ready for fall

it seems i am in the habit of confessions lately.  and here is another one: i am done with summer.

and what is more, i am ready for the cooler days of autumn and the changing of the seasons.

i am sick of waiting for summer to arrive.  it is the third week of august and i had my furnace on this past week!  ridiculous, i tell you.

as much as i am sick of waiting on the weather, i am more excited for the slowing down of my social calendar that comes with september as schedules become more rigid and the pressures of being out and about on any given day decrease.

i have felt such pressure (and certainly, brought on entirely by myself) to MAKE THE MOST OF IT this summer.  although i am sometimes at a loss as to what IT is.  and as much as a walk in the park, a drink on a patio, or a hike in the mountains sound like a lovely way to pass an afternoon, doing it alone is not always as thrilling as doing it with someone.

and while i am being miserly, let me also add that all these festivals and events throughout the city during the summer months are never as good as you expect.  i found myself at the calgary folk fest for the first time this year and every year i always think, 'that always looks like so much fun, why don't i go?'  well, i did go and it was a lot of people in my space, a lot of chaos, and a pain to organise a group of people to meet up and stay in the same area.  all of these events seem to be the same - lots of people (including those dudes with their dogs that insist on taking their shirts off as soon as the thermostat reads 20 degrees), overpriced food, and crowds heaving in the heat/rain/miserable calgary summer weather.

on that note, i am ready for september.  ready for the trees' leaves to change colour and fall.  ready for sweaters, soup, and hot cups of tea.  ready for my schedule to calm down and ready to spend friday evenings at home without any guilt that i should be DOING SOMETHING with bonus points if it is a FUN THING.

i'm ready.

icy cold on a hot summer's eve

here i am again, sunday evening.  home alone.  and thrilled.  honestly.

one of my recent issues that has contributed to the wobbly moment has been the pressure i have felt to make the most of the summer months in calgary.  to take advantage of every opportunity to get outside and socialise.

and like last weekend, i feel as though i have managed quite fine.  a solid run followed by beers on the patio of one of the city's best pubs with far too many laughs between friends, a luxurious morning sitting on my own patio with coffee and a smoothie while reading my book, a saturday afternoon at the calgary folk fest listening to adorable boys play their guitars from the big rock beer gardens, and a sunday of huevos rancheros at my local breakfast spot with some mountain equipment co-op shopping in preparation for the juan de fuca trail next week and a walk in my community with an iced coffee.

but (and this is a rather large but that could alter the course of my next few weeks), i am currently sitting on my couch watching pvr'ed tv and am not cleaning my house or going for a run because i am icing my foot and ankle.  i have no idea what i have specifically done to it, but i know that it is a recurring injury that i normally keep in check with good running shoes, but wearing cowboy boots last weekend seems to have exacerbated the situation.  and standing in rubber flip flops yesterday was exceptionally painful and i am my worries continue to grow that this will not be cleared up by this friday, which is when i fly out to vancouver island.  eek.

knowing a thing or two

hello.  and welcome.  to the hundreds of people who have passed by my corner of the internet these past couple days.  i suppose i should have had this message up before, well, now.  but instead all those newcomers to my blog, thanks to a rather kind link from flotsam, see me whining about my life and being in a funk...

but (but!) here i am, trying not to be wah-wah-wahing for once in a bit of a while.

what a day i had.  it started off with a message that my slow cooker had arrived and was ready for pick up. and a day that starts off like that is bound to be a good one.  what is better is that my slow cooker was free (remember that laptop i bought?  i put it on my credit card and earned enough points to order a slow cooker!) and that it matches the rest of my kitchen appliances, which pleases my obsessive sensibilities.

i began my workday at noon (because i can!) and headed to a townhall meeting with some of the executive of our company and was thrilled that some of my work was not only mentioned in the quarterly update, but praised as good company practice.

but that is not all.  i was mildly dreading heading to yet another meeting with an organisation that i volunteer with after my shortened workday, but was again pleasantly surprised to find that i was regarded as an expert and advisor to a locally based international foundation.  this was all well and good, however, until i had a one-on-one conversation about an upcoming initiative that i not-so-affectionately called voluntourism-lite.

the same qualities of voluntourism are apparent: the focus put on the travellers' experience, no lasting impact or clear outputs of the visit, short term stays in communities, and time and energy put out by the host organisation that is likely motivated by a desire to show that they really are a great organisation doing really good work (a sort of self preservation and marketing to the foreign visitors).

i got in quite a heated discussion about this and i just kept coming back to the question of why?  why is this happening?  to try and head off those who would otherwise seek out a true voluntourism experience and offer them something a little less corrupt and possibly more meaningful?  but that is not what a foundation should be doing.  a bad idea remains a bad idea.

and why is it so hard for people to accept my opinion that if you want to go to africa, go on a wicked vacation full of beaches, safaris, museums, and sights?  there is no requirement that you visit a slum, an orphanage, or a hospital to make it worthwhile.  we don't expect tourists to canada to visit our poorest communities or our underdeveloped first nations reserves so why do we expect canadians to do similar things on their holidays abroad?  and doesn't this continue to perpetuate the same stereotypes that africa is nothing but a continent full of dirty, black kids with flies around their eyes?  and (and!) offering such a programme doesn't acknowledge that many middle and upper class residents of africans don't feel compelled to visit those communities in their backyard, so why would canadians?  and, more than anything, what right do they have to go sniffing around in someone else's backyard?  and again, for what purpose?

eesh.  the whole conversation just made me want to bang my head against a wall.  but (but!), it did make me feel good in the sense that i actually know a thing or two about this and i felt strong enough in my opinions to express them and stand by them.  and that i can make some things better, just by being a part of them even if they frustrate me at times.

and that, along with today's positive feedback, has made me feel as though the wobbly moment might almost (dare i say it?!) be coming to a close.

sunday evening

normally, i detest sunday evenings.  call it a case of the sundays, but lately the thought of having to face another week while hanging out at home alone watching pvr'ed tv has made me cringe.

but this evening, i am feeling quite content with my weekend after a rather lame week.  a solid 7km run followed by drinks with an old friend on friday night accompanied by encouragement to go to law school.  breakfast and great chats on saturday morning and then my posse and i hauled ourselves to the nashville north tent at the stampede where i lasted until the wee hours and only left when my feet were too sore for anymore dancing.  then a sunday morning hike with a lovely lady and an afternoon with tours of my mom's garden and a vietnamese sub (because i have no food in my house!).

my wobbly moment continues, however, and i had to give myself permission to opt out of a work stampede party last friday without any guilt or remorse because i just was not in the mood to make merry and pretend that i was happy to be at a bar.  there is not one thing i wish i could change and if there was, i would be working my arse off to change it.

i have yet to hear back about my most perfect job and part of me just wants to the universe to show me where i need to be and what i should be doing.

but in the meantime, i continue to prepare for my hiking adventure and that means soaking my poor cowboy boot feet tonight and finding time to get my buns back up those stairs, hopefully this time without stopping.  menu planning, airport pickups, and a little mountain equipment co-op shopping and i should be ready to go.  it is nice to have something to look forward to!

turning a corner on pop culture?

my newest guilty pleasure, and i am truly embarrassed to be admitting this, is watching the bachelorette.  some girlfriends were talking about it a few weeks ago and i decided to check it out during my wobbly moment.  and i sort of like it.  i don't like the melodrama and the heart-to-hearts onscreen, but i do like watching the different relationships develop (although, how are those men not strangling one another each time they return from a date??).

my pick is chris and although i didn't come close to winning my world cup pool, i will be shocked if i don't win this one (not that i am in a pool, but i would join one next time around as i am afraid i am slightly addicted to this ridiculous show).

this is all a little hilarious to me as i didn't have tv for years and was so out of the pop cultural loop for ages!

ready or not, juan, here i come!

i am not sure if i have committed myself to something that is far over my head, but in three short weeks, i will be hiking the juan de fuca trail on vancouver island.  i haven't done any overnight hiking in years and haven't been running or doing much of anything too active for weeks, so this might turn out to be the stupidest decision i have ever made or the challenge that i need right now.

it is less than 42km and we will be doing it over 4 days so that is less than 12km per day, which sounds rather doable.  until, of course, i consider i will be carrying everything i need on my back!

i have expressed my anxieties about this endeavour to my friend who i am going with and he has assured me that he will carry the heavy stuff and will be there to make sure that i get up all the hills and across all the puddles.  but still, i am scared.

but considering my recent wobbles and general attitude about my life lately, maybe this is what i need?

it didn't help that when i googled the hike (on my new, as yet unnamed, but beloved) laptop, i found the following quote:

"The Juan de Fuca trail is one of the most difficult trails I've ever hiked. There's tons of mud, puddles, rain, difficult-to-negotiate exposed roots, steep up and downs, blow-downs and cobbles." He also admits, "It's one of the most beautiful regions I've hiked through, but you earn it, that's for sure."

all i am going to say is that there may be tears.

been gone but not forgotten, i hope

(july 3, 2010)

i met someone once (and who it was, i cannot recall, which worries me ever so slightly) that instead of asking how you were doing would question, ‘are you winning?’

and lately, my answer would have been a bellowing ‘no.’ hence my silence on the www front. not that i didn’t have a whole lot to say, just not a lot of motivation to share it with the world.

i am not sure exactly what kicked off the wobbly moment, as my friend so eloquently called it, but it has lasted a good month now and i am one hundred times over this melancholy blue mood.

there are certainly a few things that exacerbated the situation and instead of listing them here, let me just say that there were a few text messages sent to friends recently that said I HATE DATING or I AM GETTING A CAT.

those of you who have been visiting my place on the interwebs for some now will know that i go through periods of not knowing what i want to do be when i grow up. and that, along with text messages in capital letters, seems to be weighing me down lately.

i realise that i don’t need to know exactly what i will BE when i grow up and anyone who meets me would know that i am already rather grown up, if i do say so myself. but i have always required some sense of direction to motivate me to strive to work towards it. and right now, i have a good job, but not one that i can imagine doing in years to come. i have a great nest, but not one that i necessary want to stay in forever. and i don’t feel as though i am living my life as fully as i could.

the logical answer would be to figure out what is ‘missing’ and find it. but that process seems to be tougher than my type a brain would like.

in a strange way, the warmer weather and increasing availability of stuff to do is overwhelming me and making me feel as though i am not taking advantage of my current situation enough. enough, enough, enough, i would like to take that word out of my vocabulary and replace with something that echoes contentment and satisfaction, but i am afraid i won’t be able to until i solve the mystery of what would be enough, enough, enough.

i remember feeling this way when i was coming to the end of the masters degree and in a twist of fate, i was offered a job that previously did not exist in kenya. i am trying to hand this one over to the universe too, but for the last 6 months or so i have felt as though something was just around the corner and now that i am metaphorically around that corner of time and nothing has emerged, i am feeling a little panicky and that sucks a big old egg.