Yes, it is I.

First post in a long time, I know. I kind of wasn't sure if folksies were still using these or not, and I had this irrational process where I'd think to myself every once in while "I should check to see if friendslies are still using blogs", but then wouldn't because secretly I was afraid that people were updating and commenting and such, and as soon as I knew then I'd actually have to face the fact that I'd been ignoring this communication and not contributing to it and I'd feel guilty about that. So my solution to all this was to just postpone it further, because, you know, that would make it all better, see. Sigh. I do things like this far too often, and I know that the longer I leave it, the worse it gets, but I let this little irrational subconscious voice lead me instead of my brain.

Anyway, I'm here! And I'm missing people like crazy- school friends, Naramata folk, just people outside my immediate family basically. At the moment I'm looking for work, and by looking for work I mean that I had a meeting with the vice president of spiritual and pastoral care at the Bethany Care Society (a senior's care facility), whom my mom knows, and she did some major networking for me, taking me on a tour of the facility and introducing me to a whole bunch of people. She gave me tips on my resume and asked me to send it to her so that she could distribute it to all the managers. So now I'm waiting for phone calls. I'd really like to do some front-line work with the residents, but I know that the likelyhood of that happening is questionable, given my lack of credentials and experience with such work, but I'm not ruling out the possibility entirely, given that they're really short-staffed in pretty much every department. And if that doesn't work out, I'll probably end up working for food services or something, which I'm sure would be fine. I'd be working to provide a service that I believe in anyway- rather than supporting a massive corporation just hoping to make more money- with my labour, and that's pretty much all I need.

Yesterday was family night and it was my turn to decide what we were going to do. I decided to do that awesome continuous story thing where each person writes for a length of time then passes their paper off to the right and so forth, each time folding so that only a portion of the story can be seen . The first round through we wrote for 1 minute each and allowed each person to read the portion that had just been written but nothing before that. For the second round, we each wrote for 3 minutes and allowed the next person to see the last sentence written, and the next person had to begin their portion using the letter of the alphabet that came after the last letter of the previous person's last word (basically, if I got a page where the last word of the previous person's portion was 'pernicious', then the word I started with would have to begin with 'T'). Oh, and we all had to start our round 2 storied with the letter 'D'. Anyway, they were all excessively awesome and I am going to publish one right now. It is the one that I started from round 2- see if you can spot the transitions :):

Dreadful Doctor Alberto was sitting at his desk, pondering. Why was the world so happy, he wondered to himself, whilst I am here, doing my dreadful doctorly deeds all alone? All of a sudden, a thought occurred to him.
"Aha!" he said out loud in his dreadful, hoarse way. Zebras were a passion of David's. He had gone off to Africa many times just to examine them. Of course, zebras had nothing to do with his chemist career. David sometimes wished he had a career that had to do with his true passion.
"Opera" he whispered to himself, as the bunsen burner happily warmed the flask of bubbling orange liquid. "I've always dreamed of singing in the great Opera Houses of Europe, but here I am, stuck in the Lab, trying to develop the next great food colouring that will make children even more hyperactive".
Not that he minded working in the Ritalin lab, mind you. They let him listen to whatever radio station he wanted to, but it was hard to find good Opera when all you get is AM. Norris, his lab mate was stone deaf, which made communicating a challenge- but once he found an obscure Swedish all-Opera channel on his short-wave he was a very happy worker. The residue from the Ritalin production seemed to affect his ability to concentrate...in a good way- singing loudly along to the Swedish Opera and producing Ritalin at an alarming rate. For the first time, the character in question was taking Ritalin out of necessity, rather than as a rainy day activity. The timpanis boomed in his ears with alarming clarity, and for a moment, he had the fleeting notion that he could understand every Swedish word being sung. However, that notion was short-lived, as the truth of the situation became clear. He had no understanding of Swedish- why had he come to this concert! In fact, he hated choral music of all kinds. Why on earth was he spending his time this way? With a large huff he stormed out of the theatre, never to be seen again.

Hooray! After writing all the stories I decided that we must make an anthology of them, so they are now bound in between two pieces of cardboard from a 'Hungry Man' microwave dinner, covered in stickers. I think I shall publish them one by one here, as I think of it, as they are far too awesome to stay only on our living room table. So, until next time, tally-ho and the best of wishes to all y'all!

-Rat