Start Your Engines

I was gone all weekend at choir retreat, which was lots of fun; more on that when I actually have time to write about it and no economics assignment to do.

As of today, the school year has really picked up. The time commitment to choir is bonkers, there are assignments coming at me left, right, and centre, and I have a job! A real job! And what's more, it involves solar power. The people I'll be working with seem really nice, very passionate about their work, and well-informed besides. I am ultra-psyched to start work Wednesday.

I celebrated my new job by going to business class and instantly getting in a bad mood. Said mood was mostly inspired by the way everybody who knows me well in the class instantly knew that on a mildly bogus list of personal styles in teamwork, mine was "maintains harmony". The "maintains harmony" type's reactions to stress and conflict were quite close to what I usually do, too. It's not that harmony maintenance is a bad thing, it's just not a particularly dramatic gig and worrying about people getting along is an excellent route to a Charlie Brown stomachache. So cheers to me and my predictability, and to Charles Schultz as well.

To relieve my bad mood, I went shopping alone after school and bought myself a new pair of sneakery shoes, although the Rideau Centre was eerily uncooperative at first. Foot Locker had some shoes I liked but not in my size, and every time I turned around to request a size, the Foot Locker guy had vanished. Athlete's World had mostly ugly, ugly, uncomfortable shoes and a salesboy giving off serious stalker vibes ("Do you go to Ottawa U? Oh, that's odd, I can usually tell. Carleton, then? What program? You're not from Toronto, are you? Where are you from?"). Oh, and no sizes either. For a while I thought maybe I was on Candid Camera. I was practically waving money in the air, because my dress shoes were hurting my feet, and still no dice. Sears finally came through for me, though, just before I had to run to choir practice through the light rain. All I'm saying is, retail therapy should maybe try to be a little more therapeutic in future.

So... let the Stressathon begin!