What's with this?

Well, here's another depressing Blog.  Hopefully the last depressing one for quite some time.

One of the secretaries down the hall called in this morning.  Her 22 year old daughter's boyfriend found her dead on the couch last night.  He left her napping there when he went to work, and when he came back she was dead, still on the couch.  She was seemingly very healthy.  i can't fathom having to bury one of my children.  It's just inconceivable.

Another secretary down the hall had a call from her husband.  A friend of theirs who was going to retire at the end of the year had a stroke and died.  He was 55.  

The world can be such a cruel, hard place.  So much sadness and tragedy.  I listened to the news on the radio this morning while I got ready for work.  Now I remember why I stopped listening to or reading the news.  It's all bad, and it's repeated every 30 minutes for your listening pleasure.

After all this, people wonder why I want to fill my life with happy things, experiences and new adventures.  

Carpe Diem, I say.

Me and my books

I have this thing for books.  I absolutely love them.  It doesn't really matter what kind of book it is either.  Could be reference, fiction, cookbook, atlas, how-to, different time periods, non-fiction, even dictionaries and anthologies - whatever works for me.  Which makes me wonder...   When and if we ever get ourselves to Mexico, what am I going to do with all these books?

I can't see myself giving them away, although that would make the most sense.  There are some that I'd want to bring with me and some that I might consider giving to my son (who by the way is afflicted with the same problem).  

Wherever we went there would have to be an English library.  I would, of course, continue my love affair with Amazon as well.  But if we end up only being there for a year, that means that I'd have to curb my addiction for books, otherwise I'd end up trying to haul a bunch of new books back from Mexico to Canada.

Maybe I should have developed an addiction to something easier.....

Ups and Downs

The last little while has been full of 'em.  Ups and downs, arguments, excitement...  You name it.  It's been like an emotional roller coaster that has just drained me.

I have only told a handful of people about Mexico.  This is mostly because I'm terrified of their responses.  I don't want people to think that I'm some flaky chick making bad decisions, which some people are likely to think because they're completely uneducated about Mexico.

I think I mentioned that I told my mother, and she has refused to even acknowledge the fact that I mentioned it.  Either that, or she's forgotten.  I'm leaning towards refusing to acknowledge it though.

I told one friend who thought it was a pretty cool idea, but she hasn't said another word about it, and didn't mention it to her husband either.  These two are pretty good friends of ours.

I told another friend over email, and he thought it was really neat, but admitted it wasn't his cup of tea.  He was full of questions though, so at least I knew he was interested.

I told one friend at work, and she giggles, mostly because she knows me well enough to know that doing something like this is right up my alley.

Now for Gerald, the husband of note.

He stopped talking about it all together for quite a while.  Then when I'd say something, he had nothing positive to say at all.  Just lists of negatives that he spewed off.  Some were valid points, some were touching on the ridiculous.  We actually had a really big fight over it, and I haven't really spoken about Mexico since with him.  He's changed his tune somewhat, trying to convince me that he really does want to go.  He sends me links to interesting websites, makes comments and such, but I just don't know what to say to him when he brings it up.  

I'm upset about all of this.  What should have been a really cool and exciting time for us, filled with planning and talking, learning a new language together, and making decisions has become an unhappy, stress-filled, miserable time.  He says he wants to go, and I believe him to a certain point.  I don't know though how much he really wants to go, and how much of this is him saying he does because he knows how badly I want this.  He's looked into jobs, and done a bit of research.  I'm happy that he went that far.  His only two options would be selling time share real estate and teaching English.  He seems far more interested in the real estate part than teaching, which is probably a good thing.  He has years of sales experience behind him, although not in real estate.

He says he's happy to go for a year, and then who knows.  Maybe we'll come back, maybe we wont.  I'm not going to limit myself though.  If we want to stay, then why come back?  Who knows, maybe I'll want to come back and he won't.

One of his points was the language barrier.  My point was that the only language barrier that exists is him - he has ample time to learn the language with me.  He just chooses not to.  I see that as "his" language barrier.  

It's been a very frustrating time.  I want to believe him but I'm having a hard time with it.  

I'm looking forward to our week in Playa del Carmen this summer.  I'm hoping that being there, even if it's only for a week, will open his eyes a little.  I know he'd love living there, but he's focusing so strongly on the things that scare him, instead of the things that he'd love.  He says he'd miss a lot of things.  But so would I!  Is that any reason to sacrifice trying new things?  Not in my eyes, but I know everyone is different.

I know this posts is going left and right and up and down and sideways.  I'm just writing whatever happens to come to mind, so bear with me.....

Sad news brings reminders

I'm quite active on a greyhound forum, and have been for about 3 years.  I found out today that one of the members, who was only in her thirties, died unexpectedly of a brain aneurism.  What sad, horrible news.  My heart goes out to her husband and hounds who have to go on without her.  She was an incredibly generous, caring and compassionate woman, who always had time for everyone.

Her passing is another reminder of just how short life is.  We never know how brief our time here may be, and so we should remember to make the most of it.  Live passionately, happily and generously.  

Here's to you, Trish.  The bridge called home another angel today.

Some other plans

Like I don't have enough on my plate already, I've decided to tackle something that I've wanted to do for a very long time.  

When I was much younger and had oodles of free time on my hands to pursue whatever fancy happened to strike me, I spent a lot of time writing fiction.  Mostly short stories, a little poetry, a few small novellas.  For me it was a way to escape reality for a little while, creating, molding and fabricating a world far from my own. 

Back then I loved authors like Stephen King for example, and my own writing tended to emulate that genre of the bizarre - strange characters and strangers story lines.

I come by my love for literature honestly enough.  In our house growing up, if you didn't have a book in your hand, you'd likely die of boredom.  No one talked.  No one discussed current affairs or even compared notes on whatever piece of fiction you were currently engrossed in.  Nope, we all read to ourselves.

This, of course, cause a myriad of problems for me a little later in life when I realized in my failing first marriage that I had no idea how to communicate.  Give me a pen and paper and I could write pages of detailed explanations on my feelings and thoughts.  As soon as I opened my mouth though, words failed me.  It took years to get past that and figure out how to sit and talk to someone about problems and life.

Fast forward to now.

I still love literature (hence half my bachelor's degree in English literature) and I still love to write, although I've broadened my horizons encompassing more than just the weird.  

So, I've decided to write a book.  I won't give anymore information than that though.  It's not even fiction which surprises me, but when the idea popped into my head a few weeks ago I thought, "Hey!  That's a great idea!!"  (Of course I think it's a great idea - it's my own after all!)  I guess we'll have to wait and see if others think so too.

So keep watching!  One of these days I'll have this sucker done and maybe you'll even buy it!

(Now I'm imagining myself sitting in Mexico, laptop in front of me, a marguerita ready for sipping, writing away til my heart's content...  Another reason to get my butt there?  Like I needed another reason....)

A slight change in the plan

My almost 18 year old son, has CHOSEN to go to summer school this year.  Chosen.  I never mentioned a thing about it.  He's graduating this year, but decided to return to high school for an extra year before going to university so that he can bring some of his marks up and take some extra classes.

Have I mentioned how incredibly proud I am of him?  Well, I am.  He's such a great kid.

So how does this change our plans?  Well, I had originally wanted to head to Playa in July for our week's vacation, but he'll be in summer school, so now we're looking at August.

I spoke to the owner (via email) of the Plantation House in Playa, and she seems like such an interesting and really nice person!  I can't wait to meet her this summer!

We're all looking forward to this trip.  For one thing, this will likely be the last "family" trip we take for quite some time.  With Mike getting older and university on the horizon for him, taking family trips is inevitably going to get lower and lower on his list of things to do.  For Ger and I, it will be a small taste of what life in Mexico would be like away from the big resorts.  And for Meaghan, it will be her first plane ride, her first trip away from Canada (except for crossing the border into New York).  I can't wait to watch her experience everything!

Bring on Playa!!!!!

A plan for summer

Well, I think we may have a plan for this summer.

Hubby kind of wants to wait until winter, but I'm thinking more along the lines of "why not both".  (I haven't told him that yet though)

I'm hoping we can get to Playa del Carmen for a week, maybe around the beginning of July. Playa is one of the places that I want to investigate as a possible future home.  I'm still really excited about Mazatlan, but as I've complained about ad nauseum before, the cost of flying to Mazatlan from here is just not in the budget at the moment.  

I was looking for places to rent on the internet, and the Plantation House in Playa is exactly what we're looking for!  I'm not really interested in the modern "american" looking condos.  Nope.  Not for me.  One of the things that I really like about Mexico is the "Mexican feeling".  In my opinion, you just miss out on that in these new high rise condos. 

 There will probably be 5 of us going.  Hubby and I, daughter and son, and his friend.  The boys will both have graduated from high school this June, so I think they'll really enjoy this.  Besides, my son's friend who will likely be going with us is moving away this summer, and so this will be a nice time for the two of them share before he goes.

We probably wont have a bunch of money left to spend on touristy things either, but I'm more interested in checking out centro, seeing what's around within the city, and experiencing Mexico in the summer to see if Gerald and Meaghan will find the heat to be too much in area.

July seems like such a long, long way off.............

I hate exams.

With the school year wrapping up, I've been writing final essays and preparing for exams.  Last night I wrote my English exam.  It didn't go as well as planned.

I got up at 5am yesterday, ready to take on the day.  The coffee was waiting for me, thanks to the built in timer.  I poured a cup, turned on my laptop, browsed around for a bit until everyone got up, got them all out the door and got myself ready for a long day of studying.

First of all, this class was definitely not one that I particularly enjoyed.  16th Century English Literature doesn't really get me all worked up.  Since my degree is a combined degree, I have to take an equal number of French and English credits.  The english credits are broken up into time periods, and you're required to take so many credits from each time period.  Of course, I've saved the best for last....  early literature.  (There was a lot of sarcasm in that last sentence, in case you missed it.)

On the reading list, was a rather obscure English poet by the name of Isabella Whitney.  She's obscure because back in the 15th and 16th centuries, women weren't even encouraged to learn to read nevermind write, so you'll be hard pressed to find much written by women if you're looking back that far.  And trust me...  you're not missing much.

Anyway.  During classes, we spent about 30 minute discussing this person.  She wasn't high on the radar for potential exam questions.  So I thought.

As I was flipping through my notes, in the essence of making the most of my time, I considered whether it worth my time to read up on her or not.  I didn't really have any notes to speak of for her, and to be quite honest, her poetry had not been revised and edited to a more understandable version of English for us more modern people.  I passed her by, deciding to move on to poets we'd spent much more time on.

So, seated in the exam room, I get my exam question sheet.

Part A - worth 30%.

Pick 3 of the following 6 words and write a paragraph etc.

Part B - worth 30%.

Pick of the following 6 passages and write a detailed analysis.

Part C - 40%.  (This is where the problem begins)

Pick one of the following 3 topics and write an essay.

Topic 1 - Isabella Whitney - write about blah, blah, blah.

Topic 2 - Isabella Whiney - write about a different blah, blah, blah.

Topic 3 - Something else I wasn't very familiar with, AND compare this to....  of course....  Isabella Whitney

Are you %&**#$! kidding me?????

As I'm sitting there staring at the sheet, cursing like a trucker under my breath, I realize that my English mark is quickly going down the tubes.

Moving on to today.

Last weekend, I spent about 12 hours writing a very detailed essay for my french class on the effect of setting in french-canadian literature.  I WORKED on this essay.  The only thing I hadn't done was the bibliography.  I left that to tonight - The paper is due tomorrow.

So I sit down in front of my laptop, and press the "power" button.  Nothing happens.  The only sound I hear is my heart plummeting down to my ankle region.  My paper is safely stored on this laptop.  I try again and still nothing happens.  Now my mouth is doing it's best imitation of the Sahara Desert.

I tried unplugging it, hitting the power button repeatedly, plugging it back in.... this went on for the longest 2 or 3 minutes of my life.  Finally, like any self-respecting woman, I started pleading to it.  This seemed to work.  I gingerly pressed that power button one last time, and the cheerful little Apple "bing" rang like music to my ears.  My paper was saved.  

It has now been emailed to my work address, ready to be printed out and delivered safely to my prof's hands.