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Thursday, April 23, 2009
Waiting In 4/4 Time

So, Mr. Office Crush...

There's nothing like a good long-term-relationship break up to get someone to realize that you're going to be their rebound. And they wouldn't want to be the selfish douchebag who gives into it even though the flirting was so fun, and playful and harmless. Admittedly, I will miss the illicit after-work conversations and secret texting during-work conversations, but as much fun as it was to imagine hooking up with him, the last thing I need is to be on someone else's list of Cool Girls Who Were Fun For A Bit, But Ultimately Not What I'm Going For, Don't Hate Me, You Don't Hate Me Right? Barf. I've lived that scenario one too many times for my liking and no - there's absolutely no bitter eye-rolling going on over here.

Mr. Office Crush? Done.

Next, please.

11:24 pm


Thursday, April 16, 2009
Foreshadowing

Warm, comfy and fast asleep in my cushy Quebecois hotel bed, I'm vaguely aware of the phone ringing. By the time my body managed to pick it up, the person on the other line has hung up. I'm annoyed because now I'm awake and I realized that it's just past 5:30am. Five minutes later the phone rings again, and when I get it, I hear the cheery voice of my boss on the other end. In the hour that follows, I get a glimpse of my life that is to be over the next two and a half months.

...a last minute deadhead to Hamilton we forgot about. A bus breakdown in the middle of the night for a first-year. A sick tour leader who called a half hour before she had to meet her group for departure. A flurry of phone calls for way-too-early in the morning. And now my partner is on a last minute trip to NYC which leaves our counterpart from Montreal with no dinner-mate upon her arrival and me to handle our last training session this Saturday - in front of my director.

With my training trips keeping me out of the office the last two weeks, I haven't been able to get a lot done and it doesn't look like that scenario is going to get a lot better any time soon. First Ottawa training, now Quebec training, and in a week and a half I'm back to Ottawa to do a job for someone else who isn't available to do it herself, then I'm back to Quebec to train people who couldn't make it to the first training trip... I think I'll have been in the office a total of eleven days over the course of a month.

[In writing this, I've been interrupted twice by more phone calls from my boss, to my partner, to my boss...]

I'm not sure if I realized what I was signing off to do when I took this job, but I guarantee that it's going to be some kind of adventure until the end of June...

6:41 am


Sunday, April 05, 2009
Sunday Morning, Without a Warning

It's Sunday morning, just before 10am, and I'm supposed to be wearing very little clothing, lying on my back with my eyes closed, breathing deeply and relaxing all the muscles in my body in a really hot room with twenty-some other people waiting for yoga class to start.

But instead, I'm dressed, (almost) packed and getting ready to go to the office. Because I need to work today - on a SUNDAY. I leave for my Ottawa training trip tomorrow morning (I have to be at the office at the unholy hour of 6:30am (at the latest!)) and since I'm a giant slackosaurus I'm trying to plan my trip at the last minute. I can't believe I'm here: planning the training trips, whereas a few years ago I was simply just going on them. Life moves quickly, doesn't it?

Like every other time I leave my house with a suitcase, I'm stressed. Stressed because once again, the days have proven that they just don't have enough hours in them to allow me to do everything I need to do. I had to cancel last minute on a friend today too, so instead of hanging out in one of the hippiest neighbourhoods in the city, I'm going to be at my desk on the 18th floor of an office building with no windows that open and a view of residential suburbia. Life, it's good to me.

This is all after yesterday, a SATURDAY, when I was at the office until 8pm. It didn't phase me when the lights in the building shut off because there was enough sunlight. When the sun was setting and everything was bathed in either shadow or an eerie golden orange, that's when I realized I had probably crossed the line between that work-life balance. I probably would have stayed longer had my partner not been wearing her coat at the desk beside me, waiting for me because she was being nice.

So now, Sunday morning, I'm going to take my bag and my binder and go ...to not do yoga.

9:50 am