Lucy

My relative Lucy is a Belieber. Her FB name was Lucy Bieber for a while. She's definitely keen on the singer. She posted a video today indicating that she thought it was great and one would not be disappointed to watch it. I was disappointed. I found it weird and creepy. JB follows a girl into a store. Seemed creepy to me but the girl seemed fine with it.

This video makes a good point- there was really no reason for JB to have a DUI:

Just because you have a lot of money, doesn't mean you'll be sensible with it.

The first minute of this I enjoyed especially:


This was a good article -it is about use of math to help humanity.

I had a short day at work, but will have a long one tomorrow. I am mostly caught up on where I need to be, so that is a good feeling.

surprise squall

At 2:45 we looked out of the office window and all of a sudden everything was white and visibility was very poor. In that moment, the 30 car pile ups on the highway made sense- if the white moves in and you are moving fast, not a good combination.

Someone posted a picture of AT-ATs on the highway.

James is wearing his pajamas inside out because Finley told him that if he does that it will be a snow day tomorrow (the whole hockey team is doing this). If it doesn't work, he says he will cry. James likes winter. They had a snow day on Monday. Thursday is a PA day. Friday he has a hockey tournament.

Watched the Bach yesterday and it seemed like a painful episode for all concerned. They got a trip to Seoul out of it anyway. It looked like a nice city.

heel

I managed to injure my heel, not by stepping on anything but I think it was so dry that it now has a deep crack in it. Does this mean I have to moisturize my feet? It is a bit painful to walk, but in boots it is better.

We got a bit more snow in the late afternoon. I'm heading out to shovel now.

After that to make muffins for tomorrows lunch.

Kassandra sat on my shoulder for a long time tonight. She's becoming more sociable.

clearly

Our squall warning ended and now the temperature is dropping again.

This week Rob Ford and Justin B. were drinking and getting into trouble (in relatively different ways). As public figures maybe it is harder not only to ask for help, but to see you need help.

Next church is looking for a pastor. Their ad is very detailed, I learned somethings I didn't know when reading it (for interest)- worth a read even if you aren't thinking of applying for the job.

Gerald posted this video on FB today and I have been enjoying it:

squall

We've been under a snow squall advisory or watch for the last couple of days. The roads are pretty bad- lots of accidents on the 401. Stay safe people!

There is lots of blowing so I go out and shovel and within an hour the drifts are back again.

Yesterday we had workshops and I was in Ellis for the afternoon. Interestingly, I can stand in the hallway and have lots of people (unrelated to what I am actually doing) come up and talk to me. I'm glad people think me approachable at least :)

Deep freeze

The temperature has dropped to -20 -30 range. James was pretty cold last night. He's loaded up on the blankets now.

A boiler broke down at the plant that supplies heat to KGH and some of Queen's today. My building wasn't affected by the heat problem but we had a pretty massive problem in that our email was down the whole day. This was a setback for me as I never finished up the email on Tuesday so now I am 2 days behind. Tomorrow morning is filled with meetings, so I can only hope to catch up tomorrow afternoon.

I met with HR yesterday but only so sign up for the pension starting Jan 1. The complicated issue will be looking at how to make up for what I've missed. I need to talk to the pension people about that. They said that might be about 3 months before I hear.

Not fitting the mold

I had a meeting with HR today. A very nice lady, clearly an extrovert. But asked me filler questions about driving to work and the Tea Room. None of which I could answer properly.

James showed me this song that they did in music today. Apparently it made an impact:


Up for hockey at 5am tomorrow.

kiwi

Me: You didn't eat your kiwi in your lunch today.
James: There was a kiwi in my lunch?
Me: Yes
James: Why didn't you TELL me there was a kiwi in my lunch?
Me: I expect you to eat your whole lunch
James: You should TELL me what fruit is in my lunch every morning, I don't look all the way down in my lunch.

Watched Juan Juanuary episode 3. The dude has a strategy, make the girls feel at ease at the start of the date. He seems to do that well. He eliminated the girl who couldn't keep her top on and the girl who I didn't know who she was. James came back from his soccer goalie training at 9:30 and caught the rose ceremony. When there were only a few girls left, he told me that the next one to be eliminated would be the one whose name I didn't know. He was right! (Her name ended up being Christy- we figured it out on her exit interview.

gone

Yesterday Gerald posted a link to the cups song in Gaelic. This morning I woke with it in my head (in English)

Some also posted this Hillsong music on Fb and I have been enjoying it this morning:

sorted

I cleaned the kitchen and the front room and did heaps of laundry and then I tackled a couple of years of paperwork. I hadn't sorted any paperwork since before we moved to this house and I got through it all in a few hours. I was sorting all over the basement floor. Actually was quite amusing to watch. It's a good feeling to know it is all sorted.

day o'cleaning

Not much exciting planned today, just cleaning that is badly needed as these last 2 weeks have been so busy.

I had breakfast when I woke up and then leftover chicken tikka at 9am. Called it brunch? It was good even if it may have been too early in the morning.

Neighbourly emails for amusement.

not good news

Today was busy because it was the last day to add courses. But add into that mix some not good news. One of our students was in a very bad accident, not sure of the estimated recovery time but not good.

I got an email from HR that I wasn't signed up for the pension plan. I should have been signed up in 2009. I guess I didn't notice because I didn't know what to look for. A novice at the benefits thing. Good they figured it out though?

Queen's will have a homecoming this year. Interestingly, my year is one of the invited years. Maybe this is a good news story.

Maybe I will be digging in the basement this weekend to pull out the envelope of hiring stuff that they gave me when they hired me and find out if I have proof that I enrolled.

Sarah and Paul brought this one to Rustle (good news):

catching up

I just worked on email and meeting with students yesterday and I got caught up on most of the backlog of my email. Lots to do today as I try to get things cleared away as I am in training tomorrow.
This past night was a poor night sleep. It took me a long time to get to sleep, then James got up at 4am because he was cold and I've been up since. Hopefully, I can be productive before work, if I'm going to be up anyway!

Disaphration

Jake in our office coined a new word today "disaphration"- the state when I am not in the office. The secretary earns her money trying to keep up with me. I try to remember to tell her where I'm going, but I'm not always good about that.

I am working on a starting a project that Adam suggested that I would track what I do each day to see where my times goes. I am interested in seeing the outcome of this as well. I know what I'll be doing tomorrow- answering email! I still have so much to get through. I only got through today and Sundays messages today and I still have some backlog from last week.

Sloth

I thought this video of the sloth was so funny:

He clearly only wants to eat the carrots, but also clearly can't be bothered to sit up to look for them. Sloth. As you are.

Hannah posted these terrifying recipes. So terrifying they are funny:
http://www.buzzfeed.com/ariannarebolini/truly-upsetting-vintage-recipes

Happy birthday Abigail

I worked an extra 4 hours again to try to get on top of my email. I'm not yet, but things are better. Not sure of the quality of the emails as I was pretty tired. But I got all the scheduling done that needed to be done. It was a long week.

I am still perplexed as to why someone who is supposed to be on my team is keeping me in the dark, seemingly deliberately. I keep waiting for an explanation. I'm not upset, I'm just confused.

Hope you have a great day Abigail!

Grouping

This Week 1 has been super busy. Monday itself seemed to last a week. I am working on things to get things rolling for the course as well as dealing with as my colleagues call it "the revolving door of students to see Aphra". They also call me "Miss Popularity". I should start wearing a crown and a sash :)

Because I'm so busy during the day, tonight I sat down and worked for 4 straight hours on getting the groups made up in the course website. Good to have it done.

Tomorrow I'm working on block loading students into our special section of courses that start next week. Hopefully, the computer is agreeable with this.

In reading this story about a man who was released from the hospital in his pajamas and died on his porch in Winnipeg. They seem to be making a big deal that the hospital sent him home in his pajamas. It struck me that the bigger thing to worry about is that they sent him home when he was deathly ill and they were not able to diagnose it.

In the dark

When I walked out of work yesterday, I noticed that Queen's was well let but as I walked off Queen's things seemed darker. I thought to myself- my Queen's does a much better job of lighting things than the city. As I kept walking I noticed that it was really hard to see the ice when I was walking and did I normally have this trouble when walking at night. Maybe it got icier. I was heading to Johns. The lights at Princess and University were out so I crossed at Princess and Alfred and doubled back to Johns. It was closed.
At that point I realized that I was walking through a power failure.

Interestingly someone was also trying to keep me in the dark about something at work and it is all very puzzling about why, because it wasn't something that was a big deal, but why they were trying to keep it a "secret" was odd. I prefer it when people are direct but realize that sometimes it is more comfortable for people not to be.

Monday itself felt like it lasted a week. I am barely getting by on replying to email and with all the drop ins. I hope to get more on top of it all tomorrow!

flash freeze

The start of the school year became a little more challenging. It is 6 degrees here but with rain now on top of ice, it is pretty slippery, but still ok.
They cancelled the buses to school due to the risk of a flash freeze, I think.

I woke up in the night(2am?) after a dream about freezing rain, flooding and downed power lines.
Then I woke up at 5:30am due to a chunk of ice falling off the roof very loudly!
So, it will be a long day, I think.

Juan-uary

Marlene mentioned that we no longer call the show "The Bachelor" but instead "Juan Pablo". Goes to show we like his name? James and I watched the "Countdown to Juan Pablo" tonight. A lot of it was hype but his family was interesting. I didn't think they seemed to think that Juan Pablo was ready to settle down.
The daughter is pretty cute, but seemed to indicate she has problem behavior at school. I thought it was odd that they included that clip.
We'll see what tomorrow brings with the real thing.

The freezing rain has begun again. How much more? And how much more can we take?

Chocolate milk

James excitedly told me that he now had a mustache. He was so pleased to be a big boy. Later it was discovered to be chocolate milk.

I wasn't feeling well in the morning so I took it easy and was feeling much better by the afternoon. I'll head to bed early tonight. Church tomorrow and working in the afternoon. The Countdown to Juan Pablo in the evening.

Monday will be a late one as well and a busy week, so goes Week 1!

layers

It was pretty cold today but I wore a lot of layers and it was fine. My office temperature was fine today but others were quite frosty.

At work I accomplished a lot (more than I thought), but still a lot to do tomorrow.

James' room gets pretty cold on nights like tonight, so I expect an icy visitor at some point!

Versus the chill

Our wind chill is currently -31 and we have a "wind chill warning". Winnipeg has -39 and no warning. Are we wimpier than Winnipegers?

I was rather disturbed to see Dellen Millards recent jailhouse interview. While the Bosma's had to spend Christmas without Tim, Dellen takes up space to say that he didn't do it, but won't answer any questions about the crime because he claims the system is against him. Dellen is not the victim here, Tim's family is. Such lack of remorse and insight.

Jonathan was over today and they were playing Minecraft and apparently there was another one of Jonathan's friends that they were playing with and he got upset with Jonathan and James and this led to a great deal of upset here as James and Jonathan tried to deal with the emotions of another person. They were both crying at times. What impressed me was that they were trying to talk it out using as much emotional language as they have. Jonathan went home early. Afterwards, I was talking to James and trying to find out what the other boy was upset about, but James said he didn't know (or didn't want to tell me). I was asking really to determine James' emotional maturity- if he could see things from another point of view. But as far as I could tell, he couldn't.

He asked me to play this song as he tried to sleep tonight:

Happy new year!

Last night Kim and I did our ritual new year event by going to her church for the 10pm service.
What is different this year is that she normally gets up at 3am to go to work and so I had to keep jostling her through the service to keep her awake.
It was the best new years service yet. Kim's church has always been pretty exuberant but they had in the past taken themselves pretty seriously. This year I noticed they were a lot more relaxed.
Kim stayed over after the service as she had to get up early to let the horses out. And she was so tired she would never have made it home safely at that point.
We got home around 1:30. She got up at 4:30am, which of course got me up. She was on the road by 5am. I got back to sleep around 6am and James got up at 7am. He came for a snuggle and we slept again until 9am.
Then I did some work trying to get marks ready to go out in a couple of days.
Now I'll head out to do some shoveling, though there is really a limited amount I can do as there is ice underneath most things and it is better to keep the snow on top to keep the traction. I'll do the stairs though. The fresh air will help wake me up!