just in time for school to start

Now my profs are back, and I've had a chance to quickly edit and put the project together, it feels almost done. I turned in a complete copy of it--from title page to appendices and everything in between--to both my profs this afternoon.

Hopefully, aside from a few minor edits--like trying to make the stupid table of contents line up better (have I mentioned I hate Word sometimes?) it should not require much more of my life. Of course, I shouldn't count my chickens, I suppose.

My oral defence is Tuesday--2:30 our time. Send good thoughts or a prayer my way, would ya?

I think I'm treating myself to a new laptop tomorrow. It's my last official day as a fully registered student, technically, so I don't know if I qualify for student rates after that. (Plus they're throwing in a free ipod, and that's how I got my first one two years ago.)

Now I'm off to take my son off to do his last minute shopping for his sister's birthday tomorrow. It's also my parents' anniversary, but because of the two events on the same day I'm going to drop off their card and presents tonight. The way things are going, this is likely the last "real" anniversary for them--even if they're both still around by this time next year, the way things are going, I doubt mom will be mentally able to grasp what's going on by then.

I guess I'd always thought they'd make the 50th. Now it seems unlikely. This is #47.

After the festivities of the weekend are done--daughter's "friends" birthday is here on Saturday--then life will be about getting my classes organized, editing the musical from last spring, and sorting out what to do with the New York trip very quickly. (oh, that and the little matter of making the final decision on this year's musical and how we're going to build the set with no building trades class in the building any more)

Plus the school's a complete chaotic disaster because of earthquake-proofing renovations and it's likely the gym will be closed for at least 6+ weeks and well, guess whose room they'll come after when it starts to rain outside?

Welcome to the 2007-08 school year.

On the bright side--I have finally been able to start on my reading list--books for fun, not thesis stuff for a change. I recently finished "Snobs" (Yes, I know--bold full books; just put quotation marks for short story, article or poem titles--I'm lazy.) which Milly recommended, and now I'm reading Madame Bovary.

I have a fairly lengthy reading list given to me over the last couple of years by an internet friend that I'm going to start on as well. Sadly I'm not able to thank this person for that--same person who got me hooked on This American Life--but I am grateful nonetheless.

Good luck to those of you who've already started school, who are starting it next week, or who are simply going on with work/life/plans you've made. I think the blog will be getting more regular attention now.

The Cynical Career Counselor Explains Your Future as a

Personal Trainer

Hi there--congrats on being winning that homecoming king thing. Personal Trainer? Hmm--you have the wholesome, athletic look going on--that probably helped you win at homecoming, I guess.

It will mean working hard in college--taking a lot of courses that explain how the body works and where the muscles are, but you should be able to find smart girls to date who can help you out with the assignments.

Once you're done, you'll likely go to work for some fitness studio or recreation center as staff or as someone they hire out by the hour to people who want personalized attention as they try to fulfill their new year's resolutions. You'll learn to laugh at their jokes, share insipid ones of your own, and flash those perfect teeth when they need a little encouragement.

Still, it won't quite be what you hoped for, and you'll long for the day when you can set up your own business--a small studio where you can book higher-end clients and don't have to share the revenue with an employer. Eventually you'll save up enough that, coupled with your smile and charm, you can afford to set up a spot for yourself in a strip mall on the edge of the good part of town.

Your business starts slowly. Because you have to fit into the vagaries of your clients' schedules, you often have your first appointment as early as 6:00 a.m., and don't finish until 10 or 11 at night. Not that your days are busy, though--between the few sessions you are able to schedule are hours of downtime--your exercise equipment is the most polished in town.

Then one day it changes--a young man comes in and looks around, then "interviews" you as a potential fitness consultant for his boss, a Mr. Schickelgruber. The next day a large black car with tinted windows pulls up, and you meet Heinz Schickelgruber, accompanied by a young man and woman in their late 20s--both looking like they could give you a challenge on any fitness test.

You spend two hours with the man, and soon he's insisted you call him "Heinz" and is asking you about your family--paying particularly close attention to your ancestry, it seems. He returns a couple of days later, and soon you're into a routine--four days a week--and after a while only one of the silent escorts accompanies him.

Over the next few months you learn more about him--he grew up in Argentina, on a ranch, where it seems he lived a privileged but disciplined lifestyle. At 40, he has come into a sizeable inheritance, he confides, but with it comes a variety of responsibilities, about which he will say little more.

He was raised by his mother and "the staff" he reminisces to you one day, explaining that his father--"a weakling"--killed himself when Heinz was only 12. "I wish I could have known my grandfather", he confesses, with a faraway look in his eyes. You have learned to say little during these post-workout chats over a smoothie at a nearby juice bar. He's paying you double your normal rate, justifying it by explaining he needs you to be on call 24 hours a day.

One day he surprises you by saying he has more customers to bring you--his staff. He wants to begin a regime of individual and group workout sessions. While you can manage the individual training in your small studio, you rent space in a nearby office building for the group sessions, and Heinz pays to have the room outfitted with mirrors and a sound system.

You start them off with basic aerobics, pilates and some jazzercise, but then one day Horst, Heinz's young, efficient assistant, quietly brings you some cds and explains the group wants to try a new type of workout that's "all the rage in Europe". You've been through every trendy fitness craze from boxing to strippercize to "hot yoga" so nothing surprises you, even Horst's insistence on teaching you "fitness marching".

The music isn't your type, but you weren't all that attached to the mindless techno you had been using before, so the switch to the brass-dominated martial music that now echoes through the mirrored gym isn't difficult for you.

Over the next few months you get to know the class members--Heinz's "staff"--socially, and one time or another you have liaisons with most of the women, young, with perfect teeth like your own. When you suggest precautions before each encounter, the girls all laugh and say something cryptic about appreciating your concern, but things will work out for the greater good.

You are worried that Heinz might be offended that you are encroaching in his territory through these trysts with his employees, but he seems delighted that you are enjoying the company of these tall, blonde women, and you later suspect he may be gay--a suspicion which increases when you wake to find him bent over your bed one evening when you accept an invitation to a weekend at his villa, although he insists he was merely "measuring your skull" while you slept.

Over time, though, you realize that Heinz is simply more stoic than most; he feels such passionate commitment to his "work" (though you aren't quite clear what it is) that he feels he need not bother himself with the petty urges that others succumb to.

One day, while the martial music blares as you are working out the staff, the owner of the office building which houses your gym, Mr. Shapiro, walks by. Suddenly, he stops, and angrily gestures for you to come to talk to him in the hallway.

"I've never seen anything in such bad taste in all my life. You are evicted from this building!" You are shocked. You try to explain you don't normally wear bicycle shorts to teach but you were late that morning, but he has already turned his back on you and walked off. Horst comes up behind you to catch the confrontation and mutters something darkly under his breath.

The next day you are informed you will be conducting all of your fitness training at the villa, which the staff call Eagle's Nest. There seems to be a great deal of security, but you don't worry about it too much as you are treated as a V.I.P. by all of the guard detail. You give up your apartment and your original studio, and move into Eagle's nest, where you are set up in a luxury suite.

One day Heinz approaches you with an idea. "You should be a model," he says. "And we can help get you started." You are flattered and agree to a photo shoot. The photographer, Ilsa, is a rather intense young woman all in black. She shoots you in a variety of outfits--from swimsuits to military-like uniforms. You ask when you'll see the results, and receive a noncommital answer.

Over the next few weeks all Heinz will say is that your pictures are for his corporate website, but you're still not quite sure what the corporation is.

That's not the only thing that begins to trouble you. One of the staff girls you'd been seeing before turns out to be pregnant, and then a couple more are as well. You confess to Heinz a worry that you may responsible for the pregnancies, but he just laughs and assures you that if it's true, they will be "handsome, pure children". He also promises you will have no financial responsibility for the raising of the children--he is going to house and educate them at Eagle's Nest.

You're also bothered by the fact that on the rare occasions when you go back into the city, you feel like you're being watched. It's not Heinz's security staff--you know all of them--but rather some tanned men in sunglasses who look vaguely... foreign. On the few occasions you manage to see them without their sunglasses, you see looks of utter contempt directed your way.

One day you are awakened to the unexpected sound of sirens throughout Eagle's Nest. "We've been betrayed!" Horst shouts at you, and instructs you to pack a few of your most important belongings and be prepared to leave within the hour. Shortly afterward, Ilsa, the photographer, comes to your room and tells you curtly that you must drive her to a bank in the city.

She's not someone you'd think to refuse, and soon you're standing by as she berates a teller for taking too long to give her the money that has been wired from Switzerland. As the two of you exit the bank you spot more of the mysterious men who've been following you--three of them are looking at your car and talking. They spot you, and quickly vanish into an alley. You try to say something to Ilsa, but she silences you with a glare and the two of you speed off back towards the villa.

Halfway there a large SUV pulls up close behind you. You recognize the dark glasses through your rear view mirror and try to lose them. Suddenly, as you hit a sharp corner, the SUV pulls alongside and forces you towards the edge of the road--a sheer clifff below. You slam on the brakes, but at that moment they fail, and you and Ilsa plunge to your fiery death on the rocks below.

There will be no public notification of your death. The Mossad cleanup specialists do good work.

What holiday?

Yeah--it's pretty much over. Too much stress here.

First, we're back in town. It's nice to be home. While it was a good trip, and did wonders to fix some family dynamics among the other side of the family, it also was about four of us sharing a hotel room and me sitting on my laptop doing thesis edits (since I didn't get them back until after we got there--my prof had been away for a few weeks) after everyone went to bed. I'd have only the light of the computer to see by. Then I'd get up a couple hours earlier than everyone and take the computer down to the breakfast area and put in more time.

I've sent it off, but I have to add the abstract, acknowledgments, table of contents, and appendices, as well as sort out the bibliography. Then I have to make a hard copy of it all and submit it to a bunch of people. I have to get the properly formatted title page to the ed dept. by this thursday.

I've been told that when all the required people read it I should expect to be doing more edits. My oral defence is either Tuesday or Wednesday or next week--I have to find out which day I can get away from school in the afternoon.

Found out tonight that there was a crisis here while we were away. My dad had to deal wish something a bit traumatic and pretty stressful for him--my mom's alzheimers has gone to a new level and it isn't going to be easy to deal with.

I have to edit the musical video from last spring. When?

I have to make sure i know what show we're doing this year. Audition info will have to go out soon.

I have to make some tricky/tough decisions about New York. None of them will be great choices, but I have to figure out what to do.

Seems the summer holiday has just kind of faded away.

There's 83 of them now...

I am now in Winnipeg. First time since I was four years old, actually. Not my (or most people's) idea of a vacation spot, but we're here for a wedding this coming weekend, and so it means the four of us are sharing one hotel room for a week--first time we've tried that since Disneyland a couple years ago.

I'm a bit lazy, so rather than write something new, I was just counting and I think the total is now 83 Cynical Career Counselor posts. This leads to a question: Got any new careers for him to try? Maybe they're getting a tad repetitive, but if there's anything you'd like to suggest, feel free.

If you haven't seen them, they should all still be in the old posts on this blog. Here are some links to some of the old ones:

Medical lab technician (they were shorter at the beginning)
Real Estate Agent
Corporate Lawyer
Bartender
Archaeologist
Architect
Police Officer

Go have a look if you missed them.

The Cynical Career Counselor Explains Your Future as a

Personal Shopper

Oh hi there--sit down. I remember hearing your name somewhere recently--oh yeah, aren't you the girl who wrote excused herself from her history final because of Lululemon's preferred customer invitation only sale? What kind of job are you interested in? Shopping--for a living? One of those department store purchasers or... Oh, I see. A personal shopper, huh? Well, I think I can figure it out:

First of all, it's not really a job that's easy to train for. It's a small demographic that hires personal shoppers, so you have to kind of seduce someone into it, unless, of course, they've already got one, then you just have to frame that person for theft and steal their job--but either way, you have to cultivate a sort of friendship with the rich person who's in need of someone to do the terribly onerous task of shopping for them.

Fortunately--and I just pulled your grade transcript up on the computer--you will use instinct rather than skills or academic training to pull this off. You'll need to get into a store where the rich shop--rich females, preferably young and connected or married to someone wealthy.

Don't go for the first wife, either. She's likely the one who will actually bear the children and want to raise them herself--so she won't be hiring anyone to buy her playpens or potties. You want to go somewhere the trophy wives prowl--so probably a high end jewelry store or sports car dealership.

You won't get in on selling the cars--high end lots don't hire kids like you right out of high school--but you can catch on as a receptionist or insurance counter girl or something. You see, you will be the one who does the paperwork for leases, rather than sales, because chances are the rich corporate types will be hiding their mistress's cars in a monthly expense account. It's too much money to blow on buying it outright when they're still shifting your assets to hide them from their current wife's future team of divorce attornies.

Of course, the "wives in the wings" will test their sugar daddies by insisting on a new car every few months, so you'll get to know them really well. Soon they're dropping by the lot to scope out their next convertible and taking you out for lunch where they appreciate that you listen without judging them.

The mistress's lot is often a lonely one--probably their family isn't fully aware of their less than savoury pursuit of some married executive twice their age, and it isn't something that they're all that proud of, if they stop shopping long enough to do a little self-examination. I guess that's why they rarely stop shopping.

Lunches turn to invitations to the spa or the tanning salon, and that's when you'll hone in on the one or two prospects who have the right qualities to help you realize your career dream. The woman you want to work for should be close to your size, and utterly selfish.

Then the field narrows down to one. She--your new "best friend"--even invites you to her wedding. You've wisely made it clear that you have no social life--even if you do--and she doesn't wonder why an attractive girl like you can't get dates. She's so self-absorbed, she just assumes everyone else's life is a pathetic shell compared to hers. She even arranges a date for you to bring to the wedding.

Don't argue that point. You see, the guy she assigns you for the wedding is her 'boy on the side', and you'll be the convenient cover for her to bring him to all manner of social gatherings. You'll pretend not to notice it, of course, until you're so immersed in it that it becomes an unspoken understanding.

Julie, your boss, won't find married life all that happy or fulfilling, so she'll try to silence the voice of her self-doubts in an orgy of spending. She suggests you go on her payroll full time, and the two of you settle on 'personal shopper' as a title--her wealthy husband is busy with the demands of his high powered career, and since he can't give her much time--or at least he doesn't seem to want to--he happily hires you as someone to keep her out of the house.

She begins sneaking off to meet Ricardo, her boyfriend, a couple of afternoons a week, and you provide an invaluable cover--she meets you just before she heads home to provide her with the bags of high-end clothing and the time-stamped receipts that seem to verify her alibis.

You know her tastes, and soon you're deliberately buying a few things she won't quite like, but you love, knowing she'll toss them your way--things you'd never be able to afford even though she's paying you twice what your job at the car dealership did.

After a year of this shallow but fast-paced career, you begin to suffer from stirrings of your long-dormant conscience. You arrive at her home one afternoon to drop off the latest purchases, and you find her husband unexpectedly at home, quietly weeping in the breakfast nook. You try to sneak out, but he's heard you and calls you over.

The next hour he pours out the sorrow that has overwhelmed him almost from the first moment of his loveless marriage. He has been aware of the affair for months, and has chosen to ignore it, but Julie's increasing brazenness in her illicit relationship with Ricardo has destroyed his self-esteem and driven him to the verge of suicide. He confesses to you that he feels he has made a mess of his life, and somehow your feeble words of support encourage him.

He invites you to meet for coffee the next day, and you worry at first that he's simply playing you into the the role of his next mistress, but to your almost disappointment, you discover he just needs an sympathetic ear, particularly one who understands the wife who is causing him so much pain. You, in turn, find yourself growing more protective of him and find it more and more difficult not to blast Julie for her callous behavior.

Julie is oblivious to the fact that her infidelity is known to her husband, but she senses that he is less enamoured of her company--you've begun to displace her as he shares all his intimate thoughts with you and begins to protectively distance himself from the wife he knows he must lose. Julie, though, can't understand the coolness in her husband, and rather than believe he might know of her affair, she assumes it is because she has gained six pounds since the wedding.

She notches up her already manic diet and exercise regime, and as her 'best friend' and lackey, forces you to join with her in five mile runs and brutal pilates sessions. When you lag behind, she laughs at you and when she drops a dress size, she gives you dozens of outfits which she rejects as her 'fat clothes'.

You lose it at the end of a particularly gruelling mountain run, and after throwing up your low-carb breakfast, essentially ask her how she can live with herself.

This first example of backbone in your relationship with her is not received well. She explodes at you--in reality shrieking a rebuttal to her own conscience--and fires you on the spot. Three hours after you get home, she calls you and begs you to come back to work for her--perhaps fearing that your knowledge of the details of her affair is more dangerous without her having you under control as an employee.

You mumble something about feeling hurt by what she says, and she immediately responds with a 20% raise, which you grudgingly accept.

Still, something has changed in your relationship, and this new dynamic includes her watching you more closely. She arranges one day to have you called to the phone over a complicated dress alteration problem just as you have logged into your email. While you're out of the room she finds a poignant message from her husband thanking you for being his 'rock', and concludes you are either having an affair with him, or very close to doing so.

You aren't so sure she is entirely wrong. She confronts you, but not in anger--there is some sense of evil delight in the discovery. Soon you've withered under her barrage of questions, confessing the truth of your friendship with her husband, and his knowledge of her affair. She begins to cry--perhaps for real, you can't tell--and asks you to leave. You know she's up to something.

The next day she shows up at your place with a creepy lawyer and a private detective. She wants to wire you with a microphone and have you throw yourself at her husband. She believes he'll confess his love back, and with some judicious editing, that will be all she needs to ensure freedom and financial security for her and Ricardo. She promises you a large lump some of money, and hopes that she won't need to use the photos she has. She shoves some still shots from your favorite coffee shop's security video--seems they keep the tapes for a month, after some problems with employee theft, and on a couple of very heartbreaking occasions you had held her husband's hand across the table of the coffee shop as he shared his pain with you.

You agree to go along, but then in the washroom use your blackberry to message the husband about the scheme. When you arrive at their home and go into his office, he asks you to sit down. You both know that Julie is listening to everything, so you have the surreal feeling that you are in some sort of a movie. You listen to Julie's husband explain how much he loved his wife and how sad he is that their marriage is a failure, but that he won't hold her back, and she can have anything she wants.

Then, without warning, he pulls a gun from his desk and puts a bullet into his temple. As you scream, covered in blood, Julie and the detective run in. She runs over to you and hugs you, and the two of you just hold each other for a moment, while the detective checks the husband and informs you of the obvious fact of his death.

When you finally step back, still shaking, from Julie's embrace, you see her staring at her husband's body. She looks over to you, a strange gleam in her eye.

"I thought I could trap him into 40% of the marital assets, tops. This is amazing--Ricardo and I won't even have to move." You gasp at her words. You always knew she was cold-hearted and calculating, but this even boggles your mind. Then she turns to you and tries to reassure:

"Don't worry--you'll always have a job with me." She looks at you blankly as you grab the gun from the desk and point it at her head.

"I quit." The sound of the gun seems even louder this time. Too late the detective turns round, and in an instant his firearm is in his hand and he squeezes the trigger.

The mortician will have a great selection of dresses for your funeral.

Pics from last week and a challenge

Well, it's actually pics from Wednesday last week, and then Sunday.

Wednesday we ended up just enjoying some time downtown and then people watching from the old sphagetti factory--great place to see the thousands of tourists wandering downtown. Here are a few pics:

















The provincial legislature building



















Nearby flowers



















My better half at lunch


















Yet another big hotel downtown--seems there are always new hotels and condos being built.


















One of many old school vehicles at the Forestry Museum in Duncan

The next few pics are also from there:

























































































I'll probably post the whole set of pics in my family photobucket. Email me if you want the password.


Now for the challenge. If you aren't familiar with Nanowrimo, it's the short name of "National Novel Writing Month". It's almost upon us once more--it's November--and while I failed to complete the 50,000 word minimum in 2005, I am going to take another shot at it. This time I shouldn't have any university stuff to compete for my time. (Just all my crazy school stuff)

I was directed towards it the first time by Camila, and she's planning to take up the gauntlet once more. I don't know if Bayley ever reads this still, but I will challenge her to try it again this year.

I'm tossing the challenge out to the rest of you if you feel up to it. I know you're all busy people, but still--think of it as a chance to be creative and competitive at the same time...

I think Milly would be great for this were she not leaving the continent and traveling then. But the rest of you--why not think about it?

Poetry by Dythandra

Coloring My World

The rumors of
My anticipated romance
Were greatly exaggerated.

I went from smitten
To potential smiter
In less than a week.

Seems our little friend from halfway round the globe
Plays mind games just as well
As local variants of her type--
The ones who adopt an orientation
When the camera flashes
And later claim they were "out of it"
After that half a belini.

Makes me wonder once more
If picking teams is premature just yet.

She spent the last week of her visit
Sleeping in the basement
Where my friends, the spiders
Wreaked my vicarious vengeance.

I needed to make a statement
And, after ensuring the safety of the tape of my parental's agreement
That camp would earn my right
To unfettered access to dermal coloration
I head to a nearby tattoo salon.

While the parentals had agreed weeks ago
I prefer my fake I.D.
To throwing my plans
Into their sea of doubts.

The tattoo place is busy,
So I wait.
All the good magazines--
(Dark, alternative, troubling)
Are taken.

I am left with the comic section
From the local paper.

I glance through them with disdain;
Marmaduke--no wonder the scribbles
Look like they were done by a crackhead
Desperate for a fix.
My hand might shake a bit too
With guilt for taking money for that crap.

Then there's "Peanuts"
Ancient memories from when I watched
Holiday shows that weren't created by Tim Burton.
How is it that Charles Schultz's signature
Still appears on new entries?
Forget Tupac--here's the man
Who cheated death.

Garfield makes me angry.
How stupid do they think we are?
The same half dozen cartoons
For a couple of decades.

Then there's Dilbert.
More an industry than a comic
Must be true to life
Since my father weeps a little,
When he reads it over breakfast.

Then it's my turn.
I get Dmitri--lucky, since I know
His work is always good.

He sits me down, pauses a little
Over my I.D., then smiles
I pass muster.

He pulls out some books and sheets of designs,
But I shake my head,
And offer a sheet--my own design.

It's simple really:
A wound on my wrist,
"Down the street, not across the road"
As the saying goes.

Emerging from the cut, a head
A bleeding "Hello Kitty"
Then just to the right, an arm, extended
Wearing a uniform, gestapo, perhaps
But Golden Arches,
Where the swastika should be.

The arm has a pistol, pointed
Finger tightened on the trigger,
About to end the kitty's pathetic life.

He looks thoughtfully at my creation,
Then shakes his head and sighs.
"No--can't do it."
What? He can't be serious.

"Here's the thing:
First of all, I think your I.D.'s fake.
Not something that I usually lose much sleep over, though.
Then there's the design--
Looks like something done in anger quickly,
Then regretted for years."

He looks briefly into my eyes,
And recognizes in a moment
He is right.

"Plus there's something else;
That's a lot of ink, and not enough canvas
On those little wrists of yours."

"I don't have an eating disorder."
I've blurted that out so many times
It's become a reflex.

"I never said you did."
"Oh, so I'm just too skinny, is that it?"

He pauses, then smiles
"Just for this much art--
Otherwise, I'd say you're pretty much perfect."
Then he winks,
And hands me back my design.

I take it back, and find it tough
To look at him for a moment.
Like I said before
Maybe it's premature to pick teams.

As I turn to leave, his voice pulls me back
"Hey--wait a sec.
Who did the art on that design?"
I quietly claim it as my own
Still contemplating my shoelaces.

"It's good--really good."
Then as I look at him, he gestures broadly,
Sweeping his hand across the room.

"You think you could do this?
Would you like to learn?"
I pause, confounded for a moment
By this sudden turn of fate.
Then I nod manically.

"Good--come back tomorrow and sign some papers,
And bring a parent if you can--we'll need your real I.D.
It will only pay minimum wage while you're training,
And you'll have to clean up and answer phones as well."

I visualize my parents' reaction,
But I'm not concerned
When I really want something
There are always ways to bend them to my will.

I manage a smile, a quiet "thanks"
And turn to leave.

"One more thing--about your tatoo
We'll get you something soon--don't worry.
And you'll love it, I promise."

I think I will. I really think I will.

nice place to live if you can afford it...

There's never been a time in my lifetime that I can recall there being so much demand for employees in all different lines of work. Even places that used to be tough to break into, like the high-paying union jobs with the transit buses, are now posting signs recruiting new employees.

Fast food places are offering better wages in many cases--and medical and dental benefits.

Problem is, you have to live somewhere. Real estate is insane right now, and of course that also then drives rent up.

Recently, the local paper has been publishing several stories about this situation. A week or so ago, the front page showed the cheapest single family home for sale in the area--325 thousand for an 860 square foot house--one bathroom, two bedrooms in a sketchy part of town backing onto a railway.

Then a story that the average price last month for a single family home was 570 thousand for the second month in a row--and yes, our dollar isn't worth as much as the american, but at about 94 cents U.S., it's still pricey.

It's not just a few overpriced millionaire's houses that are driving the average up; the "median" price last month was well over 500 grand as well.

Then this weekend a story that the two highest-priced houses currently on the market in the whole country are here in Victoria, at 28.5 and 20 milllion respectively.

I guess my kids will either be living with us until they're 35 or moving to Saskatchewan...

I'm back

Well, at least I'm probably more likely to be posting regularly for a bit. I'm not entirely finished the masters work, but I just submitted the last chapter of the thesis project, and that means I just need to put together the appendices, write an abstract and acknowledgements, and then do the edits on the last three chapter...

"Just"? Well, the edits are the scary thing. I got the edits for the first two chapters and there was a lot of stuff to look over. A lot of it is minor, which I'm fine with. Where I am a little scared is if I get back something like "No, you need to completely revamp this--it needs another dozen pages or so here, and a bunch more there..."

*shudders*

So, until I get the edits back from my prof on chapters 3-5, I'm actually sort of able to catch my breath for a few days. The end is in sight.

Thanks to all who left kind comments on the last two posts. I'll probably delete the freevote one soon. You may have already noticed I deleted about 30 posts recently--going through one of my "kill off all the ones that give too much information or just simply suck" phases.

As for Dythandra, I don't actually have a predetermined direction for her--she has just kind of evolved to who she is. I think if you look back over the oldest ones, in addition to me starting her off more "emo" (more just a mis-label) and at one point I think mentioning a sibling (she's much better as a only child) I think she's kind of progressing into some sort of logical direction.

It's becoming clearer, for instance, that she truly seems to prefer girls, but I don't think we should carve that in stone just yet.

Meanwhile, I've got another CCCounselor post waiting in the wings, and as soon as I get the masters stuff cleared up, I've got a huge reading list to tackle. Some of those may make the "Kid Who Sits Behind You" return.

Actually, I have been still reading a fair bit. I'm just over halfway through this amazing biography of John Belushi I was given recently--it's a great read.

Oh, one programming note--Ella has euthenized her blog ("Occasionally Glamorous..." from the links on the left) and I don't feel I can share any information I might get about a new location, as I think that she wants to avoid being tracked there. Still, if you were/are a regular reader of her blog, drop me a note and I'll forward it to her and you can ask for the new link.

How many days 'til I have to have an answer to "what show are we doing this year?"

Poetry by Dythandra

Homecoming

My summer job--my parents' hope,
My nightmare
Crashes suddenly to an end.

I'd found the 4th of July fireworks,
Borrowed a box, hidden under my bunk, until...

Later, when Herr Kampwarden was showering
A rather unexpected treat
And only a quick trip to the infirmary required.

My "friends" were weak,
No thumbscrews needed
To eke my name from smug lips

But I had accomplices, though none were named.
Not out of loyalty,
As much as disinterest.

Only four weeks left, no great loss
Office staff rather frightened of me
(or at least that one who kept crossing herself
every time I was nearby)
So they offered to pay out my summer
If I'd go quietly.

Trying not to giggle, I concede,
And even manage to look a little downcast
When they pay for the cab to take me to the train.

I left a home invaded by my mother's horrid sister
But I know she will be gone,
And my domain returned.

Then, awkwardness, when I turn up
Unexpected, at home and hearth.

I drag my gear in, and they cluck as I explain:
"That nasty camp manager... he kept...
...Looking at me"
Then, a meaningful pause, as I pretend to struggle
To hold back some tears.

They are doubtful, I sense,
So I drop my cheque on the table
Full pay for my early dismissal
Implies my tormentor's guilt.

"I should go up there and give him what for!"
My father blusters.
I smile to myself at his bravado
A man who put up with wet papers for weeks
Rather than confront the newsboy
Who tossed them in the birdbath.

My mother chimes in--full of support.
I glance at the clock--just about right
She's two drinks into her day.

There's no mystery there:
Two drinks--always agreeable
Four drinks--combative
Six drinks--maudlin
Eight...
Well, I'm always downtown by then.

Then the awkwardness returns
"About your room, dear...
It's sort of... occupied."

How can this be?
I've watched the calendar at camp,
Knowing full well, I couldn't be banished
Before Auntie had left my abode.
Besides, I'd have heard her canine rat
Were she still nearby.

"What?" I look at each of them slowly
They should know better.

"Her name is Sun; she's from Korea..."
I'm already halfway up the stairs,
As my mother blathers something
About her only staying a couple weeks.

How could they? My room--
Tarred with their epithets:
"The Pit" "The Dungeon"
and my personal favorite:
"That girl's own little corner of Hell".

What misplaced foreign girl could stand
A room like that?

I fling open the door--she's not there
But I see on the walls--K-pop posters over my Lovecraft,
And agony beyond all measure--
Hello Kitty!

I hear the bathroom door--I turn,
She's wearing the robe I've shunned since Christmas
And toweling dry her hair.

She sees me, a pause, and then a twinkle
In the deepest brown eyes I've ever seen.

"Oh, you are home"
A charming accent lilts the obvious
"I love your room, do you like my little... touches?"
She brushes by and steps into the room,
I glance again, and notice something else

One Hello Kitty is impaled on a gargoyle's talon
Another vomits blood,
While a third lies decapitated,
Its lifeless eyes frozen in fear.

I look slowly back at her; she smiles.

This summer just got a whole lot better.