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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/27/AR2009022701549.html
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I leave for iceland in 17 days. Ash cloud willing!
I think I’m going to start using this blog more as a place to store things I come across and random musings…Not a ton of spare time these days 
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My last day off before working 8 (maybe?) days straight…the problems with a small staff at a store that is open every day is that if someone needs to switch a shift sometimes it means that being nice screws you over. It’s all good though, I’ve got favours in reserve.
The ganglion on my wrist is growing weirdly…some say I should just slam it with a book but I’ve heard that most of the time they just come back so that seems extreme. This morning I’ve already done 20 minutes on the treadmill, grilled a bunch of chicken breasts for lunches this week, fried up onions and mushrooms, boiled and whipped cauliflower etc etc.
Now I’m watching Law and Order before I probably go have a nap. Big excitement around here!
Website of the week: www.uncrate.com Since the death of productdose I’ve been looking for new blogs that have all kinds of cool stuff from all over that I can occasionally impulse buy.
Movie of the week: Undecided at this point, I’ve been on an Arrested Development kick lately. The perfect length for a treadmill session or to watch when half awake at bedtime.
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no time to blog, work busy, watching hot curlers, eating too much, spending too much money but having a good time doing it. barely got out of my pjs today.
Super cute movie called “To be and To have” which I stumbled upon at the library the other day. Yes, it’s a documentary about a one room school in rural France. Not exactly the subject matter of a movie watchers dreams, well, unless you’re me.
These are some of the best behaved kids I’ve ever seen, I can’t imagine doing this in any major city I’ve ever been in where the kids would be totally out of control. I think it helps that they are basically turned out to play no matter what the weather for a good bit of time morning and afternoon, there are very clear behavioural expectations and the bigger kids (grade 7 I think was the highest) look after the little ones as well.
The best 2 parts were at the end when the new class of little kids comes to visit and one is crying his head off for his mom and the teacher picks him up and dusts him off and just carries him around for a bit.
My other favourite scene, which I’ve rewatched 4 times already is 2 little kids, maybe in grade 1 or 2 at the most, trying to use the photocopier. It’s hilarious and super cute.
Apperently this was the highest grossing French documentary of all time but when they shot it they told the teacher and the kids’ families that it was just going to be used for educational purposes or something so they were paid basically nothing to be in it and there was a big court case or something afterwards. Sadly there are no updates or anything at the end of the movie about the kids…though even though you spend 90 minutes watching them you don’t really learn that much about them. No stories of their horrible home life or single moms trying to keep their kids motivated or taking 5 busses every day to school a la dangerous minds. Also…it’s in french. Good subtitles but there are a few times when they are learning about french grammar or spelling or something where it doesn’t entirely translate.
For those of you who saw Entre Les Murs (aka The Class) which came out….2 years ago? Something like that, I liked this one a lot better. In many ways a much smaller film (and not a faux documentary either) which I kind of liked better.
Now if I can just figure out a way to see this awesome movie about sheep called Sweetgrass!
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aaaaaaaand it’s February! Still very little progress on the thesis. I’ve printed out the previous paper that I wrote on the same subject to go through and add where the prof made comments (the prof who is now my thesis advisor…..apperently it isn’t a conflict, who knew!) but I feel like (stupidly) that there really isn’t that much to do so I don’t need to worry yet. Ha! The bad part is that I don’t get a march break from work or anything where I could say “ok, this chunk of time is for this” and I’m horrible at doing a little of something every day.
This morning I thought I had lost 15 pounds but it turns out that my scale was just on an uneven floor or something. This initally led to me having 2 wraps for lunch in pseudo celebration.
Work is going well actually, finally feel like I have a bit of a hold on how things work and I’m not so crazy overwhelmed all the time. Though, as I continually say, it’s funny how the universe works. One of my biggest pet peeves is people who have a running commentary on their thoughts. They don’t just think them, it all comes out of their mouth. And I now sit between two such people at work. The universe clearly wants me to learn to deal with it and move on!
I’m off today but working with my manager tomorrow so that should be good, in to Toronto on Sunday for a training day then working all next week until the weekend when I get 3 days off. Maybe I’ll use Valentine’s day for my thesis. I sure as heck am not using it for anything else!
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On this week (indeed the first of what I hope will be a continuing series) of thumbs up/thumbs down we have a movie and potato chip contribution.
Thumbs up goes to “Every Little Step”, a musical nerd’s fantasy, an inside look at the casting process for the recent revival of A Chorus Line. Only the most ardent of theatre nerds will have heard of any of the cast members (other than Tyce D’Iorio who comes off smary and egomaniacal) but it’s just so interesting to see these people laying it all on the line, how long it takes, how wrong some of the autionees are for the parts and it generally made me want to be the girl who is the script assistant and is organizing everything.
Thumbs down goes to President’s Choice Greek flavoured Potato chips. I know, but I thought maybe they would be delicious. If you don’t like salt and vinegar chips, stay away from these. They should be rebranded as Salt, Vinegar and a little something that makes you not like them. I hoped that they would turn into one of those things where at first you don’t like the taste but then you crave it 5 minutes later (thrills gum, anyone?) but alas, I am taking them in to work tomorrow to sustain team morale during the crazyness of the ever elusive $600 5 star cuban all inclusive vacation search.
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Saturday:
Woke up late, a friend was supposed to come over so I cleaned and tidied and walked to the grocery store and the library for DVDs etc etc and then he bailed, which was fine but it kind of put my evening without a focus since the leafs were off so I went to bed after watching the DVD Commentary of Atonement (a movie I choose to believe ends 10 minutes before the actual end so as to preserve my emotional sanity).
Sunday (so far)
Woke up a bit late, decided to head out to a local horse show where a girl I used to ride with and who I went to highschool with had some horses showing. It was great actually to go and just be in that whole word again and I for sure miss it and hope I can get this credit card debt taken care of so that I can afford riding lessons come the springtime! I didn’t get to chat with my friend but it was good to go and see her anyway.
Drove home the long way and went grocery shopping at my parent’s house so that hopefully the only thing I need to spend money on food wise for the next month is produce.
Hit the blockbuster and got DVDs of Julie and Julia (just finished, I’ve seen it before when I went to the movies in Vancouver this summer but I like commentaries), Moon (also seen before but I’m anticipating a great commentary) The Hurt Locker (again, seen before but it was a semi-sketch downloaded version so the real one should be good) and this documentary called “Every Little Step” which is about the movie chorus line. Also going to watch the golden globes tonight which should be entertaining, as usual, even more so since I love Ricky Gervais. It’s only 3pm and I feel like I’ve done quite a bit so far today. How excellent.
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Despite the bone chilling cold this morning, I decided to head out for a bit of a walk to take some pictures. Little did I know that for some reason the memory card had been popped out of its slot in my camera and I would only be able to take 6 pictures!
My charming little town of Dundas, Ontario has many super cute houses (picture 1), 4 churches within a 2 block radius of my house (picture 2), traffic jams when church lets out (picture 3) a super cute main street (picture 4) and a recent bakery fire where thankfully there were no injuries but about a million dollars worth of damage. Sorry for the lack of pictures, they didn’t survive the move to the new blog!
