Feeling a bit better

You'll be pleased to hear I'm feeling a bit less miserable than I was the last time I wrote in my blog. My feelings are back and life is all together more interesting again. It's funny, not much has really changed in the sense of my day to day routine and the activities I'm involved in. I've just found my peace again. I suppose that's the key to coping with anything.

I think that part of the cause of all this was the extreme amount of work I did for the Premium Membership project at work. I really put in a lot of extra hours to get everything finished on time. After it was all over, I was so detatched from life outside of work that I felt very disconnected from the world.

I found a verse that spoke to me during this time. Its relevance may not be instantly obvious:

A faithful man will abound with blessings,
But he who makes haste to be rich will not go unpunished.

- Proverbs 28:20 (NASB)

This reminded me to faithful, even when things all around aren't changing that much. God's not passing me by here. This is just a slow phase I'm in right now. That's ok.

I need to say a big "thank you!" to all my concerned family members who wrote encouraging e-mails after reading my previous post. Mum, Dad, Alison, Auntie I - I love you all! Thanks so much for your encouragement. It's good to feel loved! I'll hopefully be able to write to you via e-mail soon and I'll see you all at Christmas.

Nothing

Nothing is what I feel. I am a spectator, largely unaffected by this world around me. The alarm goes off, I stop it and turn over. Eventually I'm in the office and for about the next 8 hours I know what I'm about. The program gets written, the bugs get fixed. I go home and become a spectator once more.

The world passes by, years as a heartbeat. The view from the window changes a touch from season to season. The leaves are born and in no time at all, I'm trampling them into the ground. The cycle continues.

You never plan for life to become mundane. Somehow you just wake up one day and wonder why you should bother.

I believe in God, in his plan for my life. I believe the expression "life in all its fullness" is supposed to apply to what I'm experiencing. The problem is that it's not my experience just yet. I wish for that day. Until then, it's another day at the office. As a friend wrote:

"Look at me sick of the same old,
Look at me cling to my routine" -Jeff Snyder

This is just passing, but it's where I am just now...

TACF Premium Membership

I forgot to mention that the new Premium Membership feature is now up and running at good old www.tacf.org.

This is the project that I worked my rear off to finish in time. We had a few problems along the way but everything's pretty much working now. We still have some problems with people not getting their confirmation e-mails which is an annoying thing to try to fix. It works for some people but not for others. I hate bugs like that - the ones that are so intermittent.

I'm currently working on a really peculiar bug in the Revive TV section. It seems my LinkButtons are just not firing the event the way they're supposed to. This is very frustrating...

Applied for Permanent Residence

You may or may not remember that when I got my new work permit back in June, I made a remark about immigrating as a skilled worker. Well, today I finally got round to sending off my application to the office in London. Hopefully everything will go well (and quickly!) and I'll be able to stay here as long as I want. That'd be a huge thing off my mind. I could finally move all the rest of my possessions over here without fear of having to send them back to Scotland again.

Hot Apple Cider?

With the weather getting colder, I popped into Tim Horton's a few days ago to get a drink of Hot Apple Cider on my way home. It reminded me of an unusual thing I noticed about my local neighbourhood Timmy's...

One day you might be able to go in and order Hot Apple Cider no problem. Then a week later, you'll as for it and they'll say "We don't sell that." They don't say "We've run out", they look at you like you've just tried to order Filet Mignon. It's so weird! I think they're trying to trick us into thinking we imagined the whole thing. I know the truth, though. You can get Hot Apple Cider from a Tim Horton's! Don't listen to their trickery to the contrary!

The end of "sandals" season.

Yes, it's a sad day and with a heavy heart that I write this post. It seems that my sandals will have to be put to one side in the near future, pending better weather. I was working late last night and as I walked home at 10:30pm, I couldn't help noticing my breath on the air and the rather numb sensation creeping across my toes.

As I passed the Toronto Congress Centre, I was informed by the big (and somewhat superfluous sign) that the temperature was 6 degrees Celsius. Of course, as I mentioned before, it's quite possible there will be a danger of heat exhaustion today, knowing how schizophrenic the weather can get around here.