Category: Personal

This weekend is the Gay Pride celebration here in Toronto. Brooke and I ran yesterday in the Pride and Remembrance 5K, and I just want to share how proud I am of my wife. Nobody works harder, and it paid off as she shaved more than a minute off her previous 5K best (only 3 weeks ago!). As a result, she beat me handily. The full race report can be found in my heretofore private running blog, cleverly entitled A Running Commentary.

Earlier in the week, in a bit of pre-Pride celebration, some GTABloggers gathered at Wilde Oscar’s for drinks. Despite the heat (and the attendant rotting garbage smell from the nearby bins), we had a nice time. Joining us as part of her ALA convention jaunt was the fabulous Jessamyn.

And then Friday, I finally got to meet Neil Lee (who had unsuccessfully tried to find us on Wednesday). Neil is visiting from Winnipeg, and in another amusing “small-world” twist, has a good friend in common with me. The three of us met for a drink in the afternoon that almost stretched into the evening (and would have had I not had some domestic responsibilities). I’m glad to report that Neil is another “online” acquaintance that I’m now proud to count as an “offline” friend.

Ok, I’d still like a few more pledges for the Pride and Remembrance 5K that Brooke and I are running on Saturday. I’ve made it very very easy to sponsor me, too. You see, there’s a little graphic over on the right side. It’s going to be removed in a few days, because by then it will be too late. So, if you can spare as little as $10 (Canadian!), and you want to support a good cause, start clicking! Special thanks to Heather and Rannie for their generosity.

Very busy weekend. On Friday night, Brooke and I went north to spend some time at our friends’ cottage on Mary Lake in the Muskokas. We’re part of a team of ten people from our church who are going to Poland for two weeks this summer to assist a Polish Baptist church run an ESL programme. The cottage trip was to do some team-building and planning. The weather wasn’t great, and the blackflies were biting, but we ate well and enjoyed each other’s company before coming back on Saturday evening.

Sunday morning was the Nissan Challenge 5K. We’d been training for the past 10 weeks and were very excited to be running our first race. However, I think being out of our regular schedule made us a little sluggish. Plus, we’d both been bothered by some nagging injuries. In my case, I wanted to rest my sore knee and so hadn’t run since last Monday. As a result, neither of us felt we were in top form. Nevertheless, we both accomplished our goals. We both wanted to finish in less than 30 minutes, and Brooke wanted to finish without any walk breaks. I finished in 29:03 and Brooke in 29:28. Look for us in this list of results (hint: I was 259th, and Brooke was 272nd). Both of us feel that we’ll be able to better that, maybe even by our next race.

Speaking of which, why don’t you go ahead and click the cute little graphic over there on the right, you know, the one for the Pride and Remembrance 5K, which we’ll be running on June 28?

In other news, I may have some very good news on the job front, possibly within the next day or two…(!!!)

I actually got home yesterday afternoon. I got a lot of work done while I was away. Thanks for all your good wishes. It wasn’t a “quick fix” but it was really helpful. I stayed in a youth hostel that is used as housing for Queen’s University students during the school year. I had an entire room to myself for $25/night. It might even be good to do this once a month or so.

Updates will be non-existent for the next couple of days. I’ve been struggling with the many distractions of home, and am heading off alone to Kingston for the next few days to do some thinking about my career direction. No phone, no TV, no internet, no familiar people. I hope it will energize me for the next phase of my career search.