Yes! I am done work! Yesterday was my last day. I won’t miss getting up so early but I will kind of miss going, just because I like the people I worked with.

Last week was a pretty awesome week. On Tuesday I went to Moxies with everyone in corporate communications. I think we may have gone to Brewsters except that I am like… the only minor in that whole company! But Moxies was great. Then on Wednesday I went in to school to pick up my schedule and get my picture taken and everything. I like my schedule although I didn’t get Miss Tworek for chemistry. The one thing that really sucks though is that Jen isn’t with Kim and Katie and me for art. So this year isn’t going to be as fun as last year was.

After going to school I went out for lunch at South Centre with Kim and Mark and Scotty. It was awesome—I love Teen burgers. Angie and Jared picked me up from there and Angie and I went to the Clayground to paint pottery. That was also awesome—I love painting.

Thursday was a basically normal day except that I went to the Calgary Tower for lunch with Manuela! And after work I went to youth group and that’s always fun. Yesterday I had Chinese food with Connor and Dillon.

My little Connor is in junior high! No, I refuse to believe it. I’ll be over here looking at baby pictures…

Today I went back to school shopping with my mom. Bought some clothes and a binder. Exciting stuff!

Awe. I love Angie.

Yeah, that’s basically all I can think of to say.

“Sans toi, les émotions d’aujourd’hui ne seraient que la peau morte des émotions d’autrefois.”

Fridays are so great!

And this weekend is going to be great too, because I don’t have to get up early and I might be wedding dress shopping with Kristen!

Today for lunch I went to Subway with Sandra and it was also great! So great is just a great word that applies to a lot of stuff today!

I think it is painfully obvious that meese are most closely related to the crow genus and thus would be referred to as a murder. “Look mom, there goes a murder of meese!” —Mike

I see the light at the end of the tunnel—just six days left of work and since I have to go to school on Wednesday, the days are all in groups of two. Two days of work, weekend, two days of work, school, two days of work, fin.

I miss everyone. Need movie night.

Hopefully on Monday I’m going to go paint ceramics with Angie. And not a day too soon. I need to paint something. I haven’t held a brush in so long. I still haven’t even finished one canvas this summer. Getting there though.

I’m feeling ‘meh’. That’s right, meh is a feeling and that’s how I’m feeling so I’m feeling meh.

Mostly I’m just surprised at my intense apathy lately. And I’ve decided that it’s just the infamous post-mission low that a lot of people talk about. Although I don’t know how long it’s supposed to last. I’ve been home from Winnipeg for more than a week now.

I want work to end but I don’t really want school to start. I can’t wait so see everyone though. The bad thing about the summer job was that it more or less cut me off from my school friends. And lots of them are working or on vacation so that doesn’t make it easier. I was trying to co-ordinate a day with Alex that more than four of us could go bowling, but it’s just not possible anymore. And I haven’t seen Scott since Kim’s amazing BBQ right at the end of June.

Work itself is going alright. All that’s left of the filing system project is to put the old files in order, log them and send them to off-site storage (or in Sandy’s words, “file heaven”). I’ll bet there are more riveting tasks headed my way, though.

Just eight more days of work.

It is so hard to believe that the last day of day camp is finished. In some ways it is such a relief, but I really am going to miss the kids. On Tuesday, one little girl named Michelle put a bracelet on my wrist while I was standing at the door. She ran off afterwards, so at the end of the day I asked her if I was supposed to keep it. Yes, she replied, because she had another one just like it at home. I was very touched at her generosity and wanted to give her something in return. In the evenings to follow I made her a bracelet out of embroidery thread with all the colours I could manage. On Thursday I gave it to her, and today I noticed that she was still wearing it. That just blessed my heart immensely. This way, maybe she’ll remember me even after I’m gone.

Before leaving for this trip I was organizing my office’s advertising file when I came across a pamphlet requesting aid for a child-mentoring program. I am aware that a table full of psychologists aiming only to obtain volunteers and donations probably carefully worded this phrase, but it touched me nonetheless. It read, “in one hundred years, no one will know what kind of house you lived in, what kind of car you drove or how much was in your bank account. But the world might be different because you were important in the life of one child.” If that is true, then I hope it’s not too unrealistic for me to think that perhaps, by God’s grace in pulling us through this, we have changed the future ever so slightly for the better by coming here. And that is just an overwhelming thought.

There were actually twelve on the Winnipeg team. God Himself took charge and lead us through this experience. This has been an incredible week and I’d do it again in a second.

We’re all alright! We’re all alright!

Today was freakin’ awesome! First I had lunch at Moxies with Manuela. I was concerned that we for some reason would not be able to find each other, but everything worked out just fine. I had a bit of a scare on Thursday, though. My department was on phone relief this week, and that means one person has to take their lunch break one hour late, and answer the phones for the whole floor while they’re out for lunch. So I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to go with Manuela because I’d be stuck with phone relief duty. So right in the morning I tell Sandy that I have lunch plans on Friday and I can’t take a late lunch that day. She says it’s all taken care of, but later on she asks if I can move my lunch plans… eventually it turned out that Sara would do it and I would just be forever indebted to her…

And today, being Kim’s birthday, I went out with a bunch of friends for dinner at, yes, Moxies again. Mike and I split the nachos… so good… and then we went back to Kim’s for cake.

Okay. Driving with Jen is soo fun. And we left a stalker note in Katie’s car before leaving!

Jen: Really, Kim. I don’t know if you want your soul back at this point. You don’t know where it’s been.

Oh. my. gosh.

They sell BLTs in the cafeteria of my office building. How exciting!! I hadn’t even noticed before today. I am so having one of those every day now. I had one for lunch this afternoon. So good…

I’m pretty happy at this point. Only one day left of work before Winnipeg—and it’s going to be only Sara and me in the office, and I’m going for lunch with Manuela, and I’m driving with Jen to Kim’s birthday dinner. Yes, if all goes well, tomorrow will rock my socks.

Here are the quotes of the week:

Jean: You guys need to put Sandy in an office—that way you can close the door!
Sara: Haha! ‘What’s that, Sandy?’ slam!

Sandy: Oh, for crying in the dark, these files have been here since the beginning of doggoned time!

Katie: I can’t believe that woman gave me life…

It was strange—today I was on the train, just like every day, and suddenly I felt overheated. My heart started to beat too quickly and my vision messed up. Next I knew, I was on the floor. Everyone was staring at me, the train had stopped and the driver was beside me, asking if I needed medical assistance.

I felt fine, though. This one guy said I should go to the doctor because he thought I’d had an Epileptic seizure. I think I’m going to wait to see a doctor. If it happens again, then I will. I have a feeling it was a one-time thing. I hope it was. Everyone seems to have pretty good suggestions as to why it may have happened. My grandma thinks I don’t eat enough—go figure.

You know what? Summer is summer, even if I do have to work for most of it. I still have great times with my friends when I get together with them. And if anything, having to work weekdays has only made me cherish even more the time I spend with the people I love.

I sit here and compare my July calendar of this summer to my July calendar of last summer. Despite working forty hours a week (and spending ten hours in commute), I have still managed to do things with my summer. That makes me very happy.

I’m still rather looking forward to school, though.