digging

Digging is fun. It's why I chose it as my profession of preference - I like looking in a screen of dirt for cultural treasure, even if it's just a broken flake from when someone was learning how to make arrowheads a thousand years ago.
Horseflies are not fun. They aren't even a little discouraged by DEET, and they hurt when they bite. More to the point, they circle for ages before getting down to business, i.e. biting you, so while digging, you can attract a large number of orbiting, buzzing bitey bugs without having any opportunity to swat them. If you are sitting on a porch, you could just wait for them to land and swat them, but when digging, you just keep stopping and killing the first three or four you see and then get back to work and wait for the other eight to try a bite.
I really, really need to solve the horsefly issue. The internet suggests long sleeves and a bug net, so I suppose I am heading to Walmart soon to see about them.
Other than that, and the fatigue from barely sleeping from excitement and thunder, and being pathetically out of shape, it was a good day. More tomorrow.

WHATWHATWHAT

It's been a real drag sitting around the apartment all day with nothing to do for the past couple of months, so when I had the chance to get out and spend two days at the office to fill in for Roseline, I jumped at it. Between yesterday and today, I got a lot of work done - most of what they wanted done, actually. Today would have been the more productive day, being alone in the office on a Friday before a holiday weekend (in a government town, this means that there is no way anyone will call). However, it was the last day for submissions for a show, which meant there were all sorts of visitors and calls all day, and the Arts Center is having its windows replaced. Today was the day they replaced almost all of our gallery windows. Power tools! Moving artwork to protect it! Glue fumes!
So in the midst of this, Dr. Black sent me an email. He is, if you recall, the professor I worked for in the spring, and his car bit my finger. Anyway, he wanted to let me know that Jason (with whom I was digging at Florenceville last winter) was looking for some people to do some archaeological fieldwork, and would I be interested?
WHAT WHAT WHAT!
Would I?!
When I got home, half-crazed with fumes, there was a phone message on my phone in reply to my email - happy to have me on board! heading out on Monday morning!
We'll be nearby, so I'll be working ten hour days and coming home every night, and it'll probably take about three weeks, and I am so, so excited. I need to send apologies to CIBC and contact Amy to see what to do about the NBCC, but... so, so excited.

venting

I'm having a little difficulty feeling motivated about this job business right now. After yesterday's meeting in the afternoon and call center experience in the evening, it feels dishonest. I have this possible job hanging there, suspended, and I'm all over the place on it - I could have no chance at all, or it may be in the bag, I have no idea.
When I went to the CIBC information session last night, I realized that I could probably do it pretty happily if it weren't for this other job distracting me, and the distinct impression that it is probably too good a job to take for six weeks and then blow off because I have another offer. They pay for eleven weeks of training - they expect you to be there for the long haul. I realize that it's a call center and so I should have as little problem with ditching them as I would telling a fast food manager that I am looking for long-term employment flipping burgers, but really, it just feels flat out wrong. If I didn't have a degree, it would be a godsend of an opportunity, and even though I do, it would be a reasonable way to spend two years while Sean finishes his degree. It's not like I think I'm too good for it - I think it's probably too good to turn my nose up at.
So I don't know what to do. Obviously the winning strategy here is to pursue everything with vigour and take the best bidder, but it makes me queasy.
It's the same with another person I am supposed to call to have a meeting with - can I really look him in the eye and then ditch him in a month if I have a better offer? What does it say about me that I can?
I wish I could take a time out, but it seems as though the time for taking a time out has passed. I can't leave the city because I've told Kate I will work Thursday and Friday to fill in for Roseline, and I can't drag my feet on things just because I really want to get this job without wasting anyone else's time and coming off as a presumptuous brat. And I really do need a job soon, or at least a solid promise of one - this is driving me bats. It is seriously bad news when I, of all people, start losing my appetite, and I'm beginning to drive Sean nuts with my boredom and worrying.
Time to make some phone calls, I suppose.

no news is no news

I suppose one of the bad things about having a meeting instead of a job interview is that there really isn't much expectation of hearing anything back. I spent a lot of the weekend keyed up and nervous about trying to land a job that I really, really want, and now I have nothing to say one way or the other, except that I heard rather a lot about the individual projects I could potentially be involved in, and they are really cool, though they are mostly just skeletons of plans right now. Big, creative projects. I never feel great coming out of job interviews - either I'm paranoid, or I'm right that I often seem off-putting as a first impression - and now I just feel heartsick, because I really do want this job in a way that you can't be excited about, oh, a call center job (hello, CIBC call center information session at six this evening), and I still feel like I came across poorly. I won't even find out any time soon - no one is getting hired for another month or so because there is federal-level funding paperwork to be figured out still.
I did spend the morning at the office getting things ready for the festival, which is an odd feeling, doing it all over again. It's good to be busy.

flat

I have had a very busy week, compared to the past few months.

On Monday, Sean and I completely rearranged the kitchen and office and bedroom, and also tore apart part of the living room. The house hasn't quite recovered yet, nor has Tonks, who has a small breakdown whenever she thinks we might be moving.

On Wednesday, I started visiting random HR people with Gail in the hopes that someone would take an interest in my resume and find a use for a kid with a BA in their IT company, which is not as hopeless as it sounds. It was really terrifying at first, but when I got used to it - two or three visits in - it was only somewhat terrifying. I'm a sort of shy person, I suppose, and not really used to selling myself to people I've just met. It's good practice, though, and you never know what is going to come of it. We did some more on Thursday, and by the end of the day on Thursday we had probably visited about twelve businesses and handed out lots of resumes. I also sent out a plethora of online applications and cover letters and resumes, which is probably less helpful than face-to-face meetings, but not a bad thing.

I also recieved an email on Thursday asking me to come in and help Amy with the festival things at the NBCC, which wasn't a huge shock - Amy is essentially doing at least two fulltime jobs right now - but a welcome diversion from combing online job postings and fretting and trying to finish setting the house to rights. Friday, then, I went in for the afternoon and figured out what I needed to do.

And while I was there, I got another surprise - an email from the woman who is hiring for a job that I really, really want, asking me to come in and chat next week. I had honestly thought that she wasn't going to call me until August, if ever, so it was quite exciting, and I have that scheduled on Monday. She didn't call it an interview, and I'm not calling it an interview, but I'm really hopeful about it.

And yet despite being in a more productive and hopeful place than I have been in a while, I feel flattened. The air is heavy - we still haven't gotten our prophesied thunderstorms - and the apartment is in a state, and Sean is drained from the week, and while I should just take the initiative and leap into action with broom and dishsoap, I would rather just sleep, except I'm just too angry. Angry at what? I have no idea. People seem to wander aimlessly into my path or spill coffee on me whenever I leave the apartment and being in the apartment only reminds me how dumb I am to be mad at it being a mess but not wanting to clean it for the millionth time. Ugh.

Hopefully the day picks up a little. I hate to waste beautiful summer days on moods like this, but I just can't seem to kick it.

rainy june

One thing that has always struck me about traveling is how the weather acts differently in other places. When it rains in Belize, it just pours, straight down, so you look like you've been swimming with all your clothes on if you try to run more than twenty feet or so to shelter. It impressed me because aside from Japan I had never really seen that sort of unabashed rainfall without a great big storm to back it up. Here in the Maritimes, it can hang about raining lightly for days, or on-again-off-again rain pretty hard, but it rarely just sets in and stays the way other places' rain does.
Well, far be it from me to use the dreaded double c-words (_limate _hange oh no!) but this summer just feels different. Last week we had a pocket thunderstorm with high winds and unbelievable rain that threatened to spawn tornados for its entire half hour of existence, and today a rainstorm moved in that puts me in mind of countries that actually take a couple months out to have a rainy season. There was no wind, and no spells of pretending to clear up. I took the bus up to campus to bring Sean a lunch, and walked home in it; it even sounded different. There was the constant patter of soaked trees being showered on, and the gentle sssshing of big fat drops hitting the surface of water - because the sidewalks and parking lots were completely underwater. It sounded like being in the middle of a lake in the rain.

This is my first blog post since I got my beautiful new laptop in the mail, and I imagine I'll write a short catchup post about macbooks later on, but for now I'm going to welcome some company in from the rain and have a nice noodly supper.

and really bad eggs

I'm back in Fredericton for the foreseeable future, after two? three? weeks of traveling and family. Let's sum up in roughly chronological fashion:

• slammed my finger in a car door which happened to be locked at the time.
• traveled home with Gail and Mert (six hours in the car).
• traveled to Antigonish with Michelle and Scott (three hours in the car).
• found out I didn't get an archeology job.
• traveled to Halifax and back with Michelle to drop off Scott at the airport (four hours in the car).
• found out that the NBCC didn't get their grant and I was effectively unemployed.
• traveled to Fredericton on the bus (roughly five hours on the bus).
• worked a terrible morning at work.
• heard about Grandpa.
• traveled home with Mert (five hours in the car, owing to a lack of stopping for lunch).
• visitation and hanging out with lots of family.
• found out my mother had inherited a twelve gauge shotgun.
• traveled to Fredericton with the Great Peters-Admond-Mitchell Convoy (six hours and change).
• graduated with first class honours in Anthropology and Classics, without tripping on stage.
• had my hair cut by Patience shorter than it's been since approximately grade two.
• received enough money in cards to order a shiny BLACK new Macbook and, with my educational discount, a free iPod Touch.
• visited Sean's parents in very quiet and rainy Seely's Cove.

The past two days have been very social, catching up with Danielle, Megan, Marie, and others, and also giving blood and unpacking a little and unwinding. The pigeons on the roof seem to have babies in their nests, which is driving the cats utterly wild. I ordered my shiny new lappy last night. Sean and I caught up on Doctor Who and Battlestar Galactica, both of which are getting to the really intense stage of the season, and have started watching this summer's edition of So You Think You Can Dance, which is the only reality show I've ever really been able to stomach. Between the terrific music and Mary's obvious tendency to drink tall rum and cokes throughout the auditions you can really get past the nasty comments from Nigel. I finished a pair of bamboo socks for Michelle and have started a birthday pair for Sean's dad which are moving along at a good pace.
I've met with Kate about our grant situation and she's working on a few solutions, pending conversation with the executive. I'm relatively hopeful that my "vacation" will be short. I still want to rearrange the house, but I can't find the energy to do the dishes (I HATE DISHES) and that really seems like a first step, doesn't it? The only bad thing right now is that I've consistently managed to screw up my morning fried egg for the past few days, and I suppose I can live with that.