Tonight, I went to the first of what will soon be many back-to-school shindigs. As tomorrow is Labour day and meetings start early next week, summer is almost officially over.

I had such grand ideas and plans and expectations for this summer - I'm trying to think of even one area of my life where I even came close to those expectations. Whether it be work, productivity, health and exercise, socializing or anything else - this summer was a blatant failure.
As I claim far too often, I'm going to use this as a chance for a fresh start.

I definitely got into a bad rut during the summer. Things are different enough now that I will try to shift everything rather than little by little.

I'm excited to sell/pawn my crappy keyboard. All keyboards are crappy, so the prospect of getting a piano really excites me. Also, living right downtown, there are 2 pawnshops that I can go to within a minute walk! I can't even remember what I paid for the keyboard so I'd be happy to get anything more than fifty bucks. Of course I'll haggle with them - that's the fun part!

Things are really up in the air still, and boxes are a'clutterd, but I'm officially at home here in the new apartment.
I'm getting along great with the new roommate. We're currently looking into renting a piano for the year. This would make me beyond happy!
I'm ready in mind to get the new school year started, but not in preparation... Anyway It will be good to get the year started.

I'm moved into the new apartment and I love it!
There are still a lot of boxes in the way of feeling completely moved in, but it already felt odd going to my other apartment to clean.
It only took me 15 seconds of outside time to get to work yesterday. I could have made it last 1 or 2 minutes by going to the lights to cross, but that seemed excessive.
Once again - free cable. I'm less excited about it this time; I was actually hoping I wouldn't have it so that I could focus on work. I guess I'll have to be my own motivation this year and not get suckered into sloth.

This is my last post from my first apartment in London.
I moved a fair bit of stuff today with the help of my friend Judles and tomorrow morning I pick up the rental van. By tomorrow evening/night, I will be officially moved into the new apartment. Tomorrow is going to be a long day!
I'm very glad I have this extra week or so to move, rather than having to do everything on September 1'st. I'll have time if I forgot to pack something, or to come back and clean.

I've enjoyed this apartment, but it's time to move on. I'm convinced that the change in venue and surroundings will be exactly what I need for this next year.

Moving reminds me of how much stuff I have - I wish I had less. I'm going to donate a bunch of clothes to the goodwill - uprooting things gives the opportunity to see what you haven't worn all year.

Oh yes, I'm definitely going to enjoy the central air tomorrow night in my new apartment!

Ooopsie, I need to go to bed... staying up too late won't be good for tomorrow.

goodnight and goodbye from quaint little Cartwright St.

Today was a very productive day - and it's only 2pm!

I went and got the keys to my new apartment. Included with the apartment are a couch, a chair, and a nice round, wooden dining room table. Can you believe that every wireless network within range was secured?!? At least people are learning their lessons - but I wish there were more trusting people who like to share their networks...

I bought deodorant. The brand I use has a new flavour - I'm very excited to try it out!

I got a membership at the YMCA on my way home. I'm realizing that going back to school this year won't really give me any schedule, as I have no classes, so I'm going to use swimming in the mornings to impose some kind of daily routine. Also, the goal is to be somewhat less fat and lazy this year.

I'm up too late considering the next few days/weekend.
Tomorrow I have a meeting with my department head - nothing major, just the beginning of the year thingy to make sure I have everything covered.
Friday is the day I get possession of the new apartment. I wrote out the post-dated cheques today - it took longer than I expected. I can't seem to find a car to borrow, so I don't think I'll end up doing any moving this weekend. I'll spend all of Sunday putting things in boxes and then I have a rental cargo van for Monday. So much organizing to do.

I got an email yesterday saying that I will get to coach a chamber group in improv next year, but they don't know if it will be for credit or not. Either way (possibly dependant on...) I need to come up with a projected course outline stating how I will approach the learning and implementation of improvisation and what my goals would be for the ensemble. I need to get this done quick, so I can go back to the other things on the list - compositions and thesis proposals and whatever else...

Oh my gosh, next week is the last full week of summer! School starts on the fourth, and while I know that doesn't realy have a bearing on me, it's putting things in perspective.
Yikes!

Almost a whole week...

Time seems to be moving so quickly these days.
By next weekend, I will have possession of my new apartment and I'll start to move some boxes over little by little.
In a little over 2 weeks, school will be starting.
In about 2 months, I will be fully into my thesis as well as SSHRC, and doctoral applications.
In a little over 8 months, I will be finished my Master's degree.

It's all a little much to think about at this point. I'm taking things one-thing-at-a-time - first I'll be overwhelmed by the apartment move, then with the rush to be productive in the last weeks before school, and then everything else will fall into place.

Especially after the last few weekends in Toronto, I'm thinking that I will more than likely move there in the near future. I'll apply to a few programs for DMA studies. I'll go wherever I get in, but if I don't get in anywhere, I could see myself just moving to Toronto and working there for a while. Once again, I state my complete lack of any idea of where my life is headed at this point!

Toronto this weekend was exactly what I needed.
I was mainly going to visit my friend Chris and even though he was super busy and tuckered out from excessive opera preparations, it was great to visit! I met some new friends, other singers in the same production as him. I helped him find a very decent apartment in downtown Toronto - I'm glad to know that he now has a place to live next year, and there's one more floor in Toronto that I can sleep on if need be!

I also had two separate meetings with my thesis adviser and second reader. I got some really good tips and guidance as to what I need to change, and further address in my thesis proposal.
Also, I've been given a short term deadline to start getting some musical examples underway.

It's official, I signed the lease on the awesome new apartment downtown.
The location and rent are better than I ever could have hoped! Both of the apartments were still available so we took a look at the front one with the big windows. A(u)nt fell in love with it. I was not immediately sold on it because the smaller bedroom is only a little larger than the one in which I am currently living. After a short discussion, we agreed that I'd have my workspace out in the common area - right by the beautiful big windows! That means that I will have a slightly larger bedroom to house even less stuff - I'm confident that I will be comfortable with the living arrangements.
The lease starts September first, but the landlord said we can move in as soon as the hydro is in our name - so that should happen in about a week or so!

In other news, I bought a cell phone today. It's a talk-and-pay one from Telus. I wasn't completely sold on any of the plans from any of the companies - All I want is call display and voice mail, but you have to buy an add on for any of the rate plans. The one I got includes both of those and I can keep the number active for only 10 bucks a month. If I find I'm spending enough money on calls to warrant it, I can just switch into a Telus rate plan at any time, without a contract. More than likely, I'll end up doing that in a few months - that way I'll have saved 150$ on the phone, and I won't have to pay the one-time activation fee. I guess it all depends how much I'll be using it.

I'm going to Toronto this weekend to visit my favourite new Torontonian, Chris! I also have meetings with both of my thesis advisers/readers. I'm excited to not have to work or go to church this weekend - yay!

Tomorrow at noon - Lease Signing. I'm meeting my roommate for breakfast before that.

This weekend - going to Toronto. Mostly, I'm going to visit my friend who is doing an opera program. I will also be meeting with my second reader for my thesis.

Work makes me somewhat happy - not the actual work, though it isn't terrible, but the state of having work to do. The money aspect of it is important, but there's also the fact that it gives me a schedule - albeit a bad one - which actually helps me to be productive on my writing.

Everything moves at its own pace.

It's August. Summer has gone far too quickly. I have so much writing to get done while it's still summer. All of the projects I've been working on are far behind schedule - I am going to have to buckle down right about now.

It's August. I submitted a permissions request for a set of poems last year in about June - I intended to use them for Andrea's song cycle. They told me the process would take between 8-10 weeks. By this time last year I was already expecting to hear a response. After my emails received responses but not action, by the time September rolled around, I gave up on getting the rights, so I tossed the poems aside.

Today, my parents received a 6 page contract from the publisher detailing their claim to performance and publications rights and my rights and this and that! Long story short, I'm glad I didn't wait for the response. There is a huge variation in the restrictions of a permissions agreement- sometimes they want just a token fee and you can use it like you want [One of the poems I used was this case], sometimes they only want a percentage of the profit you make [for art music, this is possibly the best], but the worst case scenario is that they want both money upfront and a cut of your profit. Although I will read it over for details, this publisher wants one-hundred pounds upfront and then 50% of any profit made owing to the use of that text.

In conclusion 8-10 weeks equals 10-14 months!

So, I had seen a great apartment right downtown the other day. I didn't have high expectations because of the cost (cheap) in relation to the other one I had previously viewed, just a block over.
I was wrong - this place was fantastic and we went full steam ahead with the rental application.
I went to drop off my application today, expecting to maybe hear back in a few days. I ended up talking to the landlord, and even before handing over my application, he was convinced that I was the right tenant.
He promised to hold the apartment for us, and next Tuesday, my roommate A(u)nt will be coming into London; we will sign the lease and it will be ours.

I am very very very excited!

Work is also going very well. I keep selling things fairly consistently. It seems that I will keep my job for a while at least!

Over the last few weeks, I've been a busy little bee , buzzing around to all sorts of apartments. Somehow, I got looking at mostly apartments around a grand a month, and that was sorta stressing me out, cause I don't want to spend that much. Mostly it was the fact that they weren't as spectacular as that first one I went to; they were making me wonder if they were worth the money, or what I would expect for that amount.

Today I went to two apartments significantly cheaper than the others and, you know what? They were AOK. One of them was carpeted througout in pink, so I'm not sure how my roommate will feel about it. The other one was a little small, so I'll pass on it. The main thing is that they were no-where near as bad as I was expecting considering the price drop.
Tomorrow I see another one in my happy price range. I don't have terribly high expectations, but we'll see. It's in the same city block as the first awesome apartment I saw downtown, but at 70% the price, I'm not sure how it will compare!

About a year ago, I went for a dilated pupil exam at my optometrist. The experience left me feeling not so hot. He looked into my eyes and told me that I had some nonproliferative retinopathy. There was nothing that I could see or feel that was wrong, and the only thing I could do was to generally improve my control. He said it wasn't anything to worry about, but I had a hard time believing him.

This morning, I went for another checkup and things were a little different. They had special retinal imaging cameras, so I actually got to see what the optometrist was seeing at a really high resolution. She pointed out the one tiny hemorrhage I have, and she compared it to examples of problem eyes. She said it was the smallest hemorrhage possible, so she's not worried at all. Now I'm not worried at all.
She actually asked if my control was worse last year, because what she saw wouldn't even warrant diagnosing nonproliferative retinopathy. She said that good control can actually improve small hemorrhages, so that might have been what happened.

Better diabetes control is always my goal, so it almost goes without saying. The prospect of having a pump does two things: immediately, I'm going to tighten control so I have better ideas of my carb ratios, and once I get my pump I will tighten control even further.

So, I'm oblivious to many things - but this one takes the cake.
Background... I've called my parents a fair number of times this last year, most of them at night, or late evening. I know my mom is a night owl, so I figured it wasn't all that bad. More than a few times, it's been 2am and I've called to chit-chat because I knew she'd still be up at midnight.
NEWSFLASH - there is only a ONE-hour time difference between London and Winnipeg!
Somehow, these times I've called at 1am just to gab, it's never come up...

Tonight however... I was thoroughly convinced that my work was greatly mistaken cause there must be a 3 hour time difference between London and Edmonton, based on my relation to Alberta based on Winnipeg. Anyway, I felt silly! Oh well... it's only been 10 months - now I know!

I can't remember the last time that I felt cool in my bedroom. I have my window open and there is a very nice cool sensation coming in. It's not breezy, just cool enough to be perfect.

After making two sales last night, I made another sale at work tonight. I'm not delusional enough to think that it's going to continue easily, but I'll admit it feels good to be doing well-ish at work.

Just in time - please don't tease me.

Read this, well mostly just the first paragraph.

Long story short, I might be getting an insulin pump. I'm in touch with my nurse/insulin pump supplier lady and she says that we'll know what we can do later this week.
This would be a wonderful birthday present!

Sometime in the last few days, I reached a decision that I've been pondering for a while - I am going to do doctoral studies after I finish my masters at Western.
While this might think like an early thought considering I've only half-finished my current degree, but applications for grad schools is December-ish.
Uh oh, I'm realizing that that is the same time as my tentative deadline for my un-orchestrated thesis.
Never mind, it will all get done, and done well!

This means lots of things: moving to somewhere new and exciting (a big city, perhaps), settling down for about 4 years (maybe being reunited with Perta, my long lost Czech lover), and who knows what else!
I've looked at a few schools; I'd like to avoid the GRE if possible, but I would like to apply at a few U.S. schools. I'm not going to think too much about it at the moment - lots to still do. Once I start meeting with my thesis adviser, I will also ask him for some thoughts/advice.

I hate this feeling I'm having right now. I can barely describe it, other than just extreme frustration. There's no logic or specific target, just irritation and frustration.

It's not uncommon. I either feel this way when my sugars are low, but not too low; or when I'm overly hot and humid.
I hate this weather.

It's currently causing me to be more passive-aggressive than normal. Now, more than any other time in my life, I'm exhibiting much caution in what I say/how I react to others.
Normally, I try to be fairly direct, but I know if I am direct while feeling this way, I will get myself in trouble.

I really really really want to bitch and tell someone off right now, but I'm biting my tongue. On one hand, it's better that I don't speak my mind because I might go overboard, but there's also the concern that I'm not speaking for my side of the problem...
I will find a way to speak my mind sometime this weekend while I'm in an air-conditioned room.


I think I was dehydrated this evening. I had a rare headache tonight - I say rare, because I can count on my hands the number of non diabetes-related headaches I've had in my life, and this was one of them.

Sprouting off of the good-news tree, I made another sale tonight! The new campaign was not so hot, but it will get better.
Speaking of work, I work tomorrow morning... Yuck, but fun!

God I hate this heat - it feels like 31 out, and there's no air conditioning/air circulation in my room.

In conclusion, I'm pissy, but not too badly.

Today, I will be adding a second campaign to my telephone job. Still to date, I've only made one sale.
Rather than just working 4-hour shifts, I will now be working 6 hour shifts - basically a 50% earnings increase. Plus, my theory is that the more I work, the more likely I am to make more sales.

In other news, it's damned hot outside; I dislike it immensely.

I double checked some deadlines for some of the summer projects I've taken on and it turns out to be some good news. One of them is nowhere near as pressing as I thought, so I will set it aside for the rest of the summer and I'll have more time for the other things.
While I'm still not getting things done, I'm starting to feel like I'm getting things done.