I am about to clip out part of an email Tanya sent me concerning me and where I can be found on the Internet... oh, and Ryan too. Sadly, Carrie didn't show up except for Tanya's guestbook entry:

I was bored and procrastinating and did a search on names of people I know in yahoo canada... I found 4 matches for Maya Hirschman (Mabolica, of course, turned up several, because of the sith thingy and whatnot... plus places where you'd signed people's guest books!).Anyhow the matches were: your portfolio, the Opseu cartoon, an alumni page from Northern Secondary (You graduated in 96?? I'd forgotten you're a year younger than me!!).This one made me laugh most, where they quote you in the 5th paragraph! http://vegcafe.sa.utoronto.ca/articles.htm

I went to the last one and laughed, having forgot about that streeter that I did. I never did eat at the Veggie caf, but I didn't eat another mystery meat at school again, either.

Of interest, I put in Ryan's name and there's some other Ryan Telfords in the world but it turned up his many conferences (and even a copy of his Nicaragua paper!), his membership at CISS and this one made me laugh to, he's also mentioned in an article on Wood Elves: http://bretonnia.hinet.nu/woodelves/tactics/lorimoraddendum.html Look at the section titled 14.3.1 Glade Riders and Combat... 3rd paragraph. Kinda neat. I wonder if he knows bout it?...

I wonder if he knows, too. Anyway, I'm going to be late for work. Toodles.

Hey ho, whaddya know? I'm being trained to do new and exciting things at the ROM now. It's about bloody time. Anyway, it's kind of fun, though I keep making stupid mistakes - but I guess that's part of the process. Wilson's working upstairs now and that's a joy, because he's probably one of my all-time favourite site-sellers. He's just such a keener.

I'm dropping by A&C's to pick up the last of my junk, including my bedframe which will need to be dismantled. I can't hang around at their place though, well, not for too long, anyway, because I have to go home and send off my article to the Comp. Graely helped with some of it, including the topic, and by reading it over, which was very kind of her. I think it's a pretty good article, overall, though not as good as the one I wrote for the last issue. Meh, whatever.

Amazingly, I got a reply to one of my resume excursions. It's for a short film being shot from the end of June to the 2nd of July, in New York. I was horribly excited by the response. I say horribly, because the timeframe for the venture takes place exactly at the worst time for the jobs I currently work. With my mom's advice, I'll reply tonight, asking sensible questions about what will be required of me, any pay/expenses, etc. Before I say yes, I have to know what to expect. I don't think I can say yes, but, I must ask all the professionally important questions. Perhaps, in the future, I would be able to work with them on another project.

Hah ! A small but gratifying victory ! I emailed my boss about the whole hours thing, and he bumped my hours afterall. It's not like they won't be able to find something for me to do. I suggested that I could be trained to do the processing of the batches and he thought that was a good idea. For once, I wasn't ignored. My mood is good. I'm going to wander off to find something to eat and enjoy a walk before I drive home.

I'm wearing a ponytail again, not that it's exciting to you, the reader, but it's just ducky to me !

It's also another beautiful day wasting away while I'm stuck inside the ROM breathing the recycled, stale air. Almost ridiculous is the fact that the museum is running its airconditioning at a level that would combat mid-July heat, rather than seasonal end-of-May temperatures.

I enjoyed eating my lunch in Philosophers' Walk again, a bagel with ham and cheese, and then buying a soft-serve ice cream and walking all around the outside of the museum. Lunch was over much too quickly.

It's been another pleasant, mellow day in Membership, though, which makes me wonder how long this trend will last. I got to do some of Julie's stuff for her, since we'd run out of the usual. That was pretty interesting, though it was still data entry. I got to record donors into the system, the ones who gave gifts of things, rather than money. Each page listed a description of the artifact or doodad and the various appraisals it received, plus what the ROM receipted for it. Very interesting. What amazed me was the number of things that were utter crap and for whatever reason, the museum took them. It reminded me of my accessioning/deaccessioning paper that I wrote in Prof. Johnson's fourth-year seminar. Really interesting, tricky dealings.

My boss just came and spoke to me concerning my June schedule. Though I need the money, it seems that working 3 days a week is a lofty notion. Since, this week, everything was caught up. We're going to leave it open so if there is suddenly a membership boom, we can tack the days back on. What I don't understand is how come Wilson and Bonnie (and Wilson's never worked upstairs before) get five days a week, and I can't have three. I think I will email this querry since it's a bit of a fairness issue.

Wow, I had a very productive day today (uh, Monday). Sadly, it's ended up being a very late night, again, but whatever. Maybe tomorrow I'll be able to sleep earlier. The ROM went fast. We actually ran out of my normal things to do, so I got to do other things that, while no more interesting, was, at the very least, different. Also, despite it being Monday, everyone was in pleasant moods. Or, if not pleasant, then at least peaceable. It was almost like the old days. Especially since Sara dropped in. Yay for Sara ! We went and sat in Philosopher's Walk and chatted for about three quarters of an hour, which was definitely nice.

A side note: Today, for the first time in six years of short hair, I was able to put my hair into a ponytail ! Not pig or puppy tails, but a real, back of the head, ponytail ! Pretty neat, if you ask me. And nice, I've sort of missed the feeling of hair-tied-back-ness.

After the ROM, I went to Dominion and bought plants for... planting ! Yay ! I think it's officially warm enough now so that they won't die. I bought two normal red geraniums which I planted with a pair of small chive tufts. I bought two ivy geraniums that Mom says will do nice trailing things and planted them with coriander. I also started one of my long plant boxes, with amazingly deep purple petunias on either end. Now I need to buy more potting soil and more flowers to fill the remaining pots and my little balcony garden will be ready. Ready for what, I'm not sure, but whatever it is, it will be .. ready !

Following that, I did some dishes and ate a rather uninspired dinner of pita and babaganouj and hummus. Yay? (Later, I upgraded my dietary needs with some yogurt and cereal, so I'm not going to die of malnutritioin, yet). Then, after some talking with Nick - yes, he's come home tonight, amazingly enough - I returned to Ray's page, which had caused so much grief this time last night. I made it all wonderful and fancy. It all works now, and while it still needs the bio updates, all the images are up and viewable. It's really nice, or so I think. I like how it looks, and I'm starting to get good at the whole layout game, too. That took a bit of time, but it didn't take as much as I thought it would, leaving me with an evening for more leisurely pursuits, such as hanging my wonderful Cowboy Bebop poster that I got at the con on Saturday, and playing on the MUD. Yay !

Tomorrow, after work, I'm going to write the article for the MUD Companion and then go to bed early. I really must start getting more sleep.

My God, I am so tired, I can't believe I thought there was any chance of going dancing tonight. Anyway, I'm have a productive, if irritating, evening updating Ray's website. There are so many images, though, it's driving me insane, especially since the links refuse to co-operate. Gah !

Friday, Techknight came over and we worked on the Dungeon Siege module, or at least the concept part. Well, actually, first I had to pick him up after the ROM, then I had to go upstairs and marvel at his amazingly clean rooms. The place he lives is for sale, so for showings, he had to not just tidy up, but clean the place from top to bottom. It's amazing what a change comes over a room with a little cleaning. From there, we went to Loblaws and bought the makings of a tasty dinner. I barbequed a couple of steaks for us, and he insisted on doing sausages (which did not turn out to be delicious) and turkey bacon (yum !). We'd bought feta-stuffed jalapenos and a huge tub of chickpea salad. Topping everything off was some pita, babaganouj, hummus, and red wine (yes, I had a teeny glass). Then I watched as he updated Natasha, removing the nasty spyware that programmes like Morpheous inject into our computers. He also updated several things, making it run more smoothly, or rather, make DS play. Then he watched as I familiarised myself with the game a bit, finding it quite enjoyable.

When Nick came home, we sat down and brainstormed, though Nick wasn't entirely helpful. He's sort of anti-help; he gives out the ideas that make you say, "Uh, no." We have decided a couple of things, for sure: principle weapons, and some of the principle baddies. I'll just say this: lobsters. Ha ! Weird, weird us. Anyway, I also roughed out the first sketch of the main character, though it's not what she's going to look like. I'm not sure what our timeline is for this project, but modeling the number of characters we're planning is going to be huge. Not to mention the terrain. I've never really done terrain. Well, I've done some, but mostly it was just rocks and flat surface-type things. Anyway, it's going to be marvellous practice, and it should be fun.

Yesterday, he and I (since he slept over) picked up Rick and headed out to Anime North, the big anime convention in Toronto. It was a super-fun time, though the costumes were not a hit with Rick. Oh well. I inisted on taking a photo of one hugely tall sailor scout - she must have been 6-7 in her heels, easily. Judging by the art room, I think that next year, I'll do it. Sure, anime's not really my thing, but what the hey, might as well. It won't be worse than some of the stuff there. The art show was a bit of a disappointment, too - very poorly presented. I had a mango bubble tea, and we stopped for lunch in the hotel restaurant and it was pretty good, at least my bruschetta was. We sat in on part of one of the guests (from Bandai) talking about, well, anime. Then the room was taken over by what we were, in fact, waiting for: Name That Tune. That was a riot, and I got to see TK's friend, Chris, in action. He is WAY too much like Nick. There cannot be two, and yet.... I wonder, if they were put in a room together, would they explode? Sadly, the Masquerade ran exceedingly late so I missed it, because Rick and I had a prior engagement at the Fox and Fiddle.

Last night was the Realms of Despair May Get Together. We arrived and the place was packed. What is this need for people to congregate in bars to watch sports (in this sitation, hockey) and pay twice as much per drink than they would if they were watching and drinking at home? This I do not understand. Anyway, the Leafs survived another day and the place emptied somewhat afterward, allowing me a place to sit in order to enjoy my fajitas. Yum. There was much fun, though the music was disappointing, and there was fun and back rubs and laughter and pool. Good stuff. Rick spent the night afterward, which, uh, was also fun. ;)

Today, at the store, a big surprise ! Some of the better costumed people from yesterday at the convention came in - and I recognised them. Wee, among them was Sailor Tall ! Keen ! They, were fun, though they didn't like the hotel staff. Huh, well, what can you do. It wasn't a terribly nice day to be in the store. It was so beautiful out, and so few people wanted to come inside, but the anime folks did, and I directed them to the Silver Snail for mangas and whatnot, and Oak dropped by, bearing watermellon. He was a bit scattered, trying to buy cord, or something, and he was hot from marching in the sun, bearing watermellon, dressed in black. Mostly, though, the day passed as usual, and then I came home.

For the last four hours, I've been working steadily on this damned webpage and the images REFUSE to work for me. Ask me if I'm impressed. No, don't. If I can't make them work on this upload, I'll try again tomorrow night after the ROM.