I withdrew some cash off of an expense cheque I got back from the Association. As I took a glance at my bank receipt from the automatic teller before stuffing it into my wallet I got a bit of a shock... I was like "WTF!??! I don't have that much money!" I quickly wondered who I'd have to call at BMO to see what went wrong.... but then I remembered... tax refund! Yeah! Time to pay off my credit card and perhaps invest in a short term GIC?
Life is good afterall.
- Steve
I’m probably not going to get a chance to do this in the morning, and I may not get a chance to do this for a week... So, considering it is now 12:10am, I figure I’ll write it now before going to bed. It’s kind of cheating, I know.
So what did I do today? Not as much as I had hoped. I did some work this afternoon. Sorting papers. I have so many papers and other things lying around my room (well not lying in a disorganized state – my room is fairly clean and organized – but they are there nonetheless).
I was tired though, so I ended up dozing off for an hour or two later this afternoon.
I didn’t get a chance to post anything online. I just wasn’t in the mood. If I get a chance on the plane, I will work on setting up the pages for that on my laptop.
I finished one set of the minutes I had wanted to finish. I still have one more set, which I will probably do in the morning.
I’m debating whether or not to take my digital video camera with me. I’m thinking though, I will probably not need it or get a chance to use it. In thinking back a few years to the last one of these I went to, I don’t remember a need to use it. I remember the sessions at the CFS are long, going from 9 or 10am in the morning to very late at night.
I’ll probably just take my smaller 10MP camera, and leave the bulkier digital video at home. If it was a different conference, I’d probably take it… but it’s not.
What else did I do today? I went out for dinner – or to get take out that is. Mom had a pasta dish from White Spot, while I had soup and a burger. I tried the new bigger burger, which is a bigger patty and it was filling.
After dinner, I watched some TV and then came to my room to work on minutes. Then, I did some more sorting and cleaning up of my room so that it is presentable while I am away.
Tomorrow – I have a lot to do. I plan to be up early, so I can finish the second set of minutes I am responsible for. If I have time, I’ll also do up the agenda for my finance committee meeting I am supposed to have tomorrow after Council. If I don’t get an agenda ready, I’ll probably just cancel the meeting. Right now, I just have one person for sure coming to the meeting and one possible person coming. The other two who are on my committee have not been told there is a meeting tomorrow, unless they read my report to tomorrow’s council agenda that they would have received on Saturday.
So I got some stuff done…
I did some reading this afternoon too – I’m trying to work through Stephen Covey’s “7 Habits” book, which I had started reading a year ago but never finished. It’s a good book and fits in well with my summer of self-exploration.
So tomorrow, I have to pack. My suitcase smells like mothballs as someone in our storage locker is using them. Which means everyone else who has their locker in the same space is using them now too… whether they like it or not. The strata council has posted notice asking that the mothballs be removed, but so far, they have not been removed. It’s disgusting really. The smell is so strong that you can smell it as you approach the locker room. And once you are in the locker room, it overwhelms you so that you can’t spend a lot of time in there. And once you leave, you take the smell with you as it covers your clothes and your hair, and almost anything you may have stored in the locker room. I’ve brought books up that now smell of mothballs. The toilet paper and paper towels (even though they are wrapped in plastic) also smell. It’s disgusting. When I get back, I’ll write a complaint about it to the strata, and I may even propose a bylaw amendment so that the use of mothballs is banned.
Anyway, I may not be posting much to my blog in the week to come… if I get the chance, I will, if not, see you in one week!
Take care everyone - and hey! Let's be careful out there...
- Steve
What follows is the work I did on another exercise from Julia Cameron's book "The Right to Write: An Invitation and Initiation into the Writing Life"...
Writing helps us map our interior world. Part of laying track is letting ourselves imagine what directions we might like to lay it in. This helps you get a sense of your emotional geogrpahy... Take fifteen minutes and write... as fast as you can, about the kinds of writing it would be fun to do."
I used to write regularly. I haven't in a long time. I've actually bombed a few creative writing classes because I felt like I was stuck in a rut and unable to write. But I enjoy writing and exploring my thoughts. In the end, I just have to do it.
I like all kinds of writing... short fiction, poetry, non-fiction and screenplay. I'd really like to get back into poetry and creative non-fiction. This very blog is a work of non-fiction. I enjoy writing about myself and the world around me.
Poetry is fun, but it isn't easy. It does take work. I know I can come to understand the world of poetry on a deeper level. Poetry has its own unique set of definitions and techniques that lead to a world of possibilities.
Finally, I'd like to work on turning some of my story ideas into screenplays and / or teleplays.
But I have to do it. No more putting off for tomorrow what can be done today.
Good morning... It’s grey and cloudy out again. But it does not appear to be raining.
I slept in again. It’s 11:39am, and I woke-up about forty minutes ago.
I was up late last night cleaning. I had a small pile of DVDs outside of my closet, that I had not made room for on the shelves inside my closet. So, last night, I made room for them and put half of them away. There are still more to be put away but I will probably wait until after I come back before finishing that job. I was able to vacuum my floor and use hardwood floor cleaner on it. I dusted my shelves, nightstand and dresser. So things in my room are cleaner now.
I’ve been wasting too much time playing “Internet Reversi,” a free game that comes with Microsoft Windows XP. The game is almost as addicting as Facebook, and you can waste just as much time with it as you do on Facebook. In fact, I’m playing it right now, when I should be concentrating on my morning pages.
It’s now 1:10pm. I took time away from these pages to go have some cereal. I then wasted time online, browsing around. I de-fragmented my hard drive. I fixed a towel rack that had come crashing down.
And I just ate lunch. A chicken sandwich. I did some light packing in preparation for my trip to Ottawa. I leave on Wednesday. My little dog Kikko is crying by the bedroom door. I’m done my sandwich and so she has it in her mind that she just has to go to see what Mom could be eating.
This is kinda cool to see: New recycling targets set
Translink makes me really mad…
As I posted earlier, I’m not happy with the fact that bus fares are going to increase in January. It seems like they just went up. Also, Translink is moving more and more towards an honour based system across the entire system – whereby drivers will no longer enforce riders to pay or show proof of payment. In addition to not having turnstiles at our Skytrain stations, Translink is doing a great job at not ensuring people pay. Furthermore, how can they track ridership if people do not have to clock in. If I remember correctly, in New York City, even those with monthly farecards are tracked because they swipe their cards every time they go on a bus or onto the subway. In Vancouver, there is no way to tell how often someone uses a bus pass. And that’s sad.
Hopefully the businesspeople who will be running Translink when its new model is created will have the business sense to put in a proper system that ensures the majority of riders pay and one that tracks how often people actually use the system, regardless of how they pay. Then maybe they can justify future increases.
Not in the mood to write…
I’m not in the mood to write today. Not that moods matter. They don’t. So I’ll just keep on writing even if the writing hurts and I’d rather be doing something else. Even though I feel as grey as the cloudy sky outside.
Website work…
I haven’t done much to my own website lately. I’m going to try and post online today copy of complaints related to the 2005 Kwantlen University College Board of Governors election that I felt was improperly handled. Apparently there are complaints surrounding the 2007 election that are also not being properly handled. I personally feel that Kwantlen needs to wake up and put in place a proper quasi-judicial system for any student lodged complaint. When it comes to student complaints, Kwantlen just doesn’t seem to get it.
I’d also like to see the new Regional University Act address this lack of procedure by having within the act allowances for each school having an independent and autonomous Ombudsperson with the power to investigate and report on both the University and the Student Association.
There is something else that I wanted to post about in relation to my website, but I can’t think of what it was right now.
It will come to me.
Oh, on another note - I really like the University of Alberta Students’ Union website.
Other KSA Work…
Not too much else is going on. I have to make an agenda today for tomorrow’s finance committee and I should get some minutes done that I’ve been putting off doing for a while now. I keep meaning to get to it but other stuff comes up.
I’ve also been struggling with the fact that we haven’t really opened much up in terms of our staff positions, especially at a senior level. There are some cases where I am fine with the fact that we did not open up a position – such as with our General Manager or our Financial Controller. In those cases, we essentially restored things to where they were prior to the pervious administration. But there are other positions that should have been opened up for competition (such as more of our Member Services / Business Office positions, or the Commercial Services Manager). It just keeps eating away at me when it should not. I think it has the perception of looking bad – that we just hire friends or family when I know this is not the case. I have brought this complaint forward already, and will be addressing it when we revise our Hiring Procedure in June. We can’t deal with it sooner because Mohammad Kallas is on leave (in order to pass or amend Executive Procedures, all members of the Executive Board have to be present at an official meeting of the Executive Board). Whenever we don’t open something up for competition, I think we are taking the easy route. And in the end, I don’t think students elected us to take the easy route. We have to do what is right.
I’m also frustrated with the drawn out process of finding a Speaker and hiring an Ombudsperson. The Ombudsperson issue is tied up right now because of the situation with the union, but we should have a Speaker by now. Like many of our positions, we haven’t posted the position publicly, but we have received resumes. I think I will put forward a motion on this issue at Council tomorrow – that the General Manager and the Primary Appointments Committee post the position from the time the General Manager returns from vacation until the 4pm on Thursday, June 14 (with postings going across all campuses and online, and via any other forum as the GM sees fit such as newspapers, etc.); and that the Primary Appointments Committee meet to review submissions on Friday, June 15, with any necessary interviews being conducted the week of June 18 with a recommendation for hire going to Council by the end of June.
I haven't seen any more articles online regarding the situation with Takhar or Daljit Sandhu.
Anyway, I’ve been avoiding writing my pages this morning – I’m half way through the middle of page three. It's kinda like how I've been avoiding exercise over the last few days. All day, I’ve been wandering back and forth from my computer to do other things (including staying at my computer to play Internet Reversi). It’s time to get some real work done.
- Steve
PS. Looking outside, it's now partly cloudy (or partly sunny - however you want to view it).