I hit checkout time at work today and all I could think about was this gif.
It's just been one of those work weeks and I still have one day to go. Ugh.
On the upside, I now have my stepmom's grandma's fine china. I know, that relationship connection is a bit of a ride. It sounds like the start of an urban legend. To keep it simple, she's grandma from here on out because that's what I actually called her when she was alive. When grandma moved into her first assisted living home, she gave the china to my stepmom. I've been asking for it since I was... five? I don't ever remember not being vocal about wanting the china. I am forever grateful that my little brother was a brother because he had zero interest in it.
As of last night, the china is mine. Half of it is. The other half was still in my stepmom's storage. It will be mine soon!
I'd post a picture but I haven't unpacked mine yet and there are a lot of rose china patterns so... you'll see it some day.
Another upside is that a cousin is coming to visit in a few weeks. YAY!
Finally, I'm spending this weekend volunteering at the Victoria Highland Games and Celtic Festival. I'm volunteering with the hurling matches so I'll be surrounded by the Irish diaspora while I'm there. Still, I'll be sure to venture over to the Scottish exhibitions for the lovely... views ;)
It's sure to be a great weekend.
Maybe I can make it through that last day of work.
Last Tuesday, I received an email from my cousin in Russia. He’s had a baby in the past few weeks so I didn’t think twice about opening up an email with an attachment sent from his address. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.
I should know better – I do know better – but I was so excited about the thought of baby pics… stupid ovaries being all “cute babies, YAY!”
In the general scheme of things, I got off fairly easy. To use my laptop to do actual work (you know, for the people who pay me) from home, I log into the server and it backs up every night. When I load pictures, I immediately put them up on my closed picsa account (which I did learn the hard way). The volunteer work I do is loaded on a shared site so they can review the updates.
The only thing I lost was personal writing I was doing. I usually tend to have three or four writing pieces on the go at any one time, but because I was so focus on this one project… it’s a very dull and tarnished silver lining, but I’ll take it nonetheless.
I’m still bitter and probably will be for a while – I mean, I’m still bitter about a French handball in 2009 and the remarks a Quebec politician made in 1995 – but on the whole, I’m not as bad off as I could have been and I recognize that.
It also made me happy that I live in the future where Internet-capable phones are a thing. Entertaining myself with the Social Medias was still possible while I waited for programs to reload on my computer. Remember the dark ages when a computer going down meant you’d have to talk to your family? Yeesh!
Despite my near-total meltdown on Sunday – I really am not exaggerating when I say there were tears – things are going well. I still haven't stepped on a scale because morning me is forgetful as... as... I dunno, something. But I have upped my weights (again!) at the gym and there is less gut than there was before. Not enter-in-a-bikini-pageant less gut, but a noticeable-hour-glass-figure-is-developing less gut. My eight days of being my manager are nearing an end. While it wasn't without a few hiccups, we're not going to hell in a handbasket like I told our Director we would. Yay, for the small victories.
I recently completed a review of all the information in our training database. It took roughly 2 weeks and I have never been so happy that I snuck in so many nerd references into the database. It was fun to sit at my desk and giggle as I reviewed the file for the fake company Godzilla Inc. which is located on Gorilla-Whale Rd. (And if you nerdifacts, you'll know why that's funny.) But the best laugh I got was when I reviewed the data my coworker put in.
This coworker was in charge of handling the creating of the training scenarios and the original implementation of the database. One scenario involved creating 20 employees on a group and she called down to me to give her names for the people. I started calling out names of my extended family including my cousin, Declan.
I found Declan in the replicator data during my review except she had named him Dekleyn.
Dekleyn!
Google tells me that de Kleyn/DeKleyn is a moderately common Dutch last name, but no examples of it as a first name. In fairness to her, it's not too far off the sound; but if you're not sure wouldn't you just ask the person who said it in the first place?
At any rate, I'm sad I didn't call out Donagh. Would have loved to have seen her version of that name.
Every Sunday night, I head to bed with the plan that I'm going to weigh myself first thing in the morning. The reason for this is for consistency in showing actual reductions in overall mass and not just "I took a really big dump after lunch and lost 5 lbs."
Every Monday morning, I remember that I'm going to do this as I'm walking out the door or already at work. Or sometimes I forget about it until Thursday.
But when I got up this morning... I totally forgot again.
Well, why not just do it another day of the week first thing in the morning?
Because I forget those mornings, too. Trust me. I've tried.
I really need to take a whiteboard marker to my bathroom mirror and leave myself a reminder. Something like "Is it Monday morning, dumbass? Then weigh yourself!" (Maybe I'll do that on my way to bed.)
Or I could write something nice. Whatevs!
While my ability to remember to step on a scale has been lacking, my attendance at the gym has not. To make it easier on my trainer's schedule, I moved from 6:30 am workouts to sometime after work workouts. I really thought I was going to hate them but I actually don't. I'm not super keen on the 5pm-everyone-just-got-off-work-and-went-to-the-gym workouts, but a little bit later is great. I have time to go home after work to grab a bite and the gym has cleared out enough I don't feel like screaming at people taking up my equipment.
Another important gym note: my trainer is Brazilian and I recently learned how to say "go [sorry mom] yourself" in Portuguese. These things are totally related.
This week is the start of 8 days of filling in for my manager while she's on vacation. She and I had a long meeting about what was coming on Friday, I took lots of notes, she sent me various follow up emails with files, etc. I sat down at my computer this morning and had couldn't make heads or tails of any of it. It was like my notes were in Russian. Then there were emails from people about things my manager and I had not discussed.
::breathes into a paper bag::
I already alluded to it on twitter but Business Kitty is my spirit animal this week. I might need to get a toy version of her for my desk.
Although, 1980s-something Spaceman would also be a pretty apt description of me at the moment. SPACESHIP!!
I celebrated a birthday a few weeks ago. Every year I think that I should really do something for my birthday but I never do. My tentative Saturday-night-out plans were kiboshed when my one-drink-after-work Friday plans ended with us shutting down the restaurant. I'm mature enough to know that one night of heavy drinking on a weekend is enough.
Side note - hasn't this whole post just been a series of side notes? - my little brother and I planned out a pub crawl around Victoria after seeing this movie. It would have hit 9 pubs. We never did do it though. Hmm, summer goal perhaps?
The other two big things going on are that I'm back at studying Swahili and it's been going well, and Alumni Band is back on for another session.
I honestly don't think I could type a sentence that makes me more of a nerd than the one I just typed.
I had a moment after my last post where work became quite stressful and I actually forgot how time worked.
Seriously. Not a joke.
I couldn't remember if we went from one month to the next in the middle of the day, or if Thursday following Wednesday happened every week. This is what four days of crazy will do to a person.
The inability to understand time only last about 10 minutes but it wasn't exactly a fun 10 minutes.
In amongst the loss of cognitive thought, I miss tracking my own weight. When I started going to the gym, I decided to just use the gym scale with my trainer and leave it at that. Except I love charts and grafts and tracking things in Excel. I'm seeing changes in my body and I'd love to have a fun little graft I could plop into a post to say "see? SEE? I'm not just making this up!"
If I can't track it in Excel, I don't care to track it at all.
I dusted off my old spreadsheet, updated the data, and have started tracking at home with my cheap, old scale. It's not as accurate as the gym scale but it's close enough.
(If you ever need help with Excel, feel free to drop me a line. I <3 Excel so much!)
I attended a friend's burlesque revue at the end of February. The show was so much fun and my friend rocked her number. She only started in November but she knew how to sexy eye look. After the show, Katie (another friend) and I proceeded to relive our early 20s. I believe the words "we should go to Denny's!!" may have escaped my mouth around 1:30am. Yeah. It was that kind of night.
I'd be quite happy to never have a night like that again, to be honest.
I did not successfully complete my 90 day Add1Challenge. Now, I don't want to blame it all on my inability to understand time, but that certainly didn't help. I was already behind the 8 ball after being sick in January. When Thursdays started confusing me, I figured I had to throw in the towel... even if only for my own sanity.
Still, to remain positive about it:
I progressed much further in my Swahili learning than I would have without it.
The Add1Challenge Community is a really fantastic bunch of people and I am thrilled I got to be a part of it.
Even in my failure, I know what and how I can do better next time.
Oh, yes. There will be a next time.
I'm not going to do the next challenge because my mental capacities need a break, but I'd like to do another Swahili challenge before I go. I'm actually thinking that if I time it right, the challenge could end as I'm going to Tanzania so my 15 minute conversation could be with someone there. I have to sit down and think it out a bit more but I'm liking the idea more and more.
I still plan to continue with Swahili on my own, but not as intensely as I was during the challenge.
Finally, I can't remember if I shared this previously. The GAA season is starting up again. The big news for Monaghan is that FKM is their secondary sponsor this year. Big news because yours truly used to work for FKM! At any rate, this commercial is a few years old but it's one of my 'happy place' videos so I've been watching it a lot recently.
Kilkenny and Tipperary are two of the dominant hurling counties (along with Cork and Kerry) so when they ended up facing each other in the All-Ireland final in 2014, the adverts pulled footage from the times they had previously met in the finals.
I have to interrupt the scheduled Ireland memory posts for two very important reasons:
1. I accidentally scheduled this week's posts for next week because apparently I don't calendar.
2. I HAVE MY LIFE BACK!
Sort of.
In a way.
All that "I'm too busy to even tell you how busy I am"? It's done! Or, almost done. The brunt of it is done. There are still a few things to be cleaned up, a few people to still train, and a couple of t's to cross, etc, etc. But last week, I left work on time twice.
TWICE!
It was like winning the lottery except better somehow.
And this past weekend? I didn't have to go into the office at all. The fact that I didn't spend the entire weekend in my pyjamas, on my couch, and so drunk I confused dusk and dawn has more to do with the fact that a friend needed me to house sit than any self-control on my part.
Amidst all the craziness of the last three months, I was made a regular full-time employee in my department. I have a job after December 31st and even better? It's doing something I absolutely love.
There are not happy Pingu gifs in the world to show how happy I am about the work part of my life right now.
Also, there will be some semblance of regularity and order to the blog commencing shortly.
That's all. We'll be back to the Ireland posts shortly.
Posting a day late because I opted to go to dinner with my mom last night instead of staring a computer while I moved my fingers to make these black squiggly symbols appear. (When people tell me I spend too much time thinking about random things, I get confused as to why they don't. How amazing are we as people? How incredible that years and years of the evolution of our species has not only produced a brain capable of thinking of and discussing abstract thoughts, but that we can look at a scribble and recognise it as that thought. It is amazing that thousands of years ago, something in our evolution made that possible. How can people not find that amazing and worthy of pondering?!? Anyway, I digress... like normal.)
They are squiggles on a page but they MEAN SOMETHING TO US! How is that not amazing?
I had a topic I wanted to discuss this week - why is there always that one person who seems to delight in you not losing weight? And why do I have to work with her where I see her on a regular basis? And why can't I punch that smirk off her face after she looks me up and down once then snidely asks "how's the weight-loss going?" And is it rude for me to counter with a once-over glance and then reply "apparently better than yours, you fat gloating bitch"? I'm guessing 'yes' on that last question which is why I haven't done it - but it's Friday night and I have to go in to work tomorrow morning because I didn't want to stay late tonight. I mean, hello! It's Friday!! What sort of sadomasochist works overtime on a Friday? At least by going in on Saturday there will be a) no one there and b) a fresh cup of coffee. No one there and a big cup of coffee is best way to get work done.
Or maybe I'll just make a drum-kit out of office supplies.
Weight-loss is still on track but I have been slacking on the physical movement side of it. My only saving grace is that I have been walking a lot between our two buildings. It's not like I'm walking between the Shire and Mordor, but making the trek back and forth a couple times a day means that my usually sedentary work-life hasn't completely derailed me. My goal for the coming week is to actually schedule some evening physical activity.
Fall is definitely here so there is a good chance that some of that activity may be jogging. I straight up confess that I hate jogging/running/moving-slightly-faster-than-walking in the summer but I enjoy it once fall returns.
I should have a well-written, introspective post reflecting on my first full month on the road to a healthier me. Well, I should have a post about it that I've actually put thought into. Well-written and introspective are optional. Always optional.
What you're getting instead is a slap-dash post that I won't even proofread. I hope I spels gud.
Towards the end of last week, a coworker got extremely sick (but she is okay). The result is that this week I have been facilitating a train group that she was scheduled to take as well as try and keep on top of my tasks so as to not get too far behind before training kicks off in full. I've been coming to work early, leaving late, and spending 7 hours of my now 9-hour work days standing and talking. You'd be amazed at how tiring just standing and talking can be.
I love my job - I am so grateful that I have finally found a job that I want to turn into my career - but this week has been a hard week. When I stepped on the scale on Wednesday morning, I wasn't the least bit surprised to see a gain. Disappointed because I had been on target for over 10 lbs this month, but not surprised. I still (just) hit the 8 lbs goal, but I would have loved to have ended my (full) first month with a bang.
But that's life. We don't lose weight in a vacuum, and figuring out how to live a healthier life even during those times of unexpected ass-kicking busy weeks is just a part of figuring out life.
I should talk about my other goals went this month as part of the monthly wrap-up but it is almost 8:30 pm and all I want to do is put on pyjamas, make a big cup of decaf Earl Grey, finally (FINALLY!) watch the new Doctor Who that aired on Saturday night, and then go to bed.
I just realised that there are no pictures in this post, so here's one from a few birthday's ago. Yes, I am topping up my pint glass as I drink it because I'm classy like that.
I've done it. It's happened. My life is complete. My name has become a noun.
At least, it has in my department. We have a new VP and when I asked my manager how her first meeting with him went, she replied "Ugh. I totally andread right in front of him."
Ha, ha, ha, ha, wait. What?
To andrea: make a fool of yourself in front of upper management.
My foray into the world of office-buffoonery started with an ill-timed f-bomb as the elevator doors opened to reveal our C.E.O. Whoops!
Then I made screaming noises and Chewbacca sounds in front of a project manager... twice... in the same day.
And I dribbled coffee down the front of my shirt saying hello to our C.F.O. before accidentally throwing a knife at him.
Those are just the first three incidents. I have - not on purpose despite my joking about it - pretty much said or done something stupid or silly in front of every upper manager in my office. It became a running joke at our weekly status meetings. "And what have you done to embarrass yourself this week, Andrea?"
Even some of upper management are in on the joke.
And now, my name has become a noun. I feel oddly proud about this.
Now, to go and andrea in front of the new VP...
Hey, I have a reputation to maintain!
(No, this post was not sponsored by Supernatural. I'm just catching up on Season 9 so...)
I know it's only Tuesday, but I'm already done with this week.
Midway through Monday, I started to feel achy and flu-y again. I had never really shook whatever it was I had after New Years but it wasn't bad enough that I felt the need to do anything about it. Perhaps I should have.
At any rate, after 10 years of thinking 'I should buy a thermometer', I bought a thermometer on my way home. Correction, I bought a defective thermometer. No matter how much I shook it, ran it under cold water or yelled obscenities at it, it refused to budge from 108F. As I moved to package it up so I could return it, the bloody thing slipped from my hand into the bathroom sink and shattered.
I feel ya, buddy!
Remember how excited I was that I'm not involved in a certain work project? Well, it was because I was already allocated to two major projects this year and I just straight up didn't have time for another one. I got the preliminary changes for one of the projects yesterday.
So long, social life. You were fun while you lasted!
I guess that's what I get for dancing around the office, laughing at everyone else.
Then, just to top off this week of joy, I decided to be a mature adult and not go to Emerald City Comicon this year. The time of the Con combined with financial plans I want to achieve this year just made it really difficult to justify going. It was a really difficult choice to make because there are a lot celebrities there this year I would give my left kidney to see. I was priding myself on being mature about my decision when I saw the announcement today that Karen Gillian is going to be there.
I wanted to post a real post tonight but the internet's been up and down more times than a white flag in the French army. Solution: write a small filler post, yell at the internet connection a few more times, write something offline later this evening, and then hopefully successfully post it tomorrow morning.
If there's not something here tomorrow morning, please have bail money ready. I will most likely be calling you at some point.
Anyway, on with the filler post. I got an email today for a new project at work showing the Project Resource Allocation Hours and my name was nowhere in the email. Every single person in my department is on this project but me.
I screamed with joy and rubbed it in the face of every single coworker.
I'm not joking. I did my Kermit Flail impression during our afternoon meeting today.
I love my job. I love learning new things, I love assisting in directing the changes that occur in our company, and I love teaching people knew skills and ideas. But I have been involved in all but one project that's come through our department in the last two years in some way. In many cases, it hasn't been to the same degree as my coworkers but I still have to learn the same policies and rules that they do to contribute my smaller amount of hours. I'm already committed 100% to another project which is why I'm not on this one, but now I have an emailed excuse for why I get to do diddly. I'll take it!
This, my friends, deserves a glass of wine tonight.
I'm a little sad that the future doesn't actually look like this,
I had a rousing evening of staying home and watching movies. It seemed
that all my options for the night involved large crowds and loud noises, and I
just wasn't feeling it. So after a viewing of Dinner for One (it's tradition),
I snuggled in with my kitties and a couple of movies: The Social Network and
Michael Collins. I'd never seen The Social Network which seemed odd given the
amount of time I spend on Facebook. I saw Michael Collins on a date 17 years
ago - yes, I'm that old - but a recent discussion about it prompted the repeat
viewing. While it's a decent enough movie (historically accurate bio-pics are
hard to get right), a better option to learn and understand that time in Irish
history is The Wind That Shakes the Barley. Great film. Check it out.
At any rate, I'm just going to assume everyone had a more exciting
evening than I did. On to the 2014 resolutions!
1. Go to kickboxing/bootcamp at least 11 times a month.
In an ideal world, I'd be making a commitment of going to every class,
every week (that's four classes a week) but this is not an ideal world.
Attending class is a huge time commitment as I go straight from work and don't
get home until 7:30 or 8:00pm. Some weeks, doing that four nights in a row is
just not going to be feasible. So while I want to aim for attending every class,
my minimum is going to be 11. And maybe, for added incentive, I should say
something silly like "if I don't make the 11 classes, I will do [insert
number] burpees".
Because if there is one thing that will make sure I get my ass to class at least 11 times a month, it's the threat of more burpees than I'd get in class.
2. Run two 10Ks
I will be running the TC10K in April because that's what you do when
you live in Victoria and like to pretend you're a runner... or you're high on
running endorphins and you agree with some Twitter friends that it sounds like
a great idea to form a team. Same thing, really. But I want to aim to run another one in the Fall, something to keep me going once the TC is finished. If I get really hardcore, I'll do the Gunnar Shaw but I don't know if I'm ready for that level of trail race in the cold.
And just to be very clear, when I say 'run a 10K' I mean 'jog a 10K
with plenty of walking breaks'. Let's not fool anyone here with thoughts of
speedy races.
This totally counts as running, right?
3. Start the process of becoming certified in Instructional Design.
I'm a technical writer. To move forward in my field, Instructional Design is where it is at. Don't worry, I don't expect you to understand any of that. The plan is to enroll in a few classes, probably starting in September because they're through schools that start in September. Someone should probably remind me of this in June.
4. Improve my German.
A few years ago, I gave myself an ultimatum: either that was going to be the year that I worked on my German or I would drop it and just accept that das Schiff had sailed. I did nothing that year and so I let my half-hearted attempts to improve my German stop.
Then I went back to Germany and Switzerland this past year and had to use my rusty German. Surprisingly, my German was much better than I anticipated and I gained a lot of confidence in my ability to use it. Not surprisingly, it reignited the desire to improve my German. I've been working on it casually for the past few months and I'm going to continue doing so in 2014. I'm still trying to determine how I plan to 'measure' my improvement. Hmm, a Christmas trip to Germany/Switzerland where I speak only German for the entire two weeks? Anyone want to fund that?
And that, my friends, concludes my resolutions for 2014. Nothing crazy, but building on what I've already started.
Wish me luck!
Question: How about you? Any resolutions? Or are you not a resolution person?
I disappeared from the blog this week for personal reasons. For those friends reading this who let me babble on about random things this week while I processed what happened, thank you.
In happier news, tomorrow is the All-Ireland Football Final (that would be Gaelic Football, by the way) at Croke Park in Dublin. What a treat to see my cousin on a Sunday Game TV spot:
Good on ya, Patrick!
What is the Sunday Game? It's the GAA version of "After Hours" for you hockey fans. As much as it pains me to say this: Up Dublin! Kick some Mayo arse!
As for the things that kept me going in amongst the random babbling? Well, one was that we had a successful launch of a new series at work. Sound oddly vague? Yes, but that's all you get. All you really need to know is that we knocked it out of the park.
Knocked it out. Just like Luther.
The other is that I joined a kickboxing gym... and I love it! I honestly did not expect that. At least, I didn't expect to love it as much as I did.
I got a two week free trial pass to Chakara Kickboxing and Total Fitness from my friend, Katie, who has been trying for a while to get me to come with her. K attends a combination of kickboxing and bootcamp classes four nights a week and was determined that I should attend all of them with her. ALL OF THEM! Sorry, Katie, but you be crazy! There was no way I was going to do all four days and not die.
Well, I did four days. I didn't lay down and die. In fact, I've signed up for more. I think I owe Katie an apology.
.
.
.
But she's not going to get it.
(I spent this week watching season 3 of Luther, hence the Luther gifs.)
You know those weeks where it feels like it should already be Friday but it isn't? In fact, if you're really unlucky, it's only Monday? At least I made it to Tuesday before I started ugly-crying about my desire for it to be the weekend already. During one of my meetings, we were talking about setting up review sessions for next week. Plans for next week?!? It must be Friday!!!
Lying bastards.
For my next (and last) meeting of the day, however, my coworker brought each of us one of these:
I totally stole this picture from Bon Macaron's Facebook page without asking. So, if you're in the Victoria area, please visit them and tell them Andrea sent you so they don't get mad at me when they find out. Or Jennifer. Or Claire. Any of those names should work.
I raved to my coworker about the awesome blackberry not-really-a-macaron creation from Bon Macaron during a meeting on Monday (my picture here). Obviously, my powers of persuasion are amazing if she bought three of the blueberry ones today! Best. Meeting. EVER!
(Just to be really clear, I'm getting diddly squat for raving about the macarons so when I say this is my honest opinion, this is my honest opinion.)
***
Once upon a time, I attended university in Freiburg, Germany and lived in a student residence called Ulrich Zasius Haus or UZH. The UZH had a magical Pepsi machine in the foyer/mailbox area. What was so magical about it, you ask? Well, two buttons dispensed Pepsi but the other six buttons dispensed beer! BEER, PEOPLE! Even more magical? It was cheap beer. Our building became the meeting place for nights out... which often became nights in.
My older brother and two friends came to visit.
They were also amazed by the magic Pepsi machine.
I was reminded of this fact while I stared at the Coke machine in my current apartment building. Sadly, all its buttons are for non-alcoholic beverages and no amount of fake spell casting would change that.
*sigh*
As much as I made fun of the UZH and called it 'the ghetto', I do miss some things about it.
***
I try to remain vague about my job for various reasons (not least of which because it's the professional thing to do when you work in my field and have a personal but public blog) which means that it's hard to explain why finding this picture online today made me so damn happy. Just know that it put a huge, goofy grin on my face for the rest of the day.
If you don't get this poster, click this link.
And then ask to borrow my DVD so you can watch the whole movie.
Now to figure out where I can put it up in my cubicle without it being noticed...
Question: Any work pet peeves of your own to share?
