So, hey.
I haven't posted a substantive entry in four months. Here goes.
Looking back on it I want to say that the move wasn't that bad, but honestly, it was hellish enough to make me swear to get movers from now on. We filled a 16-foot truck to the rafters and still had to strap a bookcase to the back of it, not to mention that the Mazda was also crammed full. (I'd like to give a shout out to Ivan and George for their help loading, Matt and Baldeep for unloading, and to my Dad for helping every step of the way.) I'm very, very glad that I had the month of July off, because there was just so much to do in terms of unpacking and in getting the place set up. We painted the two bedrooms and the bathroom (by which I mean I did wall prep and Sara did the painting), and a couple of the walls in the living room, not to mention getting a bunch of new shelves, furniture, and blinds. I never expected to be this familiar with the layout of Home Depot. But I'm glad that we did all that at the beginning, because it meant that everything significant was basically done by the time I started work. And, as you presumably have seen from the pictures Sara posted on Facebook, the place cleaned up very nicely. Plus, I haven't had time to do anything since I started work anyway.
I started my articling term, which lasts 10 months, on August 4th. Things were pretty slow at first, which I think was attributable to the fact that the summer students were still around. They left the second-last week of August, and a couple of weeks after that, we (the articling students) got significantly busier. Lately I have been very busy, starting work at about 8:30 or 9:00 and then working until 8 or 9 on a semi-regular basis, and the odd time until 10 or 11 or even midnight. It's been pretty shitty sometimes, but Sara has been wonderful and supportive and understanding, which helps a lot. And she's a great cook, so when I do get home at a normal time (6:45), she usually has a lovely dinner waiting for me. ♥
I discovered that everyone at the office wears suits four days a week during the cooler months, so lately I have been--more so than usual--concerned with clothes and fashion. I've always kind of hoped that I would end up at a workplace where I'd be wearing a suit every day, but the practical reality of this requirement when (a) I don't have a hell of a lot of money to buy new suits, and (b) I have to wash and iron all of my clothes myself, has been rather less pleasant than I'd imagined.
I've also been cruising Value Village, hoping to score some deals, and though it's been a great place to find classic overcoats, it serves as a rather depressing memento mori to see all the terribly out-of-fashion suits that are there. One plays a very tricky game, trying to choose a suit that will last for five or more years. For those who can't buy bespoke or otherwise get their hands on a really timeless piece, it's a constant game of calculation, trying to judge the lifespan of a trend, whether something is on the way in or on the way out. I've found that, at least in terms of men's suits, fashions change just by exaggerating different aspects away from the mean, to one extreme or the other. In the '70s, lapels were hugely wide; in the early '00s, and to a certain extent still today, they were anorexically small. All just deviations from the golden mean of "halfway between the jacket opening and the shoulder seam." Thankfully, many suits nowadays have lapels of this proportion, and the classic '20s/'30s British look that has set the reference point for men's suiting ever since is definitely now in vogue. I just hope that something "classic" will have a longer lifespan, and that I'm not throwing money away.
It's taken me three days to write this much of an entry, and I have work to do still tonight, so I'm going to leave off and hopefully (maybe) write more later in the week when things have settled down. Anybody have anything they'd like to hear about once I do get around to it?
Looking back on it I want to say that the move wasn't that bad, but honestly, it was hellish enough to make me swear to get movers from now on. We filled a 16-foot truck to the rafters and still had to strap a bookcase to the back of it, not to mention that the Mazda was also crammed full. (I'd like to give a shout out to Ivan and George for their help loading, Matt and Baldeep for unloading, and to my Dad for helping every step of the way.) I'm very, very glad that I had the month of July off, because there was just so much to do in terms of unpacking and in getting the place set up. We painted the two bedrooms and the bathroom (by which I mean I did wall prep and Sara did the painting), and a couple of the walls in the living room, not to mention getting a bunch of new shelves, furniture, and blinds. I never expected to be this familiar with the layout of Home Depot. But I'm glad that we did all that at the beginning, because it meant that everything significant was basically done by the time I started work. And, as you presumably have seen from the pictures Sara posted on Facebook, the place cleaned up very nicely. Plus, I haven't had time to do anything since I started work anyway.
I started my articling term, which lasts 10 months, on August 4th. Things were pretty slow at first, which I think was attributable to the fact that the summer students were still around. They left the second-last week of August, and a couple of weeks after that, we (the articling students) got significantly busier. Lately I have been very busy, starting work at about 8:30 or 9:00 and then working until 8 or 9 on a semi-regular basis, and the odd time until 10 or 11 or even midnight. It's been pretty shitty sometimes, but Sara has been wonderful and supportive and understanding, which helps a lot. And she's a great cook, so when I do get home at a normal time (6:45), she usually has a lovely dinner waiting for me. ♥
I discovered that everyone at the office wears suits four days a week during the cooler months, so lately I have been--more so than usual--concerned with clothes and fashion. I've always kind of hoped that I would end up at a workplace where I'd be wearing a suit every day, but the practical reality of this requirement when (a) I don't have a hell of a lot of money to buy new suits, and (b) I have to wash and iron all of my clothes myself, has been rather less pleasant than I'd imagined.
I've also been cruising Value Village, hoping to score some deals, and though it's been a great place to find classic overcoats, it serves as a rather depressing memento mori to see all the terribly out-of-fashion suits that are there. One plays a very tricky game, trying to choose a suit that will last for five or more years. For those who can't buy bespoke or otherwise get their hands on a really timeless piece, it's a constant game of calculation, trying to judge the lifespan of a trend, whether something is on the way in or on the way out. I've found that, at least in terms of men's suits, fashions change just by exaggerating different aspects away from the mean, to one extreme or the other. In the '70s, lapels were hugely wide; in the early '00s, and to a certain extent still today, they were anorexically small. All just deviations from the golden mean of "halfway between the jacket opening and the shoulder seam." Thankfully, many suits nowadays have lapels of this proportion, and the classic '20s/'30s British look that has set the reference point for men's suiting ever since is definitely now in vogue. I just hope that something "classic" will have a longer lifespan, and that I'm not throwing money away.
It's taken me three days to write this much of an entry, and I have work to do still tonight, so I'm going to leave off and hopefully (maybe) write more later in the week when things have settled down. Anybody have anything they'd like to hear about once I do get around to it?