Wednesday, February 4, 2004, Somewhere between 10 pm, and 11:30 pm
No one comes here anymore; so I decided to make it a little something for myself. I guess it's going to turn into something of an online diary. Funny thing is that it'll be more secret than any paper version I could write, just by it's sheer obscurity. I have these delusional thoughts thinking that someday people might actually read what I write on a regular basis; but frankly; I'm not that interesting. So if you're here, and you're not me, feel free to read up, and learn more about me than anyone else in the world. That probably includes myself. I'm not going to list an email address, because frankly, I don't want to know if people are reading what I write; it'd kind of defeat the purpose of a diary. Besides which; I doubt I'll be updating this more than a dozen times. I'm a bit of a slacker when it comes to stuff like that.
Who am I? I don't think I really know the answer to that; it's kind of why I'm writing in the first place. I know what I do, but not who I am. I go to school, at the University of Alberta. I take Civil Engineering. My marks hover around the cutoff for Dean's List, so I'm by no means a poor student. I take karate, or rather, I teach karate. For the last six years and a couple months, I've been going out a few times a week, and working out. I got my black belt two years ago, and now spend more time teaching students at the Bluequill and Devon clubs than I spend learning new stuff. I've almost fallen into an adminisitrative position; I like the thought of having the responsibility, but I don't want to get soft and out of shape from it. I started going because my girlfriend at the time (Heather) was a student; I stayed for the exercise, and finally for the art. It's a beautiful thing to see done well. I'm Pagan. Sortof. I'm definitely not Christian, nor Buddhist, nor any other religion really. I got interested in Paganism from the movie "The Craft"; I was dating Heather at the time it was released, and she was really interested in it, and mentioned having done some websearches while we were talking over ICQ. I didn't want to be left out, so I did some searching of my own. I found out a lot about Wicca. The premise behind the thealogy was interesting to me, but the packaging, if you will, wasn't right. From there, I mixed and matched, and called myself Pagan. I'm afraid I'm not very devout, however. I rarely celebrate the sabbats or esbats, and most of the time I don't think about it. Every so often though, I'll look up at the moon, and get stunned. I guess I'm the type of pagan to match all the christians who only every go to church on christmas.
Aside from the rambling; I'm noticing a trend. I don't seem to start doing things on my own; I'll wait until someone else will start, then I'll join up. Granted, if I find something I like to do, I'll stick with it, but I can't really remember the last time I did something semi-major because I wanted to. Even going to university wasn't really a choice. I got $3250 in scholarships out of highschool, and it seemed like a waste not to use free money. I tried to get into Architecture at the University of Waterloo, got shortlisted for the application process, but between me slacking off, and the mail taking forever between here and Ontario, I never heard back from them. I slacked off some more, and ended up missing the application deadline for the University of Alberta, so I worked for a year, and went into Engineering the next. I did choose Civil Engineering on my own; but that was about the closest relation to architecture I could get. I still plan getting an architecture degree at some point. Even when I moved away from home the first time, it wasn't really something I decided for myself. A friend of mine lived out of province, and needed a roommate when she couldn't get a place in residence. She asked me, I said yes. I'm not sure what to call the resulting situation; it was either euphoria or disaster, depending on the day and the circustances. At the moment though, I'm leaning towards disaster. More on that later though. On the whole, I guess I'm a bit of a follower. I tend to make up excuses for why I can't do something on my own. It's fast approaching the time where I won't be able to do that anymore though. When you don't really have any friends, it's hard to follow someone into doing something.
That's it for tonight. I want to go read, or eat or sleep. Maybe I'm just tired of typing to myself. Whatever.
p.s. the incongruity of running this through a spellchecker just hit me. I'm anal-retentive enough though, that I did, and corrected all the mistakes. Oh, and just on the off chance someone does read this, thealogy isn't spelled wrong; it's the feminine form of theology. Goddess, not God.
Thursday, February 5, 2004, About 6:30 pm
Just re-read last nights ramble; I caught the spelling mistakes but the grammar left something to be desired. Oh well, Bucknell won't get a chance to mark it.
I'm in a pretty foul mood at the moment; had stir fry for supper, but wanted scrambled eggs with ham and cheese on a croissant. I wasn't doing the cooking though, so I didn't get the choice. Or rather; I was consulted, but not listened to. Seems like it was a waste of time, looking back on it. It seems like such a small thing to be pissed of over, but that's only a part of it. Small choices like that only touch off the bad moods. I've come to realize that the moods themselves are because I don't like the situation I'm in. I don't like not being in control of my life. I don't like it when people decide things for me, I want to have the choice. Something that pisses me off a lot, strange as it may sound, is when people try to help me with something. I want to do everything on my own, and if I can't, I want to have the option to ask for help. Sometimes I'm a stubborn ass and don't ask when I should have, but I like feeling the consequences of my actions. Even, in a perverse way, the bad choices. It lets me know that what I'm doing affects where I'm going, that I'm not just being dragged along with life for the ride. Sure, I'm always traveling in one direction, but I want at least the freedom to dodge the shit that comes at me.
Right now, I don't really feel like I've got a choice in much. I have to get up for work at 5:35 every morning, because I have to catch a ride to work with my mom, who has to be downtown by 7:10 every morning, so she can sit for 20 minutes drinking coffee and smoking before she starts work. My car has a busted tail light assembly, and it's been way to fucking cold to try and fix it. Plus, I don't have the glue shit or whatever they use, to put the new one in. The first choice of the day is what to wear, but that generally ends up being whatever's clean and hanging closest to me. My second choice is what kind of tea I have in the morning. The sad part is, I'm a creature of habit, so I almost always get a Sencha Green. I get to work, read a few comics before 8, maybe surf slashdot a bit, then I start on whatever my boss decides is the most important piece of data entry that needs to be done. I fucking hate working under a technologist. I don't resent him for not being an actual engineer or anything; that's no biggie. I hate spending 8 hours every frigging day doing mindless, menial, repetitive data entry, on whatever the computer program of the day is. Hire a fucking secretary for that, instead of blowing $17 an hour on someone who's just about graduated as an engineer. It'd have to be a better expenditure of taxpayer dollars. I'm not stupid; so stop giving me jobs that a stupid person can do. I go for lunch around 12:30 (and what I want to eat is choice number three for the day), so I can get a seat in the food court, and 45 minutes later, head back up for more drone-work until 4. After that, I head back to the parkade, meet my mom and head home. Get home, eat supper, and if it's monday, tuesday, or wednesday, go to karate. I'm not sure whether you can call that a choice or not. Tuesdays, it's not. Monday and Wednesday, it usually is, but it's pretty heavily weighted, because I never know if I'm going to be the only instructor or not. On a side note, I find that I enjoy teaching, as long as someone is willing to learn. People tell me I have amazing patience when it comes to mistakes. I guess they only see me working with people who actually try; I tend to ignore the ones who're slacking off. I'd probably make a shitty school teacher for that reason, but that's not something I wanted to do in any event. If it's not a karate night, I'll usually go off and read, or dick around on the computer. After that, it's bedtime. Total number of choices; three. At least when I get the friggin tail light assembly in, I'll have a bit more freedom. I miss living on my own; it was nice being able to do something on a whim, and not having to report to anyone, or even having anyone know. I can't wait until I graduate. That's become something of a mantra for me; something to remind me that there are theoretically better times ahead. I'm a bit afraid that I'm just leading myself on, but the logic seems pretty sound to me. After I graduate, I won't have to save up for tuition, so I'll be able to afford rent with ease, along with a decent vehicle, so I should be able to get around wherever I want to be. That's the theory anyways.
That seems like a good place to leave off for the night. I'm going to go draw a bath and read.
Fri and Sat, February 6 & 7, 2004, Started around 6:00 pm, finished off about 2:30 pm
I wanted to get the start of a thought down here, before I forgot it completely. I while driving home today, I was trying to explain some basic calculus concepts to my mom, the topic shifted to geometry, and she said something along the lines of "Why would I want to be able to know how to calculate the length of the third side of a triangle?" I don't remember my response, but her reply stunned me. "That's the difference between a male mind and a female mind, a male mind spends time figuring out how things work, and how to do them; a female mind spends time trying to figure out how to get someone else to do something for them." The quote might not be exact, but it's words to the same effect. I can't help but wonder whether or not that's true. I know guys and girls thing differently, but I didn't think the difference was quite so fundamental. If that's the case, I probably frustrate a lot of women. I don't generally do things for someone else (at least not of an intellectual nature), I'd rather spend the time teaching them how to do it; even if I have to go through step by step. I'm pretty oblivious to how people feel, so I'm really not sure if that pisses people off, or makes them grateful. On one hand, I've been told by a lot of people that I'm a good teacher, and that I'm amazingly patient. On the other hand, I've been single for a while now.
The difference between solitude and loneliness is only the enjoyment; I'm definitely getting a bit lonely. It's not that I spend all my time at home or anything; I don't, not by any stretch of the imagination. It's more that I don't have anyone I can just curl up with and talk to. I miss lying down with someone, and feeling their the heat of their body next to me, the softness of their skin. I miss knowing that I was important to someone. I suppose there's time for that kind of thing later, but I find I have a hell of a time meeting people. I don't like going to bars, and there aren't many prospects in the karate classes. I don't do the gym thing either, though it's a possibility. I'm not in school for another 8 months, and all of the people I work with are guys. All the girls that I could be introduced to at work are already in long term relationships. A lot of my situation is my own fault, but that only serves to make things worse. I tend to fall in love very quickly, very deeply; and often with people I shouldn't.
I need to get my car fixed and do some shopping; I got my first paycheque from work. It was only 60 hours, but $850 isn't anything to sneeze at for a student. I've got another seven and a half months of paycheques coming too. Unfortunately, I have 8 months of tuition to pay for directly after that. Possibly 8 months of rent as well, though I haven't decided that part yet. It's possible being up north for three weeks out of the month will give me a chance to reestablish my independence. I won't have any expenses up there either; even my food is covered by the government. I'm looking forward to it. More for the thought that I'll be up in relative wilderness, that for anything else. I think I'll like being on my own again though; which may sound odd, given the second paragraph back. It's more the freedom I'll enjoy up north; I'll be doing my own thing when I'm not working, and I'll be responsible to myself. I can deal with people on my terms, and not have to worry about what I do, or how I do it. That's the thought anyway; I guess I'll see how it actually works when I get up there.
Once again, that's it for now. I haven't had a shower after karate yet; I need one.
Tuesday, February 10, 2004, 9:00 pm
And thus it begins. I suppose I only missed a couple of days, but that's how this type of thing usually goes. I'll work religiously for a week or so (less than that, in this case), then everything gradually falls by the wayside. I had a pretty decent day on Sunday, borrowed mom's car, and went out shopping. I spent -far- too much money, but it's been years since I've done anything like that, so I figured I was due. I made the mistake though, of getting myself a couple new computer games (splinter cell, and Civilization III), so I'm pretty lacking in the sleep department lately. It's taken up pretty much all of my free time too, s'why I haven't been posting here, for the most part. That, and I totally forgot to. Monday wasn't bad, as Mondays go; ran out of new/interesting work by mid-afternoon, and we have out-of-towners in the office for meetings all week, so the cube next to me with the GIS station in it is occupied; I can't even putz around there learning ArcGIS. Today was pretty dull; I got to give my "boss" a summary of the highway safety report he had done. Pretty much worked out that I read fifty or sixty pages of crap, and condensed it down to two. It was pretty interesting, seeing how people combine statistical data, and try to come up with meaningful information. The one I was reviewing yesterday and today was better than most, but there were still a few conclusions that didn't quite make sense. By the time I get sent up north for the summer, I'm going to know every kilometer of the friggin highway inside and out. The pictures I've seen have been pretty though; it looks like really nice country. I'm getting anxious to leave.
Karate was pretty amusing on monday; we had some students come back after a four year absence. They're all pretty close to me in both age, and belt level; but they probably have a good 20 pounds on me at the least. They're not afraid to go pretty hard, either. It's a bit of a switch from the kids and older adults, but I'm looking forward to it. I've wanted to improve my sparring for a good long time now. Today was even more amusing; I seem to have opened up a courier service between the classes. Pat had the Bluequill key to give me, from Joe, and Brian's hakama. It's probably a good thing I get around a fair bit, Tony and Joe aren't around nearly often enough. I'm looking forward to class tomorrow; Brian is going to be out, and if the returnees are, I'll be able to do some of my own stuff to practice for the tournament on Sunday. I'm looking forward to that, too; my kata is in pretty good form, so I'm hoping for a gold to bring home. I've toyed with the idea of entering kobudo, too, but I'm not sure how the divisions are going to be set up. I don't want to enter if there's just going to be a bunch of kids, and if there aren't enough black belts entered, I don't want to take Pat out of the running for a medal (not sure if I'd beat him, but he seems to think I would). The big question is whether or not I want to enter sparring. I'd end up against Kyle in the first round, almost without a doubt, as he's the only other black belt that's even close to me in size. It'd be interesting to enter, for that match alone, because I know I wouldn't get much farther. Sadly enough, my best performance in sparring was at Toronto in the nationals, I lost in the quarter finals to the gold medallist. He was a sandan, with 20 years more experience than me, too. I want to get as good as he is. Eventually.
Time to go for the night; I hear some Civ III calling my name.
Monday, February 16, 2004, 1:00 pm
Well, it took a while, but here's another entry. I was happy for the first time in ages yesterday, even thinking about Esther didn't depress me. That hasn't happened in a long time. We had our tournament, everything went pretty well. I came home with a couple of bronze medals, one in sparring (which was way beyond what I was expecting), and the other in kobudo. That ones doesn't surprise me as much, but I am a bit surprised Pat didn't come away with something; his kata was looking pretty good in class last tuesday. I utterly embarrassed myself in kata though; I was in second place after the first round (this is after forgetting a move in the kata, so my marks must have been hella good to start out with), I was probably 5 or 6 points back from the leader, but was at least three ahead of the Brian. I figured I could improve on the second round, and up until about the sixth move, I was doing great. Then I completely lost it. I don't know what happened, my brain exploded or whatever, but I couldn't finish. I bowed out and took my 0; finished dead last. w00t. Looking back, I think it was just that I was way too nervous; I wanted to win too badly, and completely lost focus. I realize that sounds pretty lame, but it's pretty much what happened. I don't know how to explain it, really, but when I'm doing kata, I draw into myself. Everything going on around me just kinda goes hazy. When I got up to do Shiho-Kushanko in the second round, things were a bit too clear still. I was too much a part of what was happening. This is probably going to sound stupid when I read it back, but I can't come up with the words to describe the feeling. It's like a subconscious switch. At first, it was only a weird feeling I got when something was going to go well for me. I feel detached from events, kind of like a passenger in my own body. Lately though, it's been three-way. I'm starting to recognize when things aren't quite 'right'. The concept of gut instinct seems like the closest description, but even that's not quite right. At any rate, Joe mentioned having another tournament around the end of April, which I'll be looking forward to. I'm hoping it doesn't coincide with the national tournament in Ontario, I'd still like to get to that. That's it for while I'm at work. More when I get home.
Thursday, February 26, 2004, 9:00 pm
Well, that's got the be the longest trip home I've ever made. I think I got lazy, either that, or I started playing Civ III; which I suppose amounts to the same thing. I've been indulging a pretty major video game addiction lately; Between Civilization III, and America's Army (which is a lot better than I was expecting), I don't do much other that work, go to karate, or play computer games. Typical computer nerd, I guess. Minus the whole exercise thing. Learned two new kata last night; or rather, relearned two new-ish ones. Itosu-Rohai Nidan and Sandan. I learned Nidan Monday night from Sensei Tony, but I couldn't remember all of it, so Sensei Joe took me, Tracy, and Juan through them in the second half of the class last night. I don't think either of them are going to remember the kata, but I probably will. At least, for a while. It was good to see Tracy again; she hasn't been out in a few months. I guess her husband changed jobs, and works a lot of evenings and weekends, plus, her daughters play indoor soccer Monday, Tuesday, and Friday. Hopefully she gets out more often though. Yesterday was kind of an anomaly at bluequill; we had thirteen people. That's pretty much double the normal numbers. It's good that they're finally picking up a bit more; catching up to the rest of the classes. Karate seems to be on an upswing again.
I ran into Kristen Vollrath today; I went to highschool with her; and haven't seen her since. That's a good five years ago. We had lunch; it was nice talking to her again, I always kinda liked her in highschool, she was a bit too much of a cowgirl for me. Not that you'd know it to see her now; she's working as a temp in the offices downtown. I'm a bit surprised I ran into her, actually. I guess she did some dictation for PWGSC yesterday, and was dropping off the hardcopy of her notes. We went to the Fresh Selects place in Manulife; it was pretty good. I was a bit confused though, when she told me she was a vegetarian, and ordered pyrogi (that came with bacon bits), and chicken noodle soup. She did try for the vegetarian options though, I suppose. I'm glad I ran into her. Unfortunately for her, she makes all the crap in my life recently look positively petty. One roommate cleaning out the entire apartment while she was gone, another going shopping with both halves of the rent money, then skipping out and leaving an $800 phone bill. (Who the hell do you call, to cost that much money?) She rolled her car too; and wrote it off completely. All in all, not a very good string of luck. I gave her my email address, but I think she forgot how to spell my last name, as I haven't received a message from her yet. I may get one tomorrow though, when she gets the bounce notification from the first. She's dating a small engine mechanic, two years younger than she is. In her own words, a complete redneck. It suits her, in a way, I suppose; she has a very strong personality, and most 'city folk' I know, wouldn't be able to keep up with her. I'm not sure I could, either. Wouldn't mind trying though; she always was great fun to be around. If I don't hear from her soon, I might have to look up her email address from Orson, at Home Depot.
My boss seems to have loosened the plug in his ass a bit; he only asked me once if I was being really diligent on the drawings I was trimming down in AutoCAD. Putz. On the plus side, I dumped $2100 into my bank account today; a month's pay. I was a bit confused by the cheques though; for some reason, they took more tax and EI from the first one, than they did for the second. Both of them were for the same amount of hours though. Odd. I did find out something amusing at work not too long ago. I'm apparently at the top of the Undergraduate pay scale. The only people who make more are Masters students past their first year, and Doctoral students past their first year. Of course, they probably both get benefits. I'm a bit screwed over in that respect. Maybe I can convince them to get me some real training instead. I got coerced into participating in a mystery challenge tomorrow at city hall. I'm not sure what it's about, but it takes four engineers, and one judge from our group, and there are teams from a bunch of other places. Stantec, UMA, the University, etc. My feeling; we're going to be building something with straws, paper, and tape. Maybe scissors. Ed suggested that we might be doing a popsicle stick bridge or something, but the time limit is something like half an hour, so the glue wouldn't have time to set. I'm kinda looking forward to it; it'll probably be the most interesting thing I've done at work in the past few weeks. Plus, it'll get me out of the office for a bit, which is -always- a benefit. It's teachers convention for a bunch of the teachers around Edmonton, too, so Canada Place is packed to the rafters. I haven't seen anyone from my school though; so I'm guessing they haven't done theirs yet. Either that, or I missed it. Maybe I'll ask the kids at karate on Saturday; I'd like to see some of my teachers again. Some I'd rather not see, of course, but you can't win all your battles.
That's pretty much covers my 10 day gap, excluding a bunch of little thoughts, that I keep meaning to write down. I should really get myself a palm-pilot. Maybe I'll stop at Staples or something this weekend. Joe said he'd take a look at my car door, and try to adjust it. Hallelujah. It's a bit of a pain in the ass trying to squeeze through the eight inch gap between the frame and the rest of the car. Even if I am skinny. That's it for the night though; I think I'm going to go soak in the tub.
P.S. Woohoo, six entries; half-way to the dozen I mentioned earlier.
Thursday, April 22, 2004, 11:00 pm
At this rate, my next entry will be about six months from now. Oh well. At any rate, the video game craze has slackened off a bit, I've taken to reading comics online instead. Just as unproductive, but at least a bit more mentally stimulating. I have a pretty long daily list .. Dilbert, 9 Chickweed Lane, Betty, For Better or Worse, Get Fuzzy, Grand Avenue, Liberty Meadows, Luann, Pickles, Rose is Rose, Spot the Frog, Ubersoft, User Friendly, Ozy and Millie, Striptease, It's Walky!, Sinfest, and Chopping Block. All in all, enough to kill about half an hour while I'm at work before eight. I have to say though, I enjoy the smaller web comics a lot more than the syndicated stuff; there's way more originality, and it isn't toned down humor for mass consumption. The art is better, too.
I haven't heard from Kristin, but I don't think I'll try and track down Orson; if I run into him by chance, maybe I'll ask. I'm at home depot on a semi-regular basis anyways. My boss has been too busy to get on my ass about things too; that, and I've garnered a bit of favour with his boss. It's always nice to find two million dollar over-estimates in government documents. Whoops. I've been working on the twinning of the Trans-Canada Highway between Lake Louise and Jasper lately; it's been a lot more interesting that the crap John had me doing. Beyond that, I'm only in the office another four days before I get shipped up north for the rest of the summer. I can't wait. They sent me on a 'Bear Awareness' course, which was entertaining. I was the youngest person there by a pretty wide margin, and I learned quite a bit. Most of the people were there for the instructor's course, the first day was reserved for students. It was good to hear the stories everyone else had. I took a 'Collision Avoidance' course too. The first half was in the classroom; it sucked pretty badly, but the 'Personal Driving Evaluation', and the track exercises made up for it. I learned quite a bit about handling a vehicle quickly; I'm almost tempted to pick up some pylons of my own and play around in some deserted parking lots.
The numbers in Karate have stayed pretty steady, just short of a dozen or so. Everyone's a regular, and most of them put a good bit of effort in during the classes. I have a lot of fun teaching them. I'm also headed out to Ottawa next week, to do the National Tournament; I'm really looking forward to that. I'm in shape again, after my last semester at school, and I embarrassed myself in the last provincial tournament, so it'd be nice to come home with a medal. I kind of doubt that's going to happen though, as there'll be enough second and third degree black belts competing that I'll likely be forced out of the medal places. I'd be happy with a top five or so. Even happier if I manage the same thing in sparring. I guess we'll see. $425 to get to Ottawa and back though, and Joe should be able to swing us a deal on hotels, so all in all, it'll be a good cheap trip. Karen is coming too; Mario's said he'd like to, but I have no idea if he'll be booking tickets at all. Oh, and I'll finally be getting my new gi. It's been at the embroiderers for the last six weeks or so, and Joe hasn't taken the time to harass them. I'd just better have it before we leave for Ottawa. I don't really need to flash the judges.
I saw Melinda a while back, too, mid-march sometime. She stopped by karate, to see about getting a letter for her lawyer. Joe and Tony weren't around, as per usual, so I wrote one up for her, and had Joe sign it. I've been hanging out with her, keith, tif, jason, james, and the rest of the crew lately. It's been pretty nice; I don't have any real close friends at work, and Esther has decided to ignore my existence, so I've been a bit lonely. A lot of the web comics I've been reading have been pretty heavy on questioning the nature of love, so that's weighed pretty heavily on my mind. I've spend a lot of time thinking about it, and I'm a bit melancholy as a result. It's hard to think about things like that when you're single, and not turn melancholy. Particularly knowing you blew a shot at the only woman you ever had really strong feelings for. Yet another reason I'm looking forward to getting up north; a little perspective, and a little rejuvenation. Time heals all wounds, right? I did decide one thing though; nothing is more beautiful to me than purity of spirit. Sounds pretty trite to just say it like that, but there's a strength in purity and innocence. They're fragile, sure; but that very fact is what makes them so compelling. I wish I hadn't lost mine.
Catholics believe in absolution of sins from a higher power. I've always found that to be a bit hypocritical; if you're only repenting your sins to gain salvation, are they really something you regret? Should you really need to be threatened with perdition to goad your conscience? I figure, if you can't forgive yourself, you shouldn't expect any higher power to.
P.S. I forgot to mention that my car broke down last week; alternator died, and the radiator had a leak. Shop quote: ~$750. Total actual price paid, ~$375. It's nice knowing mechanics and parts distributors. Now if only the hatch wasn't permanently locked shut. Hopefully, I can fix that myself though. I might try over the weekend.
Tuesday, May 4, 2004, 4:30 pm
Well, I had to shell out another $100 for my car, as it turns out it wasn't just the alternator that was fried; the voltage regulator and some wiring was dead too. It only took about an hour of shop time to fix, but unfortunately, that meant I was without transportation for that weekend too. Everything seems to be running well now though, so it's all good. Besides which, I only need the car until Sunday; I fly up to Fort Nelson for three weeks on Monday.
I got back from the karate tournament in ottawa last night; plane came in fifteen minutes early, which was nice. The tournament itself was pretty educational. I got my ass kicked in both categories, and my nose almost got broken during the sparring. The change from the tournament two years ago was huge. The kata division seemed to be marked with politics in mind more than technique .. a lot of people who made it to the second round had pretty loose form. I can't say I was all that impressed. Mark Ueyeda (I have no idea if that's spelled even close to correctly) won again; but his kata has always been top notch. I don't feel bad losing to him at all. I was pretty annoyed with the judging though. I didn't do a spectacular job, really, but I know my stuff better than the majority. Sparring was downright stupid. Nothing but clashing and headhunting. Not a whole lot of control, either. The St. John's Ambulance guys were out in the ring five or six times. One of which was after I'd been nailed in the face. My nose is actually bruised today; I didn't think that was possible. No blood lost, fortunately; but it was only a warning for excessive contact; probably shoulda been a disqualification. Joe is talking about doing another tournament the first weekend in June. I'm going to be doing a lot of training beforehand.
It's my mom's 50th birthday today; I got home from shopping about an hour and a half ago. Kind of last minute, but between the car troubles, and my Ottawa trip, I haven't had much opportunity. I picked her Mother's Day gift too, while I was at it. The birthday gift is the Swarovski Leopard, a really nice crystal piece. The Mother's Day portion is the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, all five in a hardcover. She apparently hasn't read them yet, which, given our library, is pretty much unforgivable. Probably the funniest sci-fi I've ever read. Almost monty-python humor, but more class. Great books, at any rate.
That's about all I feel like writing for now. I may pick up a bit more later. With my track record though, I kinda doubt it.
Monday, May 24, 2004, 8:15 pm
Wow, only twenty days since my last entry, and we're up to number nine now. If I'm not careful, this might turn into a semi-regular thing. Odd thought. That'd make it the first semi-major thing I'd started because I wanted to. Cool, I think.
I've been working up in northern BC for the last three weeks, on the Alaska Highway. I have to say, I've been enjoying the experience thus far; with the possible exclusion of the sixty hour weeks. It will be nice having the entire week I'm back in Edmonton (well, let's face it, Devon) off, though. My social calendar looks pretty well booked, which is pretty damn amazing, when you consider that I'm not really a popular guy.
The first weekend I'm back is "Devon Days", our local carnival/festival/whatever the hell you want to call it, and a bunch of people I went to High School with are planning on getting together for it. My plane lands early enough on Friday that I should be able to make it to the fireworks. I'm not sure what's up for the rest of the weekend with everyone else, but I expect a few of them will be hanging around to go on rides and such. Should be a pretty good time, really.
I'm also supposed to give a girl I met over the internet a call, Jenny, by name. I don't know anything about her, other than that she's a massage therapist, about my age, pagan, and is from somewhere north of Edmonton. I haven't even seen a picture, so I have no idea what that's going to be like. We've been e-mailing each other back and forth for a while, and talking on msn; she seems nice enough, if a little quirky. "Rad" seems to be her catchphrase. I'm going to be showing her the atrium at the University; it's not really all that much to see, but it ought to make a decent introduction. After that, I imagine we'll grab some supper or something like that. I really don't have anything planned. As shallow and superficial as it sounds, I don't really see her as a prospect for dating; I have no idea what she looks like. I realize that isn't as important as the personality, or similar interests or anything, but I can't see starting an intimate relationship with someone I'm not attracted to. I guess I'll see when I meet her.
To make matters even more interesting, I got an email from Esther a few days ago, asking me if I wanted to go out for coffee. That'd be the same Esther who, a month ago, was ignoring my existence. I told her I'd love to go for coffee, but that I was in Fort Nelson until the 28th, so she'd have to hold off. That was five days ago. Now, I'm not so sure if I want to see her. She was the first person I ever pursued and caught. Then, I found out she had decided to move out of our apartment without telling me. Nice touch. I avoided her for a couple of months of school; she did the same for me. We talked a bit via email when our work terms started, got a few things off our chests, and I got told that she was okay with talking over email occasionally, but didn't really want to see me face to face, because it'd be weird. The next two email messages I sent her got completely ignored, and now, all of a sudden, she wants to meet for coffee. She's still the first person on my mind when I think of the nature of love, but I don't know how much more pain I can take. I don't know whether to be glad that we might have a chance at friendship again, or to be paranoid that she hired someone to jump me in the alley before I make it to wherever we end up meeting. All I can say is that it's a damn good thing I was up north when she decided to drop me a line; it's nice having the time to think about the situation, before I have to jump into it. Not, of course, that thinking about it is going to prepare me in any remote form. It'll make for an interesting day or night, or whatever.
I spent the last couple nights at a place along the alaska highway called Muncho Lake, it's at about km 707, give or take. Beautiful place. Northern Rockies at their best. I stayed at a place called The Northern Rockies Lodge; beautiful big log-cabin hotel; great food, right on the lakeshore. The pictures are below. That's the kind of place I could retire. Clean, natural, and very peaceful. Refreshing, even. That perspective I was talking about a few weeks ago; it's there. I just have to figure out how to bring it back with me. Lying on the gravel beach was inspiring to the point of having me write poetry, but I don't know how to express the feeling in words. About as poetic as I get would be to say that the pebbles on the beach were conspiring to mock my attempts at literature. Nice personification, eh?
The rest of the trip has been good too. A lot of time on my own, but that's pretty much what I needed. I'm friends with Melinda, Troll, Keith, Tiffany, James, and Dan, and all that old group again, I'm in semi-regular contact with my friends from High School, and I'm talking to Niccy a lot too. Scars are still pretty fresh from Esther though, which is part of why I'm afraid to meet her again. There are a couple of reasons I'm going to meet her though, the most pathetic is probably that I hope there's still a chance for us. I still love her, despite everything that's happenened between us; I still want her in my life. The second reason is the more rational; I know there's no chance, but I want to get this behind me. I want to know that I faced up to my mistakes, and did what I could to amend them. I guess when the rational and emotional sides of your brain agree on something; it's got to be the right choice. "Quality", as it would be found in "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance".
Melinda told me once that my life went smoother than most peoples; I can't help but disagree with that. If anything, I just hide the bad things better than the people she knows. I keep looking out at the rest of humanity, and I see a well oiled machine, functioning exactly as it should. You never see a girl walking down the street, and know that she's in the middle of a nasty divorce, or see a guy, and know that he's fighting off bankruptcy. All you see are the happy, smiling faces that they present to the world at large. Me; I present that face to my friend too, for the most part. It takes something pretty hard-hitting for me to crack the facade, and act like a normal person. My mom hasn't really seen it happen, Melinda did briefly, and Esther most of all; but they're about it. Even after dating Niccy for over a year; she never saw what was under the shell. All everyone else sees is me, going on like I'm superior to everyone and everything. It's probably why I don't have very many friends. Hard to change though; to open up. I try though, which has got to be better than nothing. I guess I think it's better to have imperfections and to try to fix them, than it is to blindly assume you're perfect. Whoah. Off-topic much. I was talking about my trip.
As I was going so say, it's been nice being on my own, and the scenery is stunning. I've seen more wildlife here in the last two weeks, than I had in my entire life previously. The coolest was the Lynx running across the road in front of me; awe-inspiring. Besides that, I've seen half a dozen black bears, at least that many caribou, quite a few deer, and more mountain sheep than I care to count (the stupid things have a habit of herding in the middle of the road). Just today I saw a mother moose nursing her calf. Even saw a few coyotes. About the only thing I haven't seen while I've been up here is a grizzly. Of course, I've still got ten more weeks up here, so there's still a lot of time for that. I got to do a bit of climbing over the weekend too; not so much rock climbing; kind of a cross between that, and some good hard uphill hiking. Scree slopes, the odd drop-off, that kind of thing. A great way to kill time alone in the wilderness. I scraped up one hand pretty will sliding down a shale-scree slope; still stings now. Definitely worth it though.
At any rate; I'm off to download the pictures from my camera. I'll post the good ones; including the cut hand. Gory.
Monsday, May 24, 2004, 10:00 pm
No, this doesn't count as two entries in the same day; I'm just showing the pictures I mentioned earlier. I had to adjust the color balances and such on a lcd monitor, which isn't exactly my favorite medium; but it'll have to do until I get home, where I can work on them on my machine. Now, let's see if I remember my img src tags...
![](Munchohwy.jpg)
This is a panoramic shot from looking out at the highway from the front entrance of the hotel I was at this weekend.
![](MunchoLake.jpg)
This is a panoramic shot from the beach, looking out over the lake.
![](lakesouth.jpg)
A view towards the upstream end of the lake (north-ish) unfortunately, it didn't merge well with the other four.
![](alluvdep.jpg)
This is the remains of a riverbed, from about 200' up a cliffside. I didn't climb the cliff, straight up, but it wasn't easy getting up there.
![](pine.jpg)
A lone pine sapling, at the top of the aforementioned cliff. You can see the alluvial deposits of the riverbed in the background. I'm using this as my desktop background, at the moment.
![](gore.jpg)
Save the best for last, eh? This is the damage I did to my hand, going down the scree slope to the cliff I took the previous two pictures from. I hadn't washed my hand off yet, so it looks worse than it is. The cut is only about an inch and a half long, and maybe a sixteenth of an inch deep. Bled lots, though, being on the hand, and me having adrenaline flowing. Still stings.
Ugh. Well, the layout for that pretty well sucks. I'll take another shot at it tomorrow. In the mean time though, it's 10:30, and I've spend more than long enough on this tonight.
Tuesday, May 25, 2004, 8:30 pm
Short entry tonight. Just that the above layout is as good as I feel like getting it. I've been playing with tables and such for the alignment for the past forty-five minutes, and I don't feel like bothering any more.
Today was pretty dull; stayed in my hotel room, and typed up a bunch of paperwork. Mostly kilometer stationing for the passing lanes up the Alaska Highway.
I did spend quite a bit of time emailing Brian back and forth. Apparently, thanks to insurance and utilities costs, BlueQuill has decided to cancel small programs. Long story short, we're not going to be able to run karate classes there. Joe called a meeting for Thursday night, which I won't be around for. Kinda sucks, but I guess that's the hazard of not being around for the summer. Brian will let me know what happened on Friday, I imagine.
With any luck, we'll find another facility without any trouble, but without a definite commitment for an instructor, we could have some trouble keeping it running. I'm not going to be around much, with my school schedule. Hopefully next year, after I've graduated, I'll be around more consistently. I get the impression that I'll be running a class, at the very least. With as often as Tony is around now, I can't see him taking over for Joe when he steps down. That'll probably be Brian, as Mario doesn't want the job. I don't think Joe is going to want to be running things for much longer; we don't see him very often now, and he's had some trouble with Shihan, Sue, and Elaine. I guess we'll see in time.
Mostly, what I'll be doing depends on what kind of job I get when I graduate. I'm hoping to work in structural engineering, either as a construction estimator, or possibly as a site inspector for a while. I like the steel stuff the best, but I'm happy with concrete too. Just as long as I'm not doing actual materials testing. Ugh. There was enough of that in my engineering materials course. Barring that, I might look for something in project management. Not as likely, I think, given that I won't have PMI training or anything, but still; something to think about.
I've also been pretty seriously toying with the idea of enlisting in the armed forces. Not as a reservist, either, full deal. I'm not sure if I'd do well in the military though; I'm not much of one for authority, if I don't think it's deserved. Mind you, if I did enlist, I'd be an officer right off, and probably get a signing bonus too, so most of the people I'd be subordinate too would be senior ranks. Hopefully, that'd mean they were competent, too. No guarantees there though, unfortunately.
I guess the military thing is kind of following an ideal, for me. The complete loss of self, subject to a higher authority is pretty appealing to me. A lot of clarity in answering to a higher authority. I guess the major stumbling block is whether or not the higher authority is right.
I'm a bit arrogant in that respect, I tend to think I'm smarter that the vast majority of the population. It's not all that often I'm proven wrong, either. See? Arrogant. Or cocky, or one of a million other things that you might call it. I guess intelligence is what I fall back on; I'm not exactly a football linebacker, or anything. Neither am a extraordinarily artistic. I can't draw artistically, nor am I much of a poet. I love music, but can't play an instrument to save my life. I've wanted to learn the violin, but the damn things are expensive, and not the kind of thing you can pick up in band at school. About the best I get is a fair aptitude towards technical description; both by drawing, and in text. Not very glamorous, really. I've always felt that's an area I'm lacking, but I do try to work on it. My intelligence is the one thing I do have to fall back on.
I've always picked up things pretty quickly; if my Mom is to be believed, I was reading at a second grade level two weeks into learning. I was doing seventh grade math in fifth grade, and that's from my own recollection. I can also remember sitting around class for two weeks, bored out of my tree, waiting until I could take the seventh grade test. It was only the unit on geometry, but still. Better than anyone else in my school did. I've always been very good at the things I've been interested in; it's just a matter of finding the things I'm actually interested in. Most of them don't seem too terribly relevant to daily life.
Don't get me wrong; I don't think I'm better than other people. Everyone has their strengths and weaknesses, I just know what my strength is. Goddess knows I have my fair share of weaknesses. I'm not charismatic, I'm not athletic, nor am I artistic. The only way I make up the difference is by being smart.
Well, that's more than I had intended to write, so I'm signing off for the night.
Saturday, May 29, 2004, 1:45 pm
It's nice to be home. I wasn't really excited about coming back, and now that I've been here for a while, it's not something that's all that special either, but I definitely enjoyed last night.
I met up with some friends from highschool for the fireworks display; Stephen was there, with his friend Chris, Alison was there, so was Becca. Adam couldn't make it, nor could Tasha, and I have no idea where Dan was; I was supposed to pick him up. There were also a couple people there that I didn't know very well. Jeremy was a few years behind me in school, and Neil I only ever met once. I also ran into Melissa Hall, who's in town for the weekend. It was kind of interesting, being in their company reminded me of how much of an outsider in the group I really was. Didn't know most of the inside jokes, don't know the lyrics to the musicals, I was always kind of the observer. That didn't change a whole lot. Everyone is doing well though, which is good.
I was supposed to meet up with them again today, but with the rain, I think everyone chickened out. It was pretty soggy last night too; my coat is downright soaked at the moment. We've had a pretty steady downpour since I got home yesterday. It's good though, it'll make everything nice and green, even if it does mean I'm stuck inside for a bit. I get the impression the rest of my day is going to be pretty quiet. Theoretically, Adam and Tasha are looking for something to do, but I can't see them calling me up. Once again, the outsider thing. Dan is in town, and Melissa is around for the rest of the day. I've considered giving her a call, but I'm not sure about that. Maybe later this afternoon. In the mean time, I'm happy to just relax for a bit.
I'm supposed to call Jenny sometime today too. I called last night for the first time, and got voicemail. Still not sure if I'm really looking forward to meeting her. From her work schedule, that'll probably end up being this coming friday. To top it all off, I sent Esther another email, letting her know I'm back in town. And speaking of the devil, I got her reply just this very second. Pausing a moment to read it. Hmm. Nothing special, just finding out where I wanted to meet up. Still not sure when it's going to happen, or what she had in mind. Oh well. I'll find out soon enough, for my tastes.
I am looking forward to catching a beer with Brian and Mark though; Mark has been diving for the cruise lines for the last nine months or so, so I'm sure he's got some good stories. That'll probably end up being wednesday after class or something. Should be fun.
Tuesday is looking like a museum visit, plus a karate class, followed by a movie, and massive amounts of sugar. I expect we'll end up going to see Shreck 2, which is supposed to be hilarious. I also want to go see Harry Potter before I head back up north, that's out on the fourth. That pretty much limits me to something like an 11 pm showing on the saturday, to avoid having the place filled with little kids. There's only so much of them I can take.
I guess that's my life in a nutshell for the next little bit. Wow; I didn't really expect to make it up to a dozen updates, but this is it.
Thursday, June 10, 11:15 pm
I'm sitting in a hotel room in Muncho lake at the moment, with no access to the internet or a telephone, so I'm afraid it's going to be a while before I get it uploaded. I don't think I'll have internet access again until either late Saturday, or Sunday, when I get back to Fort Nelson.
It comes to mind that I haven't written anything about my coffee meeting with Esther. It was a bit of a strange experience, acutally. I met her over by what used to be the dolphin tank. She's had a hair cut, and was wearing glasses again, but other than that, she's pretty much the same as I remember. I'd almost forgotten what she looked like before I met her, actually, so I was a bit surprised when I saw her. She was just off work, but didn't really look like she was wearing formal clothes. I gather she had an overshirt, but with as hot as it was, she took it off in the car before coming into the mall.
I didn't have any definite plans or expectations when I went to meet her, and it turned out she didn't really either. We spent about three hours wandering up and down the mall, talking. Not about anything specific; actually, I can't even rememeber what we talked about, other than school, but that's an ever-present topic. We went to Artemis, and Le Gnome (to find French Onion Soup bowls), Chapters of course, and I don't remember where else. With all that went on between us, I was half expecting the conversation to be pretty strained. It wasn't though. Almost like the last six months hadn't happened. I wish. Thinking back on it now, she seemed a bit hesitant. I don't know if it was because she was afraid I'd hold everything against her, or if it was because she wasn't sure if she wanted to be there. Hell, for all I know, she's still attracted to me, but didn't want to show it. She told me once that she'd told Dave about us, and that Andrea pretty much knew, but that they didn't approve. My response was that it was nice to know that they had such a high opinion of me. It hurt though, more than it probably should have. I didn't really care so much what they thought about me, still don't either; what hurt was that Esther was letting them influence her decisions. I guess it couldn't have been helped, really; they're here two best friends in Alberta.
I guess the most interesting part of the whole night was at about nine o'clock when the stores closed down. When we first met up, I'd asked her if she had eaten; she said she hadn't, but nor was she hungry. She still wasn't hungry by nine, but at that point, it was either go grab something to eat, or head back home. I said as much, and the next thing I know, we're walking down bourbon street, looking for food. She told me she didn't want to go home to study Sociology. I have a hard time beleiving that though, she's never seemed to have trouble getting distracted from homework before. Then again, why tell me she wasn't hungry, and eat a full dish of pasta? We did go our separate ways after supper though; I told her I'd be back in Edmonton in another three weeks, and that if she wanted to hang out again, to e-mail me. I had a hard time not laughing aloud at her response, and not in a nice way. She told me that I should email her, because she didn't know my schedule. It was amusing, given that she ignored the last three messages I sent. Oh well. I suppose I'll send her a note on the 26th, and see if I get a response. If not, no loss.
For the first time, I realise that I don't love her anymore. I love what we were, for the two weeks of finals, and I loved the feeling of having her beside me, but I don't love her. I held Esther on a pedestal for a long time; she's one of the few people I know, who can manage to be both smart and social. She isn't really stunning to look at, but nor is she an eyesore. She's also got a good sense of humour. I think she's a lot like me; she's got a better handle on dealing with people though. I imagine that comes from having a brother, and living in a small town her whole life. I never really saw her flaws. She's very much afraid of dissapointing others, or having them disaprove of her, even if it's at the cost of her own happiness. She's not really good at talking about serious issues with people, either. Almost like she's afraid of confrontation. I'm guessing that's why she didn't tell me she was planning on moving out of our apartment. Of course, there's always the theory that you project your flaws onto others. I know I have both of the ones I just mentioned.
Apathy has got the be the best way to remove stress from a situation. I found that when I was walking around talking with Esther. I wasn't really worried about making a good impression; either because I subconsciously knew I didn't love her anymore, or because I knew that even if I did, there was no chance for us. I felt very relaxed the whole time, maybe that's why I noticed that she seemed a bit hesitant. It's almost a Zen philosophy, stop caring intensly about things, and you'll act more naturally towards them. By acting naturally, you perform better, end up with better results. Care by not-Caring. Now that I think about it, that explains a lot of things, especially with my past relationships. The only girls that are ever attracted to me are the ones I haven't paid any attention to. I haven't tried to make a good impression on them, so they see who I really am. A good life lesson, I think.
Speaking of life lessons, it's 1:15 am now, and I'm supposed to be starting a 10 hour day at 7, so I'm going to stop writing for the night. Any less sleep, and I'll end up on my roof in the ditch tomorrow, getting eaten by a bear.
Sunday, June 13, 12:40 am
I've moved up to Watson lake in the Yukon for the next few days; I've got everything I need along the highway up to about kilometer 780, so it doesn't make sense for me to be south of there. I haven't done the access roads yet, but I'll probably head back to Fort Nelson, and work my way north again, picking those up. That's assuming Steve has figured out if he can use the last set I picked up. It really sucks not having all the things you need to do a job, without ArcEdit, I can't check to see if the things I'm creating are useful, nor can I change anything with the information that's already been collected. Finding control monuments has been about the most worthwile job I've had so far, and it's altogether pretty dull.
I've had a hell of a time motivating myself to work this last week. There's no-one around to see if I'm starting and ending my day on time, or if I'm slacking off in the middle. Between that, and that the job is pretty pointless, it's hard to keep myself active. I'm going to end up working five or six hours tomorrow, to make up the time I missed Monday thru Saturday. About the only thing that keeps me working at all is the money. Of course, when my expense cheques don't come in until the third day of my next trip, I don't see a lot of that, either. I'm going to have to open a CIBC account, just so I can have a place to put my paycheques. I've got over a grand sitting in my wallet right now, that should be sitting in the bank; it'll have to wait another two weeks, yet. Maybe I'll stop by the local CIBC before I head back to Ft. Nelson on Monday. At least it doesn't look like I'm going to have any trouble paying for tuition.
I guess there really isn't a lot else to say, given that all I've been doing this past week is working. I have decided that I'm more of a city person than a country boy though. Maybe it's just that I'm stuck staying in hotels, but I miss the amenities of home. There's all of two restaurants up here, and I'm not so sure I want to be trying the food at the Chinese place. If the diner I've been eating at thus far is any indication, it'll be bland, at best. Tommorow's supper, most likely. It sucks being forced to pay five or six bucks a load for laundry, too. I can get away with four bucks in Fort Nelson, but I haven't stayed there on this trip yet. Sadly, there's only so much you can pack in a 40 lb suitcase. The television is better at home too; I actually sat through a good portion of "Legally Blonde 2" this evening, just for the background noise. It's one of those car crash things, you really don't want to look, but sheer morbid fascination forces you to.
That's all for tonight.
Wednesday, June 16, 2004, 11:40 pm
Again, there isn't a whole lot interesting that's happened to me lately. I finished up what I was doing in Watson lake, and got back to Fort Nelson on Monday. It's been hard keeping track of the days lately; since I worked last Sunday, I don't really have any way of distinguishing the last ten days or so. I'm looking forward to taking this coming Sunday off completely though. I'm estimating that I'll be at Muncho lake for it, so I'll be able to spend quite a bit of it outside.
Other than that, the external antenna connection on my gps unit is broken, so it's a good thing it has an integrated receiver, or I'd be screwed. It's my fault it's broken, of course, but in my defense, the toss I gave it should have been well within what the designers would have expected it to go through; they do call the thing 'rugged'. It's taken harder falls of the passenger seat before; it just happened to land wrong this time. I didn't tell my boss that, of course, I don't want to have to pay for the repair bill. I can't see it being that expensive, as the connector looks like it's not much more than a pared down co-axial cable connection. There's nothing keeping the antenna attached to the GPS unit, outside of friction. Definitely not build to take an impact. Of course, in my experience with repairs, it always seems to be the simple stuff that costs the most money.
I managed to crack a lens in my glasses too. Another oops, that. Stepped on them while I was working out in the fitness center in the basement of the hotel. Probably shouldn't have left them on the ground. Stupidity on my part, completely. I guess it's an odd way of reminding yourself that you haven't had an eye exam in a couple of years, but it served the purpose.
I don't really have a whole lot else to say, no earth-shaking revelations while I've been up here this time. I've reached a kind of peace with myself. I'm not long-term happy, but for now, I'm short-term content. I guess that's a bit of a revelation, all in itself. I'm not terribly upset that I don't have a girlfriend, or that I don't know anyone up here; it's nice to have the time to myself. I know it's going to make me look forward to school again, which, given what went on last semester, is probably a good thing. I still don't know if Esther was honest when she mentioned me sending her an email about going for coffee again, or if we're back to being friends. I realize that I talk about her a lot, but when you work with them on just about every assignment in school for four years, live with them for four months, and end up sleeping with them for a month of that, then spend another eight months looking forward to them coming back from the Northwest Territories, only to find out they don't know if they want to be with you, I'd say it's justified. It's probably not overstating the matter to say she was my first real love. Now, my biggest concern is who I'm going to be working with in school for the last year before I graduate. And whether or not I want to be working with her. I'll email her when I get home, and see how things go from there. That seems to be the way I do a lot of things, hasn't always worked out for me in the past, but then, I'm not the same person I was even a year ago.
That's all for tonight, it's midnight, and I'm more tired than I ought to be.
Friday, June 25, 2004, 12:30 am
Hasn't been much of an "on-line" diary of late, has it? At any rate, this is the last entry I'll be making while I'm up north for this trip. I'll just have to remember to upload everything when I get home; either that, or do it tomorrow morning when I'm supposed to be working. Thanks to my flight though, I'm only in Ft. Nelson for half of the day, so I'll probably be busy actually doing work. Three sixty hour weeks in a row can really burn a person out, so it'll be nice to be home for a while.
I did manage to get out canoeing last Sunday; it started out perfectly; it was only about 20 degrees out when I left at 10:45, and there was a bit of a haze so I wasn't getting the unadulterated glare of sunlight. A nice gentle breeze too. I made it across the short direction of the lake in about fifteen minutes, using most of the time to refresh myself on how to use the paddle. From there, I made it to the tail of the lake in about an hour and a half; which isn't bad, considering it was probably a good ten kilometers away. The rental was for five hours, but I didn't really want to be out there that long, so I started to head back. Of course, that's when the wind decided to pick up; I had to fight it all the way back. I can honestly say I'd never before seen a bow-spray from a canoe before. Not that I was moving that quickly, of course, but more that the wind was putting up waves big enough to spray. It took me almost three hours to get back to the docks. There still wasn't a cloud in the sky by then, but the haze had long since dissapeared, and the temperature hit something like 32. I'm pretty badly sunburned; the blistering and peeling started today. Fun stuff, no? I'd do it again in a heartbeat though; this time with some good waterproof sunscreen, of course.
I had a craving for junk food yesterday; so I went to the petrocan a block west of my hotel, and picked up some pringles and an aero bar. I didn't feel like driving, and it was a nice night for a walk. As stupid as this is going to sound, when I got about half-way there, I came to the rather sudden realization that I was comfortable with who I was, as a person. Or, if not who I was, than at least with who I was trying to be. Odd thing to come out of a walk to fulfill a craving, but it was a very enlighting experience for me. I think keeping this diary has helped me quite a bit. It's nice to be able to write down my thoughts, and work through some ideas consciously, rather then letting everything stir around in the background. It's like having someone to talk to, whenever you need them, but it's not a person you're talking to at all, unless it's yourself. It's getting to the point where I don't think I'd care if other people read what I've written; what's here is only really a snapshot of who I am now. This doesn't tell the whole story, I don't think it ever will. It does tell a story though, which is enough for now. Theres a lyric from a Matchbox Twenty song that goes "write your soul down word for word/ see who's your friend, and who is kind" I guess that's what I'm after here. Obviously it's not possible, but I figure if I write enough, I'll be able to get a better glimpse of the person I am, and maybe who I'm going to become.
Tuesday, July 6, 2004, 8:20 pm
Well, I finally managed to get that last batch of entries uploaded. I can't really convince myself to use my dialup work account when I'm in Edmonton, especially with cable internet in the computer room upstairs. Of course, when everything I type is on my laptop, it makes it a bit hard to upload from my home computer.
Today was interesting; I managed to spend the about six hours outside in the rain, tromping through the bush, looking at culverts. I don't think it would have bothered me so much, if it wasn't the second time I'd picked up the same information. I found out that Steve was supposed to have gotten me to install another program onto the gps unit I was using, that allows us to do post-processing on the information, improving the accuracy. Of course, I didn't know anything about it. So the two days I spent going into and out of ditches with sore legs last trip were for nothing, and today, I got soaked re-doing everything. I just hope it isn't representative of things to come for the rest of my work term. Enough bitching for now, at any rate.
Today did seem to put me in a writing mood though; my list of culverts is pretty well covered in lines of crappy poetry, and lyrics to songs I was singing to myself. I did come up with something that I want to work out a little more here, so here it goes.
There is beauty for each person in the world, in equal share, the difference is only in where each person perceives that beauty. Some lucky few have the capacity to see the beauty in everyday occurances; the smile shared by lovers, or the sound of the wind. Others, and I would guess the majority, find beauty in singular moments, or great undertakings, a falling star, or the masterful playing of a symphonic piece. There are others, still, who find beauty in darker things. Myself, I like to think I'm a combination of the three. At times, I'm more than content to sit back and stare and the sunshine dancing on the bottom of a lake; other times, I'll fall into my mp3 collection, and do very little but lose myself in the melodies and harmonies. What brought to mind the third beauty I mentioned, was a book. Kushiel's Dart, by Jacqueline Carey. Phedra, the anguisette. Of course, other authors have touched on the same idea; Anne Rice in the Vampire chronicles, for example.
Most people in society label this group as the 'Goths', and won't associate with them given the choice. Strangely enough though, these are the same people who will tell each other to look at the silver lining if something bad happens. Those same 'Goths' make a study of the silver lining; looking at the darkest things, and finding beauty in them. Which is better then, to enjoy the obvious beauties in life; or to look at things where a normal person would see only pain; and instead, find one aspect of beauty?
Sunday, July 18, 2004, 2:00 pm
It's getting sad when the html code for this page takes longer to load than the actualy frame I use for editing. I guess that's hint number one (or fifteen, but who's counting) that I'm a bit verbose. I find that a bit ironic, really, in real life I'm pretty quiet. I guess it's because of the anonynimity of writing; I don't have to see people's reactions or worry about their judgements. That's a pretty major thing for me; I've always been fairly sensitive to criticism. It comes, I think, from being such a perfectionist; I'm harder on myself when I make mistakes than most other people would be. When other people point things out, it's just one more addition to the thoughts I've already had.
Now that I think about it, that also might explain why I'm a bit of a loner by nature; the fewer people I let into my world, the fewer that can point out my flaws. Looking at my life, I can see a lot of things that would probably be traditionally associated with a lack in confidence; I'm an only child, my father is as much of a perfectionist as I am, my parents divorced when I was young (rather messily, at that), and I moved around a lot as a kid. All told, the kinds of thing that make it fairly difficult to make close friends. All told though, I'm glad things happened the way they did. I was a shit-disturber when I was young; it wasn't often that I wasn't in trouble for some reason or another. If I'd made a group of friends like that, I doubt I'd be doing well now. Moving into the condominiums in Devon helped a lot too; there's nothing like like looking around and seeing people who've done nothing with their lives to give a person ambition.
As things stand now; I'm doing fairly well for myself. My marks in school are good, my job isn't anything to complain about, and I'm in pretty good shape with karate and all. I'm not in debt up to my arsehole, and I've had enough money that I've taken a couple trips to Ontario for karate tournaments. Of course, I live with my mom, and I drive a s**t car, but then, prenty of time to rectify those when I've graduated. It'll be nice to be making some real money, amd actually being able to spend it. So far, I've had to save more than half of what I make to pay for tuition. So far, I've got a bit more than seven grand in the bank, and another three and a bit coming in from work. So with any luck, and with a grand in scholarship money, I'll be able to pull off a trip to Japan when I've graduated, too. Guess I should see about getting my passport updated.
Tuesday, July 20, 2004, 11:20 pm
Well, this is another entry that I'll be uploading later; I'm too lazy to reach over and grab my racal key so I can connect to the internet. I've got work to do on the computer tomorrow morning, so this will likely get uploaded while I'm checking my email. Steve is horrible about replying in a timely fashion.
Life has been pretty dull lately; there hasn't been much interesting happening in Fort Nelson. I've gotten to the foothills portion of the highway, so I've been spending my days hiking up and down gullies to get to culverts. Today was the most fun though, between the rain and the loose shale slopes, it was some pretty decent climbing. I didn't rip my hand open this time, despite a few slips. I just hope my boots are dry by tomorrow morning. A little sunshine probably wouldn't kill me either. I was close enough to a black bear today that it probably could have, though. Fortunately, I was closer to my truck than I was to the bear. It wasn't all that interested in me at any rate; they usually aren't. I try not to smell like food.
My stray thought for the day sort of relates to the last entry, and self-confidence. I guess it's more about how people see themselves, though. When I look at other people my age, they don't seem very self-conscious; it makes me wonder what they see when they look at themselves in a mirror, or try and picture themselves in their minds. What I see in the mirror seems to depend on my mood a lot; if things are going well for me and I'm in a good mood, I tend to look more favourably on myself. If, on the other hand, I've had a lousy day, I tend to see things I view as imperfections. I imagine it's the same with most people really; girls have makeup for exactly that reason, and guys my age are notorious for overcompensating; little-man syndrome, I've heard it called.
My self-image is different than what I see in the mirror; I don't really think of myself as a 23 year old guy. Generally, I see myself as I was ten years ago; far too skinny, far too pale, and completely lacking in self confidence. It seems a bit strange that my self-image isn't keeping track with my age at all, but then, I guess it never really has. Even as a twelve year old kid, I can remember looking around and thinking that the people in my classes at school and such were a lot older than me. There weren't many people I could really relate to. I guess that has something to do with why I didn't have a lot of friends going through junior high and high school.
Reading over the other entries in this thing, it comes to mind that I haven't really written a lot about my social life lately. I still haven't managed to meet up with Jenny; but I did manage have an actual phone conversation with her. She was supposed to get in touch with me last time I was in Edmonton so we could get together, but apparently was having boyfriend troubles, and didn't get around to calling me. I sent Esther an invitation for coffee, but didn't get a reply. I got kind of ticked off at that, so I sent a follow up email asking if I was supposed to take her silence as a 'no'. Got a reply to that one (she almost always responds to a bait like that), with an excuse that she's been having trouble with hotmail, she'd apparently replied, but I didn't get the response. I'm not totally sure if I believe her, but apparently she did want to get together. Due to timing conflicts, though, that didn't happen either. I visited with keith, melinda and tiffany a fair bit, the last time I was around. Found out that Tiffany is about six weeks pregnant. Keith is the dad. That's almost enough to give me the heebie-jeebies. They're not what most people would call the parenting type. Of course, I'm not really one to talk; we were jokingly suggesting names, and I came up with 'Jesus Lucifer Cherry.' The frightening part is that I think Tiffany wants to use it. The suggestion in the event of a girl was 'Lilith Eve Cherry.' What can I say; we're not normal. All joking aside though; I think they'll make better parents than most people I know; they're both open-minded enough that the kid isn't going to be lacking for opportunity, and they're both very caring people. I just hope the child has more ambition that the parents. Not to be derogatory, but neither of them have done a lot with their lives thus far, or show inclination to do a lot. They're both quite intelligent though, which bodes well for the kid.
I guess the normal thing to do now would be to talk about my thoughts on becoming a parent myself; but givent that I don't even have prospects for a girlfriend, I'm going to pass on that topic for a bit. Besides which, it's midnight now, and I've already written more than a page. Enough for now.
Thursday, July 22, 2004, 11:30 pm
Brace yourself, this is likely to be a long entry.
I mentioned early on in this little endeavour that I'd be writing about my relationship with Esther, and I think this is as good a time as any. Starting at the beginning, Esther is one of my classmates at University. I met her in first year, while I was getting help from Dr. Leonard on calculus problem. Esther showed up in the middle of the discussion, and was having trouble on the same problem. She was a lot less stuck on it than I was, though. I ended up half getting her to talk me through the solution, and half copying her answer, because I had no clue how to go about the problem. It was obvious from the start that she runs on a different thought process than I do, because there was no way I was understanding her explanation. I didn't really think much of her at the time; she was just another girl in class.
I actually started to get to know her by talking with a guy named Steve during Chemistry. I guess he was completely infatuated with Esther's friend Andrea, and both of them were pretty creeped out by him. I can understand why they weren't comfortable around him; he was almost your proto-typical nerd. I thought he was a nice enough guy, even if his interests were a bit different than mine. More often than not, sitting next to Steve also put me next to Esther, Andrea, and Dave, so I ended up being included in a lot of their conversations too. Now, to be honest, I can understand why Steve was obsessed with Andrea; she's very pretty, and almost completely insane. At the same time, she has the charisma to come off as interesting and unique, rather than clinical. I was pretty attracted to her too, right from the outset. At the time, of course, I didn't know she already had a boyfriend (later to become her husband.)
As classes progressed, I started to work together with the group, and by the time it was summer break, I was at least a good acquaintance, or a distant friend. Close enough to the group that Dave, Esther, and myself were arranging our schedules to end up in the same classes. They knew I was reasonably intelligent, and fairly easy to work with, so we all figured it was a pretty good idea. All told, it worked out pretty well. Second year went pretty well, all things considered. Andrea went into Electrical Engineering, whereas Esther, Dave, and Myself were all in civil. Over the course of the two semesters I learned a lot about all of them. I found out about Andrea's boyfriend in probably the first month back after summer. Between that, and the fact that the only class we had with her was calculus, my attention started to shift towards Esther. She had a boyfriend at the time, a Mec E student by the name of John. He was a farmers boy, and they were pretty close. I can still remember getting jealous at them kissing before we went into Civ E 270 (Structural Analasys I, for the uninitiated). Of course, with him in Mec E, and Esther a Civil, that relationship didn't last too long. They broke up, and for a couple weeks, I seriously considered asking her out.
Now, up until that point, that wasn't my usual modus opporandi; I don't generally ask girls out, it usually goes the other way around. Not that I'm all that desirable, it's just that I'm cursed to not knowing when to make a move. So if I was going to ask her out, it was going to take at least a couple weeks to work up the balls to. A week and a half later, she's dating another guy in our calculus class. A little bit too quick for me to be moving. At any rate, I managed to keep my jealousy in check, and my friendship with Esther got closer. Our surveying course ended up being the initial catalyst in the whole mess.
Surveying at the U of A covers two different courses, there's Civ E 250, which is probably the most boring lecture course at the university; and Civ E 251, which is probably the most exhausting two week field course at the university. Yup, field course. It used to be held on the University grounds, but due to all the recent construction and other things, it got moved out to a semi-local provincial park. Semi-local meaning it was an hours drive from the university campus. In the opposite direction as my house, which was also an hours drive from campus. After about two days of making a two hour commute that started at about 5 am, Esther offered to let me use the other bed in her dorm room, and I agreed.
When I say field school is exhausting, I'm not kidding. We were working in the field for thirteen days straight, working anywhere from 12 to 16 hours every day, plus two hours round-trip travel time. When we did get home for the night, we generally had written assignments to complete, taking anywhere from 1 to three hours. Sleep was a luxury. To top all that off, the fourth member of our group was utterly incompetant. Three people doing the work of four, in an already exhausting schedule. I should probably point out that we were singularily blessed by the weather too; we had snow every day for two weeks; in mid-May.
Most people would probably think that spending 24 hours a day with someone, for two weeks straight, under pretty stressful conditions would end up driving both people crazy. Normally, I'd agree. Ninety-nine people out of a hundred, I would have wanted to kill after the first two nights. Esther, strangely enough, was that one hundredth person. We got along well enough that we were talking at night after we turned the lights out, despite how tired we were. I remember the moment I fell in love with her; we were out in the field, working on a last-minute question for the assignment due that day. It was something to do with Stats. My mark in the course had been the best, so I got slated for the question. Dave was working with Hazel, so Esther was 'helping' me. There we were, sitting on the side of a hill, in 10 degree weather. She's sitting cross-legged, and just bends down, touches her forehead to her ankles, and falls asleep. It's more than two years later, and I can still picture the exact fall of every strand of her hair, of every sunlit highlight. I was, for all intents and purposes, single at the time but unfortunately Esther was still dating Geoff, the guy from Calculus. I guess my sense of morality is a bit whacked, because that's about the only reason I didn't make a move when I had the opportunity. By the end of survey school, I was helping Esther pack, to go home to Saskatchewan. I still remember telling her that I hope Geoff knew how lucky he was.
The program we're taking is pretty unique in terms of the education process. We have a five year bachelors degree, with 20 months of paid work experience built into the deal. Survey school was the last two weeks in 'class' before our first eight month work term. With Esther in Saskatechewan, and me working in downtown Edmonton, I didn't see her at all for that time. I did, however, hear from someone I never expected to. Niccy.
I first met Niccy when I was working at A&W before University. She was there for about a month, living with her grandparents in Devon. I trained her, and we got along pretty well. She ended up moving back to Hinton, and I never thought I'd hear from her again. Two years later I got an email, via my listing on WVOX, from a pagan named Autumn Wolfsong. She mentions having spent some time in Devon, and judging by her age, I figured I probably knew her. After about a month of writing back and forth, we figured out who each other were. We were emailing each other pretty steadily back and forth during the school year.
Niccy made a habit of visiting her grandparents fairly often, so we arranged to get together for coffee while she was in town, and ended up hitting it right off. She taught me some yoga, I taught her some karate (having ranked for my black belt the previous november.) Long story short, we ended up dating sometime in June. It was pretty amazing; Niccy was the first person I was comfortable being myself around, and she loved me for who I was. Or, at least, for who I was at the time. Niccy was still living in Hinton, so it was also my first experience with a long distance relationship. She came down every second weekend or so, and I did a couple Greyhound trips to Hinton. It was a good eight months.
Now, having spent two weeks living with Esther, we didn't exactly lose touch in the interim. Actually, we were sending each other email on a daily (occasionally hourly) basis. I halfway think I ended up talking more with her than I did with Niccy. At any rate, I guess Esther remembered how well we got along during survey school (it would have been hard not to, actually, we both mentioned it pretty frequently, even in the middle of survey school), because she asked me if I'd be her roommate when she came back to Edmonton for the next semester.
At this point, neither one of us was single. If anyone's reading this, I can just imagine them screaming 'bad idea.' What can I say, I'm young and stupid. I said yes. Actually, for the four months it lasted, the whole thing went incredibly smoothly. Esther and myself got along as we as we had during survey school, and the whole thing was completely plautonic. Niccy continued to visit, but less often, as I was in school. Geoff came over a few times too. It wasn't until a couple weeks before finals that I got the first inkling of things to come.
I don't even remember the exact circumstances, but I know Esther had broken up with Geoff a while back. We usually hung out in the civil engineering club, and someone mentioned that they were surprised Esther was single. As a female engineering student, she pretty much had her pick of anyone available. It was true enough, there wasn't a single guy in any of our classes who wouldn't have said yes if she'd asked. Her reply though, was "Yeah, but all the good looking ones are taken by artsies." Niccy is a theatre technician; as artsy as they come. I was probably ten feet behind Esther at the time; I don't even know if she knew I was there. I was the only one she could have been talking about. Hearing that stunned me for a half second, but I remember saying something like "Well, I'll take that as an off-hand compliment." For what was the first real time in my life, I knew beyond doubt that someone I was attracted to, had mutual feelings. And I lived with her.
I flirted. Shamelessly. If she told me she was going for a shower, I asked her if she wanted company. I made sure I was close to her as often as I could be. We had a galley kitchen, I helped her cook. To be fair, I wasn't the only one flirting horribly. A couple candle-light dinners were her idea. On the same not of fairness though, I was the only one of us who was in a relationship with someone else. Disaster came in the form of final exams. We had something like five of them in the first four days, then more than a week off before the last one. Between cramming for exams, and actually writing them, we were amazingly stressed out. I did most of my studying on the loveseat we used as a couch, and she'd join me, as often as not. By the time we'd written our third exam, we were taking afternoon naps. For the first one, I was sleeping on one arm of the couch, she was on the other. For the second, she was sleeping leaned up against my legs. The next day she was in my arms. When she woke up, I kissed her. She reciprocated. And all hell broke loose.
I have never wanted someone as much as I'd wanted her. Niccy didn't even hold a candle. And Esther reciprocated. The sheer physical intensity of the relationship was staggering. To put it bluntly, I've never had more, or better sex. And it wasn't with my girlfriend.
This is where things start to get complicated, and it's already 1:00 am. I'll write more later.
Friday, July 23, 2004, 11:25 am
Yup, a.m. I was too efficient this morning, I don't have to leave for the airport for another hour and a bit, and I've got nothing to do in the mean time. So, I guess I'll pick up where I left off last night (or early this morning, if you want to be picky about it.)
Me and Esther were 'together' if you can call it that, for about two weeks over final exams. The whole thing would have been great, if she hadn't been leaving for a four month work term in Hay River, NWT right after that. Now, at this point, we're four months into a six month lease on a two bedroom apartment. Frankly, $730 a month is a bit steep for a lone university student to pay, especially when he's also supposed to be saving for tuition. Obnviously, I needed another roommate. Co-incidentally, Niccy was finishing up her year of Film Studies at Red Deer College, and was looking to move to Edmonton. I was already dating her, so of course she moved in with me.
So how do you break up with someone and manage to keep them as a roommate? I couldn't figure that out, and I don't think there are many people who could have. It was a pretty nasty dilemma for me; if I broke up with Niccy, I'd lose a roommate, and wouldn't be able to afford to go back to University. If I didn't break up with her, I'd have to figure out how I was going to sleep in the same bed as her, when the only person on my mind was Esther. School comes first. Or, at least, it did to start with.
For the next two months, I lived with Niccy. The relationship was strained to say the least. Our relationship prior to her moving in, and even prior to Esther being involved, wasn't exactly in a blissful state. I'd gone down to Red Deer on a couple of occasions, to visit Niccy in college. I don't know if it's that she was preoccupied with school for those visits, but for the majority of them, I got pretty much ignored, or used as free labour building sets for student films. I wasn't too happy with the deal, but at the time, I figured I'd let it ride, and see if things changed when she was on her summer break. Well, things changed, even if she didn't.
Eh, time to sign off for now; there's other people in the office again. There they go. My bosses boss was up, with one of the techs looking at a bst and chipping job. Fortunately, their flight leaves in less than an hour, so I don't have to worry about them anymore either. Brent came in too, but he's gone for lunch, so I don't expect I'll see him again before I leave either. Only about forty minutes left.
To get back on topic though, its an interesting experience, living with someone you're dating, but wishing it was someone else. That was probably the most awkward three months I've ever experienced. About two months into the whole deal, I couldn't do it anymore. I broke up with Niccy. Now, the last thing I wanted was to lose her friendship, so I didn't bring up my relationship with Esther. Niccy took the breakup hard, and I don't really fault her for it. I didn't exactly let her down gently, and she'd moved up from Red Deer to be with me. She didn't really know a lot of other people around Edmonton, so there really wasn't a lot left for her there. She stayed another month, and then moved out to Vancouver. We're still in touch, and I know she's still waiting for me to ask for her back. Thinking back on it, I don't really deserve that kind of treatment from her. I used her, and I lied to her, and a guilty conscience doesn't even begin to make up for that.
At any rate, I ended up paying another months rent on the apartment, anticipating Esther's return. Then I found out that she wasn't sure she wanted to be living with me again. Now, with her up in Hay River, she wasn't exactly going to be doing a lot of checking around for other places to live, so in the end, she did come back to the apartment. Things weren't the same, unfortunately. Esther had the good grace to feel bad for what our relationship had done to Niccy. All of those bad feelings, of course, were squarely directed at me. She still found me attractive, and she still liked my personality, but she hated what had happened.
As a result, her attitude towards me was more unpredictable than would have been a schizophrenic woman PMSing. From one moment to the next, I couldn't tell if she wanted me in bed, or wanted me somewhere on the far side of the planet. Looking back, I can't really blame her for her feelings, but it hurt that she didn't mention them to me. My feelings for her hadn't changed in the slightest; I loved her, and I wanted her. It was a pretty rocky road, all things considered. I came home one day in early October, and checked the messages on the phone, to find one from a landlady in another apartment building for Esther. Now, in eight years of karate, I've been hit pretty hard. I've been lifted a good six inches off the ground by a kick to my testes. That pain didn't even compare to the feeling I got when I was writing up the message for her on our whiteboard. After I'd written it, I sat down, and I don't think I moved for the next two or three hours until she came home.
When she did, we had a long talk, the gist of which was that I still wanted to be with her, despite everything that'd happened. She felt the same way, but wouldn't let herself be with me, because of what had happened. We decided to stay friends, and over the next month and a half, I even went with her to go look at her new apartment. All things considered, I guess she was more attracted to me than she would have wanted, because we ended up sleeping together again. It was the same as it had been when we were living together, with the exception that I was living in Devon. The relationship was hot and cold, until about the middle of our midterm exams. The preceeding week had been pretty stressful, and that came out while we were studying for our Hydraulics course. We'd just spent a couple of weeks avoiding each other, and I was trying to make amends. I made the excuse of not having a page of notes so I could go talk to her and borrow hers. She apparently wasn't ready to reconsile. After handing me the page of notes, I said that I'd stick around there to study, "Assuming you don't mind my company." Her response was "Well, kinda." Remember that kick to the testes? There we go again. That was pretty much the end, as far as I was concerned. It might seem like a bit of an over-reaction on my part, but I spent the next month trying everything in my power to avoid Esther.
Now, this wasn't an easy thing to do, given that she was in every one of my classes, and generally was in my work groups for assignments, too. I succeeded remarkably though, I don't think more than a dozen words passed between us in that whole month. I'm not really ashamed to admit that I cried at night more often than not during that time, or to say that it hurt me as much as it hurt Esther to avoid her. After that first month, I made a few small attempts to reconcile, but again, it wasn't what she was looking for. We didn't have another real conversation until somewhere around the last english class of the semster. After which, she ran to the next class, without looking back.
That was a little more than 8 months ago now, and we didn't really talk again until I sent her an email to wish her a happy birthday and a merry christmas (they're the same thing, in her case.) I guess she was surprised to hear from me, because she sent a reply asking if the email meant I was talking to her again. After another five or six email, we got to the point of agreeing to talk to each other online once in a while, but she made it pretty clear that she didn't want to see me face to face. The next three messages I sent her got ignored completely, and I pretty much let the matter die. Until two months ago, when I got an email from her asking me out for coffee. I've already written about that.
It's taken me until very recently to come to grips with everything that happened between us, which is part of the reason I've held off writing about it until now. Spending time up north and alone has given me a lot of time to think though, and I decided a while back that I didn't like the person I was, and that it was probably time to change. I don't have the luxury of being able to move somewhere completely foreign, so my efforts lately have been pretty internal. That's part of the reason I started this diary in the first place.
Now, I mentioned in my first entry that I'm Pagan, but that the beliefs don't focus strongly in my day-to-day life. Karma, is however, something that I put quite a bit of faith in. Wiccans call it the rule of three, and that what you do in the world returns to you threefold. The way my life has gone the last couple of years, I'm more than willing to believe that.
Ah, damn, time to go catch my plane.
Monday, November 29, 2004, 8:30 pm
Well, I had an entry between this one and the last, but it was in Lotus Wordpro format, so there isn't much chance I'll get is translated. I got a copy of Office 2003 today though, so I could be wrong. We'll see if it has a filter.
This semester has been a fucking rollercoaster, on just about every level except for my marks in school. I've gone for coffee with Esther twice since the start of the semester; the first time was an absolute blast; we caught a movie, and generally wandered around the mall making fools of ourselves. The second time was a different story; I don't know if she was in a bad mood to start off with, but it didn't seem like she wanted to be there. Plus she spent the next month or so avoiding me. That was just before the midterm exam in CIV E 431.
Japanese class has been a really different experience too. -Way- more homework than I was expecting there to be, and it's really difficult, but I'm enjoying learning the language. The people in class are pretty cool too; the two I talk with most are Tim and David. This is a bit strange for me; I ususally don't chat with random strangers, expecially other guys, but I've been talking with them from the start of the class onwards. There's a girl by the name of Allison too, but I generally only chat with her after class. She'll get mentioned again later.
Other than that, classes are all good; I'm consistently 15% above the class average on my exams, excluding japanese, where the number is closer to 8%. I ended up with the highest mark in the class for the CIV E 431 midterm, which was great. I was in the top 8 (out of 150 or so) for my engineering management course too. Amazing prof for that class; really interesting lectures, and he teaches right from the material. I even kicked ass on Dr. Elwi's last exam. 90% on it, and one stupid mistake cost me 7.5%, and the highest mark in the class. All because Elwi gave us an incorrect formula in class, and I was too dense to realize it wasn't dimensionally consistent. Regardless though; I did -far- better on that exam than I managed on the 372 exam two years ago, so I'm happy. Construction methods was fun too; I finished 90% of the exam, and scored 87% on it. That one is completely the prof's fault; he came in and "clarified" a question half way through the exam. I'm looking forward to his course evaluation, for sure.
My friend Becca moved back from Vancouver not too long ago; and I've been hanging out with her, Melinda, Keith, and Tiffany on a regular basis. It's a lot of fun most of the time, even if Melinda's attitude can get a bit annoying.
Really strange things have been going on over the past week or so though; Becca offered me casual sex (and wasn't joking about it), Allison gave me a pretty strong indication that she's interested in me, and Esther all of a sudden stopped to talk to me for a bit. I don't know what's going on; but I guess that kind of makes up for the lack of female interest for the past year and a bit since the last time I was with Esther. Oh yeah; I found out Niccy is moving back to Hintin too; it'll be nice to have her in Alberta again. To top that off her current boyfriend, Shawn, won't be moving out with her, for at least two months. I have a hunch he's not going to be moving out at all. Tie her moving back, to a comment along the lines of not having much control in terms of 'affections', and I get the feeling that she's still interested in me too. Of course, there's always the possibility that I'm reading way more into things than I should be. It probably wouldn't be the first time though. I'm doing a group project with a girl by the name of Caroline too; she's a fourth year traditional program student. Like me, she doesn't actually want to do engineering; she want's to do architecture. I've been talking with her about it back and forth for the last couple of months. She's got a boyfriend, but I can tell she finds me interesting, at least. All things considered; I think I'm the most interested in Alison; she's a second year microbiology student, and I'm completely amazed she's not in arts. She's really animated, and has tons of energy; it's great being around her. She sings for the U of A choir, too; which is really cool. To complete the package, she's a bit shorter than me, and a natural red-head too. Yum. I just hope I'm not completely off-base in thinking she's interested. If I can get some balls before Friday, I might ask her if she wants to go out sometime. She might just end up the first person I ever ask out without knowing the answer.
The other reason I'm most interested in her, is the complete lack of baggage. Despite how attracted I am to Becca, I have a hard time believing that anything between us would be casual. She's a cool person, so I'd hate to ruin the friendship. As for Esther, she's amazing too, but I don't want to deal with the yo-yo ride; again, there's too much history for things to go smoothly. As for Niccy; I don't deserve her. Again, another completely amazing person, but after what I did to her, I think I'm going to have a hard time forgiving myself. I still haven't told her either, so chances are she'll be more inclined to kill me than associate with me anyways. I seem to be blessed in terms of the people I hang around with; I just need to find a way to stop screwing things up.
I guess that's all for tonight.
Tuesday, November 30, 2004, 10:45pm
Well, after talking with Niccy's sister, ther are definitely a few things I didn't know about her move home. A couple weeks ago, she told me that she has a job managing an inn in Hinton, but apparently that isn't the case. I guess she's been letting herself fall apart a bit, too. Dressing sloppily, et cetera. That's a shame; she's really better than that. I'm going to have to have a talk with her when she gets back, and not just about the Esther thing.
There wasn't a filter for Lotus files included in Office 2003, so that journal entry is lost to the sands of time. I may see if I can find a copy of lotus over kazaa or something, just to recover the text. What a pain in the ass.
I got an email a while back from an online friend of mine from three years back, completely out of the blue. I used to spend time on a talker by the name of Brigandine, and I guess it's still in existance, which is pretty cool. A lot of the same people are there too, so it's been fun catching up. They're all a few years older than I am. It's kind of nice; everyone in my classes at school is either a year or two younger, or five to fifteen older. I still get along with everyone though; so no big deal. I'm still wondering why Esther stopped to chat with me though; that's not normal behaviour for her lately. Oh well.
I haven't come to a conclusion about Becca's offer, either. She's a blast to hang out with, and I've been attracted to her for ages, but at the same time, I'm worried about losing the friendship we have. Then there's the whole issue of Melinda. She's still attracted to me, and I have absolutely no interest in her. Being with Becca in an obvious way wouldn't exactly be tactful.
Funny, I know there was more I wanted to write, but I can't remember it. Bed time.
Wednesday, April 20, 2005, 9:55am
No, I haven't died. I have been busy enough with school lately to wish I had, though. I'm in the middle of finals right now, which is to say nothing about the multi-page reports, design projects, and presentations I had to give last week. Ugh. Four exams left, then it's over. At least I've been doing well; well enough, in fact, that my structrual design prof wants me to come back to do a master's degree. It took some thinking, but I decided that I want to work for at least a year. I need the break, and I want to have some money for a change.
I guess I should update the whole situation about women. There really isn't a whole lot to update. I still hang out with Melinda, Tiffany, and Keith every couple of weeks. Melinda is still attracted to me, and I'm still completely unattracted to her. I've been getting along with Tiffany really well; I talk to her online a lot, while playing World of Warcraft; that's when she isn't feeding or changing Damon. Oh yeah; she had the kid, it's a boy. Becca has kind of dropped out of the picture; I'm not sure what's up with her. I went drinking and dancing (*shudder*) with her and her friends a couple of times, and came to the conclusion that I didn't want that kind of life. I'm a quiet person, and I like it that way.
Niccy's come down to visit a couple times too. I still haven't told her about Esther. I know I made up my mind to, and I know I should, but I can't seem to bring myself to do it. She's been pretty bitter towards men in general, lately; I don't exactly want to make myself a target, as much as I deserve it. Basically, she gave up on her most recent serious boyfriend, and has been flitting around Hinton looking for something new. It's funny; we've slept together a couple of times while she's been visiting, but we both know there's not chance of getting back together. I guess my perspective has changed a few times there; I know she's not what I want right now.
I've been working with Esther on group projects a fair bit lately; she's got a steady boyfriend now. He's a nice guy, and really quite entertaining. It's kind of stupid, but even after everything that's happened, I still get a pang when I hear her call him 'hun'. I guess I'm not completely over the whole situation yet. At any rate, I know we'll only ever be working colleagues. Friendly ones, at best. I can deal with that.
Alison has kind of fallen by the wayside; I'm still interested, of course, but we've both been busy enough that we've only gone for coffee the one time this semester. She's headed back to Redcliff for the summer, too, so that's not likely to change. I guess the best I can hope for is to keep in contact with her, and see how things work out next year. I'll probably give her a call some time this week, and see if she doesn't want to go for coffee or dinner sometime. We'll see.
Caroline. I've spent quite a bit of time talking with her lately; seems her relationship has been in bad straits lately, too. I guess she doesn't really trust her boyfriend of 6 years, and was planning on bailing out as soon as classes were done. Wow. It turns out that I'm not the only one who thinks she might be interested in me, either. Richard pointed out that he thought I had a shot with her. Of course, he's only ever had one girlfriend in his life, so I'm not sure how far to trust his judgement on that topic. The whole situation might be interesting, at the very least. She's got pretty expensive tastes; so I'm not 100% sure I could afford her long-term. Then again, from what she's said, she's pretty self-sufficient.
Job hunting. I have my last exam on the 27th, and I haven't even started sending out resumes yet. Lazy? You bet your ass. I keep telling myself that I'll get one put together and sent out after my exams are done, but the truth is, I'm scared shitless of having a real, full-time, permanent job. Eight months I can handle; I don't know that I can deal with 30 years. Granted, I won't be working in a position for that long (the Masters degree will likely interfere with that) but the whole concept of a career has me a little off balance. Some of it is that I've always considered my life as a perpetual state of change; I like knowing that there's something on the horizon that I want to do. On the other hand, I've come to the conclusion that I'm prone to rutting. I tend to do the routine, and not deviate from it at all. I can't really tell if that bothers me, either; I honestly think I'm a boring person. I made a comment -way- back that this was the first thing I ever really started doing for myself, because I wanted to. That essentially still applies. The whole 'after I graduate' mantra is wearing a bit thin. I know there's a lot of stuff I'll be able to do, but I'm afraid that I never actually will. It's kind of like I don't really -live- my life, I just let my life happen around me. I don't have a lot of close friends, I don't do a lot of socializing outside of school and karate, and I don't even have the impetus to do something about it.
I want to -live- my life. At the same time, I'm completely terrified of doing it. I guess that's why I'm attracted to strong people, who aren't afraid to go out and do something stupid, just for the hell of it. That's a quality I don't really have. I want it; I crave it and I try and get it by hanging out with people who -do- have that trait. I sometimes accuse my father of trying to life his life vicariously through me; but I realize now that I'm doing the same thing with other people. I don't want to do that anymore. It's kind of amusing; a lot of people will tell me that they admire me, because I always know what I'm going for, what's in sight. It's almost true; I usually do know what I'm going to be doing in five years. You know what? That bothers me. Everything I see myself doing is the absolute logical extension of what I've been doing for the past 23 years of my life. I was a quiet kid, who was intelligent, so I became a nerd in school. Being a nerd in school meant I ended up being good at math and science; because I was supposed to be. Because of my marks in math and science early in school, I focussed completely on technical content in my high school. I didn't take any art classes at all; the closest I got was drafting. Guess where I ended up for university? Bing. Engineering. I've done well at that, too, and now I see myself in two years being back at the same university, taking a masters degree. Predictable much? It's infuriating.
The worst thing is that I don't really regret doing what I've done. I like engineering; it's clean, logical, and amazingly flexible. A lot of people see nothing but rigid design rules, which in a way is true. At the same time though, there's a complete freedom to apply those rules to the situation at hand. I ended up with a 106% on my structural design midterm, because I knew what the concepts guiding the design were, and I applied to the situation in front of me. It turns out that the majority of the class learned the situations we'd covered, not the concept. Our prof had to mark the exam out of 80 instead of 100; that's how I ended up with a better than perfect score.
How then, can I be frustrated by my life, when I don't regret it? I guess it comes down to my regretting the person I've become. I don't want to be predictable, I don't want to be this stable. I like spontaneity, I like unpredictability, and I even like the anticipation of not knowing what comes next. At the same time though; I -always- go with the sure thing. I don't go out to meet girls; the only ones I'm ever interested in are ones I've worked fairly closely with. That kind of limits my dating options. I don't really like being single, but I think I'm resigned to it for a while.
At any rate, Three pages is probably enough for now. And I have to use the washroom.
Monday, October 16, 2006, 11:17am
Update, a year and a half later. University is a thing of the past, karate is still going strong, and I've been playing a lot of World of Warcraft. I got my motorcycle license, which has relevance to an entry that never got uploaded to this site. It was a good time, and I'm looking forward to buying a bike in the spring. Second hand or new, I've not decided. I've been dating Niccy again for almost the entire time I've gone without updating. She's starting to make noise about marriage and kids. Curse the biological clock.
The complacency I ranted about a year and a half ago is still around. To be honest, Niccy is probably the worst symptom. I'm still dating her because she's here, not really because I want to. I don't find her extremely physically attractive and her personality often grates on me. To top it off, she's a dreamer. She's a seamstress, a theatre technician, a film technician, a movie projectionist and does a host of other things. Now she's going back to school for her welding apprenticeship. I sometimes wonder if she'll ever pick a career, instead of just a job. I'm hoping welding is it, because as it stands she's in debt & makes piss-poor money, which means I end up supporting her. Honestly, I'm getting tired of it. The economy in Alberta is good enough that she'd be able to support herself as a welder, easily, and still have money to spare.
There are some downsides to the economy being what it is though; I've been looking for a place to buy closer to where I work, and I'm looking at about $200k for anything livable. Unfortunately, I'm only making $59.5k/year at the moment, and I still owe about $18k on my car. I'll have to stop by the bank tomorrow to pay a large portion of that down - I'm losing $300/month to interest as it stands.
University - As I mentioned, it's a thing of the past. I graduated with distinction, and won a scholarship from a paper I wrote in my final english class. Esther, Dave, Caroline - I haven't heard from a single one of them since graduation, really. Dave was a prick, in the end. Esther brought back too many memories for me to want to converse with. Caroline .. well, I'd have been happy to keep in touch with her, but the last email I sent to her university account went un-returned. I got an email from Richard a couple weeks ago, but that's the extent of my involvement with the folks I used to spend all my time with. As for the master's degree ... well, it's still in the future. I want to get a few things settled in my life before I go back, and I'm not working in the structural field, so it's not something that has bearing on my every-day life.
Work - I took about three weeks between the end of University, and having my first job. The truism "It's not what you know, it's who you know" turned out to be the case. As I've mentioned before, I'm a karate instructor. One of my students happens to be the IT manager for a fairly large contracting company. We talk one Saturday at class, two weeks later I've got an interview and a $48k/year offer. I'd asked for $50k, but hey, I'm lazy. Here I am now, up to $59.5k, and a bit dissapointed with my last raise. The job is usually interesting though, and as long as we're not over-staffed in the shop, I keep pretty busy. Eventually, I'll get out and do some project engineering, for a 20% raise or so, and live-out allowance on top of that. The questions are when, where, and for how long?
I like being at home. I don't want to spend two and a half years up in Fort McMurray working 10 hour days. Of course, if I did, I'd damn near be able to retire from the income. The downside, of course, is that I wouldn't be able to keep going to karate, nor would I be able to maintain my involvement in WoW. The first is a concern for me, the second is more of a minor issue. Karate has been ... interesting lately. There's something to be said for being a 25yr old, reasonably good-looking instructor. I get a fair bit of attention from some of the female students. They're too young for me, of course, but it's still quite flattering.
Thus we come to Jennifer. I don't really know how to describe my relationship with her, really. She's 16, and therefore far to young for me to even consider, but I find myself increasingly infatuated with her. We met through Karate, of course. Her form is near perfect, but she lacks power, so I've taken to goading her to hit me. Hard. Pain on that level doesn't really bother me too much. On the contrary, I find it quite satisfying. I would tease her, and she'd end up leaving some pretty solid bruises on my shoulders.
Eventually, she asked me if I'd mind helping her with her grade 10 math. She wants to get into Engineering, but was having trouble with some of the algebra concepts they were covering. Over the course of a month or so, she'd come over once or twice per week, and we'd sit down for an hour or two working on practice problems. She ended up doing significantly better than she'd expected on her exam, and attributed her improvement to my help. Over the course of the tutoring sessions, I gave her my email address, and we've been corresponding fairly regularly for the last 8 months.
Now, I enjoy teaching, with some conditions. The person I'm teaching has to be willing to put effort into it. I've been told by all of my senior students that I'm probably the most patient instructor they've ever met. It comes alot from wanting to help. I like seeing people do well for themselves which, I think, is part of why I have trouble with Niccy. She's capable of a lot more than she's doing now, but doesn't put the effort into doing better.
Jen on the other hand loves learning, and improving. She actually asked me about taking both an english degree, and an engineering degree, at the same time. Having gone thru my engineering degree, I couldn't imagine trying to take an arts degree at the same time. I had enough trouble with Japanese as my complimentary studies elective. Let alone the amount of reading and essay writing that would be required for an arts degree. She works hard in karate, and does very well for herself. I'm teaching her kobudo now, sai, specifically. She bought a pair because she wanted to learn how to use them, and I'm the only one who shows up to class that can show her. So, once or twice a week, I spend an hour working with her at the back of the class. It's nice to have someone else to work with on things like that. The hazard, of course, it that I find myself forgetting her age, and I don't dare do that. I really wish I were seven years younger, or so.
That's all for the moment. Hopefully it won't be as long before my next update.
Tuesday, November 14, 2006, 11:07pm
I had meant to write another entry before now; I actually made a start on one from work last week. I ended up getting busy and losing my train of thought before I had a chance to save it. So, here I am now.
Work hasn't changed much lately. I have a lot of small jobs on the go, but none of them require huge amounts of attention. I spend probably half the week just working ahead of the projects I'm on. That's great from a schedule perspective, but it gets pretty dull after a while. Aside from that, people tend to get resentful if you hassle them for information too often.
My life at home as been interesting. Much akin to the old Chinese curse, actually. I find myself getting more and more frustrated with Niccy, and at the same time I can't seem to put Jennifer out of my mind. It's obscene, I know. She's only 16, and while I can understand that on a conscious level, I can't seem to convince the rest of my psyche that nothing can happen between the two of us. What's worse is that I know she's interested in me too. She came to have lunch with us a couple weeks ago, after karate, and I spend more time chatting with here than I did with the rest of the instructors. Sensei Rick's daughter actually guessed that Jen was my girlfriend. My reply, as it had to be, was that she's just a student. I wonder how many people heard the strain in my voice.
It turns out Jen likes spending time outside, but the majority of her friends don't. The two of us went on a hike last Sunday. We were out for hours in November, in -10°C weather, with 6 to 8 inches of snow on the ground. She was wearing new boots, and no gloves. We went down into the river valley, hiking around the trails (and off of them). She slipped more times than I care to count; by the time we started to head back, her jeans were frozen and her hands weren't too far off the same mark. She must've been miserable by the end of it, but she didn't complain once; actually, she suggested we go again. Hopefully, she dresses more warmly next time and has less trouble with her balance. I can't describe how awkward it felt to want to hold on to her, and at the same time being desperately afraid to touch her.
Jen had to work at 5:00 that evening. The only clock we had handy was her iPod, and it turns out she'd forgotten to change the time for Daylight Savings. By the time we looked at the cloce we were at least 2 km from either of our houses, and a little bit more than that away from House of Goodys. As far as we knew it was 4:20. Oh shit. So here we are, tromping through the bush as fast as we can, and heading straight to the restaurant, both tired and she's frozen. When we get there, she invites me in and offers to make me some hot chocolate. What do you say when someone who's tired, frozen, and just about to start work offers you a hot chocolate? All I wanted to do was wrap her in warm blankets, and get her a hot drink, and she's offering me hot chocolate. I was halfway down the street when I heard her running up behind me; to tell me what time it was. We ended up going back to my place with the hour we had to spare. I made her a hot chocolate, and gave her a ride to work.
Tuesday, November 15, 2006, 1:47pm
Work looks like it's going to pick up. We've got a package now that's a bit more substantial then the smaller packages we've been getting lately. 5,000" instead of 250". Hopefully, that'll keep me busy until the Suncor Plant 71 Modules start up in late December/Early January. Add that on to the 2,800" job I did the bid for, and we should keep the guys downstairs occupied.
The expected high today is 6°C. I sent Jen an email about 5 minutes ago, asking if we really were going to make our walks a weekly occurance. I'm not sure what to hope for more; that she says yes, or that she says no.
I've wondered for a while about the source of my fascination with Jennifer, and a large part of it is that I've recognised a trend with some of my previous relationships. I get bored very quickly, and I have a habit of getting into relationships I'm not terribly interested in. Niccy is an example. Reading back, I've known for ages that I'm not interested in her, and that the only relationship I'd want would be a casual one. Yet here I am, over a year later, and we're still dating. The last time I can recall being genuinely attracted to her, I was in my 2nd year of University.
I find myself wondering if Jen is just the next new thing, or if there's something more substantial. I also wonder what she thinks of me. I have enough trouble understanding women my own age, let alone ones that're nearly a decade younger. What's she looking for? Serious commitment? Experience and experimentation? I have a hard time imagining getting into a serious relationship at my age; I can't begin to comprehend getting into one at the age of 16. I have no idea what she's looking for, and that worries me.
Friday, November 24, 2006, 2:34pm
I've started looking at bikes for the coming spring; from what I see, Kawi's Ninja 650R is probably the way I'm going to go. It's a twin cylinder, rather than a four-cyl, which gives me less top-end power to kill myself with. It'll still get moving though, the top speed is 140 mph, which is way faster than I've gone before. It should be a pretty good rush, but controllable enough that I don't kill myself. The stats are 48.3 lb-ft of torque, and something like 77 bhp. It's also a sexy looking machine:
![](Ninja650.jpg)
Oooh, pretty. It'll cost me about $9k, brand new. It'll also be the first toy I've picked up in a very long time, so I think it's worth it. Plus, the fuel economy is absurd - 55 mpg. That's twice as good as I get in my forester, so if I do enough commuting with it, the gas savings will pay for the bike.
As for Jen, well, she didn't end up phoning on Sunday and I didn't get an email response from her either. So much for a 'weekly' thing. I'll give it one more shot the next time it warms up. Our high for the weekend is something like -23°C, so there's no way in hell I'm going out for a walk. She works at the chinese restaurant in town; maybe I'll head there for dinner one night.
The last few days have been fairly hectic; my car's in the shop getting a bunch of work done. My driver's side wheel bearing was gone, but that should be a warantee item. I've also got a few burned out bulbs, a couple switches to be replaced, and a door speaker to be installed. They did the muffler too, but I'm still not convinced that'll solve the squealing I notice at accelleration. We'll see, they're aiming to have it ready for 4:30 or 5:00 tonight. I need to stop at a hardware store and pick up a new plug for the block heater too; the one I have is pretty well dead.
On top of having no vehicle, I also had a training course for our accounting system yesterday, at the corporate office. Fortunately, it was scheduled from 9:00 am to 3:00 pm, so arranging to have a car wasn't too bad. The weather was absolute shit though. We got probably 5" of snow over the course of the day. The roads were in the worst condition they've been this year. Things hadn't cleared up much as of this morning, either.
Friday, November 27, 2006, 4:00pm
Fuck! About 15 minutes ago, on the drive home, I ditched my fucking car. I have no idea how bad the damage is; all I know is that it's still running, I stopped with a 'thunk' and at the very least, my passenger side mirror is hanging from the side of the car. Yay. What a motherfucking nightmare. Now I get to sit here and wait for my girlfriend to fucking show up and drive me home. Thanks to the fucking road conditions, the tow trucks are about 8 hours behind picking people up, so they're not even going to be able to winch out the car until tomorrow morning, at the earliest. I don't even know if Niccy works tomorrow, so I have no idea how I'm going to get out here to meet the tow truck when it arrives. I'm just jumping for fucking joy right now. Hopefully, the damage isn't severe. I could deal with a little bit of body work, as long as there's no major engine or transmission parts that are going to need to be replaced. I'll update tomorrow, I guess. Right now, I just want to sit down and cry somewhere, the fucking thing isn't even paid off yet. I can't wait until Niccy gets here and starts asking assinine fucking questions. I'm going to have to tell her to shut the fuck up as soon as she shows up.
It was completely my fault too, I wasn't paying 100% attention to the god damned road. No, now I get to be one of those fucking retards standing by the side of the road. At least it's not obstructing traffic. It looks like I skidded through about 20 feet of really really deep snow too, so with any luck that slowed me down before I stopped and there won't be a lot of significant damage. As long as it's drivable, I'm happy. It had to be on the coldest fucking day of the year too. I just wanted to be at home and warm for a change. My car barely started this morning, and it was even closer to frozen solid leaving work. Fuck. Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck. Whatever. I'll deal with it more tomorrow.
Thursday, December 7th, 2006, 3:02pm
Well, I still say fuck, but less so. I got lucky, and it turns out all I lost were my passenger side mirror and some under-body plastic. Which reminds me. I have to call Subaru, and find out when they're going to get the parts I need in stock. I doubt it'll be before I take my car in next week, but whatever. If anything, I'll get them to cut the wires on the mirror so I can pitch it, instead of having it hanging on the inside of the door. I still don't know how much it'll cost.
On another irritating note, we had our office christmas party last weekend. It was a good time, with decent food and good entertainment. For the most part. I ended up with food poisoning from it though, and spend a good portion of Sunday sitting on the can, or asleep on the bathroom floor. Monday was a bit better, but I still missed work. I've recovered now, thank god.
Jennifer called on Sunday too, to go for another hike through the river valley. I wasn't awake for the phone call, but at least there was one. Hopefully we'll get to go this weekend. I missed Karate on Tuesday too, so I haven't seen her in a while.
So, it's said that bad things come in threes .. I wonder what's next. As if a damaged car and food poisoning weren't bad enough.
Monday, January 15th, 2007, 1:34pm
Well, it's been over a month, and I still haven't had my mirror fixed. The people at the dealership are too hard to get ahold of to get it fixed. I'm booked in for next Monday though, so it won't be long now. I also have to book myself in to get a car starter installed; Christmas present from Mom.
The major reason I'm writing today is work; my last day in the fab shop is on Friday. After that, I have a week of vacation, then I'm headed up to Fort McMurray. I don't really want to be away from home, but the money is absurd. There's a 5% base increase that's getting put through, plus 20% uplift while I'm on site, and $3250 per month live-out allowance. Given that I can live up there for about $1500/month, including food, I should make a small fortune. It's also 10 days on, 4 days off, so I'm looking at 10 hours of overtime every week. All told, it bumps my salary to about $160,000 per year, from less than $60k now. I'll probably be up there until July, when the shutdown and post-shutdown work is done. After that, I'm hoping to get onto the Shell Scotford job close to Sherwood park here. That would be ideal, the Suncor job is just something to get me a bunch of money so I can afford a sizable downpayment on a house.
More Later.
Saturday, March 31st, 2007, 10:17pm
And by later, of course, I mean 2 and a half months. Hey, I never said I'd be prompt with updates. Frankly, I'm still surprised that I've continued this for so long. It'll be fairly interesting reading for myself, one of these days.
I've been in Fort McMurray now for a full two months, and I have to say it's not as bad as I was expecting it to be. The workday goes by fairly quickly, and I'm easily used to the 10 hour shifts now. The pay is everything I expected it to be, and then some. I'm completely debt free now, for the first time in my adult life. $4,010 every two weeks will do that for a guy. I paid off my car about a week ago, and did the same with the remnants of my student loans. I'd forgotten about them completely, until I got the tax credit notice for the interest payments. My next purchase is going to be a relatively small one; I want a laptop while I'm up here, and I can afford a nice one. I applied for a credit card while I was paying off my car loan. It turns out I've got a 754 credit score, which pretty much means I'm eligible for far more money than I'll ever need. I'll pick up my laptop on that card (since I'll have to order it over the phone from Dell) and pay it off within a week from my bank account. Two weeks salary - *poof*.
After that though, I'll be starting to look for a house pretty seriously. Having spoken to my bank, I'm good for about a $300,000 mortgage, on my income alone. Provided I stay up in Fort McMurray, I'll be able to pay that off in pretty short order. I just hope I can find something reasonable for that price, and that when I do, the prices keep going up. I'm very much afraid of the market cooling off while I'm sitting on such a large mortgage. I don't see it happening in the near future, but then, with a 35 year mortgage the 'near' future isn't really the concern.
Work is going fairly well; it seems I've made a decent reputation for myself in the company, at the very least. The general superintendent and trade supers out here are happy with me. I get along well with the foremen too, which is good. Right now, I'm working the night shift for a small outage at the plant. 12.5 hour shifts, from 6:15 pm, to 6:45 am. They're pretty long and pretty slow so far. I'm just here in case shit hits the fan, and we tried to work the majority of that out before we started. Knock wood, I guess. Really, all I do is read, and catch up the paperwork to where it should be. The longer shifts mean more money, of course, and I've got the use of a company truck until the end of April, at least. From what I've heard, my boss might be leaving on or around the first of May, which would give me quite a bit more to do, I think. I might even end up with his truck, who knows.
Future prospects up here are pretty good, there's plenty of work awarded and planned out here until 2010, but I'm not sure I want to be up here that long. It's not that I mind the work or Fort Mac, it's just that I miss having any kind of social life at home. I haven't been to a karate class in over three weeks now, since the last time I was home, they were shut down for spring break. That bothers me, especially since there's a national tournament I'm supposed to be attending at the end of May. I'm getting pressured to rank for my Nidan as well, and I really don't feel comfortable doing that, considering the lack of practice I'd be working with. I'm out of shape, and rusty as hell. I've been meaning to go to the gym in town to alleviate one of those failings, but on 12.5 hour night shifts, that's not going to happen for the next three weeks or so.
Also on the karate front, there was a black belt ranking on the weekend before I was last home. My mom finally got her shodan, and another of the students in our club got his jr. black belt. I can't say I agree with that rank, but everyone seems to think he's too young for the real version. As far as I'm concerned, that should be his call, and if he can't hack the real thing, he's stuck waiting. It's not my call though, so I stay quiet about it.
Niccy ... well, I don't really know what to say about Niccy right now. She's in the middle of school for her welding apprenticeship right now, which is good. Hopefully she can work at that and actually afford to support herself for a change. In the mean time, however, things are pretty strained for me. To start things off, her sister is moving (or has moved) back to Hinton, to work in the hospital there, and be close to her boyfriend. That means that Niccy's without a roommate or significant source of income right now. With that being said, she can't afford to stay living in the same house on her own, and she refuses to take another roommate. The only option left to her is to find another place to live. As I mentioned before, she has no real income at the moment, which is making it difficult to find a place to live. The landlords of the places she's looked at have all rejected her, citing her lack of income. Bluntly, I agree with them absolutely. I don't think she can afford to live on her own right now, despite how much she'd like to think otherwise.
Now, were I faced with her situation, I'd probably do one or two things. Either I'd live at home until I could afford my own place, or I'd look for someone renting a room that I could share accommodations with. Her solution, unfortunately, was to try and convince me to sign her lease, lending the appearance of my income to her application. It would work, of course, I make enough in two weeks to be able to pay for four months worth of rent. My concern is that I'd be bound by a contract based on conditions I'd never accept, myself. It would fall to me to make any late payments, or lease-breaking penalties if Niccy were to fall short of cash, simply to preserve my credit. It's simple enough to say that Niccy would pay me back when she could, but previous experience says otherwise. I didn't mention it in my previous entries on the topic, but Niccy never did pay me back for the last month's rent while we were living together. She left mid-month, and I paid for it myself. It was only $365, but at the time, that was a substantial sum. That experience, and several others here and there, have made me reluctant to loan Niccy money for any one thing or another. I never see it again. With rent prices what they are right now, having to pay a month's rent out-of-pocket, with a possible lease-break penalty on top of that doesn't really appeal to me.
It's not that I don't trust Niccy, though I'll admit that's a small portion of my reluctance, it's more that I don't trust the situations she keeps putting herself in. On top of that, I have a personal conviction against owing people money. I know, to some extent, where that aversion comes from; I can remember, as a young kid, having to loan my parents money from my piggy bank so they could pay for gas. I honestly don't even remember if they paid me back. I also had, at one point, a college tuition fund in my name; I never did see the money from it. Even at nine or ten years old, I can remember being embarrassed that my parents needed to borrow money from my savings. Since then, I've tried extremely hard not to borrow anything from anyone. I prefer to be self-sufficient, and not just in monetary terms. That predilection puts me at odds with the way Niccy seems to think. She has no concern borrowing from, or relying on, other people. That, I'm sure, comes from her family being able to provide her more support than did mine. I was always the one to lend my parents money, and the majority of the times I did ask my parents for something, I was turned down.
To further compound the problem with Niccy, I've now found out that my mother is going to let her live in our house until she finds a place of her own to stay. I had never even considered that as an option, and it seems the decision was made without either party consulting me. For the small amount of time I spend at home, it shouldn't much bother me that Niccy will be there. I'm in Fort McMurray for 70% of my time, at a minimum. When I am home, though, I prefer to be left alone to my own devices. I live with two other guys up here, and I share an office with two people as well. It's a big switch, going from having the house (essentially) to myself, as well as my own office. I have precious little privacy at present, and now that's being further reduced. Now I'll have to be prepared to deal with both my Mother during the day, and Niccy at night.
Going all the way back to my entry from April 2005, I begin to think I should have followed my instincts. I'm still not really attracted to Niccy, and I have no reason to believe that will change in the future. Further to that, the recent strains on our relationship have made me question the whole situation. It's not that I believe a relationship can't have problems, but recent troubles have shown me that I'm not really willing to compromise to benefit her. That's a horrible thing in a relationship, and truthfully, I feel guilty acknowledging the fact.
In recent times, I've wondered if my recent aversion to Niccy has been a result of knowing that Jen is, to some extent at least, interested in me. I'm sure that it's been a factor in my unrest, but the above paragraph seems to me to be true, and discounts Jen as the primary factor. My working life has been another contributing factor, I think. The proverb is that "absence makes the heart grow fonder" but I don't believe that to be true. I would say that absence is a barometer of a relationship's health. Infatuations fade away with time, but true feelings tend not to change. Absence simply grants a person the time and clarity to examine their own feelings, even if subconsciously, and to have that examination brought to conscious light at the prospect of returning home. If, after being away for two weeks, a person isn't looking forward to seeing their significant other, one has to assume that the relationship isn't healthy.
I mentioned Jen above, and that I was certain she's interested in me to some extent. The evidence of this knowledge comes from an email she wrote me a couple of months ago. She had been writing metaphors in her english class, and wrote the following in regards to me:
"He is a sunrise; the promise of a new day and a new beginning. A shadowed midnight canvas, dappled with beautiful strokes of color; rising above the dew-laden grass into the brilliant sky, with a soft breeze whispering through the leaves… crisp morning air, and a changing palette of radiant light upon the churning clouds."
Without question, what she wrote is by far the kindest thing anyone has every said to me or even, I am sure, about me. Reading what she wrote still makes my eyes water, and her metaphor implies stronger feelings for me that I had previously thought she possessed. That revelation, in turn, makes me examine my own feelings towards her. I'm very much afraid that what I feel for her is fleeting, as so many of my past relationships have been. I worry that I've been, for lack of a better word, seduced by her youth and innocence. I can't imagine that what might be a brief infatuation on my part might be a more serious matter for her, and I don't want to be responsible for the pain that a casual relationship would cause her when it ended. While there's truth to the statement that the pains of youth are quickly forgotten, it would be a poor thing to cause pain knowing that.
Jen's youth is another great concern for me, and not just in terms of her emotional readiness for relationships. At 16 years old, I can't help but see her as an innocent. The legal system sees her the same way. By technicality, the 'age of consent' is 14 here, but that standard can't be applied when someone is in a position of trust. As Jen's karate instructor, and sometime tutor, I would certainly consider myself to hold a position of trust. As such, any physical relations between Jen and myself would be illegal. Were such to occur, her parents could have me charged with statutory rape. I suspect her mother wouldn't press the issue, but I'm reasonably certain that her father would. I've never met the man, but Jen tells me that he's extremely protective of her, and I don't doubt her assessment.
For now, I wait. I expect things will come to a head between Niccy and myself soon, and I don't know what the outcome of that will be. There are only two final possibilities, of course, the first is that I'll be single, the other that I won't. My choice then, is to simply wait and see what life brings me.
That, I think is the longest entry I've yet made to this journal. I guess the time alone at night has been good for letting me think.
Monday, April 2nd, 2007, 8:54pm
Well, I'm not sure what I was thinking last night, but for some reason I had an urge to write to Esther, Caroline, and Melissa. I haven't spoken to any of them in a year or two, and I'm really not sure why I decided to write at all. I think a large portion behind it was reading this journal. Looking back on my time in high school and university, I can't help but feel nostalgic about my life. At the same time though, I wonder how I could have screwed so many things up.
It doesn't look like I've ever talked about Melissa in this journal, which is strange to me, because I'm sure I've written it down somewhere. I suspect it came up in one of the journal entries that were lost to the Lotus WordPro software I was forced to use at PWGSC.
I met Melissa in junior high, I don't recall if it was grade eight or nine. She had just moved to town, and was new to all of our classes. I think the first time I really worked with her was in our foods class, and now that I think about it, it was definitely in grade eight. The typical modus opporandi for the class was to split the students into groups of four, and have us all cook a meal together. My first memory of her was making pretzels, her hands covered in flour and the sticky bits of dough that never seem to incorporate themselves into the rest of the ball. It's surprising now, how clear that image is to me, and I'm not sure why. I remember the layout of the kitchen station we were assigned to, the rest of the classroom, and even that it was a sunny day. The home ec. room was one of the few in the school with exterior doors, and I know they were open at the time to let the sunlight in. I worked with Melissa in that class quite a bit, and we came to enjoy each others company.
We continued our friendship into highschool, and I made it a habit to walk with her across the field to where her mother picked her up at the end of the day. She didn't usually get there until 3:40, so often as not, Melissa and I would stand around talking for twenty minutes or so, on a daily basis. That was at the start of the year, and by early October we were taking longer walks. At one point, we decided to start 'dating' officially. It's funny, to look back on now; we didn't even kiss. Not for lack of desire on my part, but I was desperately full of juvenile shyness, and never did manage to overcome it. We didn't ever break up officially, but I'd say the relationship lasted no more than three weeks. I know exactly why it ended, as well. I was sick one day at school, and went home alone with my head down and appearing quite dejected. One of the other guys at the school, Adam, saw me walking through the field, and yelled to me that he was sorry Melissa broke up with me. Now, to my knowledge, she'd done no such thing. It was a measure of my lack of self confidence then, that I accepted his condolences as fact. I assumed she had broken up with me, or had intended to, and just hadn't told me yet. I didn't even question her on the issue, I just left her alone for the rest of the semester. Looking back on it, that must have confused her to no end, and possibly even hurt her. I hope that isn't the case. We were distant friends for the rest of high school, save a few moments here and there where we both felt the old connection. She was one of two girls who have ever persuaded me to dance, and at the time, I was dating someone else.
So far, Melissa is the only one who responded to my email, and I expect she's the only one who will. I never did get Caroline's main email address, and I suspect the account I sent my email to is long since abandoned. Time will tell, I suppose. Esther is another matter entirely. I've written more than enough about her here already, and it's clear to me that she has no reason to want to speak with me. Hopefully though, she'll at least read it, and take it for what it was. A simple note to wish her well, and let her know I still think about her from time to time. It's funny, writing her name here again sent a shiver down my spine.
Nostalgia is a familiar sensation for me, even at my age. I feel already that my time in school was the best I've ever had, and I remember a lot of it fondly. The days seemed longer, and everything was somehow better than it is now. Time flies now, so much so that I'm surprised I've been in Fort McMurray for a full two months already. It seems like only last week I was new on site, being up for the first time. I can't even recall my weekends off, they fade into the blur of time going by.
I find my memories of school strange, because I'm not usually one to try to hold onto the past. I know for the last two years of high school I had absolutely no wish to remember any of it. I felt the same way for most of my university life, too. I was interested only in getting it over with, and getting back out into the world. I wish, now, that I'd taken more time to enjoy myself while I was there.
Having re-read this entry, I can only shake my head. It sounds like I was a stereotypical adolescent boy, and to some extent, I know that's true. There are lessons common to growing up that everyone learns, and there's surprisingly little variance between one person and the next. At the time, I felt completely isolated from the rest of the world, and I keep some of that feeling even now. It's reassuring to know that my life parallels other people's, it makes me feel that maybe I'm not quite as alone as I think I am.
Tuesday, April 17th, 2007, 9:48pm
I've been meaning to make a post here for the last two or three days now, but Yahoo has been giving me a '999' error. Apparently it means they've been getting too much traffic from my IP address. I'm not sure how that's even remotely possible, I'm guessing it's more of a catch-all error. Seems to be up and running now, though I don't know for how long.
I spoke of the email I wrote a couple weeks ago, and I was right. Melissa was the only one who responded; I'm supposed to call her this weekend so the two of us can go for coffee or something. I have no idea where to meet her, other than the mall. That might not work out so well though, since I expect Niccy will be there working this weekend. I'll have to come up with something in the next few days.
All told, this is shaping up to be a fairly busy weekend. I'll have to spend time with Niccy, for sure. She's actually picking me up when I get back into to the city. When we started dating the first time, I would have looked forward to that; it's funny how things change over time. Right now I can't even dcecide if I enjoy spending time with her at all, let alone after a 24 day stretch in Fort Mac. I'd prefer to have the weekend to myself to relax and recharge my batteries. Of course even if Niccy weren't around, that wouldn't be an option.
I'll need to go to the bank this weekend, and have a PIN number put on my credit card, and with any luck my laptop should show up on Thursday or Friday, as well. It'll take me a while to get that set up the way I want it. Especially since it'll be running Vista, which I've never used before. Getting everything set up there will probably take the better part of a day. Especially when you factor in the time it will take get WoW up and running. Those patches take ages to download. Pending the delivery date, I'm hoping to get that up and running after karate on Saturday.
I need to do some birthday shopping for Mom, too. This is the only weekend I'll be home before the weekend of her birthday, so I definitely have to find something. I haven't the slightest clue what to get her, so I hope she's got an up to date list. Maybe I can kill too birds with one stone, and meet Melissa at the mall after I've done my shopping.
My major project this weekend is going to be talking to Cliff about mortgages, and looking for houses. I'm trying to find something in the $250k range, with a yard and a garage. I don't need it to be beautiful, but the less work I have to do on it, the better. It's really only to get me a shoehorn into the market, and so I can start building equity. I've got a positive net worth right now, and only two major purchases planned. The reason I want a house with a garage is for the motorbike I mentioned last year. I'm still planning to buy it, and with another shutdown in June, as well as a 17 day shift in July, I can't forsee that being a problem.
I was hoping to see Jen this weekend, but she's out of town for a school band trip. She sent me an email after she got back from Europe, but she didn't have much to say. We were supposed to go for a walk so she could tell me about her trip, but that will have to wait another couple weeks, it seems. She brought me back a bottle of Calvados, which is an apple brandy I'd never heard of until now. I'm not sure how she managed it, since she under age both in France, and here. I'm assuming her mother bought it and brought it back for her. I'm looking forward to trying it, but I may hold off until Jen's old enough to enjoy it with me.
Thursday, April 19th, 2007, 2:23am
I had originally intended to write more last night, but I realized I was just writing about the everyday details of my life, which isn't what I started this journal for. I can't help but think that if I read this in 20 years, I'm not going to want to bother thinking about what my plans for the weekend were. I'd rather spend time writing about something a little more meaningful, if only so I can sit back and laugh at my pretention.
Now, with that said, here's a few more meaningless day-to-day details. Go figure. This is my last night shift until at least June, and I'm going home this afternoon. The nights have been pretty slow, and just like when I was working up north, I have a hard time staying motivated. That, of course, means I've found two more webcomics to read. I've got quite the list of them now, and while they're not exactly the most productive use of my work time, they're certainly thought provoking.
For whatever reason, the majority of the comics I'm reading right now are about relationships; normal ones, dysfunctional ones, non-existant-but-coulda-been ones & that sort of thing. There seems to be a lot of comics based on unsuccessful relationships, and introverted guys pining after the women in their lives. Of course, that may not be true, and it may just be that I'd only read that type of comic because I identify with it. Not to over-analyze, but it's also possible that the type of people who draw webcomics are introverted guys like myself, or know their audience really well. Who knows.
Regardless of the demographics, I do identify with a lot of what I read. It's comforting to know there are people out in the world that not only understand the things I feel well enough to write about them. I have a hard enough time with that myself. I'm still agonizing over my feelings for both Jen, and Niccy. Niccy has been less clingy with me for the past week or so, which has been a welcome break. That kind of break is usually her being pissed off at me though, so perhaps I shouldn't count my blessings. I also find it kind of sad that she's been pissed off at me often enough that I know when it's happening. I guess we'll find out if I'm right when I get home tomorrow. As I've mentioned, she's picking me up at the shop.
Jen ... scares me. I told her once that the scariest she could ever manage was "wet kitten", but at the same time I can't help but be afraid of the possibilities between us. To state it bluntly, I've not been fixated on anyone so much since I lived with Esther. That alone would be enough to scare me; Esther didn't work out well for me, and I regret the vast majority of what happened with her. Couple those inhibitions with Jen's age, and her obvious attraction to me, and it's not hard to see why I'm scared. I don't want to hurt her most of all, and at the same time I'm terrified that she'd be the one to hurt me. When you get right down to it how much of what she feels is just the hormones of youth? I'm almost a decade older than her. I remember being her age, and not only that, I'm old enough to regret some of the things I did when I was. She has so much to look forward to, and I'm almost afraid I'd hold her back. I regret some of the things I did when I was young, but more than that I regret the things I didn't do. I'd hate for her not to experience those things because she was with me and I'm so much older. I'd also hate to try and 'tag along for the ride'. Part of me even wonders if it's just a temporary fixation, an 'I want it because it's there' thing. All but one of my past relationships were like that, and the one that wasn't was Esther. All told, it's a confusing mess, and I'm really not sure where it'll end up.
That's probably enough for the night. I actually have work to do.
Wednesday, June 6th, 2007, 9:43am
Update time, a month and a half later. These entries may be a bit sporadic, but at least they're consistent. I don't know why I haven't updated before now. It's not like I've been busy non-stop, but I have kept occupied fairly well.
The last entry I wrote was during the minor shutdown I worked at Suncor's site; this one is during the major shutdown. We're on our second day, and things are going extremely slowly. Worse so for me, because I was away for the two weeks prior to the shutdown. It's rough coming back from two weeks vacation to working 13 hour shifts, plus a 2.5 hour round-trip commute. The money will be good, but I've got to survive it, first; I only have three days off between now and the 27th. I've got a different boss now, too. Ryan left to go back to Sherwood Park to work, and Chris has come up instead. Working for Chris is .. interesting. He knows what he's talking about from a technical standpoint, but he seems to be completely uninterested in the project background. I end up doing a lot of the administrative legwork on our progress tracking and costing. It's different, which is nice, but pretty boring after a while.
My vacation was pretty hectic, too. The first few days off were nice and relaxing, but from there it pretty much went all to hell. Niccy's mom hit a moose on the highway on the first weekend, which means I lost a couple days picking her up at the hospital, and staying overnight in Hinton. From there, we came home, and the next day I was on a flight to Toronto for our Karate tournament and ranking. I did terribly in the tournament but considering I haven't been able to work out for the last three months, I wasn't expecting to do well. I didn't embarass myself, at least. There was a pretty large crew from Alberta that went. Brian, Dave, Jordan, Edgardo, Ernesto, Juan, Michael, Joe, Tony, Troy, and myself. Suzanne and Jen came out for the weekend too, to cheer Mike on. We managed to shanghai Jen into competing too. Brian and Ernesto placed in senior men's kata, but they were the only ones. The vast majority of us were black belts, and in total, 4 our of the top 6 competitors for kata were from Alberta. Oh, we also had an 11 hour workout the day before the tournament too, and had to contend with severely blistered feet. Most of us were only trying to survive until the ranking. Four of us ranked to Nidan, one to Sandan, one to Yondan, and one to Godan, and another 7 of us got ranks in Kobudo. Only two of us were expecting to rank at all, so the expense was a bit unexpected. I ended up writing one cheque to cover the whole crew. Hopefully people will be paying me back in fairly short order. Some have already, but there are others outstanding. An $8,000 cheque works out to a 3% deposit on a $300,000 home, and I'm planning to buy as soon as I can. That may turn out to be September, at this rate.
Niccy's birthday was last Monday, too, so the day after I landed from Toronto, we were packing up to go to Hinton again for the weekend. We spent most of the time visiting her family and friends. Fortunately, my laptop got fixed this last week, so I was able to get in some WoW, too. Oh yeah. I have a laptop now. Dell XPS M1710, it's pretty sweet, and does more than I need it to, for at least the next few years. I made sure to get the extended warantee on it, which has proven it's worth. The bottom 2/3 of the screen died on me just before Toronto. Next-day service means it was fixed the day after I got back, for free. It's keeping me company up in Fort Mac, now. At least for what little free time I have outside of work.
That about covers the mundane in my life; other than that, it's the usual forbidden lust, and vague animosity in my relationships. Work is easily the worst of things, right now, but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. We won't have much to do after the shutdown's over, and there's not a lot of other work here in Fort Mac, either. I wouldn't mind a spot in the Mod Yard for a while. We'll see what happens, I guess.
Wednesday, September 12th, 2007, 11:05am
Three months later, and I’m still here. Quite a few little things to update, but nothing earth shattering. I’m still working in Fort McMurray, for one. We’re supposed to be in the middle of another shutdown right now, but I’m done with those for the year, 4-10s for me, thanks. There’s more than enough work to keep me busy now too, as both of my coop students are gone. I just recently got some help, one of Suncor’s engineers defected to us, since we pay about twice as much. I would’ve expected the reverse to be true, but it turns out their hourly rate is a bit lower, and they don’t pay LOA. Go figure.
I was supposed to have a new job by now too. One of the guys from Karate was talking to me a few months ago, and gave me some pretty spectacular numbers to think about. I would’ve been looking at a 34% raise, a company truck, flights, and a managers title. Needless to say, I’d have taken it in a heartbeat. Unfortunately, after about 2 months of delays, and interference from his HR department, the offer that actually came through was less than what I’m getting now, so I turned him down. Hopefully something better will come up in the future.
Bracken, one of the guys I worked with, decided to retire early and go do some travelling. He’s got a couple houses up in Fort Mac that he owns, and he’s renting them out for the income. I guess it’ll provide for him fairly well while he’s gone, but I wouldn’t want to be tied into the housing market in Fort McMurray, by any stretch of the imagination. There’s been a fair bit of labour dispute around here lately too. There was an illegal picket line that we had to cross this morning, and there’ve been protests outside of the labour board buildings. It’ll be interesting to see what comes of it all, in the end.
Will and Jim are both gone back to school now, too, so the place is pretty quiet. Just me and Nathan (new guy) on the engineering side. With Bracken and Will both gone, I was short a place to live, too. Fortunately, one of our timekeepers had a spare room , a bed, and a willingness to put up with me sharing her apartment. Originally, it was going to be a temporary arrangement, but it’s worked out well for us, so we’re looking for a nicer place now. It’s amazing how I can have such wildly disparate luck sometimes. Melissa’s 23, hot and single. I’m still dating Niccy.
I’m very much reminded of the time I spent living with Esther, and that frightens me a bit. Actually, it’s the same situation all over again. I’m more attracted to Melissa than I was to Esther, and it’s fairly clear to me that the feeling is mutual. Melissa and I joke at work about sleeping with each other, and we’ve pretty well convinced everyone that we are. Really though, we tend to avoid a lot of physical contact. Even sitting next to her on the undersized loveseat we have, we seldom actually touch each other. I think both of us know that any physical contact between us is bound to escalate, and right now, that’s not a position either of us wants to be in. I daren’t make the mistake that I did with Esther and Niccy, as it cost me both of them; Niccy for two years, Esther permanently. At the same time, I wonder if it’s not already too late. I can’t help but think that even if I were to break up with Niccy now, Melissa would feel guilty for wrecking a relationship. As I’ve experienced before, guilt tends to turn into resentment. On top of that, she might worry that I’d do the same to her.
The timing is unfortunate, but I’m not really happy in the relationship I have and this would be a good opportunity to find something I wanted, at least for a while. I don’t get much opportunity to meet single women my age, and even less often do I have one I’m already living with who’s attractive, and attracted to me. I really don’t know what to do in a situation like this; for most people it’s not really a common occurrence, it seems to be a recurring trend, for me. More later, almost time to go home for the day.
Wednesday, December 18th, 2007, 4:23pm
I've now tried to write three different updates to this journal, all unsuccessful. One disadvantage to being busy at work, I suppose.
My life has changed quite a bit since my last entry in September. I'm single now, and not seeing anyone. It's a long story, but since it's nearly Christmas at work here, I have very little else to do but write. To give a synopsis, Niccy hacked my email and text messaging accounts, I cheated on her with Melissa. Those two actions, and the emotional fallout from them have meant that Niccy and I have gone our separate ways. She's expressed interest in reconciling a few times, but I'm not remotely interested.
At present, I'm feeling very bitter towards women in general, and even more so towards myself. I fell victim to exactly what I described in my last journal update. The two of us living together, and the sexual tension that was being generated pretty well guaranteed that we'd end up sleeping with each other. That lasted about two weeks. The sex was good, but either Melissa got bored with me, or she felt guilty about being party to breaking up the relationship between Niccy and I, because about a month ago she pretty much told me that we were done. It wasn't a real relationship, really, but I would've liked it to be. Maybe she wasn't interested in that pressure either. I don't really know.
Nor do I much care, now. I'm still attracted to her, but now that I know the feeling isn't mutual, I avoid her quite a bit. She's hopping her way around the men at work, lately. I should've known better from the start, especially since I know how many guys she's been with. She's warned me several times that she's a slut. Her words, not mine. There's been three of us at work now, first was James, our project accountant, then myself. She's now moved on to Danny, our procurement guy. He's pretty charismatic, so I can see why she's interested. Personally, I find him to be a bit of an arrogant prick. That may just be me. He's got a going-away party tomorrow night. He's getting sent down to Sherwood Park to get some real training in purchasing before he comes back up for Voyageur. I'll be skipping the party.
I'm looking forward to having time off; the time alone will do me a lot of good, I think. I've had the apartment pretty much to myself lately, as Melissa's been sleeping at Boadway's place. I'm glad of that. I'm probably going to move out sometime in the near future; I don't really want the constant reminder of living with the woman I cheated on my girlfriend with.
I regret what happened, a lot. Partially because of the way things worked out with Melissa and I, partially because of Niccy's actions, but mostly due to my own. Hopefully I'll be smart enough to avoid the situation, should it occur again.
Finding a new place should be a bit easier come the new year; I'll have the use of the project manager's truck while he's not on site. He spends most of his time in Calgary, so I should be free to get myself from 'A' to 'B' without any trouble. That's also assuming I don't get an offer from Troy. His project manager quit a couple weeks ago, and he was looking at hiring me to replace him. I haven't heard from him since though. I sent him another follow-up email today. The job would be a good advancement for me, as it comes with a $10/hour raise, a company truck, and a company condo. The LOA is less, but I wouldn't be paying rent which would more than cover the difference.
I'm a bit anxious to leave L&H, as I don't think I'm getting the chances I deserve. I've been with the company for three years now, and I know more than our assistant project manager about all of our internal systems. I've also been running a project for the past 3 or 4 months, with almost no outside input. Despite only being a 'Technical Specialist', and getting paid only $67,000 per year, my performance review came back as "Meets Expectations" - I think Lockerbie and I have very different expectations, especially given what a lot of the QA/QC people, and our project management is paid.
I've spoken to quite a few people in the company, and heard next to nothing in response about my salary. My project manager sent an email to my old 'functional manager' telling him that my pay wasn't enough for my responsibilities. My assistant project manager also agreed that my pay was about $13,000 per year too low. I mentioned both of these to our Operations Manager a week ago, but I haven't heard anything back since. I've also mentioned that I think I've progressed well beyond the role of a 'Tech. Specialist' but there's been no input there. Even the performance criteria on my evaluation form were far beyond the responsibilities they request from new hires. With any luck, Troy will get back to me soon, and his offer will be better than the last. Ideally, I'd like to stay with L&H, but I'm not willing to be underpaid as grossly as I think I am now.
I don't really have much else to write. I'm sure there are a bunch of things I've missed. Maybe I'll write more when I get home.
Monday, February 11th, 2008, 9:23pm
I’ve felt the urge to write again lately, though I’m really not sure why. Maybe I’m getting restless from not having written in my journal in a while. I honestly can’t remember the last time I posted an entry. I suppose that’s not necessarily a bad thing; it’ll be interesting to go back and read it with a new perspective. That’ll have to wait a bit though, since the internet connection I’m leeching from is too unstable to connect at the moment.
I find it strange how the details of my life fade, even in my own memory. The further back I try to remember (with some notable exceptions) the less I can really recall. The once-crystalline images of the present just fade into a dull grey fog of the past, distinguishable only by general shades and hues of experience, highlighted by the occasional pinprick of experience sharpened by strong emotion. There are a few things I can recall very clearly, but so many more than I recognise only by the lack of any specific detail.
Remembering the specifics of what’s happened in my life presents its own set of uncertainties. How much of what I think I can remember is just a fabrication, created by my subconscious to fill in the blanks of my existence? That uncertainty is part of the reason I started a journal in the first place. It’s nice to have some placeholders to go back and look at my life; at least that way whatever my subconscious mind comes up with might have a little more basis in reality. It makes for interesting reading four years later too.
It’s hard for me to imagine that I’ve been keeping a journal for that long, I have no real recollection of starting to write it. It’s funny; I’ve been keeping this site for about a decade now, through several different incarnations. I can still remember sitting in my tenth grade drafting class, teaching myself how to code HTML, working with Russell. I kept the site pretty up-to-date back then, as most of my friends were online, from the talkers ChAoS!, Brigandine, Tower, Dreamscape, etc. Brigandine is still around; I logged on and chatted with a few old friends about a month ago. Maybe I’ll stop in again one of these nights.
Well, I think my proclivity towards long-winded ranting has about wound itself out for the night. I’ll sign off again, and maybe write something a little more relevant to current events sometime soon.
Sunday, July 6th, 2008, 9:50pm
Well, here marks another entry into the journal. It`s been a while since I`ve written, and I`ve been fairly busy. My last journal update didn`t cover anything about my life since December. As a quick synopsis, I bought a new condo in Fort McMurray, which I have to myself. I`ve also moved over to anther project, as the ``Lead Technical Specialist``. The title is embarassing to me, but it`s theoretically a promotion. The move over means I lost the use of a company truck, but that doesn`t bother me too much. The worst part is the bus to site in the morning. If I don`t leave my house at about 5:25, I don`t make it to work. That`s sad, considering work doesn`t actually start until 7:00 am.
I like my condo a lot. It's about 1200 square feet, with two bedrooms and two full baths. Walk-in closets in both bedrooms, and underground parking. I took posession on April 17th, but I still haven't managed to furnish the place. That's due, in large part, to my being picky. I want the furniture I buy to look good in the place, but the colour isn't one I'm used to matching, so I don't really know what'll look good. I managed to hook my friends girlfriend into coming to take a look, to get her opinion. I don't know when I'll hear back from her though. I've invited Becca up to come take a look, as well, but I somehow doubt that'll happen. For now, I've got my twin bed, and a new 40" TV. Between that, my laptop, books and work, I've got enough to get by with. I just can't entertain visitors all that well. My kitchen is reasonably well equipped now - I've got a full set of pots and pans, as well as enough dishes for a full 8-place setting. I try to keep fairly well stocked for food, too. It's nice having my own kitchen - I've been able to play around and cook some things that I wouldn't do in someone else's place. This way, I'm the only one who has to eat what I cook, if it turns out badly. That doesn't happen too often though, which is fortunate. It looks like all the Food Network I watch is paying off.
There hasn't been much that's changed in my personal life - I've seen Niccy twice since we broke up, both times to deliver her mail to her. Hopefully this will be the last; I'm going to assume she's managed to get her address changed at most places now. She looks like she's doing well - she's down probably 90 pounds since we were dating. I think she had a round of ovarian cancer, or something, but she's fully recovered now. I still avoid Melissa like the plague too. That's easy now that we're not living together, and (mostly) working on different projects. I don't think I wrote anything about it at the time, but around the tail end of March, she kicked me out of the condo we'd been sharing. No real notice; I got an email the Monday night we were starting the shift that I had to be out by the end of it. Fortunately, I'd already started the process of buying the condo, so all I needed to do was try and accellerate the posession date. When all was said and done, I ended up spending a couple of weeks in a hotel in Fort McMurray. I can't say I recommend the experience, but it could've been worse for me. It's not something I'll have to deal with again, at any rate. I ran into Becca a couple of months ago, too. She's doing well; we've been hanging out once in a while when I'm in town. She's working at the University now, as a research data coordinator. I find that a little ironic, since she wasn't ever all that into school. She was a bit of a stoner after we graduated too, but I'm glad to see she's doing well for herself. She's still fun to hang out with. I went for a lunch with her, Stephen, Alison, and Stephen's boyfriend a couple of months ago, now. Alison's doing well. She's been with the same guy for I don't know how long. He's lucky; she's everything I remembered her being. Of all my regrets from high school, she's probably my biggest. I would have liked to have told her how I felt about her, back when it was early enough for it to have mattered. Jen's done school now. She's also got her driver's license, and is looking to buy a car. I don't get to speak to her as much as I'd like to - I don't think she approves of me. I can't really blame her, I guess. She's planning to become a doctor. I think she'll make an excellent one - she's always been very caring and compassionate. She's a smart girl too, so I don't think she'll have trouble with the school work. It's been a while since I tutored her.
Work hasn't changed much, really. Due to a freak snowstorm and a cancelled flight, I had to miss my Professional Practice exam, so I don't have my P.Eng. yet. I write the exam in two weeks, now, and I should get the results back in mid-August or so. I'm going to be submitting my experience requirements and such as soon as I've written the exam so hopefully I'll have my designation by the time my 27th birthday hits. I'm keeping busy on the new project we're working on, too. It's just over 5 times the size of the one I came from, and I've got a more responsible position on it, too. I'm hoping my PM can convince my functional manager to make me the APM for the field portion of the work. I'm already doing pretty much all of the work of that position. I'm managing all of our subcontracts & subcontractors, as well as reviewing all the timesheets from the field staff. On top of that, I'm writing and issuing the vast majority of the budget trends to our client, and supervising all of our technical staff & workforce planning staff, as well. I managed to convince the operations manager for the company to review the salaries for the technical staff, as well. As far as I'm concerned, I'm about 20k underpaid for the position I was in, let alone the one I'm in now. APEGGA puts the upper quartile base salary for someone in my position at about $90k. Even after my last raise, I'm only at $72k. Unfortunately, that's now in the hands of my functional manager, who's about as useful as a screen door on a submarine. If I haven't heard anything by the end of this shift, I'm going to have to talk to my operations manager again; hopefully he'll be able to speed things up. It's been two weeks since I last spoke to him about it. That's about $1k out of my pocket.
That about covers my living situation, my social life, and my work. The only other thing really worth noting is that I've put a deposit down for a 2009 Subaru Impreza WRX. Since I don't have a vehicle in Fort Mac, I figured I might as well spend a bit of money and splurge. It'll be a good toy for six or seven years, I'm sure. It's supposed to get to the dealership somewhere in late August, or early September. I'm looking forward to it.
Saturday, February 28th, 2009, 8:57pm
Seven months since my last update, and more than five years since I started this little journal. It kind of surprises me how long I've kept it going, especially since I'm not really the type of person to write a lot, despite some of my earlier comments about being verbose. I'm glad that I've kept it going this long, at least. It's nostalgic to go back and read what I was thinking years ago. I don't think, if I'd been asked then, that I'd believe I would've kept this thing going so long. I'm a little bit grateful, even, that geocities has been around as long as it has. I half expect it to vanish, one of these years. Maybe I'll save a copy of the source code, some day.
So, enough with the generic rambling, I guess it's time for an update on my life. Work is going reasonably well. I got the promotion that I was looking for seven months ago. It came in October. I also got the raise for the "Lead Technical Specialist" position, though I've not yet seen anything for "Assistant Project Manager". I don't really expect to in the near future, either. The economy is in pretty poor shape right now; the price of oil is around $40/barrel, and projects in Fort McMurray are being cancelled or postponed all over the place. Voyageur is on hold indefinitely - oil will have to hit a minimum of $60/barrel, and stay stable, to get another project on the go. In the mean time, I've got a small waste water treatment plant expansion on the go. It's a good little job that keeps getting bigger. We started with a budget at about $7 million, and it's up around $15 million, now. Still in Fort Mac too, which is a plus given my condo's up there. It's also schedule-driven, and one of the few left that are. There's a lot more focus on cost than there was when oil was pusing $120 per barrel.
That's about it for work; it occupies the vast majority of my time lately, but I'm enjoying myself. My boss is a bit irritating, but I don't have to deal with him too much, so I can live with it. I don't know how long he's going to be around either, I've heard rumors that Sherwood Park isn't terribly pleased with his performance. That doesn't much surprise me; he's great at delegating, but I've never really seen him do a lot of work.
I've been getting back into karate a little more than I have been for the past couple years. There's a tournament coming up in Kuala Lumpur that I'm planning to attend. I don't really expect that I'll be able to win anything, but I'd like to avoid embarassing myself, at a minimum. I've started to go to the gym on a pretty regular basis in Fort Mac, too, since I don't get in too many karate classes. It's worked out well, I've been in better shape lately that I have been since I got sent up to Fort McMurray in the first place. It's noticible in my kata & sparring, too. I'm hoping that I'll be in still better shape by the time Toronto's tournament comes around, and still better shape when I go to Malaysia. I'm planning to take six weeks off - the timing should work out really well. My project at work is supposed to finish by the end of June, and I'm sure there'll be a couple weeks of cleanup to do. Then, in mid-July, I should be able to take a good long break. I'll cash in as much vacation time as I can, and take the rest as unpaid leave. There are some other people from karate going too, so I won't be travelling alone for most of the trip. I'm hoping I can make a bunch of different stops in Asia too. So far my plans are Kuala Lumpur, Hong Kong, Bangkok, Tokyo and Okinawa. I'll see how it goes when I get there though; I'm planning to be home just before my birthday. Between my flight there, and my flight back, things are up in the air, still. It'll be the first real vacation I've taken as an adult. I think it'll be a good experience. I've wanted to see Asia for years, now.
I'm still single - it's been about a year and a half. I haven't seen Niccy in I don't even know how long. Last I heard, she was together with Penguin, which will probably be good for her. He's a good guy, and he's been in love with her forever. Hopefully they're happy together - I don't really want any part of them. Melissa quit back in August, or so. I've seen her maybe once or twice since - no loss there. Becca stood me up two or three times in succession, and then for my office Christmas party. I haven't bothered to try and contact her since. I still see Tiffany on a regular basis - we have dimsum plans for tomorrow. At least we would if I could get in touch with her to confirm them. I'll have to give her a call when I'm done writing. She's doing fairly well; working at Corporate Express now, and still living at home raising Damon. She's always good company when I'm down for the weekends, anyway. I haven't seen Stephanie since November or so. We went for sushi then, and she's just kind of dropped off the face of the planet. I sent her a few email at her new job, and I've called her cell a few times, but there's been no response. Another one by the wayside, I guess. Then there's Jen. She's far too occupied with school for our free time to overlap. We went for dinner at the end of the Christmas break, which was fun. She also joined us for lunch after karate this morning. It seems she has a date this evening. My reaction to finding that surprised me, a bit. My first thought was jealousy, and to be honest, it's been occupying a fair bit of my thoughts since then. Even more truthfully, it's the reason I'm writing this particular entry. Not to say it's the sole reason, but it's certainly the catalyst for my writing mood. I don't have them very often, but they always seem to be brought on my melancholy, in one form or another. It's foolish, really. I've never told her how I feel about her, because I'm so firmly convinced that the feeling isn't mutual. At times, I think she must like me, but at the same time, I imagine she doesn't really want anything to do with me. Part of the problem is that I'm convinced that I'm not good enough for her, too. She's too good a person, and I'm too not. I like to think that I'm changing, and that my intentions are good more often than not, but I have a hard time trusting myself, based on my past experiences. As much as I'd like to have a relationship with her, I'm afraid that either I'd hurt her, or that she'd get bored with me, and find someone else.
Boredom seems to be the recurring theme in my relationships. Either I'll get bored with the person I'm with, and end the relationship in a rather catastrophic way, or whomever I'm with will get bored of me, and end the relationship with rather less fanfare. I've started to get to the point where I don't even try, anymore. I've got a roommate again - Lena. She used to work for Lockerbie at the MVU project, at the time I was a technical specialist there. She finally broke up with her boyfriend of many years (I say finally, because he was, bluntly, a compulsive loser) and was staying with one of her friends in town as a guest. I happened to send her an email randomly, to catch up and see how she was doing. Within a week, she was renting my second bedroom. She's a sweetheart, and very attractive. Between that, and my normal proclivity to fuck my roommates, my expectation would've been that something would develop. And yet. It's almost as though I can't bring myself to be interested in her. Part of it is the age differential (she's 22), but even that doesn't explain it. Jen is younger still, and I'm still very much attracted to her. It's not the body type, either, as Lena's almost exactly my ideal. As I said, she's an absolute sweetheart, so it's not attitude, either. There's just some kind of block there, that I don't really have any interest in getting through. I've noticed some interest from here, a time or two, but aside from the occasional bit of pure physical attraction, there's nothing there. It makes me wonder, a bit.
I'm starting to think that I'm going to be alone for the rest of my adult life. That would bother some people a great deal, but it doesn't really scare me as much as it ought. I've always been pretty solitary and introverted by nature, and while I get an indescribable yearning for human contact and companionship, I generally find myself happier alone. I enjoy my work, and I enjoy karate; between the two of those, it almost seems like it's enough. Almost. The single thing I miss most about having a girlfriend, is being able to curl up next to someone in bed, and feel their warmth beside me. I haven't felt that in a very long time, and I'm starting to wonder if I will again. One can but hope, I suppose.