Going’s on
Saturday, August 30th, 2008Tomorrow I’m speaking at a local Chinese church about what C4C does and to give a little bit of a faith challenge. It’ll be interesting to see how it goes, as when I was preparing it I almost wrote out my points in reverse order. As in, the points I wanted to hammer home, I wrote down first and then somehow started writing down what it took to get to that point. And then I put those points (in order) into PowerPoint and added the details that I would need to cover between points. I say “interesting” because I don’t get too many chances to do talks right now and each time I get a chance, I try to figure out the style I use to prepare. Also “interesting” because the verses I’m going to use primarily in the talk ended up being different from the verses I emailed the pastor in the middle of the week… er yeah, haha.
School starts up again soon. My first frosh week on staff. It seems like I’m doing a lot less than I’ve done in the past, actually, as a student. My role becomes more of a support person. It comes back down to “how can I serve the students?” Mind you, I still do have a lot of stuff to keep me occupied, but most of it has to do with designing posters and driving people and RLK’s around. I’m OK with that, but it is definitely a mental shift.
One of the promo pieces that I designed is going to arrive on campuses across Canada soon, I’m not sure if I’m ready to see it distributed in the thousands quite yet, but it’s done. The hardest part is translating between the digital version I see on screen and the print version in hand. There’s no way of knowing how high quality the file will look like in print, unless I know the exact resolution of the printer used for the product. In this case, I sent the final files to someone at the office and they brought it to a print company in BC. I seriously haven’t seen a print version of it yet. Not the smartest way to do things, but that’s the way the timeline ended up happening I guess. This is why it’s still in the back of my head how I could potentially transition toward a more corporate role in the future doing print/design work more full-time.
My apartment is in a bit of transition time right now since Ben’s brother Pete is moving in. We’re going to be sharing every room. I realized just today that I’ve never had a literal roommate ever before. It’s always been myself — at home, residence, with Tim and Thomas, with Dennis and the girls, at Fort Superior. I’ve always had a room to myself. But I think this new setup will be really beneficial for me. I don’t expect that Pete will become my new super-best friend or anything, but it will be very healthy for me to have someone to come home back to and verbalize things to. I look forward to this year, it’ll stretch me nicely.
I’ve been building a bike lately from a French Motobecane road bike frame. I spent about a week or two stripping it of all its parts and just a few days ago I was able to remove the bottom bracket from the shell with some help from a bike shop. Now I’ve placed an order for a flip-flop rear wheelset so that I can ride singlespeed or fixed-gear whenever I like. It’s been kind of a dream for me to ride a fixie so now it’s finally happening. Not too sure how it will feel on the streets although I’m excited to do some trackstands with clipless pedals the real way. I won’t get too stupid though — I’ll likely throw on one set of brakes still to keep things sane. Right now I trust my biking skills but I don’t quite trust my skills enough to combat any crazy drivers. Thankfully most of Ottawa has bike lanes on the streets anyway.
I haven’t taken the road bike out lately though, I really want to, but my skin still hasn’t healed well enough for me to feel comfortable sweating freely. It’s a crappy situation since I can’t get good exercise (still) but I don’t think my skin will heal back properly if I’m not more active. Maybe I should go swimming then. That would be alright. It just got me so excited today when I saw Colonel By Drive closed off for a road race. It made me want to ride.
Here’s what else is going through my mind lately: I really do want to see Coldplay live in concert here in Ottawa on October 20, but reasonably priced tickets sold out quite quickly while I was out of the country. Some of the Carleton students are going, Pete and Heather are going, but I don’t have a ticket right now. I’ve been looking online but it seems most good tickets are gone. I’m not about to pay $70 to sit almost behind the main stage… that’s just a bit lame don’t you think? But I feel like this concert will be a once-in-a-blue-moon kind of show. This late in the tour Coldplay surely cannot disappoint. Blow the rafters off the arena is more like what they’ll do. I guess I’ll have to just resign myself to waiting for another tour.
Anyhow, I’m going to head to bed. I sure hope I’ll be able to have a full night of sleep without the effects of a hyper-sensitive immune system tormenting me.