Saturday, October 25, 2008

What a week!

Oy VEY! This was one insane week. Last weekend was the Sea to Sky dance convention, which I decided to actually go to at the last minute. I was torn, but I'm glad I went. It was good to get back into dancing a little more, as I've really only been maybe three times before that in the last five months. Terrible! The killing of the feet, however? Yeah, could have done without that. Yeowtch! I met some cool new people (hi Travis!), brushed up on some technique, placed abysmally in the comps (woohoo!), and basically got zero sleep all weekend. I also learned more than I ever wanted to know about the undead during our one am zombie movie/pizza/wrestling fest on the Saturday night before we headed back down to keep dancing.

Work was nutty - exhaustion, rangy behaviour, staff issues, four different meetings, a field trip, subs, professional development, hanging out with Danny Glover... you name it, it happened.

I also got accepted with AIM officially (HOOO-RAY!) so that brought about all KINDS of new tasks to do - contacting my church's missions committee, making doctor's appointments, calling payroll and benefits to work out temporary suspension of my extended health (I'll be covered by AIM's plan, don't you worry), making appointments at the travel clinic to get all my vaccinations, more forms to fill out, more letters to write, a criminal records check to submit, two books to read, a mentor to find, a fundraiser to plan... are you exhausted yet??? And all this is not even what has to happen once I find out for sure what my assignment is going to be! Yikers!

Then there's my home sweet home. I've let certain corners (large, man-eating corners) get, well, rather chaotic in my house over the last *mumble mumble* year - you know, paperwork, what-the-heck-do-I-do-with-THIS stuff, random junk, etc., etc., etc. - and it's time to sort all that out now, so I don't have to do it all when I move out in December. I'll be subletting my place while I'm gone (anyone looking for a great furnished ground level suite in Vancouver from January to June? Anyone? Anyone?) so I need to get it up to snuff for people to come and see. I've already had one couple interested!

And then, just cause apparently I don't think I'm busy enough yet, I've taken on two rather large projects that are eating up mucho hours at my computer these days. One I can't tell you about (shhh! Christmas presents!) but one I'm excited to get the word out: I'm going to be getting set up to sell some of my photos! Who knows if people will want to buy them, but I figure, hey, every little bit helps on my way to Africa, right? Keep an eye out, I'm hoping to get the systems and pricing up soon!

(On that note, anyone know how to make a watermark on photos without using photoshop? I have an image I want to use, but just need to make a transparent image I can copy on top of the photo. Might not be able to be done without photoshop, I'm not sure. Or anyone want to batch download my pics and do it for me? Ha!)

And of course, all this done whilst dodging ankle attacks from my brother's psychokitty and keeping that stinkin' cat out of the venetian blinds.

Ah, my life is never boring, is it? Sheesh!

1 comment:

Paul said...

You could try installing the GIMP - http://www.gimp.org/windows/ I've never used it, but it's supposed to be a bit like photoshop, and it's free.

PS. I will reply to your email when I get time, I promise.