Nusraat

I have set a deadline for myself to finish a section of my background section by this Wednesday.  It’s the most difficult section I’ve had to right thus far.  It’s very multi-disciplinary.  Reading for this section has been very frustrating.  Similar words are used from different disciplines to mean different things.  I hate this.  I find myself doing other things instead of reading.  Why?  It’s hard.  So what?  Just sit your ass down and read.  It’s no fun.  Well that might be it.  Technical academic writing is dry.  Why couldn’t they make it more entertaining?  Why do I always need to be entertained?  Do I have ADD?  Where has my discipline gone?  I keep eating.  That is super bad.  I hate this.  I wish I could wake up tomorrow morning and I was miraculously done this section.  Forget this section, I wish I woke and tomorrow morning there was a Masters degree under my pillow.  Wouldn’t it be wonderful?  It would be from the Masters fairy.  Instead of leaving her a tooth under your pillow you leave her your… what could I give her?  My candy wrappers?  I don’t know.  It’s gotten so bad that I’m blogging again for God’s sake!  I think someone is going to have to staple my ass to my chair.  I need to be forced to do this.  Someone has to sit outside my room and force me to stay there until I’m done.  Uggggh!!!  I hate this.

This summer I worked full time at a place.  A nice place.  Although the technical elements did provide me with useful experience I learned the most from the people at this place.

There was a man on my floor who’s nothing but sunshine.  He’s upbeat, he’s an achiever he just gets all his stuff done with a smile on his face and has the energy and ability to make others smile too.  You’d never know his wife is struggling with a very difficult disease.  I had an opportunity to watch him and his wife interact and even in large groups it’s like there’s no one else.  They value each other so much.  He taught me that what ever shit you have going on you can still manage it. 

I met another guy from marketing.  He did a presentation that made a lot of sense.  He said “perception is reality”.  It doesn’t matter what kind of statistics are out there, what product or service you provide, what people perceive to be the truth is what makes customers react favourably or not.  Perception is a physical force.  The most important force in many cases.  People have such busy lives and are so distracted that there’s very little time to fact check.  You need to control your image and make sure what you put out there about your service or product is what they hear most and consequently accept.

Spent the first entire weekend in the house.  Do you have any idea how much is left to be done?  This weekend I attempted to do the kitchen.  Didn’t make it.  I also battled with the lawn.  Some progress.  Our neighbour is an elderly woman.  I think she’s significantly elderly.  While I was working out in the lawn today her daughter came by to say hello.  Her daughter looked into her 60s which means the mother’s atleast in her 70s if not 80s.  I haven’t seen my new neighbour.  I think I should offer to take care of her lawn though.  I’d really like to.  What’s the etiquette in meeting neighbours?  Do I need to bake something and walk over?  I don’t have time to bake.  Flowers.  I like flowers.  Who doesn’t like flowers?  I’ll buy some flowers and do the rounds.  When?  Grief.

I missed two community events this weekend.  One was a dinner celebrating Muslim businesses.  The other was a camp fundraiser.  It’s been a really long time since I’ve missed stuff but I think that it’s just a symptom of home ownership.  There is simply less time.  I hope and pray I will learn how to become more efficient.  I’m sort of slow with domestic tasks.  I hope to learn how to grit my teeth and just get through them.  I now have to write a report for school.  Fun.

update: someone came and did the neighbour’s lawn.  i guess our services are not required.

It’s week three/four into my move.  The first week I packed stuff, the second week I moved stuff, last I cleaned stuff.  I am trying to unpack now.  I did not take a day off work.  I couldn’t because I’ve been saving up time to go to the lab and get some Muslim Girls Camp stuff done.  I am so disoriented.  I haven’t cooked in like three weeks.  I’m surrounded by boxes and for some reason I can’t find one particular box.  I think I’m going to donate a whole lot of stuff.  There’s no reason for me to have that many serving dishes.  Ack!!  Whatever, I have to get back to work.

I was really really embarrassed today.  I took fish today for lunch at the office.  My floor has very few walls.  The whole floor is cubicles.  As I warm up the fish in the microwave and bring it to my cubby I realize I’ve done a great faux pas.  I personally couldn’t smell it.  I can’t smell so well.  I heard two co-workers confirm to each other… “fish” from their cubbies without stepping out.  They were just calling out to one another like Marco Polo or something.  I was mortified.  Then the fellow intern who’s amazing to work with, so glad I like her as much as I do, comes over and warns me I have potent fish issues.  I was so embarrassed and she tried to comfort me.  A few minutes later though she gracefully walked over to my cubby and fell apart laughing in the privacy of my cubby.  “People at the window can smell it now”, she says in between gasps of air she’s struggling to take because she’s laughing so hard.  Grief.