Erica! Basil! Fireworks! Job!

1. All that I wrote about having a life, doing exciting things? The problem is, I'm really really busy. I am actually looking forward with glee to getting cut down to five hours per week at the NBCC, not because of the work but because I just don't have the headspace to keep up with my work right now. While technically there are enough hours in the day for five hours of being actively engaged in things every day, it becomes trying when you try to fit it the languages and readings as well, and downright impossible when you make time for these things during periods in the day where the brain is anything but unattractive mush.

2. That having been said, I did make time to go to Seeley's Cove this weekend with Megan and Sean, probably unwisely, but staying home to translate while my boyfriend and friend go hang out at his parents' house to watch movies, play with dogs, collect sand dollars on the beach and do silly things in Saint John... it sticks in my craw.
Sean left on Friday afternoon before I got home from class, but I stayed that evening in order to see Erica, who was here for a visit (on her birthday!). We caught up on what she's been up to in that magical place, Toronto, and gossiped about the people we know. We had a thoroughly good time with Neil before she left to go to Sweetwaters (a club that I do not go to) with some other friends of hers, at which point I watched Pirates of the Caribbean and went to sleep.
On Saturday morning, Megan came over with her weekend bag and we went to the market before catching the bus. She had never been to the Fredericton market and we had enough time for a whirlwind purchase of wontons, samosas, cheesecake on a stick, fresh orange juice, a large bunch of basil and a sickly basil plant (bought in confusion, but was a steal at fifty cents).
We met Sean in Saint John and spent a ridiculous amount of time drifting from place to place. We went to Value Village, and I found an ankle-length sweater coat (black) in bulky weight cotton that will probably find itself transformed into a better sweater soon; we were thoroughly underwhelmed by Old Navy, but I did find a jersey hoodie-dress for $7 that has become my ubiquitous hanging-about-the-house-being-comfy dress overnight. I remembered that Urban Planet had been fun in Ottawa, a million years ago when I was last there, and so we went; I didn't find anything, and nor did Sean, but Megan found an entire new wardrobe on the 3-for-$10 rack (lots of retro flower print dresses and leggings).
We went back to the house in thoroughly good moods and spent the evening with the dogs and a fire in the fireplace, and watched most of the Return of the Pink Panther (the Peter Sellers one, with the melting nose? much beloved of myself and Michelle).
The next day we made serious and contrite effort to do our homework, but ended up chatting in the living room over bacon and eggs for most of the afternoon, broken up by a couple of walks to the beach (Megan is now a sand dollar millionaire) and a drive in to St George proper for ice cream and a viewing of the St George waterfalls and fish ladder. We also discovered that fireworks are legal for purchase in rural New Brunswick, and spent the evening playing with Roman Candles on the beach.
A really terrific weekend, but one that I am still catching up from.

3. So we returned to the cats and have been muddling through the week as best we can. My week is a lot like last week, in almost every way - the homework, the office organization, the frosh saying silly things in World Lit (today: "Solomon the Wise was a big fat liar! I wouldn't marry him no matter how many pretty poems he wrote me!").
Sean returned home to the unpleasant news that he didn't get either of the workstudy positions he interviewed for last week, but one of the interviewers sent him an email telling him to apply for another work study - the one at the Electronic Text Centre that I interviewed for (unsuccessfully) last year. He interviewed yesterday and was hired on the spot! Hurrah for work study positions! It's tedious work, scanning old journals, editing them for scanning errors and converting them to XML, but his coworkers sound hilarious and he's pretty pumped about having the job.
Porter came up to visit last night, as he had a job interview today (dishwashing at the Delta, in fact - Sean's old job). He's visiting for the moment.

4. This week, from here on in: tomorrow night is the gallery opening at the office, so that will be interesting. Friday morning Sean is leaving for St John on the morning bus, and will be spending the weekend driving to Antigonish and back with his father. I am really, really annoyed that I am marginally too responsible to seize the opportunity to spend the weekend with Michelle, but I guess I will see her for Thanksgiving. But still. Weekend with my sister and her brood of frosh, or weekend of cooking for myself, talking to the cats and translating, translating, translating? Gosh.