Life, maybe not so boring...

I do have one little piece of exciting news. Well, exciting to me.

We paid off the car loan.

One year ahead of schedule.

Whoo. Go us!

Olympic Mascots

I'm meh. However, they are a darn sight better than the the Inukshuk logo.

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Wet Snow

Apparently, it's our first snow fall this season. Typical that it had to be wet snow. Depending on which part of the city you're in, it could have fallen as big fat flakes or it could have fallen as really cold rain, with nare a snowflake in sight.

This has been about as exciting as my life has been getting so far. Work is steadily chugging along. Evil Homework is, well, there. Not too much else happening right now, at least not with me. Oh wait, I caught a cold and had my flu shot. Joy.

However, November is quickly coming to a close, and everyone knows a lot happens in December. Hopefully I'll have something more interesting to blog about.

Later.

Star Trek 11

I'm sooooo stoked! Star Trek 11 has just started filming. It's set to be released Dec 25, 2008. Whoo! I'm really looking forward to Zachary Quinto of Hereos fame to play Young Spock, see him above. I'm also looking forward to watching Simon Pegg as Young Scotty. He was hilarious in Shaun of the Dead. I haven't seen Hot Fuzz yet, but I it's definitely on the list of movies to watch.

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The Complete Jane Austen

I am soooooooooo excited! PBS is going to have a Jane Austen extravaganza starting January 2008. And not only will they be playing all 6 adaptations, 4 of them will be brand new!!!!!

SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

For those of you who don't recognize Rupert Penry-Jones above, he plays Captain Wentworth in Persuasion. I've seen him before in Spooks/MI-5, and he's not a bad actor (definitely easy on the eyes!). I'm also excited that my favourite Borg, Alice Krige, will also be in the adaptation. I've met her in real life at the last Star Trek convention that I've been at, she is a very beautiful and elegant lady.

I have a friend who is a big fan of the 1995 adaptation of Persuasion, and she is especially fond of
Ciarán Hinds, who also plays Captain Wentworth. She doesn't think that anyone will outshine him. I think she may have second thoughts once she's seen the newer adaptation.

Another adaptation that I'm looking forward to is Northanger Abbey. This is actually my favourite Jane Austen novel. I've watched the 1986 version, and it's incredibly painful to watch, it's so bad. Anything has to be better than that.

Anyways, I'm prepping by re-reading all of the novels again. Yay! I can't wait!!!!

Some headlines

Now doctors say it's good to be fat?

I understand their point of view, but as the article also brings up, what about quality of life? And what does it mean that more people die or less people die? Everyone dies. I always read stuff like this and think that they need to qualify their meaning. Do you mean people under a certain age? It's just too confusing. I certainly hope (but know that this won't be the case) where reports such as this will just give people more of an excuse to eat poorly. Our bodies certainly weren't made to process junk. Nonetheless, there's too little information in the article for me to come to any good conclusions about this.

Parents win right to grow babies for 'spare parts'

I don't know how to feel about this one, I really don't. I understand that parents would want to try to save their children, and this is one possible avenue. I also understand that the child should have a right to make the choice of helping the sibling with the health problems, and not feel like his parents needed him to exist in part because they needed a solution. I am not a parent, nor do I know anyone else in this position, so I don't know what my true feelings will be if I had to face this situation. I've learned a long time ago never say never, because sometimes when push comes to shove, and you're feeling like a trapped animal, you may end up doing things that you'd thought you'd never do.

But that doesn't mean that I don't see the ethical dilemmas and the social impact laws like this may trigger. I would like to think that our world leaders would try to make the best decisions for the people that they represent, and hopefully they have talked about and debated the ramifications of this legislation. Even if that were the case, you can never please everyone, and it is impossible to come to a consensus about it. However, I wonder the state of mind of the person or persons who had originally lobbied for this to become law, did they have to deal with this very same situation, and are they basing their actions on fact or emotion? Let's just hope that this turns out to be a good idea after all.

KOOKY: Six months later...

So it's been about six months since I've been put in a Team Lead role. In the six months:

• I've made mistakes and still do so
  
• I've had to deal with conflict
• I had to learn about office furniture
• I had to learn how HR deals with things
• I've hired 4 people
• I have less time to do more work (and consequently take more work home)
  
• I've taken leadership training
• I've micro-managed
  
• I've had to do a lot of mentoring
• I've probably sent out mixed signals to my underlings
• I've had to make executive decisions
  
• In short, I've learned that being a leader is hard, hard work
  

It's been hard so far, but a good learning experience for me. I certainly don't want to be one of those supervisors who people complain about. I want to be the person who everyone says that I was a great supervisor -- what can I say, I want people to like me. I know that I won't ever be perfect, but my main goal is to do whatever it takes to help my team do their job well and efficiently, while having fun in the process. That's not always easy as I need to figure out how to get there, and I generally don't get a lot of feedback, even when I ask for it. And it's certainly weird treating people who used to be my peers as subordinates.

Here's what I have learned/come to realise so far:

• Less is more.
• I won't always make popular decisions
• I sometimes have a too big of a mouth
• I like, and I want everyone to feel like they are a part of the process, that I don't always need to make the decisions, and have someone else take the initiative (with my blessings of course)
• I'm learning to not only juggle my time, but everyone whom I supervise
• I hate micro-managing, but sometimes it has to be done
• I can't be everyone's friend
• I don't like to deal with unpleasant things (who really does), but I have realized that I need to, and as much help as I may get from others, the buck does stop with me and I need to do something about it.
  
• That it's okay to say no.
  
• That it's okay to make executive decisions and not consult the team.
  
• That this is my area, and my people, and (within certain confines), I can pretty much do anything I want.
  

But there is so much more that I need to learn.

I've taken to reading leadership blogs, and I've just bought a few books on leadership; I'll put up reviews once I've had a chance to read them. I do feel like I'm struggling as I don't always feel like I know what I'm doing, and there are days when I feel a sense of impending doom (or that could be my PMS making me moody). So I'm training myself by reading what other people who have been in my position say. I'm also thinking about taking another course.

Of course, I may be over-preparing, over-thinking, over-doing it. After all, very few of us become good at what we do overnight. That's why they call it experience. I can't look for a silver bullet solution with detailed step-by-step instructions on what to do, that doesn't exist.

Man, this is hard.