back on the wagon

1. So somewhere in there I forgot to blog the past couple of days... luckily, I didn't fall off the points, so it hasn't been a total loss. Also, I've gotten a lot accomplished, relatively speaking. Saturday was a mostly-work day, being basically a split shift; I worked in the morning for three hours, converting the website over to a new format (it should be finished this week, I only really have the French bits left) and then in the evening I came back for a big event at the Arts Centre. It was a memorial service for the woman who pushed to have the Centre set up in the first place, bullying fourteen government departments at all three levels to get it done. I was supposed to be minding the gallery before and after, while people milled about, but went up during the service to hear the speakers. There were no seats left, though, and I ended up standing in the hall outside - next to Anne, oddly enough (Anne from the Mexico trip), who was there with her aunt. It went on and on, and while moving and interesting (I hadn't know anything about Charlotte Glencross before the service) eventually I had to go back down to the office and collapse into a chair. When I checked the time, I saw that the supposedly one hour service had been going for over two hours - presumably that's why I was having trouble standing in the hall in heels for the whole thing!
Anyway, I was suppose to be done at 10, but the service didn't even end until 9:45, so I ended up staying until midnight as the arts community mingled and drank wine. It wasn't a trial - I got to hang out with Anne and she brought me a glass of wine to get me through - but I was pretty tired by the time I got home, and had missed Megan and Warren entirely, who were visiting Sean while I was at work.
Sunday was a quiet day of getting lots of Latin done, and also finishing Season One of Enterprise. The only surprise of the day was when Porter showed up randomly in the afternoon with Sean's high school girlfriend, Jess, in tow - apparently she showed up for a visit because she needs to get her passport done (she lives in PEI, but they don't have a passport office) - and they went out to the Fox. Also, I made beef and barley soup from a cookbook Mom gave me a while ago, and it's pretty awesome - very thick, with a tomatoey base.
Yesterday was Blue Monday, and it lived up to its reputation. I had double Latin in the morning, to make up for a class the professor has to miss on Friday, and tried to track down Sue to ask her about what's up with the work study position, but she's out sick. After Latin (I did well, but it was exhausting) I went to Financial Services to talk to them about my student loan being late and how they need to not kill my email and class registration. They were rather rude about demanding a down payment of $800 before Friday, so I went to Financial Aid to see about what I can do. The Financial Aid angels, Shelley and Kelly (I am not joking), fit me into their booked-up schedule to sort out my student loan situation so it's back on track (well, sort of - there's a four week queue of loan papers) and flagged my file to make Financial Services back off, and made an appointment to get me an advance on my loan so I can eat and stuff. They are getting flowers when I graduate - they have bailed me out of so many bad situations, I can't even imagine how many student lives they make better every day. After another trip to Financial Services to finish up the negotiations ("are you sure you can't give us $800 anyway? oh alright then") I came home.
Sean made arrangements to have Porter and Jess come over in the evening, and had also rearranged the living room randomly, which is usually my hobby (the kitchen and office are his territory), so I was a little off balance at first, but Megan was over and always manages to cheer me up. She had to go home to change and shower, though, so she left, promising to come right back, and Sean left to get Porter and Jess, and then everything sort of fell apart. Sean called and said they voted to stay at Porter's house, so I was on my own for the evening, and Megan called to say her uncle had just died so she had to leave town right away, and then Matt randomly showed up at the house fresh of the St John bus looking for Sean or Porter, so I fed him soup and called Sean to collect him. He ended up coming back over for the night since there's not enough room at Porter's little apartment for Matt and Jess to both stay over. So we have a guest.
Basically, it was a busy and off balance sort of day. I'm still trying to get over it. Today has been pretty tranquil - I had a doctor's appointment in the morning, but I'm back home now, and the only thing I have to do today now is Latin and Greek for tomorrow.

2. Links and stuff:

• a pretty affecting picture from Detroit - it's a warehouse where they stored a bunch of school supplies, most of them unused or still in the packaging, in the 80's and then sort of forgot about them. There have been fires in the warehouse, and no repairs to a degrading roof, so at this point there's even a tree growing in the rotting books.
• on a lighter note, a cute idea for the Mac nerd who has it all.