10:40pm
After tossing and turning all night, by the time I got to my office building, my jaw was sore from clenching my teeth for so long. All night dreaming about the different combinations of actions I could do to get things done. I'd left a job last night that wasn't going well, and the deadline - a 10:30am meeting - was tight if it continued to prove difficult. Arriving downstairs in the foyer, I greated a bunch of my co-workers coming out of an elevator that wasn't working. The one they piled into to take the 11 floors up to our office was too crowded for me so I decided to wait for the next one. Marshall waited too. Poor Marshall: he's my new boss btw (the sheriff in the sketch further down the page.. except, of course, he doesn't look like that, he's *much* taller). He was fresh back from a business trip to Wellington and he made the fatal mistake of asking me how everything was.
And out it came. With grrrs and growls and bad temper. Poor Marshall - he hadn't looked that happy before I started.. by the time I stopped my purge he was even saggier. He's so nice, and smart, and has such great ideas and plans. I know how frustrating it is there for me and I don't even have grand plans for the place. Well the project I was worrying about went okay and the client was happy and it made life easier for Penny for a moment or two. Pretty much after that, even though I worked another long day, I was pretty happy and upbeat. I won't infect Marshall again with my hiss and spit, but it sure helped to just say it to someone. Maybe next time I'll pick a lucky stranger in the street and spare the people I work with.
Today, Rosie is down in Wellington. We had a product nominated for a software award and she was at the ceremony to demonstrate the product and collect the prize should we have the good fortune to win. She phoned to say we hadn't won - Virtual Coach, a product being developed by and for my old company and client, respectively, won. When you see snippets of MSN conversations with Chris, he's the developer of Virtual Coach - the geek, the man with the code, the laid back one man band, the Two Times Award Winning Multimedia Developer. Well done, Chris. Congratulations Awhina.
It's the last day of October. That means three things. First thing, I have to archive this month. Second thing, I have to give Marshall my completed Personal Performance Indicator (Okay I made that up.. its either an IPP or a PPI so I took a stab at what it might mean). Third thing is that tomorrow, NaNoWrImO starts.. 30 days and 50,000 words. Last year I managed 112 words (inc. the title) so I'm hoping to do better than that this year.
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1:00am
i typed a whole lot about today at work.. and then deleted it. not specifics about people and projects, but about how some people make me feel, and the stupid way I respond to stuff. It's nearly 1am and I can't sleep. because all I can worry about is how I'm going to get stuff done.
Dear Diary
when I grow up, I don't want to be stupid anymore.
from Michelle.
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This time of the year we have GuyFawkes on the 5th November. He was one of a bunch of Catholic terrorists back in the 17th Century, who, after Elizabeth I died, tried to blow up James I and the Prince of Wales by planting 36 barrels of gunpowder in the cellar of the Houses of Parliment. We know the name Guy Fawkes because he was the poor sap caught downstairs in the celler on the 5th November - I think he was framed - poor sap. Others were caught too and they were all hung drawn and quartered, but he was the first so it's his name we all know now. And so now, we of British decent like to blow stuff up on November the 5th to mark that failed plot to blow up the Houses of Parliment.
I had a lovely time on Sunday night watching Rosie and her husband light fireworks. The smell of the gunpowder smoke teleported me back to age 5. I'm not going to terrorise you with tales of Citizen Club Bonfires from when I was a child - already subjected Rosie to that.
Hope you all have a nice safe Guy Fawkes blowing stuff up - although, looking at the weather, mostly you'll be saving your crackers for the weekend.
It's an eventful day, actually.. being the first Tuesday in November, the Melbourne Cup ran this early evening. Its the race that stops Oceania in it's tracks. Australia has public holidays surrounding it and Kiwis in offices everywhere wear silly hats and have sweepstakes and wine and watch the race. People who never gamble on anything, will often take a small wager on the Melbourne Cup. I got to see the race today, but unlike every other year, there was no great build up - too busy at work, you see. We were invited next door to Executive Recruitment to join with their Cup celebrations, which was awfully kind of them. By the time we got there the race was just about to start, and we went back to work not long after it finished. Hopefully, next year, we'll have more time to dig into what it means to be a Downunderer on the 5th of November.
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