The Current State of Affairs

Haven't posted for nearly a week. A garden variety of reasons behind that, starting with countless instances of "do I really want to reveal that thought because I might change my mind about it later?" to "do I really want to reveal that thought because the embarrassment would either kill me or haunt me forever" and everything in between. So I'll stick with the banal, and that is -- for now -- current reading material. First of all, I should mention that I used to read voraciously as a kid (part of it was to escape from my parents), and that burning passion for reading was quashed in one fell swoop by university. Ah, the irony.

Also, I think my personality conspires against me from time to time. If someone tells me what to do, the rebellious streak kicks in and makes it awfully hard to motivate myself to complete the task. If I choose to do something out of my own free will, neither hell nor high water will keep me from noncompletion (ehmmmm, except time and money, but even then I've not always let those get in my way, either). The task, without changing one iota in difficulty or scope, will suddenly appear totally different. I think that would probably describe most people to some degree (self-motivation being the best kind of motivation), but I think it has woven itself into my DNA or something... the mysterious stubborn-as-a-jackass-strand. Until the press release by the scientific community, I can content myself with the theory.

Anyway, I digress. I was talking about reading. I was saying that I stopped reading for pleasure when I was told to read. Suddenly the mountain of very, very expensive university textbooks was one filled with words that became THE ENEMY rather than my familiar childhood friends called the letters of the alphabet and their support groups, sentences and paragraphs. The more they screamed for attention, the more I ignored them and left them to rot until the night before something was due. They then sought their revenge by deliberately ganging up to confuse the professor or tutor marker when I tried to use them to write my own theses and arguments, or better yet, their favourite trick: writer's block, i.e. words just not showing up for roll call. Ohh, that's the worst -- not even a good excuse for that.

So, when my friend gave me a bunch of novels to read over the holidays, I thought, "well, here's my chance to make peace with the printed word." I have more time now, you see. My current term schedule (see left panel, scroll down) has been scaled down from my usual pace of the previous 2+ years. There is far, far too much going on in the next few months to juggle my usual 3 courses. For one thing, the office is in transition. My employers have (mostly) retired and my colleague is now my boss. Besides Kevin and myself, the new associate/analyst was only hired 6 months ago, and the bookkeeper/receptionist only started in October. Plus, we will be moving to a new office space in Gibsons, which is on the same property as Kevin's new house, which hasn't been built yet!

Also, my sister-in-law is expecting twins in the next 4-8 weeks. The two new babies will share the same initials, M.J., with their brother and sisters, who are 2, 3, and 4 years old. Yes, believe it or not, my brother will have 5 kids under 5 years old very soon. And Melissa doesn't even turn 5 until July! Cheryl is now 30 weeks along, and managing very well, considering she nearly lost them both in the first trimester due to complications. One twin is still a great deal smaller than the other (yes, they're both girls, poor Michael), but both are growing and Cheryl is ENORMOUS. She is easily the same size as she was full-term with the first 3 kids. She's only on partial bedrest now, which is fantastic since full bedrest is both boring and isolating. Doing nothing and lying in bed sounds tantalizing when you're super busy, but it wears thin quickly.

As well, my mother will be released from the hospital later today, depending on what the doctor says. Her car accident was November 30.