finish Expendables! I want to get that story out of my head, and one edit done. At least fix the chronological issues, for example.
3. Get into some kind of shape other than couch potato, and stay in that non-potato shape.
4. Oh, and work on being contented where God has placed me. I need to learn to stop fretting to be somewhere else; if God wanted me to be in another place, I'd be there. :D

That's the only things that come to mind, but I think they'll be challenging enough to try and pull off.