In my final months of school, when I otherwise would have been trying to soak up as much of the academic life as I could, I was trying to think of a million reasons why Will and I had to be together. We were so happy and so infatuated with each other and our relationship that for both of us things fell to the side; friends, work, family, and for me, this website.

Over the past year, which has brought us even closer with all its trials and stresses, we’ve moved closer to finding some balance. I still don’t update this website much, but I am making a much more sincere effort to keep up with school friends now scattered around the province. I am still working 35 hours in four days at two jobs. I am still a Girl Guide leader. I still spend one day a week volunteering with high school teachers over an hour from home. With all I have going on I am still making mistakes when it comes to dividing my time between my family, Will’s family, and of course just with Will.

I don’t find out about my applications for teacher’s college for another five weeks, which still feels like an absolute eternity, even though I am really in the home stretch of this wait. I am going to keep you posted. For real.

[I changed it to "CrApple" so the customer wouldn't think I was rude.]

The only other thing I would complain about from last week was that I got very little done on my applications. At one point, back in September, I had envisioned that my applications would be written an in the editing stages by now. According to my plan they would all be in the mail by next Friday, but I have only two in final(ish) form, two in point form, and one floating somewhere in my head. It is really time to put my nose to it I guess.

Speaking of applications, one of the best things I like about my jobs is the relationship I have built with the regulars. I didn’t think I would remember their drinks, who was having a bad week, or who had just gone on an exotic business trip; but I have.

There is one gentleman who comes in every day and likes chatting with all the people on shift. At some point, someone told him that I was applying for teacher’s college, and since, he has been excited about talking to me because he was a high school French teacher. Instead of being supportive and giving advice, however, he spends his visits telling me how there are too many teacher’s and that I should give up now because the Ontario school system needs NO TEACHERS OF ANY KIND AND WILL NOT FOR THE FORESEEABLE FUTURE. I don’t take what he says to heart because I am not going to quit before I even get started. Today, however, he took the cake by delivering me an article from the Toronto Star about teacher surpluses and the difficulty in getting a job (albeit for humanities, not business studies). Some people make me wonder.

Yesterday Will took the day off to come with me to St. Catharines to a graduate fair at Brock. I was glad he came because I was hopped up on medication and definitely not alert enough to drive myself. I was also glad because when talking to the various faculties of education, Will was the smart question saviour, asking all the right questions about who is reading the applications and what are the key experiences each school is looking for. Meanwhile I was talking to the University of Ottawa’s master’s program desk having mistaken it for Queen’s faculty of education… Embarrassing, but true. Oh to be sick!

After the fair, I wasn’t feeling well, but pegged it down to being hungry. So Will took me to a Swiss Chalet for lunch where I could sip on some soup and get something in my system. I have never felt so sorry for a waitress as I did for the one in the Swiss Chalet. Will was quiet because I snapped at him, and looked worried because I wasn’t doing too well. Meanwhile I was avoiding smelling or looking at anyone else’s food because I was feeling nauseous. The waitress came by a few times, each time it seemed to her that Will and I were in the process of breaking up: Laura snapping, Will looking distressed, Laura putting her head in her hands, Will ceasing to eat and looking more concerned, Laura storming out for fresh air. Will laughed about it in the car when I woke up around Missisauga: he had never been treated better in a restaurant than after I had left and the waitress came to settle the bill and console him.

I have had a tough couple of months. In the spring, just before graduating I decided that I was going to try pursuing a long-time desire of mine – to be a teacher. Faced with an empty future after graduation I threw myself into activities that would support my Bachelor of Education application.

Although I don’t entirely blame them, my parents didn’t really understand why I wasn’t out in, or at least applying, for a real business job. Shouldn’t I be putting my business/marketing degree to good use in a tidy office job with regular hours, salary and prospects? I spent the summer volunteering (a dirty word in this household) for 35 hours a week in a City of Toronto day camp. It was good experience but the lack of a paycheque left my parents angry with me, asking: when was the vacation going to end?

In September the vacation ended. I got one job, started a course at the University of Toronto, started with a local unit as a Girl Guide leader, and started a second job. I guess I never appreciated the fine balancing people who had school and a job, or two jobs had to manage, but by the beginning of October I appreciated it like you wouldn’t believe.

Working 40 hours a week, plus doing school readings and volunteering left me little time and energy to work on my teacher’s applications. I was stressed about doing well everything well, and yet the applications that needed my attention the most, were left in a pile on my desk. When I though I had reached the max of my workweek a wonderful opportunity fell on my lap: volunteering in a high school with a business teacher for one day a week. Oh, I jumped with joy at how good this would look on my application.

Then my work schedule shot up to 60 hours a week, with me opening for one job at 5am and closing with the other at 10pm most days. I am working every day with the exception of days where I am volunteering in a school that is an hour and a half drive away. Midterm and essay season has started at school and I no longer have the energy to do my class readings because every moment I am not otherwise occupied with work I am exhausted to a degree I had never considered. Worse still I am constantly counting down the days (31) until my applications, still unfinished, have to be at their respective universities.

During the summer I failed to keep up with my university friends because I was partially ashamed of how little I was doing with myself as a business graduate. Volunteering with high school kids at a Parks and Recreation day camp? Please! Now I am ashamed for not keeping up because this is when I need people the most, but I am too busy, exhausted and downbeat to manage the smallest meaningful connection. Will calls me almost every day, and visits me on the weekends between work shifts, but often all I do is fall asleep on the phone or on the couch beside him. My parents, who I hardly every see, I fight with constantly. I think they are ashamed of my jobs and my aspirations, and although I am paying my way through everything I am doing, they suddenly see my position as a drag on their home life. I don’t eat meals with my family anymore because of my schedule. When I talk to them I am grouchy with exhaustion and they are exasperated and fail to appreciate the pressures I feel on me.

Yesterday I entered my credit card information and finalized the online portion of my applications. It scares me because this is the most concrete step towards applying that I have made yet, but I still have A LOT of work ahead of me.

Today I went to talk to my professor about dropping a class, and she tried to accommodate my situation. I almost started crying in her office because I didn’t want someone telling me I should be able to handle 3 hours of school, ten hours of reading, and a 15-hour essay on top of a 70-hour work/volunteer week, on top of my applications. I need someone to tell me that it’s okay to drop this course because, “Laura you are burning yourself out.” I need someone to tell me that crying everyday is not healthy, or normal. I desperately need someone to support what I think is right.

Writing won’t fix things, but I am hoping sharing his will make me feel a tinsy bit better.

A collection of 6-year-old comments:

Camper: "You are 21!"
Laura: "Yes I am."
Camper: "How come my parents are older than you?"

Camper: "I need you to take me to the bathroom. I'm going to do a number two. It stinks and Mom says I won't grow out of it."

Camper: "Hey! I'm chillin' Chillin' like a villan my man!"

I have had this week off to recover (or rather I have this week off and am using it to recover) before returning to the job for the rest of July. Does time off now ever feel that much more fantastic!

P.S. Sorry for those whose comments took forever to be approved on the last post. I am sitll getting used to the new MovableType and the comment approval system is not meant for lazy people!

In the giant gap I have left in this weblog, much has happened. I chopped off the majority of my hair, I graduated, I applied for more school in the fall, I found employment (albeit volunteer) for the summer, and I got my wisdom teeth out. Although it is sad to not have made some record of these events (ie. Note to self: if the dentist suggests taking out the top wisdom teeth – RUN AWAY! It hurts like hell!), it is also a big relief to not have two weeks of groaning about my inability to eat nothing but chocolate meal supplement drinks, and the oozing. Nothing is as charming to share with the world as announcing that the holes in my mouth are oozing.

So to everyone, myself included, welcome back.

I have been busy lately between moving out of my flat and away from Waterloo, which has been my home for four years, and deciding what I am going to do with the lifetime of time I have ahead of me now that I have (for all purposes but having a diploma in hand) graduated.

Well I don’t have too much to say at present because it feels like there is WAY too much to fill in since the last time I sat down to write a full entry, so instead, here are some pictures from the weekend when Will and I went downtown and up the CN Tower:

Will picked me up from my exam on Saturday, a little worried that after all my fretting, that last piece of academic work I had to do might send me off the deep end: a code red Laura flip out. I watched the last part of exam, my classmates turning in their exams and walking out. Some I will see in June for our graduation ceremony, others I won’t. I got distracted wondering if it was also their last exam, and how could they seem so normal about it?

I walked out of the exam okay, and apart from a sore arm I was happy to not have to think about that course any more. Since then I have felt like a sweater slowly unraveling. I can roll up the sleeves to hide it for so long, but eventually it will fall apart for everyone to see. I just don’t even know where to start in getting my life on track. I wake up to an empty house and nothing ahead of me for the day: I make breakfast, read the news, check my e-mail and cry. These past months have seen me cry a lot, and even though I know it’s not constructive, I can’t stop it.

I wish I could just have an idea, something that sells me, but there is nothing. I am insanely jealous of everyone who has school still, or a job, or an idea of what they want to do. I am jealous just because they have something and I feel like I don’t at all. It’s petty and I’m ashamed of it, but there it is: I just don’t know.

Today Andy and my Mum were in London touring the University of Western Ontario, the last in a weeklong series of car trips and tours for Andy and My Mum. On the way back from London they were planning to stop in at my grandparents and I jumped at the chance to go visit with them, as I hadn’t seen Andy or my Mother in a month. Will was over studying with me for our exam on Friday and without really thinking I invited him to come with. Well, that and I needed his car to get me there. I guess if I have to crash course him with my family I suppose it is best that it be unexpected so there is no chance to worry.

Everything went well, although I had no doubts, apart from my Grampa’s coffee, that it wouldn’t. It was a lot of story telling and laughing, which is typical for my family. We could sit around a table and tell embarrassing stories about each other for years! For example my Mum told I story about when my family was vacationing in Dubai and her and Andy were using the hotel pool. When changing out of his swimwear Andy forgot to take a towel into the change room with him and, seeing rows of hairdryers, had a flash of inspiration. Unfortunately Andy was in the women’s change room and some women entered the room to find Andy drying his body off with a hairdryer. Oh the stifled laughter my Mother had when the attendant was trying to explain to her, without saying exactly what had transpired, what the problem was with Andy being unaccompanied in the women’s change room without a towel.

I guess at the end of the evening I am so thankful to have such a great family that I didn’t have to worry about Will feeling awkward. …Except maybe Andy’s confusion about what bathroom to use when traveling abroad. Even that makes me feel a little embarrassed.

Things are generally going well for me, both academically and personally, which is reassuring as I have been dedicating myself to making the most of my personal time and pushing off school work that needed to be done. I suppose not having to think about returning in September to pick up my marks where I leave them this term takes the pressure off. It’s all credits now, not marks. Even more though, it has to do with the people in my life who are so much more important of school, and I am trying to make the most of what time I have with them.

The weather was warm over the weekend and yesterday. Will and I went for a walk, dressed down for spring. I know I was excited about the beautiful weather, which was just a big tease as it was snowing today, but it is a big pet peeve of mine that people here for weeks have no been valuing coats. Maybe it’s wishful thinking, but every time I walk to school I see students in sweatshirts shivering. Just seeing them makes me cold, and wish even harder that the beautiful weekend weather returns quickly.