The Nasties

School has started again. This is a relatively good thing though I dread the return of the 20 page lab reports. I am just not organised enough for this.

The Sheik progresses, albeit slowly. We are trying to incorporate both a Sheik Market (consignment goods) and a Sheik Boutique (designed goods). A series of guest designers will be able to root through the Sheik Market items and choose pieces they feel can be best remade and have at 'er. Should make for some interesting clothing. And we made psuedo-friends with the owner of a toronto vintage store, 69Vintage, who may be able to help us with procurring wholesale items. She has been working on her store for ages, so it makes me feel a little better that the Sheik is not further along.

And yesterday, I asked Natalie to help me to learn how to sew. We made a bag. And it wasn't even a disaster.

In other, school based news, I got an NSERC award enabling me to go out and do research with Dr. Peter Bernath at Waterloo part of the Atmospheric Chemistry Experiment (in conjunction with the Canadian Space Agency!) I am pretty excited. Who knows what I will be doing, but I am going to carve my initials into something that is going into space.

And hopefully, if it works out, I will also get to go and work with Dr. Christopher Bayly at Merck Frosst in Montreal. I would be working on making a better model of a forcefield used in computation chemistry experiments. The current version, which I will be making better, is already one of the best. But that is still in the works - I had an hour long interview, which went well, but I really want to stay there for 8 months (Natalie wants to move out with me and it would not be pleasant for her to have to move repeatedly) and I am not sure that they will want to do more that the normal 4 month term. Soon. He should email me soon.

And Big Brother/Big Sisters will not let me volunteer, understandably, since I am leaving in 4 months. I should have got on this a while ago. They provided another option, so hopefully that will work out. For Montreal, I have to plan in advance, so that I can start pretty much as soon as I arrive. I really suck at this volunteer thing. I want to do something, but move so often that I just can't promise to be anywhere for a year at a time. I could have done something last year, but who knew that I would be around. I have no problem lying to jobs, but not to volunteer positions. Maybe I can find some volunteer work I can do online. Or soup kitchens - they don't require any special time commitments. Or human rights stuff - that is something I am working on right now. I need alex's email.