There is simply nothing worse than knowing how it ends.

Saturday went like this:

- wake up at 5am

- drive to the saw mill in the dark

- spend the whole day in the freezing cold, drafty, dim basement of the sawmill

- shovel until back and legs hurt too much to stand up straight

- drive home at 5:15pm...in the dark

- go to bed

- wake up the next morning at 5am...repeat

lovely.lovely.

But I made some money, and that will be nice.

It takes two when it used to take one.

Today is my last day of work!
Hoorah.

A kind of funny thing is that in my last couple days of this week, I have finally moved up a job at the mill. For the last day and a half I have worked on of those sit on my bum and push a button jobs. I am operating the tilt hoist. I don't think I could handle a job like that over any long period of time. But it has been a nice and welcome break from usual work for a few days. I am hoping that I will get the lazy job again tonight.

Then I have one day, and not even a full day because I don't get home from work until 1 AM and I need to sleep in a bit, to pack everything so I can move on sunday.

I have not even started packing at all! I still have mess all over this house. It will be a busy day.

I really like this song:

I'm moving slow, so it resonates.

I am at camp now. Hoorah.

Last week did go by painful slow as I predicted. But I got 3 days of work, which was quite nice. I could have even worked a fourth on friday. But I decided that going from a thursday afternoon shift (I get home at 1:30-2:00 AM) to a friday day shift (I have to get up at 5:30) and then getting up saturday morning to drive to camp was a bad idea. I took the day to pack and do some last minute preparing.

Sr 1 ends tomorrow. Then only a few days till my program starts. Crazy. It has always been such a long way away, it is hard to believe it is almost here.

Today is a sort of cabin day. Since I am not needed, I am in the office doing some more research/preparation. I have actually found quite a few interesting facts and ideas to add into some aspects of the camp.

I have only been here 2 days. I am already ridiculously tired. How does this always happen?

Cause I've got to be free.

Last week I was not scheduled to work this week.

The planer is down to two shifts, so they don't need as many people.

I am on call.

Then, a couple hours after I got home from work on friday, I got a call from Tembec.

I am working afternoon shift tomorrow. Then I am back on call for the rest of the week.

This weekend saw another two days of camp preparation. I am getting close to being ready. I am going to be at camp in less than a week. I would like to be there now though. This last 5 days is just going to crawl by, I can tell already.

I have a crazy amount of things to try and do this week while still being on call. I have to try to get into both the dentist and the doctor. I need a haircut. I need to maybe make an appointment to get molded ear plugs made for work. I also need to renew my car insurance and my driver's license (however, the driver's license can wait until after camp if it has to). I need to pack for 2-3 weeks at camp and get all my program stuff in order. I still have a few things to finish making for the camp as well and I still need to work on some wide game stuff.

I can't remember if that is all.

Mostly I just wish that I was already at camp. Sr 1 started today.

I know that I will have to work  a 10 hour shift on friday before I go, and I am dreading that like crazy.

Now I am going to sleep.

I feel like over the last couple weeks, this blog has turned into me just listing things I have to do and complaining about it. sorry.

And the sun is still alive even though it's hard to tell.

So, I realized that my last post with excerpts from Cat's Cradle really doesn't give you any idea what the book is actually about. Haha.

It has been a long time since I have posted anything. So here's an update. I worked night shift last week. Then I went to camp for the weekend. It was lovely. The weekend seemed so long and I had a wonderful time. I played my guitar, went canoeing (which was quite the adventure), went ropeswinging, played games, and spoke at a campfire. It made coming back to work this week rather unenjoyable. I would love to still be there.

This week I am afternoon shift. I have one more day of work, I leave in an hour. Then it is a long weekend. Yahoo. Three days for me to work on sr 2 camp stuff. The sooner I get everything ready for sr 2, the sooner I can maybe go back to camp.

update.

Alright, finally time for some updates.

Sometimes I like to pretend that there are lots of people who read this blog and are legitimately interested in what is going on with me. People that would be upset that it has taken me so long to actually write about has been going. You know, people leaving dozens of comments begging me to tell them about my life. When in reality, I mostly just blog for myself, with a few friends who may read every now and then. But mostly I am content with that. I have found blogging to be a pleasant creative outlet.

Anyways, updates.

So, I went to camp for Jr 1 and quite enjoyed myself. I was looking forward to a whole month, more or less, at camp. But after only one week (yup, uno) of no work I got the call. The "even though we told you to get lost for a month, we are now short and would like you to come work full time" call. I was in a scrub store in Calgary (my sister needed to buy scrubs for school next year) when Tembec came up on my caller ID. They told me that they wanted me to start at my earliest available date.

I was super bummed. I considered telling them no, that I already had filled my month with plans. But, I had said every since they told me I had to take time off that I would go back as soon as I can. And, it would be very much to my benefit to be trained at the planer. It may drastically increase future work opportunities. I prayed about it, and I just felt like I should go back to work, as much as I did not want to.

I had concrete plans for the following week. I had to teach rock climbing for the PITS and take my mom and others to plane crash. So I did those things, then I packed up all my stuff and came home.

I started work day shift on monday, and am now trained as a production clean-up and 6' piler. I am not sure if I will get steady work, but it is looking like I might for a while now. I will find out tomorrow if I am scheduled for next week. I may also be trained at the tilt hoist and as a bin chaser in the next few weeks. But I don't think that there is any guarantee of that.

I am content. Which is nice considering how I really didn't want to come home and work at all. I think it really helped that I got things worked out with God and I just felt like this is where I should be. I think I will try to make it out to camp for a couple weekends before sr 2, which will be nice. I don't know how long I will stay happy out here working 5 days a week, but I am certainly thankful for the contentment I have now.

Cue mill photo montage :)

None of these pictures are actually of the mill I work in, but they are similar.

Stacker

There are forks all around the planer

Tilt hoist

I spent a lot of time re-stacking loads today.We ran 2x4s today, they are stacked 14 wide and 21 high with strips at the 2nd, 8th, and 17th layer :)

This last picture is actually of the Elko mill. But it is kind of an old picture and is from very far away. You can't really see too much. That big smoke-stack looking teepee shaped burner is not there anymore.

ps. eventually I will post some hiking/camping pictures. I have been on 3 trips so far :)

hey.

check out my booklist. Just to the right of the screen.

It is a list of books I have read so far this summer.

I would have made a 'to read' list, like most people. But, especially lately, I don't pick out the books I plan to read ahead of time. I just finish one and then decide which one I want to read next. I thought it would be funner to list them after I have read them. Also, I think that a small part of me feels more accomplished when I see the list getting bigger. Also, maybe I want to show that off a bit :)

I have been reading so much lately, mostly on my breaks at work, and I am loving it. When I finished school last semester, I wanted to start reading again. Reading things that weren't textbooks. However, it took me quite a while to get into it. For the longest time I just wasn't at all excited about reading. Then once I made myself start, I haven't stopped. We shall see how much I can get through before the summer's done.

Tomorrow (Sunday) is my last day of work before my 30 days off. There is always a chance that I could still get called out during that 30 days. If they need me on weekdays, then they will have to transfer me from a casual employee to a summer student. And if that happens, my hour restrictions will be gone. But that is not super likely.

Today I slept through my alarm. I woke up 40 minutes after I had to leave to drive to work. I was 35 minutes late. I've never been more than 10 minutes late before. But my charge-hand likes me, and didn't even make me work through any of my breaks or make up the time. That is the one good thing about being at the mill right now. Even though everyone else may not be treating me well, Larry always does. If you work hard for someone, it usually pays off.

good night.

Falling slowly.

Today was another day at work. Full of silly union policies and unfair treatment.

Turns out I have fought as much as I can. And there is nothing left but to accept that things will not work out in my favour whatsoever.

This means that after this weekend, I have 30 days off (that is how long it takes to restart my hours so I don't get more that 240 in 90 days, if I did that, they would have to hire me full time, and goodness knows, they don't want to do that).

I really didn't think it would end up this way. Having some time off will be nice, but I feel almost guilty that I will not be working. I feel like I really need to in order to be okay at school next year, even though I probably don't. And I could get another job. But in 4 weeks I will be back to work at the mill and that hardly seems time enough to look for, apply for, and start a new job.

Perhaps this the way God wants my summer to be. I am sure it is, but I am not sure what it is going to look like yet. I feel like there is a good chance I will end up at camp for most of July. But I really don't know if that is where I should be, or if that is simply where i will go because that is where I always go when I have free time in the summer. Every summer I feel like it will finally be the summer where I grow up and actually work all four months. But somehow I always end up at camp. And that's not a bad thing, I love camp. But I see so many people who only get a few summers at camp before they "grow up" and are busy working and doing other things with their time. So, I guess sometimes I feel like I am not growing up and changing, but always staying the same. Always going to camp, even though now a lot of the summer staff ends up being much younger than me.

This summer, if I spent the month of July at camp, it would most likely be in the role of head counsellor. Because that is what camp needs and doesn't have. Now, does God want me to be the head counsellor? Or am I simply thinking that because the role hasn't been filled yet? Frankly, I am not sure that I am strong enough to do it right now. I have been sucking at my faith lately. But maybe God wants me to do it anyways.

I just don't know. I am going to be head counselling for most of Jr 1 next week. I guess I will see how that week is and go from there.

Work week = done.

saturday = ridiculously long day + flat tire = even longer day

There's nothing that can make a day as long as having to drive only 70 km an hour because you have the spare baby tire on. That drive home was terrible. I got passed by a school bus and I wasn't even going fast enough to cool down the non air conditioned car.

And then today was a wake up at 4:00 am day. Love those.

This week I hope to be productive. These are things I would like to do/get done:

- plant my new plant

- put pictures of last weeks overnighter up

- start a book

- get new shampoo

- learn a new song on guitar

- tidy my room

- wash my laundry

- order my new backpack

That is all I can think of right now.

good night.

This weekend over the course of 60 hours, I worked 30 hours and spent 6 hours commuting to or from work. 36 out of 60 hours spent at working, or going to or coming home from work. That is a lot.

Getting up at 5 wasn't as horrible as I remember it being in my mind. However, I did get quite sick over the course of friday. I thought it was just sawdust in my throat making in hurt, turns out I was coming down with quite the cold.

But I really need to make money, so I drugged myself up with advil and cold pills and worked the rest of the weekend.

Yesterday I hardly even got out of bed. I feel a bit better today.

Tomorrow I am going on an overnight backpacking trip.

I really hope the weather is nice.

I am going to be teaching the people I am going with some outdoor skills, like bear line set-up, fire stuff, maybe some tarp set-up. So I am hoping I won't feel too crappy.

I'll probably take some pictures.

Update.

My room looks awesome!

It is finally done.

In the last two days I have built my new shelf, reorganized my bookshelf, gotten rid of more stuff, unpacked the rest of my boxes, organized everything, vacuumed, dusted, washed my sheets, washed my clothes, and hung my mirrors/bulletin boards/pictures.

It feels so great to have everything clean and organized, and to have gotten rid of all that stuff I never actually use or want.

Tomorrow I start working. I thought that I wasn't going to be able to start working until next weekend. It is nice to be making so money sooner, but I am not looking forward to 5 am wake up.

Back to the smelling like sawdust and spending all my weekends doing hard labour. When I left for school last August, I was actually kind of sad to leave my job. It was the first time I have ever left a job and wasn't ecstatic about it. Which makes coming back to it now so much nicer. Usually I work somewhere until I hate it, and then I leave and would never go back.

Konstantine by Something Corporate is my favourite song in the world right now. I put a video of it in a post a couple days ago, listen to it if haven't already. It is 10 minutes long, but definitely not one of those long songs that gets super boring, or one of those ones with ridiculously long into and outros, or with a million lyric repeats. The lyrics are beautiful. I can listen to it over and over (and I do).