where does the time go?!

So I went away to mississauga for a week and I came home and all of a sudden Fall had arrived. I didn't notice while in Mississauga, mostly because I hardly left the office or hotel most of the week, but it definately has arrived. The trees are all sorts of pretty colours, the fields are a golden brown and even the sky is a different colour. I love fall!

Time is going by very quickly. My weekend zoomed by and I feel like I got nothing done. In reality I got through about half of my to-do list, but time went by so quickly i didn't have time to breath. One thing on my list was to vote. I will not be near my polling station on election day, so I voted at the advance poll. It was exciting for a couple reasons. first, I have missed my last two chances to vote - the last federal election was while I was in South Africa and due to a breakdown in internet access I actually went a week without knowing who the prime minister of Canada was. the Last provincial election took place while I was at school in winnipeg. So I finally got to vote. The other reason it is exciting is because there is a referendum about a new election system. For those of you who do not live in Ontario, the new system is call MMP - multiple member p-something. Anyway, if it goes though it would mean a more representative method of electing MPPs. I like it alot and it would especially benefit parties like NDP and the green party where the number of seats in Parliament do not actually represent the percentage of the vote they recieved. Yahoo.

Now I am in Downtown Toronto sitting in my hotel room. Differnet hotel than last week, I am here for a training/orientation course with the Centre of Inter-cultural learning through CIDA. It looks like it will be a little bit repetative since I just did most of this stuff with World Vision last week, but there will be several other people here with other organizations so that is good. I like meeting other people going overseas! It is always fun to meet new people and compare experiences.

It begins!!

So today was my first day as an intern with World Vision. I am really excited about it all and haven't really gotten to process it all. we had a tour today of the head offices of World Vision canada and met our mentors, learned how to use Lotus Notes (already knew that one....) and got our shiny new laptops. yahoo! except mine has a crapy battery so I have to have it plugged in at all times, so it is really not much different from my own laptop except it is much smaller and lighter.

There are two other inters going through training with me. Miriam is going to DRC (the not-so-democratic republic of congo) and Joanna is headed to tanzania. They both have their master's degrees and are a little older than me, but seem very nice and we all get along very well. They live close enough that they are commuting every day whereas I live in a hotel five steps away from the office. Very convenient! I have a huge king sized bed, a small kitchen and I'm bored because there is no one to talk to.

That is all for now. Stuff to read and things to do!

It is Time...

So this afternoon my parents are driving me to Mississauga where I will settle into my hotel room tonight and get ready for tomorrow when I will start my internship with World Vision. This freaks me out - in a good way, but still freaked. Things have gone on in the last week - my last day of work, a birthday dinner for Jen, a blind date and spending time in my garden, but I can't really concentrate on anything well enough to actually tell you about it. Maybe later, but for now, it is Time.

The countdown is on!!

This time next week I will be settling into my hotel room in Mississauga getting ready for my first day of orientation. One week left! Still lots to do, and it hasn't really set in yet. I'm working full time at the recruitment job and I spent 6 hours in the office on saturday just trying to catch up on the backlog of paperwork. So, I haven't had time to really dwell on the whole leaving to go back to Africa thing. Yesterday we went out for dinner for Carley's birthday. We went to Sole, a fancy restaurant and had a really yummy meal that cost a lot of $. Today I went shopping trying to fill the holes in my wardrobe for my internship and so I spent more $$. So really it is a good thing that I am working so much!