Taking Inventory

It seems that I only post up when I have an excessive number of items of my to do list. I mean, here it is, Sunday morning, with several hours of marking in front of me, multiple lessons to prep, and interim reports due tomorrow and here I am, writing a new blog entry. Oh, and lets not forget the fact that I have class tomorrow and have not touched my readings yet. And my housework...lets not go there.

So where have I been for the last month plus? Well, quite honestly, I've been hermiting, and doing very little. Lets take inventory:
1) Knitting: finished 2 sweaters (for me, yay!), and various other small projects

2) Reading: finished 15-20 books in the last 2 months, including Phillip Pullman's entire Dark Materials Trilogy (incl. the Golden Compass which is for my book club) over Friday and Saturday

3) Housework: managed to catch up on laundry and ironing for a lovely 2 weeks. Other wise,...still not going there.

4) Work: had a wonderful 2 weeks off mid-December, and managed to start the year refreshed, but since then have been bogged down by various and sundry. Spend the last day and a half interviewing candidates for a program next year and was pleasantly surprised by my substitute teacher - she did a great job and got everything done as I'd asked. I'm looking forward to my first "business-trip" in February. As a teacher, I don't get to travel for work very often but a group of us are going to Calgary for a day to check out an arts based school and try to learn new ways to incorporate arts into our teaching methods, for the Athena Arts program.

5) Family - managed to squeeze in 4 family dinners in as many days and then again spent time with family at New Years.

7) Going out - have been to the VSO twice, seen a few movies, went out to the Christmas panto at the Metro Theatre (a 5 minute walk from the house) and another play called "The Last Night at Ballyhoo". Went to TLN@B on Friday all by my lonesome, inspired by Sarah Jessica Parker. I saw a bit of a SITCity episode in which she described a perfect New York night for a single in which she saw a show on her own. I have such a hard time getting the Hubby out to theatre, and he was out with the "work boys" on Friday night getting liquored up, so I decided that rather than watching the schmaltzy Friday-night TV lineup to support our local theatre cooperative. I have mixed feelings about that adventure - I don't do as much by myself as I should, and am therefore proud that I went, but the play itself was lacking panache. Perhaps a 2008 resolution should be to continue to go out on my own as time allows. Anyhow, The Hubby and I also managed to make it out to the Vancouver Aquarium, (though perhaps I should put this into the "work" category as I went in preparation for a field trip) and to a Vancouver wanna-be Yaletownie restaurant-come-lounge called UnWine'd for "DineOut Vancouver". In one word, it was "meh." If friends wanted to go, I woudn't say no but I have no need to go back. I wasn't overly impressed with the wine list, nor the food. I ordered the sesame-seed encrusted, seared ahi tuna which I've had in other restaurants on several other occaisions. When its seared, it should be rare in the centre, but the outer 1/2 cm should be cooked. There were spots on my tuna which hadn't even hit the pan. Now, if I'd ordered tuna sashimi I'd be thrilled, because I do like me a good tuna sashimi, but I wan't in the mood. And I don't often send things back but I had to that night. My desert was overgarnished to compensate for the lack of flavor - a lime cheesecake should at least have a hint of citrus, and most certainly should not be less flavorful then the splashes of mango and raspberry coulis drizzled all over the plate.


Well, perhaps it hasn't been that uneventful. But I still have "miles to go before I sleep" and therefore must needs nip this in the bud. One more thing to cross off the list - first blog entry of 2008.