meg_a_tron

Okay, so I'm clearly bad with this livejournal thing.  I got so far as signing up and posting once or twice and then (to be completely honest) forgot about the whole affair and moved on.  Sometimes, when bored at work, I would remember livejournal and log on with the idea of posting something.  The problem there was that I would read all of your posts and think "oh how interesting" and then forget completely what it was I wanted to post.

I think I'm missing some of the spirit here.  It seems that some people use it as a journal, some people use it as a mechanism for creative writing, and of course other people use it for other things that I am quickly losing interest in listing.

That said, it is 3:00am, I have to go to work tomorrow, I'm listening to Maserati and it is fucking great (really, great band) and while the prospects of being only semi-functional are on my mind I feel like writing something.  Thus I give you ASPECTS OF WORK.  For those of you who frequent the internet you may be fans of  bookofratings.com (SISSY) which this will certainly rip-off stylistically but content wise it is from my brain.  And far less funny.

Aspects of (my) Work:

Sitting
I sit all day.  Sometimes I get up to go to the photocopier, or to smoke, get coffee, pee, or to walk three feet to the filing cabinet to find a file but other than that I sit.  The problem with sitting isn't so much the sitting part of it.  It's the thinking about sitting.  If I didn't think about it, it wouldn't bother me in the slightest (this is also true for almost everything).  Anyhow, I end up thinking  Am I sitting straight enough? or  Is my ass falling asleep?  The answers are 'no' to both.  I am not sitting up straight enough, and my back hurts. My ass is not falling asleep it is asleep.  It has been asleep for the last 5 years when I started sitting for work.  Sitting will have to go.

Computers
The main reason I'm sitting in the first place.  I like computers though.  They do a pretty good job of storing information and they have the internet.  Two things I've tried to do on my own and failed miserably at.  Additionally computers allow me to be productive while also chatting with friends, searching for funny videos, or looking at adorable pictures of kittens.  All in all I computers get a thumbs up in my books - only I'd prefer it if I could have five on at a time, in a concave fashion, at standing level, and that someone else would sort through the files that I need or don't need so that I didn't waste countless minutes trying to find a document.

Nap Time
My only problem with nap time is that there is no nap time.  I propose that every day at 2:00 someone rolls out some comfortable mats, turns off all the lights and we all lie quietly in the dark for a while.  When we wake up we'll get plain popcorn and will spend twenty minutes building a sand-castle (I'm sure that this falls under team-building or professional development in the non-profit world).  It'll be just like kindergarten, which as part of the public school system was supposed to be training us for the work place anyhow.  It didn't by the way.  I've recited my ABC's for my bosses, raised my hand to go pee, and learned to stand in line and it didn't get me a promotion.

Taiko Drumming
Taiko Drumming is very pretty to watch and it sounds rad, but all in all, Taiko Drumming is hard.  If asked to do so for 3 hours a day, two days in a row, I would recommend declining.  Professional Taiko Drummers may look graceful and light, but they are clearly pumped full of some sort of physically enhancing drug or are perhaps cyborgs.  You cannot do what they do without every muscle in your body being exhausted.  It is also humiliating to try and create a rhythm in front of a large group of grade 4 students, and fail miserably.  The problem (if you're me) is that you're holding the Bachi, and you're thinking "okay Don Don dorro dorro Don Don dorro dorro" and in the nano-second it takes for your brain to go from thinking the first Don to playing it you've already fucked it up royally.  How?  I don't know.  It's the magic of taiko drumming I suppose.


There was more here but this is long and it's time for bed and I have to go taiko drumming for 3 hours tomorrow.

I'm currently sitting up in the loft at Ari and Morgan's apt, nursing a rapidly cooling cup of coffee. When the coffee runs out this post will end.

Shalynn and I left Winnipeg 10 days ago - along with our friend Matthew - to hitchhike to Toronto.  Hitchhiking was stupidly easy, we were dropped off near Lorette on the morning of the 10th and started waiting.  After nearly four hours we began to discuss splitting up and then almost immediately got a ride 60km up the highway and dropped off near Reynolds, MB.  Very soon after that we got picked up by a young guy who was headed to Ottawa - happy for the company he drove until nightfall and then pulled over so we could have a fire, drink some wine and camp for the night.  The next day he dropped us off in Sudbury and 2 rides later we arrived in Toronto (our last ride took us right into the city and dropped us off at a bus stop, which was out of his way as he was headed to Niagara Falls).  While I know that I shouldn't be disappointed that I didn't have any shitty experiences like standing on the highway for hours in the rain or sketchy drivers I must admit that I expected some more exciting stories.  I do like hitchhiking, I've decided, for about 1/2 an hour every ride.  That seems to be about the marker where I just can't bring myself to give a shit about what the driver is talking about.

The first night in Toronto was spent drinking far too much alcohol with Robbie, our host, and a friend from Winnipeg who was in town for the air guitar championships.  That night Robbie heard about a little cafe that is 'smoke' friendly, and sells 'special' milkshakes.  Special in the sense that they cost $12 and make you giggle and develop a sudden desire to stare at your hands.  We went the next day.  It was my first time in a cafe such as this one - and I'm not sure I'd go back.  I suppose if I ever have a desire to ride the subway from one end to the other (which we did that night) I might stop in there first.  The rest of the week was a great mixture of hanging out with friends, drinking far more than one should, and sweating profusely as the humidity in Toronto is somewhat out of control. 

I took the bus to Montreal yesterday and met up with Shalynn - who had come early on her own.  There was a house show last night - where I wandered through a sea of people I didn't know  only to bump into an ex-winnipeger who I thought was living in Guelph.  I was clearly wrong, and we had that lovely awkward moment that happens when you see someone out of the context that you know them in and your brain has problems remembering how to relate to them.

We leave for New York on Tuesday - after I register for school (woohoo!).  Shalynn owes me $10,000 from my mad skills at dice and mostly traveling is good news.  Oh - I just started reading Isaac Asimov's Foundation (thanks Robbie) and so far it gets good reviews.  Anyhow my coffee is finished - so I'm done here.   More to come when we reach the US.

This live journal thing is already frustrating and I've only been on it for about an hour.  The better half of the past hour was spent trying to 'name' myself.  I tried to go with meg as that is my name so I have an affinity for it.  It was taken.  I tried _meg_ but it too was taken.  Trying to avoid using numbers I went on to think of every possible variation that didn't result in my name looking like _me_g_. 

some of the variations I tried to use included:

_megs
_megs_
megs_
mags
_mag_
meg_m
_mags_
_meg_m_
grets_
(there were some more but I don't remember them all)
somethingclever

SO SOMETHINGCLEVER IS TAKEN?  I guess it isn't all that fucking clever is it?  Anyhow, Megatron was taken but I cleverly added some underscores and here I am.

The frustration in assigning myself a name has led to me completely forgetting why I signed on in the first place.  It was something hilarious that the internets just had to know.  If it comes to me I'll post again

♥