Here I am on your bed again-- it's too big for the room it's in.

I had a meeting with my manager today. End of the fiscal year, start of the new quarter. You know the thing. I'm coming up to my one year anniversary at work and my manager wanted to go over my results, I remarked to her how crazy it is that I lasted this long. After an hour going over various boring, financial things as I was walking out of her office she turned to me and said I'm wasting my time. Wasting my time and "not fooling anyone," were her exact words I believe.

Not really what I wanted to hear on a Friday morning. I guess it capped off the craptacular week I'd been having though. This week has been one of the worst I've had in a really long time. Career-wise, personally, socially. You name it. Everything found a way to slightly unravel itself and in the process make me despondent. Every now and then I start getting that same feeling I got towards the last couple of years in high school, like I've outgrown things. The cliched big fish in a little pond. Bleh.

I'm still in a pretty foul mood right now, but I've gained a little perspective and Maybe if I try just a little more, I can take myself from this dirty floor*. Ever so often I forget about the things that ground me. The people in my life, the things that I do to make myself happy. I've drowned myself in music (and forgotten to scrobble. Oops), cleaned my room, walked the dog. Re-evaluated. Bummed? Still? You bet.

Anyways, the room. It's been cleaned, but when I was going through the recent purchases and acquisitions I had very little to show. Trying to curb the spending to save for my pending January vacation.



As much as I try to be good, shoes remain my vice. So the brown oxford shoes were showcased in a post of their own, these red and black plaid pumps are from Joe Fresh. 25 bucks, who can go wrong for that price?



Note the abject squalor in the background. What? I'm not ashamed. Bring it! Found that sweater vest for $10 at some super random store at Scarborough Town Centre. The turtle neck is one of Ammi's cast offs from the early 90s and no jokes I've been rocking that thing since I was like 11 easily. Is it like a crop top? Yes. That's why it's worn underneath things, duh! Oh, also, I got my haircut at Pacific Mall. I have bangs again!



Everyone needs a pair of mustard stockings and a Nescafe briefcase. Incidentally, I recently re-discovered that under my bed. I bought in in Senegal. Whenever I see it I think of Moussa, my driver when I was there. One day when I'm far less lazy I may tell you the story of how this briefcase came to be in my possession.



I had every intention of getting a blouse made from this material (it's the blouse piece off of a very kitschy sari), but I never got around to it. With the colder weather on us I've started rocking it as a scarf. Note Oliver's smouldering manly look though. I've read a measly 39 books on this list this list, I'm sure he's read all of them. The bastard.



There's a sari store just around the corner from where I live. Last weekend Abi and I, for lack of anything else to do, headed over that way just to "browse." I walked away with two saris. I love that store because they have really retro prints, we've sort of come to the conclusion that it's unintentional, but I don't really care because the stuff is very inexpensive. Which means I don't feel bad dropping cash on them. That one was $7.50. Abs hates it, I love the pink checks. It's okay though, she and I hardly ever agree on clothing options.



So alright, this one time Abi and I totally did agree on a clothing choice. That grey jacket. We are at Vaughn Mills sometime in September and both spotted the jacket, ran over to the rack, proceeded to try it on, looked at each other and laughed. Although we were wearing the same garment we had both individually styled it so different you could hardly tell that the jackets were the same. I had my collar popped up like a big douche, the buttons undone in the front and my hands jammed into the pockets. She however was buttoned up, fully. All the way up to the throat. That's my Abi!



My cousin's getting engaged in November. Most of you know the background on that whole thing. I don't particularly want to go to it, she's a major contributing factor to a lot of the stress we as a family have been dealing with for the last little while. That's also a whole 'nother post. Anyways, I thought I'd wear a sari for the engagement, but decided not to. This is the second one that I got, paid a princely $14.00 for it. I think it looks much better on Oliver. Again, the vintage print. I love it.

Well, I sincerely hope that next week turns out to be better than the one I just had.

*Lyrics shamelessly stolen from Band of Skulls who TinyLF and I will be seeing in concert November 13th

Home from work today and I've done absolutely nothing with my day aside from washing my hair and eating a sandwich. No one else is at home aside from Oliver, my desk is littered with papers and my bed's unmade. Just a typical Tuesday morning not spent at work. Hopped out of the shower and passed by my bedroom on the way to the kitchen when I see this:



Yes. That's my unmade bed with a dog not just sleeping it but also using my pillow.

Oi! Get off my lawn.

I feel old. Some uncharitable people would go as far as saying that I am old. With the increase in weddings and birth announcements amongst a slew of other cringe worthy life events I think I'm headed for my mid-mid-life crisis. Although I have a sneaking suspicion I've been battling that since I turned 21. I'm not grappling with any huge existential questions though. I just feel old. Literally old and creaky.

Friday night I was supposed to head out and while I was waiting for my ride I thought sprawling on the sofa would be an appropriate use of my time. Until I woke up at 1 am with a crick in my back and a strong desire to throw my PJs on and crawl into my very inviting bed. Hmm. You can guess the ending of that story. I have officially become that person who really can't be arsed to go out. My work peeps have been harassing me for weeks, fortunately my excuse of 'being a student' is fantastic and usually even makes them sympathetic. I'm not entirely sure what ruse I'll have to put forth once my courses wrap up. Oh. Who are we kidding. I'm going to be a student for life.

Speaking of work, there's been some positive movements on that front and although things are still being tweaked, I may be finding myself a more frequent guest at HQ. This means I'll eventually need to invest in corporate drone-wear. I've been seriously making an effort to expunge the student from my wardrobe and I think I've done well?

There hasn't been a jeans purchase since August 2008. Sneakers? My true besetting sin? Been able to keep that beast at bay as of May 2008. Going shopping sucks now. (I lie! Retail therapy how I love thee!) I'm on a pretty strict self imposed budget. Between my fees, textbooks and pathetic attempts at saving there isn't really much cash left for clothing or sensible shoe purchases. It's hard though! When I see shoes my first immediate impulse is to think 'wow, those would look fantastic with my jeans in X wash.' Then I need to remind myself, 'but they'll look like total ass with dress pants/a skirt/a dress.' In the ideal world I'd still get the shoes if only to wear them on casual Fridays.

There are stores that I don't even venture into anymore. I can't even trust myself to browse to see what I'm missing out on. It's too depressing. The only cold comfort I have is that even in my age appropriate attire teenagers still stop me to say they like what I'm wearing. I feel the need to point out that these are savvy dowtown dwelling teenagers, not suburban ones.

But after a little incident in class this evening I'm not so sure how discerning these kids really are. I popped over to the bookstore before class and was subsequently a bit early for my lecture (because I always over estimate the amount of time it'll take to get things done). While flipping through my book a sweet looking girl came through the door, smiled at me and sat down a few seats to my left. Apparently she registered late and this was her first day. She started asking me questions about the class, how big, how many assignments etc.

We veered off topic (surprise!) and started talking about music. That's when my fellow classmates started to trickle in. As the room filled up she stopped talking about K'naan and asked me if this class? Is it intro to first year research methods? To which I laughed a hearty laugh and informed her that she was not in the presence of undergrads. She scrutinised the class a bit more and said 'yeah, there's no way in hell that these guys were ever undergrads in any life. They look like professors.' With that scathing judgement she picked up her shiz and got the hell out of there fast.

The lesson I'm choosing to take away from this tale of misunderstanding is that I'm a hip old person. (But still old because most of my classmates are around my age add or subtract a year or three.) That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

I'm notorious for getting distracted. When I sit down to study I probably can't concentrate for more than 15 minutes at a time. I'm trying to study right now. In the last hour and a half I've gone through my photographs from Nuit Blanche, addressed those two yellow envelopes above and done some online banking.

Normally Oliver is under the desk and not on top of it, but he hates studying too. Usually if I'm trying to be diligent and not paying attention to him there will be a small Oliver sized pile of toys at my feet. All his vain attempts and getting me to play with him.

I tend to be a spreader. When I'm working my desk is usually covered in crap. The above is probably the desk on a fabulous day. That giant black binder has all my notes for that terrible ghost writing project I'm working on. My OCD still runs high, yes. That is a plastic ziplock bag with colour coded post-it notes of various sizes. Each post-it has a corresponding high lighter. Then we've got the Canadian Press guide on Caps and Spelling along with Canadian Press Style Guide. It's only been a few weeks since classes started, but both of those are starting to get pretty dog eared. My wallet and iphone are always within reach. The cellphone's a given and the wallet is for the credit card. What? I enjoy online shopping. Oh, my trusty laptop. I could devote an entire series of posts devoted to you. There's my glasses case on the side beside a my gold fish snack box. It's mandatory that there's something around to eat and drink.

Poor Cedric has been sequestered to the window. I was meaning to take him out for Nuit Blanche last night, but completely forgot about him until I was comfortably seated on the subway. He's nestled between two glass Coke and Pepsi bottles. They're filled with sand from my first trip to Sri Lanka. The Barbara Sansoni doll was a gift from my Uncle who passed away, he sent it to me through my grandmother on her first visit to Canada.

Think that's 15 minutes there. It's time to hit the books again?

Boo.