Friday, May 30, 2008

Back home!

Hubby and I got back home from our vacation yesterday afternoon. We're severely jet-lagged, but we had a fun time. I'll be posting my vacation comments shortly, probably in about 4 parts, including the pictures.

I've spent some of today getting stuff done, and most of today (like about 10 hours worth) catching up on work email. I probably need another couple of hours tomorrow to be really caught up; I need to hit the ground running come Monday when I go back to work.

Although we did have a nice time, there was about a 24 hour period where it was very stressful. In order of appearance, on the first full day in Rome:
  • It was raining very, very hard, and we were outside most of that day. Think of someone pouring water out of a bucket on your head, that was our day (no joke);
  • Hubby had his wallet stolen. We spent a lot of time calling Canada to cancel cards and such. Our cell phone bills will be huge;
  • Someone called me at 2am, on my cell, to tell me that the house alarm on my mom's house was set off, and the alarm company couldn't get a hold of anyone. Lots of panic calls back to North America ensued, again our cell phone bill will be huge. After several calls, I had managed to reach my sister in Seattle. Fortunately, it was a false alarm.
  • I sprained my ankle and shin muscles. Found out today that I wasn't suppose to walk long distances on it. This happened smack in the middle of my vacation, so naturally, I kept walking long distances; it is vacation after all. I won't be going to my step class for a little while.

Thursday, May 15, 2008

Off to Europe!!!

Yayay! We're going to Europe! I may post, but it'll be highly doubtful that this will happen. Definitely will when I return end of this month or in early June!

Off to Europe!!!

Yayay! We're going to Europe! I may post, but it'll be highly doubtful that this will happen. Definitely will when I return end of this month or in early June!

Sunday, May 11, 2008

For all the geeks out there

Sadly, I want the projector, and I'm not even a huge Star Wars fan.

http://www.nikkor2d2.com/

So here's the scoop....

Yes, I had promised that I would update my readers as to the status of my school thing once I found out what was going on with it. I've had a very busy and exhausting week, so that was my only excuse, and not a good one at that.

So here's the scoop. I didn't get a pass, but I didn't get a fail either. They (being the committee of people who looks over and grades these reports) didn't feel that there was enough substance in my report to warrant a pass. I had a very long talk with my advisor, and she felt it was partially her fault for trying to push me into finishing too soon. She didn't take into consideration the rest of my life (ie that I work full-time, and that am a manager who needs to work outside of work hours to get things done, and that I have a life outside of all that). To her credit, she was trying to help me finish quickly, there wasn't any malicious intent, just some misjudgment on her part.

So the bottom line is I need to do a major rewrite and add lots more information to the report. She's given me more time, but I really want to get this done by the end of July. She did a lot of brainstorming as to how I could improve my report, so I now have lots of fodder to work with.

In other news: work has been very stressful for me. I had someone leave, and haven't had a chance to replace her properly. The big problem is that this position is needed by a very large project that we are doing at work, and schedules keep slipping, and people keep breathing down my neck to hire someone else. Easier said than done. While that is mostly resolved, it's not completely. Without getting into too many details, there's a lot of pressure of getting this positions filled permanently. Sigh. There are other things going on at work too that is sucking up a lot of my time and attention, so I've been coming home every day last week completely exhausted.

Life: I'm going to Europe in 4 days! These last few days have been very busy with trip planning as well. Even though we've been in London a couple of times already, I'm still amazed at how much stuff there is to do in that city! I did a bit of a search as to what else there is to do and there are a ton of stuff that are not on the top 10 tourist attraction list! What we will be this time around is three out of town trips: Bath, Strafford-Upon-Avon/Warwick Castle and Leeds Castle. As well, we'll be hitting a few of the lesser known sites in London. I'll definitely post a full itinerary and pictures after we come back. But this is why I love London so much, there is always something to do.

Rome was a bit of a challenge to plan out, mostly because I'm not that familiar with it. What I did was print out weekly calendars and listed everything that I wanted to see, and planned out the trip that way. It's a bit of a juggle as there were several things I had to take into consideration, but I won't bore you with the details just yet, they are for a different post. I'll let you know if all my plotting has worked out. Needless to say, we will be doing lots of walking! I really hope that the weather will be good.

We still have some part of the trip that needs planning out (for instance, we still don't have a hotel for the last part of our trip), but things are coming together... I can't wait!

Rest of my life: well, somewhere amongst all the busyness, I need to go to see my chiropractor. Apparently my lower back is slightly out of alignment. My massage therapist caught it last week, but she wasn't able to fix it (the feeling of someone trying to push at your vertebrae is very weird). Part of the problem is that I physically need to be at work to get certain things done, like interviews, so it's been near impossible to go see my chiropractor. I definitely need to see him before I go on my trip, my lower back is warring with my upper back as to which part wants to cause me more pain an misery. Sigh.

Monday, May 05, 2008

Sigh...

So I had handed in my report on May 1. Although I told people that I was done, there is always a risk that I may need to tweak my report or some other such horrors to be had before I actually pass and get my credits.

My adviser had informed me today that she had to talk to me about my report. It's probably nothing more than I need to flesh out a couple parts of my report, but of course, I'm thinking worse case scenario, so I've been stressed all afternoon. I will find out tomorrow what the status is.

On top of all that, there is still trip planning and work is crazy busy. I need to get a certain amount done before I leave. This isn't a good time for my free time to be eaten up (yet again) with school work. Please just let me pass this thing.

Plus, my massage therapist told me today that my lower back is out of alignment. Which means another trip to the chiropractor, and I don't have time as it is. Stupid body, I'm not suppose to age.

It was also bad enough that I got to listen to our neighbour's dumb-ass kids (who are high school aged) get drunk and high on pot. With about 50 of their friends. And no parents. Two nights in a row. In the middle of the night. Two nights of calling the cops, and two nights of no cops showing up.

Sigh.