elanya

Written last night...tfw when you are too tired to actually hit 'post' but your tab saves your entry for you :V

Today was a weird day - I wasn't at my regular work, and got to mess around with a bunch of collections stuff in preparation for a huuuuuge transfer! Which is closer and closer to happening. My hands are all scratched up though. But it meant leaving home later and also getting home earlier, but a lot of moving stuff around in between.

I feel like I was going to talk about something specific, but now I forget. This is why I never write entries unless they are mundane' this was my day!' sorts of things.

All my games continue to be awesome. I am getting a character portrait commissioned for Korivan, who is my cannibal hobgoblin, and I've got the sketch now and I'm super excited for it! I really liked the artist's style (zuzaarti on tumblr), and I found them by looking for other D&D character commissions >.>

I think I am done my chocolate box fic! I had to remind myself that it is a relationship exchange and does not actually *require* smut ;p I think my fic is different from the prompts but also it hit a looot of their likes so I hope they enjoy it!

Uh, uh uh... what else. I bought snow shoes and then all the snows went away and have not come back in sufficient quantity to shoe in :(so we'll see whether that was a reasonable purchase or not :V

What else, what else.... Maze has been out and about around the house more often, and Sierra is.. growing more accustomed anyway. It means he's been engaging in typical kitty shenanigans like destroying baked goods and trying to drink mouthwash and such. People here have not been prepared to *actually* live with a cat, so that's been fun! I'm also out of the habit, so it's an adjustment all around.

Annnnnd....I guess that's all for now :3 Bed time!

Today I went to Toronto to the AGO (Art Gallery of Ontario), to see the Guillermo del Toro exhibit At Home With Monsters- it was pretty cool! There were props and drawings from all (I think - certainly most) of his movies, and other interesting collectibles of his, or that he'd chosen from the museum's collection to compliment the show. We'd gone to the bistro for lunch, and I had possibly the fanciest cocktail I have ever had in my life (inspired by the exhibit). It was Dr. Casares' Willow Water: Ron Zacapa 23 yr. rum, El Dorado 12 yr. rum, cherry wood smoke, black cherry simple syrup, orange oleo-saccharum, housemade clove tincture, clove-spiked orange zest (from the menu). It came to the table covered so the smoke wouldn't all dissipate!

We also went to Curiosa, which is a new curiosity shop that also sells Harry Potter tat. They are the kind of store that should sell BPAL. I told them this, and they took notes. They haven't even been open for two months, but they seem to be doing quite well! There were two young girls in Gryffindor robes there, one of whom showed me the trick to one of the puzzle boxes that was fore sale. Longpig picked up some neat things for the kids for Christmas.

After the AGO we went to check out Yarns Untangled, but since we are going to the Woodstock Fleece Festival next week, I was able to hold off on buying anyting. I want to weave a few Christmas present, I think And then we went to a Vietnamese place for dinner(a Bahn Mi shop). I had pho and springrolls, which were delicious, but something did not combine well with whatever else was in my system at the time (plu I think my body overreacted to the tiny amount of sriraccha I added.... my face turned all red and hot, though the pho didn't taste that spicy) , and I'm glad we wen home after that. The walk back to the car was unpleasant, but things seemed to settle out after that.

The trip itself was cool, it was a fun bunch to travel with!

I also finished my first loom project today, because weaving is stupid fast. My edges are a little wobbly, which is fine, they definitely show improvement and I know what to look for, but the bigger issue is that I wasn't consistent in my weft beating, so the fabric on one end is way denser than the other. That's the difference of today and yesterday's weaving - practice, I guess! I have more cotton to play with though, so probably more of these little.... towelettet things are in my future while I get it sorted out ;)

ETA: Apparently I am out of tags on DW and need to pay for an account or edit mine down @_@

Despite being awake and staring at my computer until almost 3 AM yesterday, I somehow managed not to make an entry. I am really bad at making and keeping habits. I am totally the person who will do something everyday for a year and then just miss it one day with no reason. I wonder about my brain sometimes :p Sometimes I wish you could just get brain scans or whatever without having a specific need, just to have a baseline for comparison. But that would be pointlessly expensive. And there are people in my life who need them for more legit reasons :/ I admit I am sometimes paranoid that there is something wrong and it just hasn't been noticed yet, but I know that is not really rational. If there was a real problem, I would know by now, not just wonder. Everyone's body does weird things from time to time, so I shouldn't get all hypochondriac, especially when I have seen what more serious symptoms look like.

Anyway.

Yesterday was decently interesting. I didn't get to scan anything, but I did compile exit surveys from the VR exhibit. It gave me surprising feels! Partly to see the number of older women (over 40 and over 60) who'd tried it and loved it. They said a range of heartening things, like that ii was immersive, that if gave them a sense of emotional and spiritual connection to the history, that they were pleased to be able to participate in this wave of new technology, and so forth. I am also amused at the mid-twenties dudes complaining that the vive headset was too heavy when women old enough to be their grandmothers were all 'no complaints, it felt fine!' It was nice to be even tangentially involved in the project, anyway. And I did a minor bit of tech supporting for the equipment while I was there as well.

Then last night, among other things, I was knitting, and managed to work the tip off one of my Karbonz, because of course I did. I'm pretty sure these are the ones I already had to replace (my US 4's). But maybe I'm using my 5's? Anyway, this is a new issue, but also a resolvable one. I just superglued it back on. Luckily I was near the end of the row. If I didn't love everything else about these needles so much I would probably stop buying them. But honestly I think the problem is me :p Meanwhile, have a pic of my work in progress on this scarf!

( Pic! )

This morning I got dinner in the crock pot, then has my "post-board review" with the HR person from PC. It was informative, mostly in the sense that it confirmed a lot of stuff for me that I suspected. i am terrible at having examples, and need to elaborate more on my answers, and take more cues from the questions. In these kinds of interviews, they aren't allowed to prompt for further explanations, so it is all on me and how I answer things. It seems like on some of the most-relevant questions I did quite well, but fell down in a few key areas. Part of having not great examples is a matter of experience, and part of it is not being vicious enough to past employers, and part of it is not being able to explain myself well when I do. As I said, it was helpful, if a little depressing. They interviewed less than ten people, though and since it was an open call I know that to make it that far I had to pass a lot of benchmarks. But in the end, I didn't even make it into the hiring pool, let alone make it to the top. Ugh. He was very encouraging though, and aid I should definitely continue to apply for other collections type positions with the agency. I'll keep an eye out, but they don't come up that often :p Meanwhile, I hope I didn't screw up my SA interview as badly. Ugh. At least they *know* I'm awesome. Right?

There than that I managed to get some laundry started, change the sheets on my bed, and do some general room tidying. I might try to put up the poster I got from the art show on my wall... I have the print tacked up just to get it out of the way, but I'd really like to get it framed. I'll keep an eye out for something nice for it. karanguni asked my for a pic, and I took one - it isn't super great, because the print is in a plastic sleeve and there is some glare, but it gives a pretty good idea!

( The Cat by Justin Erickson )

I have a bunch of other things I'd like to do today - mostly writing stuff, at this point. I did my EI report and subsequent phone call, but was only on hold for about 15 min this time, so not too bad. And I should go switch the laundry too... But I want to touch up my chocolate box, and work on the Thirteen story and maybe do some other little chocolate box thing? We'll see how my afternoon/evening goes, I guess.

So, I missed a post yesterday, and as self-punishment I am making myself write (or at least start) one-on-one my phone on the way up to the museum. Today I am going to continue looking for some stuff at SA, and then scan it if I do. I enjoy having concrete things to do!

I went to an art show yesterday by the Shadowood collective. It was really cool! They had a bunch of original works, and then a wall of mini prints. I bought one of the latter, because it was $35 and not like $1500 like the originals I was oggling! The name/theme of the show was "Do we make you uneasy?" And it was nice creepy surrealism stuff - right up my alley. The print I bought was a black cat with white eyes, so less creepy than most of it.

I've been working on my scarf/shawl, and am almost to the first bead! I am going to have to improvise a tool, though, so we'll see how that goes. There are only four in this chart, but I think more in the next, so I may break down and buy one.

I did manage to convince my gm to let my character have some beneficial effects from a dog animal companion for Thirteen (Fantasy colonial call of Cthulhu). So hopefully I will be less susceptible to madnesses :p I had been planning to take some kind of raptor for him initially, but in the last story there were some dogs that belonged to the antagonist. We used them to track him down, and now that he's been dealt with (shipped back across the ocean to live in a monastery for his own good), someone needs to look after them, right? I like the narrative arc of it, because at first I couldn't make a handle animal roll to save my life, so clearly it took them a while to warm up to my character, and now they're going to follow me everywhere! Dogs! There is some other stuff which makes it work out really well too, as the dogs were there when the creepy blue tentacle lion thing appeared out of nowhere and eviscerated his sister, nearly one-shotting her D: And then I failed my san check... Anyway now I will have dogs! They will be a great comfort, because you can pet them, and also they will freak out when there are invisible aberrations around, and my character can otherwise relax. Dogs are so good :3 Of course now I am writing the story of how the transition to them being Kahon's dogs goes, because that's how I roll.

Bees came today. Should have expected that, but I was not prepared. I *had* been expecting them for the past few days, ever since I identified them as a likely contributor to Wednesday's poisonous mood. I'm still sick and still tired, otherwise, but I'm almost finished my gloves, and I have a good start on my chocolate box fic. I just need to not let it get away from me and I should be golden. I have not started my cover letter. I still have time. I think I'll try and get it done and submitted on Monday. Though I need to figure out how to do references when the last people I worked for are also my prospective employers, but shuffled around.

I heard from a friend about a really cool art show by The Shadowood Collective that is going to be taking place in my home city, and I bought a ticket for that because it looks really amazing! Maybe I will even buy Art I Have Nowhere To Put! Technically I already did, as I got a VIP ticket, which includes a poster. But one of the artists there did some art for Hannibal and True Detective Season 1, and I think there will be prints of some of those pieces available. Good thing I'm poor, I wouldn't want to get carried away...

In other news, I've been plowing through watching Clone Wars (am close to the end of season 3) with Nary. Since I'm here, we've also been watching Daredevil (halfway through season 2), and Voltron (hnnnnngh @_@ No one is surprised that I am a Shiro fan, right? But really I love them all). We're a few episodes into the new season, since we've been watching it with her son, and he had to get through season 1 first. But probably if we're dedicated we can finish that before I leave ;p I have faith in us ;p We will watch some more once they get home and we have dinner (Lebanese foods from the Shwarma Shack mmmmmmm). We're planning to go see Hidden Figures tomorrow at some point as well, but I don't think we've finalized our plans.

So, being a jobless bum, I took the opportunity to go to the Remembrance day ceremonies this year. Being that I didn't think of it until ten and didn't commit to it until quarter past, I was basically following along the path of the parade about two blocks behind it. So I missed that, but was there for all of the ceremony, which was nice, and included all of the usual bits - no names read, which I remember them doing in Fredericton, but maybe London is too big. There were some WWII vets on parade, plus a lot that couldn't be directly involved but who'd come out from the hospitals and retirement homes. It was nice, anyway! I'm glad I went.

I usually spend a lot of time reading war poetry, but this year instead I've been looking through some of the art from the War Artists collection that the Canadian War Museum has online. Towards the end of the First World War, Lord Beaverbrook (who was from my home province, and whose own art collection formed the basis of my hometown art gallery) set up a fund to get artists to paint Canadians at war. During the Second World War, Canada actually appointed official war artists, and commissioned pieces from other artists as well. You can read a little bit about it on the museum's site, here and here.

Anyway, I thought that I would share some of the pictures here! Though you can see them from poking around at the links above as well. All the text is taken from that site as well.

( Olympic with Returned Soldiers by Arthur Lismer )

( Gas Attack, Liévin by A. Y. Jackson )

( Screened Road ‘A’ (unfinished) by A. Y. Jackson )

( Dressing Station in the Field — Arras, 1915 by Alfred Bastien )

( Private Roy, Canadian Women's Army Corps, by Molly Lamb Bobak )

( Before Zero Hour by Alex Colville )

( Ordnance depot by Harold Beament )

( Invasion Pattern, Normandy by Eric Aldwinckle )

( Shattered landscape, Cleve by Alex Colville )

There are a ton more, from quite graphic to very slice of life - this is just a small sampling. Other countries had their own similar programs, including the UK and Australia... I'm not 100% sure what the US was doing but I assume there was something.

( I had a crazy dream! ) and then I woke up.

So, the last time I managed to update was before I left the US.

( Now I'm in Canada, yaaaaay! )

I don't have a lot of time to go into it right now, but I went to the opening of the College of Architecture Faculty Show opening at work. This is a show we do every two years, so this is the second time around for me. The last time we held it it had some neat stuff. This time there is some really stellar stuff I am very excited about!

Our director wanted us to grab the artists while we had a chance and ask them about their work in a little more depth, so I did some interviews with some of the artists, one because he was there and two others because they had pieces I really really liked.

The first was a child's canoe from a traditional Australian design, based on one that the artist, himself Australian, had as a child, he designed it, and it was built by several of his students as a class project, following his design.

The other two were photography! Which I am biased towards for Reasons. Long, piggy reasons >.>

The first (Marcel Erminy) was architectural stuff, very stark black and white images capturing very cool shadows on some old buildings, and then a series playing with perspectives in the same space in an area that the architect had been drawn to because of the lines and contrasts, They were printed on a very specific (and veeeeery nice) matte art paper that works really very well with the architectural textures. He also had a series of shots of tree branches in winter that were playing around with focus and depth of field as a way to experiment with ideas about photography and presentation and control versus natural perceptions.

The last guy (Anatol Bologan), man. I LOVED his stuff! It was pictures of reflective surfaces, like glass, that capture and colocate other aspects of the local built human environment and draw them into conversation with each other, with their environment, with the photographer and ultimately their viewer. Unlike the architectural photographs I discussed above, these were minimally processed. There was one, for exacmple, that was of a women's fashion store in London, that had a reflections from the building across the street with beautiful grafiti art of a woman who was being smothered by a rose, and then out of the window frame, on the wall beside this, someone had pasted a cut out of a woman in basically her underwear with her hands on her hips, staring defiantly. And all of these these are captured and revealed in a conversation about femininity/femnism, expectations of women, etc [and then I had to go because my ride is here so I couldn't expand further on this thought! that was inserted after I'd finished the rest;p]. Talking with him about it was really exciting, too! I was looking online, and he has a website for his paintings and drawings, but not his photos, alas! I liked them to start with, and then the more I talked to them the more my brain sparked on them. They really spoke to me a lot.

This is an excerpt from the provenance information for a painting I was working on cataloguing today, with identifiable names edited:

Mr. Stephen C. M------ wrote: "At the 1939 Knoedler exhibition, Mrs. H----- came to the opening and talked to my wife. Mrs. Hassam was interested to find that Mrs. M------ was the owner of the painting. Mrs. H----- told Mrs. M------ that in her opinion she considered [This Painting] the finest picture which her husband, the late Mr. C----- H-----, had painted in his lifetime." (The preceeding paragraph is recorded in the archives of the [gallery that acquired it from Mrs. M------], as part of the history of this H----- Painting.)


...and this is how women get erased from the historical record! :/ I couldn't find any solid identifying information about the husband that would let me know it was the right guy and so track down his wife's name :( Even the provenance information we have from the gallery where it was purchased (in the 70's) by the people who donated it to us says Mrs. Stephen C M------ -_-