A perfect night with my perfect lady followed by a debaucherous night with a debaucherous man

O.K enough with all the death. I think my 2 months of memorials are over and done with and I pray that I do not need to post anything in that genre again this year.

OK changing gears....

I would like to report that the Princess is finally getting her groove back. I had a bit of an enlightening / eye opening experience last week. It's been 6 months since I quit my job at the phone company and started my journey back to sanity. Last weekend I went out to everyone's favorite Downtown Eastside karaoke mecca - The Met - for a little reunion of Telus employees new and old. When I walked in everyone I used to work with was floored at how different I looked...in a good way (thank God). Ya, I've gotten a hair cut since then and dropped a few pounds but I think what really made the difference is the fact that I am feeling so much better about what I'm doing with my life. Back when I was working as a whore to the corporate machine I constantly dreamed of jabbing my eyes out with a paper clip in order to avoid the monotonous drudgery of my meaningless existence. Now that I am actually doing something worthwhile I feel so much better and it shows in the way that people perceive me. This is a good thing. Yes, I still dream of hoping on a plane and jetting on outta here to the bigger and better things that the great wide open holds for me but while I'm here, right now at this moment, things have clearly taken a turn for the better. I guess it's been a slow process that I have not really noticed. Apparently it takes a meeting with people who haven't seen me in 6 months to open my eyes.

Last week I also spent a wonderful night with the most positive, lovely, energetic and inspiring lady in my life. Ms. Erin is the spark that ignites my soul. She reminds me of all the things that I need to reclaim in my life - spontaneity, dancing with no shoes, finding light in dark places, sangria, laughter, the ability to be ridiculous and irresponsible, free love and kisses with strangers...the ability to just let go, embrace the moment and fall in love with everyone and everything around me. It was a delicious night full of music (an amazing Xavier Rudd concert), friends and spontaneity. Erin is my other half and I love her down to the tips of my toes. I don't think I could survive without her pulling my head out of the rainclouds so that I can see the sunlight.

As for where school is concerned, it's still a bumpy road but I am definitely beginning to find my voice and take ownership of the fact that I'm the boss. I am starting to relax a bit more and my skin is toughening up a bit more. The constant bombardment of criticism that comes along with student teaching has built up a nice layer of scar tissue and it's starting to bounce off me a bit more easily. It also looks like I'm going to be tapping into my buried choral past and helping out the music department at my school put on this big choral performance in May. The actual performance is about a week after my practicum ends but I think it will be really fun and will look nice on those practicum reports! Coincidently, the music teacher at my school, Brad Dean, was in band at my high school. We've hooked up at school to bring Semi music to the masses of Britannia Secondary. He's an instrumentalist and remembers my short lived career as choir leader so here I am back in the driver's seat. Should be interesting. I've got a few others helping me out (more like I'm helping them out) so it should be fun. Next Monday is auditions, American Idol style. I hope that I get to be Paula Abdul because I'm not very good at the whole Simon Cowell thing.

Anyway, there are a few other interesting (in a good way) things taking shape in my life that I'm not willing to talk about yet. I'll leave you all guessing.

On the less encouraging side, all the time I'm spending at school has left me little time for sleep or working out. Which means this whole Sun Run thing is not looking as good as it was about 1 month ago. I really hope that I can find some time soon...boooo!

I also just received a message telling me that my happy little map on the right will be archived this month. I guess they archive them every year. Although it will be nice to start blank to see where people are coming from these days I have to admit that I will miss looking over and seeing how cosmopolitan and popular I am. I saved a copy of it so that if I ever feel unwordly I can look at it and feel much better.

Cheers from new found optimism
Joe