Well, that was a blast from the past... Today, an old teacher of mine from Northern Secondary came in with a tour. It seems that in his retirement, he decided to run a tour company... for students. Because he didn't get enough of us as a teacher. He came up to the counter and said, "Hi ! Do you remember me?" I looked at him and thought, is this a crazy man?, but out loud I said, "No, should I?" So it was Mr. Chapman. Let me express how weird it was for him to be excited to see me, considering how he always had a horrid dislike of me when I was his student. It was mutual, of course. He used to go out of his way to say hello to my friends, in my presence, and pointedly ignore me. Despite whether I worked hard, did research for my papers, paid attention, or not, I -always- got 72%. Without exception. (This would be the same teacher for whom a male stripper was hired back in my babysitter's time at Northern, for which she was suspended.) And he was so excited to see me; he HUGGED me.

I feel kinda dirty.

In other news, I'm finally going to see Sin City tonight with Rick. Hooray ! We wanted to see it right when it first came out, but we waited because of various reasons, including a friend joining us (who ended up sick), school, and other such things. Of course, Hitchhikers' Guide opened this weekend, but I'm still on the fence about it. It was such a wonderful book that I'm almost certain the movie will be a pale immitation.

Passover is almost over, which is very good, since being in the city with someone who isn't Jewish, and with 99% of restaurants not catering to a kosher crowd, or not caring one way or the other, it can be a real challenge finding something that I can eat. For instance, today, I was so grateful to the Jewish-owned crepes place, because not only are crepes non-leavened, but they're keeping kosher over the high holiday. It's all over tomorrow, though, until next year (in Jerusalem).

Let's talk a little more about Revelations, hmm? There are a number of forums out there on the web talking about it, and of course, it was "slashdotted" (slashdot.com) shortly after it was released. There's a delicious rumour out there that the team behind "Rev" was all just a bunch of Lucas plants put out to make a fake fan film in order to drum up interest in the forthcoming Episode III, out on May 19th. I'm not one of the gloried CG artists, I don't get all the attention, but my role was significant and I'm very happy to have been a part of it. It is particularly nice knowing that my storyboards really did make it onto the big screen.

The film is doing exactly what it was hoped, its momentum is building and more and more people are taking note. It has surpassed 10,000 downloads, and if each download was watched by two people, which isn't a stretch at all, we're talking about 20,000+ viewers. Not bad for a fan film's first two weeks. The buzz suggests that those at The Ranch have even taken note, and, God, that is bloody exciting. I once applied to work for them, and though I received a rejection letter in the mail, in a weird way... I still win ! I know for a fact that a number of the CG artists at ILM have privately screened it and were impressed... And that means my work, too.

For an article about it, one of many, read this one from the New Zealand Herald. And when they talk about art talent from Canada... they mean me. :)

It is awfully quiet in the house and out in the garden. Willi's strong personality preceded her whereever she went and we are left looking in her spots, despite knowing she isn't there. Even Chester is doing this, although he saw and smelled her body when we brought her back to the house from the front by the road. He isn't pining, but he is clearly lonely, subdued, and every so often, he checks, too, just to see if she's there. There is an empty kitty condo beneath the desk in the den, and a fuzzy brown cat bed with no cat curling up in it. The hardest, though, is at night. She isn't playing with Chester, or yelling for her bedtime snack. She isn't sitting on my dresser waking me up by throwing things onto the floor, and her compact little body isn't curled tightly behind my knees. A night has not passed that I have not cried, even when I was in Toronto this week, even though there is no association of Willi and Rick's apartment, I still wept. There is no little cat riding around on my shoulders, stealing my socks and washing them, or pressing her face to mine. Instead, there is a gaping hole in the fabric of the household.

My mother feels guilt because it happened when she was alone at home. She feels responsible, but I don't want her to. I don't blame her for what happened. It could have easily happened on my watch. Today, Mom was trying to think of ways in which Willi's death could have been prevented, going over the what-ifs, but I don't want to go over them. In the end, they make us feel bad and solve nothing. It happened, it was fast, and Willi is dead. No amount of pondering the circumstances will bring her back. I wish my mother wouldn't feel like it was somehow her fault, it really wasn't and I don't believe that in any way it was her fault.

On Saturday night, before bed, I said goodbye to her. I touched her nose, her paws, pulled her tail out from under her and wrapped it around her legs. I tried to close her eyes, but I don't know if they stayed shut. Mom covered the box she was in, and even when I took her to the vet's, I didn't look at her again. Today, Willi is being cremated. We took her body into the vet's on Monday, and despite the cost of cremation and having the ashes returned, I feel good about it. I will get her ashes back in a week. I'm by no means wealthy and the cost is a burden, especially after the Baltimore trip, but it means I can take her to the cottage one last time and she will get to be there forever. I had wanted to take a week in June to go up there, just her and me, but now I don't think I can bear it. Mom suggested I still could go up, but I don't think I can do it alone. The joy of having her there was too much - I can't do it yet. In August, we can all go up there, and I will take her somewhere she liked to be and lay her to bed.

Before I write about the sad event that occured this past weekend, I must finish my account of last weekend's adventures.

Baltimore - Part the Second

The party following the Premier was better than I'd thought it would be, which isn't saying a whole lot, since I didn't know what to expect at all. The locale, Club One, is a three-storey space with an industrial, techno feel to it, with lots of metal and glass and reflective materials, but tempered with asian-style lanterns hanging from the ceiling. The top floor was VIP space reserved for cast, crew, etc., and the particular people with whom they were attending. The event had some of the tastiest food I've ever eaten at anything comparable. Seafood dips, sushi, noodle dishes, and the best dessert nibblings, ever. Seriously, I could have crammed the little pastries all night. *laugh* What would that have done to my figure, hm? There was also dancing to well spun music, to which a guest accompanied on a congo drum (rather well, I might add), an auction of awesome goods that I could not hope to bid on in support of "Make a Wish", and other neat things. I didn't stay until it closed, I was knackered, but it was well past midnight when we left. In all, a very good evening.

On Sunday, it was check-out time, and then Rick and I headed back into Baltimore proper in order to attend the last in a three-game series of the Yankees at the Orioles. It promised to be a good one, as the O's had been creaming the Yankees. We bought our tickets, which were pretty good, even if they had a "limited view", and then wandered around in Camden Yard, looking for snacks and especially a bank machine. I was delighted to find a kosher snack stand where Rick got a sausage (25 cents less than a normal one) and I got a knish (yes, a knish - in a ballpark !) and large salted pretzel. The pretzel was nothing to write home about, but the knish, which is basically a chubby potato dumpling, was delish ! We had both Orioles and Yankees fans sitting around us, so there was some good cheering. Of course, anything compared to the Toronto stands is rowdy. Also, it was really nice to see a full ballpark, too, with 47,000+ fans in attendance.

After that, we drove back to our friend's house near Washington and decompressed a bit before heading to a Tapas restaurant. Our friend's daughters are a lot of fun, even for adolescent proto-people, and we had a pretty good time at dinner. My plan had been to pay for the meal, since N~ was kind enough to treat us to Indonesean on Thursday night, and because of her hospitality, but upon receiving the bill, I was mortified to discover that I'd left my wallet... In The Car. The car being parked in front of their house, quite some distance away. I was incredibly embarrassed. This has only ever happened once before, when I took a friend to dinner years ago and only had my debit card on me, and they didn't take debit, and there was enough ON the card to pay, but not enough to withdraw enough in the form of $20 bills. Anyway, our friend ended up paying and I promised to send her a cheque upon my return to Canada.

On our return, we put Revelations in the DVD player for some fun. I think they were impressed - everyone is impressed by it ! It was fun to point out bits that I knew were my own, and offer little anecdotal tidbits. I am disgustingly proud of the whole thing. Part of me wishes that I hadn't given up the movie work to work for He Who Shall Not Be Named, considering how that ended up. Oh well. Next time, if there's a next time, I'll know where my priorities DO lie. I digress; then it was time for bed, as Rick and I had a plane to catch in the morning, and N~ had work and the girls had school.

Now, let me tell you about some of the (mis)adventures of the Baltimore trip. It began with a ride to the Buffalo aeroport by Rick's parents. Unfortunately, Rick is not quite the Mapquest maven I am and although he typed in the destination we wanted, what he ended up with was directions to the very centre of Buffalo. We lost about half-an-hour, or more, to driving around in the sad streets of a once-prosperous, now fallen, city until stopping in a mechanic shop to find out where the hell we were going. Rick and I arrived at the aeroport with twenty minutes to our flight. Of course, the days of easy security on internal flights are gone, at least in the USA, so we knew we were in trouble. First we had to find the check-in, which we did, and we were informed that my luggage was late (no shit) and might not make the flight. Okay, no problem, we could wait for it at the other end, it wouldn't take that long. Then, with tickets in hand, we ran to the security clearance only to discover that there were at least sixty people in line. Under fifteen minutes until our flight; we hear my name called over the PA system paging us for our flight. Ten minutes to go. I looked at Rick and said, "Put your sweet face on," took off my sunglasses and proceded to ask very politely if we could skip ahead because we had just been paged. Yes ! Okay, one more part of the queue to hop and we could be golden. I asked again, and YES !

At security, we dumped our stuff into the bins, removed our shoes, and hoped for the best. No problem ! Back into our shoes - nevermind doing them up - into our jackets and we were off and running for our flight. The thought occured to us that our luggage might make it, but we might not. Five minutes or less, now, and we're still running. Halfway up a ramp to the second half of the gates and I see our check-in counter. My lungs are burning, my legs are crying (my bike boots are bloody heavy), and I slow to a brisk walk. At that point, I knew we would be alright, for lo and behold, there was the captain waiting with the ground crew, and the plane isn't going anywhere without him. We made it ! But did our luggage?

At Baltimore-Washington International, after a non-eventful flight ("If you look on your left, you'll see where the West Susquehanna River meets the Susquehanna River...") we waited with anticipation to see if my luggage appeared. It did - the last one through the rubber curtain. Now it was time to pick up the car I had rented. The last time I had rented a car at BWI, things had not gone well. This time proved also to be a challenge. My credit card was declined. Gads ! There was enough money for the car on it, and then some, but the $200+ security deposit the company wanted was too much - remember, there's that tricky little exchange rate. We were informed that they could not run my card through again in the same 24hr period, not even if, as Rick suggested, with a manual authorisation. Bastards ! So, I called up Mastercard, managed to get them to raise my limit by just enough that it didn't require my mother's permission AND would allow me to rent a car from a different company. Now, there was no problem, except that the car was a good hundred bucks more expensive because we were a walk-up, not an advanced booking. ARRRRRG !

After that, it was smooth sailing until the following evening when Rick and I were fifty minutes late for dinner because I couldn't remember the meeting time and no one called me (as I had hoped they would) to confirm where we were meeting (we were at a different hotel, you see) AND then there was utter gridlock on the Interstate because of all the baseball fans flooding in to watch the evening game. We actually spent half an hour in the cab getting to the restaurant when it probably shouldn't have taken more than ten minutes to get there. Can you say stress?

After our return to Canada on Monday afternoon, we had to stop at Rick's parents' house before getting dropped at the GO Train station in Burlington. I had been napping in the car and was somewhat groggy when we got out. Who ever was in front of me, did not hold the door for me and it swung back and the enormous mailbox attached to it nailed me on the shoulder - HARD - tearing my beautiful lambskin jacket we'd gotten only a few weeks earlier. I was tired and cranky and couldn't take it anymore. All I wanted was to be home and with my mother and my cat, and now my jacket had been eaten by a killer mailbox and I still had a trainride and a Greyhound ride ahead of me to get me to Peterborough. And, then, naturally, because Murphy is a bastard, I arrived at the bus terminal in Toronto scant minutes after my bus departed, leaving me to wait for over two hours for the next one. Rick was a sweetheart and came up to join me (he'd gone home, of course) and brough spring rolls and took my jacket with him to have it fixed.

Let me tell you, I never wanted to be home with my mother so much as I did after that trip. For all the fantastic things that happened, the stress was really awful, and when I did finally get home, I had four and a half projects that needed completing by Friday. Ya. My week kind of passed in a blur of school insanity.

The End.


------------------------------

Sort of. Unfortunately, one event took place this past weekend that put all the stress of school and finances and nearly missed flights in perspective. This past Saturday, while I was at a friend's house, watching Revelations and other things, my best friend Tracy with me, Willi, my beloved little cat was hit and killed by a car.

I can't bring myself to write about it again, but you can read about it here in my other journal. Today, I took her body to the vet's in order to have her cremated. I asked for her collar back, and for the ashes to come in an unsealed container so that I can sprinkle her at the cottage when I go up there this summer. In an instant, my beloved Stinky Bee was struck down, her life taken, and I'm grateful that it was fast. There was no blood, no obvious trauma, just her lifeless little body set out on the grass in front of the house. I've wrapped her collar around the work socks she used to carry around the house, the ones that are fuzzy from all of the washing she gave them.

It hurts so much.

------------------------------

Ahhh, Baltimore. Whatever I was expecting from Baltimore, this was not it. My experiences up until this past weekend had been from the bus terminal, en route to Philadelphia from Washington, DC, passing over it from an aeroplane, and listening to a friend who used to live there talk about how Bal'more was a fallen city. Granted, I did not visit a lot of the city, but I passed through several neighbourhoods heading to various events, and though it may be stretched thin through some areas, a bit careworn and rough around the edges, Baltimore was a whole lot more beautiful than I'd imagined.

The downtown is primarily geared to the tourist market with big attractions such as the Aquarium, historic ships, and sports stadia clustered around the inner harbour (this would be the inner harbour of Chesepeake Bay, by the way). There are trendy, if somewhat silly (what with their ideas of what exactly "proper attire" might be), clubs and restaurants downtown, and expensive hotels. Moving uphill, pretty much straight from the harbour, you find the historical Mount Vernon district, which is full of colonial buildings, antiques and art stores, interesting boutiques, and finer dining establishments. You'll find some bed and breakies in this area, too, which were too expensive for Rick and I to stay in, though we did consider it. In this area, you'll also find the very attractive Walters Art Museum, which though an unassuming contemporary building from the outside, is an airy, esthetically pleasing building on the inside, full of helpful, friendly staff, a lovely gift shop, and extensive collections of fine and cultural arts from around the world. It was also surprisingly large on the inside; in two hours, Rick and I had not seen more than 1/4th of the collection. While we were there, a very good exhibition of George Stubbs' equestrian works was on display.

The Senator Theatre, where Star Wars Revelations had its premier on Saturday night, is in an older neighbourhood that, for those of you familiar with Toronto, is reminiscent of the Yonge and Eglinton area - but the way it was fifteen years ago, with the mom and pop stores and slightly worn, but handsome middle class houses - crossed with Leaside. The Senator Theatre itself is a stately, art deco movie palace, currently in the throes of refurbishment. It has a grand domed loby, a large, semi-circular marquee outside, marble and plaster mouldings, and there's a huge lounging area/powder room attached to the women's washroom. Again, like the Eglinton Theatre or Royal Cinema in Toronto. It boasts a stage as well as a screen, beautiful vintage lighting and decor, and the seats recline, even with a capacity of 900 people. What an incredible venue for a once-in-a-lifetime event.

Rick and I spent our first half-day and full night staying with a friend of ours in Silver Spring, MD, which is actually much closer to Washington than Baltimore. In order to kill time and enjoy the heavenly weather (and to decompress after a stressful, though damned lucky, trip from his parents' to Buffalo to Baltimore, which I will write about later). We drove around the area near by and found a zany antique market-commune-thing in a series of historic homes. We wandered through the maze of shops, each one basically taking up a room in the house, and enjoyed looking at the many weird and wonderful things. Then we went and walked around in a modern inter-faith cemetary/memorial garden where we read markers and enjoyed the cherry trees, which were in full bloom. We also took a drive down a little rural lane that led through horse paddocks, a golf course, beautiful new homes for the wealthy, abandoned fields and out-buildings, and past little eccentric homes in the woods. Dinner, that night, was had at a more-than-adequate Indonesian restaurant where I had Bami Goering, chicken satay, and fried bananas (with powedered sugar on top !!) and Rick shared ristafle with our hostess.

The following day took us to our hotel, which was a bit harder to locate than necessary, as it had just changed from a Holiday Inn Express (what I had booked at) to a Quality Inn (which I did not know about). After some confusion, we figured it out and got our room. To save unnecessary credit card stress, of which I'd already had plenty the day before at the rental car agency (I'm cursed, by the way, for renting cars in Baltimore - never again !), we paid in cash. The hotel was not quite as expected, and frankly, we weren't expecting a whole lot, but the beds were clean, the appliances worked, there was fresh soap and towels, though no face cloths, and a constant supply of fairly tasty apples in the lobby. Unfortunately, it also came with a nearly inexhaustable supply of heavy-drinking Yankees fans in town for the three game series against the Orioles.

We spent Friday afternoon at the aquarium, which was really nice. I could have spent all day watching the rays flap leisurely through the water, and we both enjoyed the dolphins just swimming naturally in their pool, not doing tricks. One of them is extremely pregnant and swam quite stiffly because of her belly getting in the way. Unfortunately, I mixed up our time for dinner, the Revelations art/CG/sound team dinner and we really had to hustle to get there. We ended up stranded in pre-game gridlock for half an hour and had one heck of an expensive cab-ride. Thus, we missed the salad course of the meal, but that's okay. The director, Shane, said many nice things about everyone, though he almost forgot me, but made up for it with sweet words and I forgave him. I met the majority of the CG team, whom I had only known from their websites, their work, and constant emails. Following the meal, we rode around town in a limo watching the Behind the Scenes stuff for our film, stopping to do some bar-hopping, which ultimately was disappointing (jeans, tennis shoes, and cargo pants are not allowed, but it seems ugly Hawai'ian shirts and hideous club wear is considered "proper attire"), and ended up heading up to the Senator to check it out the night before the big event. That last bit was really neat and I think we all enjoyed it the most.

The Saturday took Rick and I to the Walters Art Museum before the premier. I spent an hour applying false nails and painting them before we left, and when we got home, I was already so sick of them, I cut them down to a manageable length before getting dressed. I wore the corset, which apparently most everyone missed, because they were hiding in the VIP room. Their loss. Anyway, it was a red-carpet event and there was a stormtrooper honour guard flanking the carpet and an R2 unit was tootling up and down, beaping merrily. There was press in attendence and the theatre was utterly jammed. Speaches were made, which didn't suck, and Darth Vadar made the announcement about cell phones and whatnot, which was a really nice touch, and then, FINALLY, it was time for the movie.

I won't review it. There are plenty of them already floating around on the Internet and you can download it yourself at the Panic Struck Productions website. It has its flaws, but in the end, it's pretty amazing, considering not a penny was earned in the making of it, nor was a single person paid for their work. I was in divine company, considering the talents of the CG artists, and was amazed by how things ended up. Nothing, however, holds a candle to how I felt when I saw my storyboards come to life on screen. There is one full scene that I saw as my work, and several sequences of shots I recognised right away. And, I must admit, that some of those shots were really good. It was pretty frickin' amazing to see my name scroll up twice in the credits, too, once as costume artist, shared with another, but all alone as the storyboard artist, and THAT was incredible. Sure, no one ooohed and ahhhed at my work like they did the effects, but I knew where my work was and how it was used, and that is what mattered.

I'll stop here, now, and finish my recount of my adventures in Baltimore in my next entry. I still have another project to start (and finish) tonight for tomorrow - the last day of class. So, next time I'll write about the after party, the antics of the CG guys, the Orioles game, our last night staying, once again, with our friend in Silver Spring, the trip home, and the attack of the killer mailbox.

In half an hour, the new Dr. Who comes on television. I watched it last week - the first episode - and was far from disappointed. In fact, I enjoyed it about as much as humanly possible. It was thoroughly modern, updated, hip, and yet also hokey, goofy, and didn't take itself seriously. The new Dr. is wonderful and I'll do my best to absorb as much of him as possible, since he quit the show after the first 13 episodes. Boo on him. At any rate, Tuesdays will have meaning to me, now, in two different timeslots, not just when Special Victims Unit is on. While, I wait until it begins, I do have some time to catch everyone up on things going on this week.

First of all, tomorrow, after class, I will head to Toronto, and then to Hamilton to spend the night with Rick at his parents'. You see, on Thursday morning, we're getting a ride from them to Buffalo airport. This is terribly exciting ! Well, not the ride, but the trip we'll be taking. Also, this means we'll be crossing the border in a car, rather than on a bus ('cause the Greyhound's what them poor folk travel on and thems fun to detain at Customs...), and we'll have less chance of being hassled. Now, don't get up my nose for making that poor folk comment. It's true. The Customs officials seem to get a lot of pleasure out of hassling and harrassing the people who can't afford to travel any other way. Anyway, with his parents in the car and us in the back seat, we'll look less like Suitable Targets(tm).

EDIT: Continued at 9:50pm, same day

So, what, other than homework, am I doing now? Well, other than the handout for tomorrow's "Learning Cafe" (no, really) and work on the school groups programme, I'm trying to sort out my confirmations and make sure that I have a copy of each one with me for the trip. I also need to remember a whole list of things that I drew up today after class. I have a lot of stuff to take. More clothing than what I'd normally take for what is, essentially, a long weekend, but then again, I don't normally need so much dress clothing. It's not like I usually attend film premieres. There's so much to do -- AHHH !

I aim to be at Rick's around 7pm or so in order to catch the GO service to Burlington where his mother can pick us up. This means I'll probably have to duck out of class early, in order to get the last few things done. I have to write some emails and tie up some loose ends, and then finish this damn homework. There's so much to do and so little time.

In other news, for those of you who miss my write-ups about the cats, let me offer one now. Spring is here and the cats are out. It started with Willi, who is, by far, the most adventurous of the lot, though not prone to feral flashbacks like Chester is. She was going out, rain or shine, most of a month ago. She happily spends the entire day frolicking outside and tormenting the birds (of which there are many), forgoing meals and quality time in front of the television. When she does come in, it's usually for brief spurts just to make sure everyone and everything is where they're supposed to be. Then she's off again. After supper, she comes back and pretty much crashes. Right now, she's completely zonked behind me on my bed.

Chester, on the other hand, goes out for limited periods of time, long enough to eat something he shouldn't (today it was parsley), and vomit it up all over the house. Normally, because he hisses before puking, we can catch him and put a newspaper under his face. Today, however, he did his worst before I could catch him and effectively sprayed stomach fluids all over the stove and down its front. Tedious, creature. I had to break out the VIM to clean it up. And then there's Melody, who mostly goes outside in order to sit on us, or the windowsill (looking in, naturally), always in the sun. Hers is a very pleasant dotage, as my mother calls it. Indeed, it must be nice to be an 18 year old cat in our household. Lucky, deaf girl that she is.

Are you in my class and reading this? Are you irritated by what I've written? Well, let me take a moment to remind you that a) no one is twisting your arm (or forcing your eyelids open) to read this, b) this journal is mine and reflects my own honest opinions, perceptions, and thoughts and, c) it's not like I'm slandering anyone, my days of naming names are over. So, I understand you've been grumbling (yes, the grapevine reaches me, too), and that you've taken my entries too personally. Then, I guess you're feeling about my entries the way I'm feeling about the things I perceive to have happened to me over the last few weeks.

Maybe all of this is just another lesson in Exhibit Design. Maybe we're all feeling the impact we have on each other, be they positive or negative, and we're all walking away from this with an emotional response or opinion. If this were an exhibit, then I guess we would have succeeded somewhat in our aims. Heh. Fun way to look at it, right? I suppose I'm wrong about that, too.

I am tired of this class now. We all are. We're tired of each other, of our opinions, our voices, our manerisms; it's almost done. Just a week left, really, and most of us are more than ready to get out of here. Not everyone handles stress in the same way, and if we've had anything over the last two months, it's been stress. LOTS of stress. Some people get paranoid, others get angry. Some have panic and anxiety attacks, while others try to avoid each other. I've tried to be a good peer, not just a good student, and if I've failed lately, think about how I've succeeded in the past. Think of all the work I've put in, often extra work that I've simply picked up because someone needed to do it. We have all stepped up somewhere to do what needed to be done, and most of us have also fallen short of a few goals.

This is somewhat rambly, I know. It's just a stream of consciousness, the garbage in my head. I'm past caring about how people perceive me, or my opinions, I'm just interested in getting everything done as best as I can. That's what we should all be doing. If I could do it all again, I would do only one thing differently: I would provide everyone with a schedule of my time here in the Petes and in Toronto, the commuting time, the lack of access time to my files, my programmes, and whatnot when I'm in Toronto, how many hours I work each week, and the time I spend doing work that relates to school activities without actually being the minimum manditory responsibilities. Or, maybe I'd just not bother with extra school-related stuff at all. But probably not.

Is there a moral to this rambling, meandering post? Sure. But I'm done with extra work, so figure it out for yourselves. And, to those of you reading this with whom I still have a decent working relationship, thank you, I appreciate your faith in me, and your friendship.

It has been a long, fairly unhappy week for me. There have been a few tiny frustrations, too, that have added to my feelings of dread. For instance, Elfwood has been down all week and because of massive data loss, everything is gone from after early February. As a moderator, I'll have to pick up my socks and get some extra moderating done in order to pick up some of the mess. Also, I keep not getting ahold of the people I need to speak to. This has meant phone tag and email tag. I hate those games. But, far and away, the worst thing has been my social interaction with my classmates.

Last Saturday, I received an email from the management group (part of the subsections in our exhibit development team) that wanted to be polite and professional but actually came across cold, vague, and shockingly impersonal. It stated that my performance as part of the team was poor and needed to be improved. Okay, I can deal with criticism; I'm not 15 anymore. Unfortunately, the email did not explain how I failed in my responsibilities and moreover, hit me in the the head out of nowhere. Yikes. I was furious, especially since the email originated from my friend's email account. She and I have talked very candidly together for a long time now, and getting this letter from her was really awful.

I responded to their email, which, by the way, was copied to the class instructor, Deb, with whom I had some baggage, thanks to an earlier attempt to deal with stuff. My email managed to be mostly polite, but at one point, I did get a bit snarky. Ah well, considering how angry I was, I guess one little snark-out isn't that bad. Anyway, my answer also copied the instructor and demanded a meeting to discuss the matters in person when I returned to Peterborough from Toronto, the following day. Well now, their answer came pretty quickly, and they answered my demand with a time and place to meet (the following day at the Tim Horton's near the museum). I accepted and then had only to wait, getting progressively more nervous.

So, talking about it was very good, and we came out of it pretty unscathed, with the understanding that they would send an email detailing the outcome of the meeting to me, copying, again, the instructor. They did this, which was nice, and it was a much nicer, gentler, more personal message than the first one had been. The problem is; however, my classmates, presumably the ones who raised the complaint in the first place, do not know about how we sorted things out and as a result, a while bunch of people now think of me only in a negative light. Again, I can handle it - rejection is something I've gotten quite used to, and my friends seem genuinely bothered by what's happened.

What is even worse, and extremely childlish, is that not only am I viewed as a slacker, but I'm getting the "silent treatment" from a few classmates (fewer at this point than on Monday), and am being treated as a pariah for group work. My teammates even went so far as to strip me of my responsibility as a speaker at the opening event (detailed somewhat, below). So. Needless to say, I've felt really uncharming this past week, and even did some good, old fashioned crying. With two weeks of the programme left to go (that's six assignments, yet), this was really not the way I'd hoped to end it.

In other, but related, news, yesterday was the official opening of our exhibit, "A Century of Celebrations in Peterborough: 1905-2005". I was there ahead of time to help with the set-up of the food/drink tables and do some cleaning and moving around of furniture. Rather than giving the speach, I spent most of the time in the exhibit answering people's questions and doing stuff not to get bored. Speaking of boring, the speaches did go on a little bit long, but considering the number of speaches given, I guess it didn't take that long. At any rate, it went off basically without a hitch and everything looked great, even the ga-ga podium from which people spoke.

Now, I'm literally sitting here in the phone dungeon (as I have been since 9am) waiting for my break person t come and relieve me so I can hop over to The Second Cup for a decent cup of coffee. A decent, LARGE cup of coffee. I normally don't doze off while working, but just a moment ago, I -thought- I was deep in thought, but actually discovered that my eyes were closed, I'd typed a nonsensical sentence, followed by four lines of lowercase "i". I'm certainly glad that no one was here to witness that little whoopsie. Come on break !

I've had the luxery of a relaxing (mostly) week. The exhibit is installed and it looks better than I had thought it would, which is good. Not that I believed it would look bad, mind you, just not as professional as it does. Despite the insecurities, arguments, and clashes of ego, the group pulled together and really made it happen. I took many photographs of the installation process and sometime this week I will begin downloading them onto Natasha and compiling them for the exhibit group - for our portfolios. I got some really excellent pictures, candid shots of people doing construction and whatnot. As Amber would say, "Good times, good times."

Unfortunately for me, this past weekend, I had a maple latte (this is so dumb, I tell ya) that literally made my stomach turn. I spent one and a half days pretty much incapacitated due to food poisoning. This was, without a doubt, The Suck. The BIG Suck. I missed work on Sunday because of it and even when I was uptown at Julie and Jerzy's, I didn't eat anything more than three dried apricots and two small biscuits washed down with some tea. My guts were in agony. Anyway, I went back to the coffee place on Monday and told them it made me sick, and maybe tomorrow they'll compensate me. I dunno, free coffee in the amount of money I lost from not being able to work, would be nice. Anyway, I could get 41 servings of my "usual" for what I didn't make at work. I'd be good with that, or even half of that, frankly.

I have hardly had a chance to talk to my mother since her return from New York. We've been a house on wheels. First I was gone the whole Easter weekend, then she was hosting a retirement party for some PSO musicians, now I'm back in the big city... and so it goes. At this rate, we'll be able to have a good talk when I'm done class (which is in three - THREE !). I can't believe how quickly the time has flown. When I'm done school, I will continue doing the Peterborough/Toronto split, working in the city and resting chez maman. And then the wedding bonanza begins.

In June, I will be attending a betrothal ceremony. July is Tanya's wedding month, and my dress should be in soon for trying on. Oh man. August is Juliane and I'm going to make another attempt to try on HER bridesmaid gown tomorrow after work (it was foiled by food poisoning). Then in September, I will be starting my internship, where ever that ends up happening, and finally, I'll have Tracy's wedding in October. Holy crap, that is a lot of matrimony. Rick's mother has started asking me when he and I are planning to get married and I really wish she'd stop. I gave her a good jolt last weekend when I told her we'd just elope instead of doing anything fancy. Boy, did that quiet her down. Don't want that kind of answer? Don't ask the question ! Yeesh. I haven't even lived with the guy yet, weekends don't count.

Anyway, it's time to cash out at the ROM, so I'll sign off here.