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On Friday, I arrived at a Branch All-Staff meeting. This was my first one in this particular branch and I was surprised to see so many people! Probably close to 600 people were in the room! I don’t usually talk about work stuff on this website, but this particular event had Benoit and I pose as the Mac vs. PC guys from the commercial in a variety of skits that poked fun at the trials and tribulations that we go through in our line of work. I thought it went over well although there were technical difficulties throughout the day. I was the PC guy and I dressed up for the part in a suit as well as pulling out an old pair of eyeglasses I had. Wow, I never thought I would be wearing those ever again!

After the all-staff meeting, it was such a beautiful day that Krista, Alvaro and I headed out to the Royal Oak near the University. I was glad Alvaro came out as he had helped me out a lot with my Spanish homework and I felt he deserved a few beers. Dave, Maude, Jacob, Alvaro, Vince, Naomi and Krista and I hung around the Oak for a few hours in the amazing heat and I started to realize that I was finally done school as I downed a few suds across from the University. I even saw my Spanish professor at the Oak as well which I take as a good sign!

Luckily for me, Mike was still at work so I managed to get a hold of him and convince him to pick me up instead of me taking the bus home. I bid adieu to the fine folks at the table and headed off for the main event…the night out with the ladies from Toronto; Katie and Sabrina. They were coming up for a visit at Carrie’s so Mike and I decided to pack some sleeping bags and head there for the night as well.

We got home, went to The Works for an excellent burger and a Mill Street Tankhouse Ale (which always tastes soapy for some reason), packed the truck up with the necessary items, headed over to Mike’s friend Andre’s place for a beer, then we headed over to where Vero and her friends were doing a walk for cancer throughout the night. It was quite the rambunctious crowd…bagpipes, music blaring, people running around a track…this event was going from 7PM – 7AM. I’m not going to lie…I’m relieved that I didn’t have to partake in this overnight event. I think I would have been more than willing to take part in it if it was during the day. Vero told me that around midnight she felt the urge to run and she didn’t stop running until 2AM. That is what I like to call Forrest Gump Insane. They had a great time though.

Mike and I then headed out to the gas station where we picked up some ice (and gave the attendant a beer as he was drooling over them) and headed to Carrie’s. When we got there, Alex was putting down some new patio stones for a step so we helped him out and chatted for awhile. Katie and Sabrina arrived during that time so we spent time meandering from Carrie’s apartment to the front of the house chatting with Alex and Holly. They had some exciting news but I’m not sure if it’s public knowledge so I guess I’ll just leave you in suspense or you can just ask them yourselves.

Carrie, Katie, Sabrina, Mike and I then headed out to Amanda’s house for a post-Woodies (baseball team) party. I know quite a few of the Woodies from living with Carrie years ago so it was fun times all around visiting them. The party was in full swing when we arrived. I did have a good chuckle when Amanda announced last call and I mentioned that I had never heard ‘last call’ yelled during a house party. Turns out that she ended up leaving her own place so she could go to her boyfriends house because he had a dog they had to feed. In the end, it was the crew I showed up with, but we were alone in Amanda’s house at the end of the night so what better thing to do with our time but to play Twister?

Lord, my legs are not made to play Twister anymore. I think we were also playing it wrong…we were taking a turn instead of all moving our limbs at the same time. After the hilarity which is Twister, we realized it was time to hit the road and we arrived at Carrie’s in the wee hours and found some Kraft Dinner. KD by Katie is somehow made into something extra-special through the use of salt and pepper and we enjoyed a bowl of it out in the back deck while we realized that the sun was starting to come up in the distance. Around 4:30AM we both realized it was time to hit the sack. This was a good start to my post-graduation party.

On a random note, Mike had bought a breathalyzer the week before so we were excited to give it a try. With the new laws surrounding a 0.05% blood alcohol limit while driving, he figured it would be a good idea to pick one of these things up. We must admit that it was quite lackluster on the Friday night as I had picked up the cheapest batteries known to man at Giant Tiger. I looked at two Energizer batteries for $4.97 or 18 no-name batteries for $1.97. You all know which ones I picked up. In the end, they sucked as the breathalyzer only worked for a few tries. However, we did manage to get some Energizer batteries the next day and while it held up for a while longer, I wasn’t overly impressed with the length of time it did last. Granted, we were using it quite a lot so maybe it’s only meant to be used sparingly? Mike did end up registering at 0.15% at the end of the night which I felt I could have beat but we’ll never know because the thing died on us.

The Spanish final was quite a doozy….there were a few sections where I had to conjugate verbs AND put them into the appropriate sentence. My only problem is that I only understood 1 out of the 10 words! It was like drawing names from a hat and taking a wild guess at where they went! Argh. When I handed in the final exam, my professor Giovanna asked where my last written assignment was. What the heck? How did I miss a written assignment? I feigned ignorance and said “Oh, I did it, but it’s at home. Is it too late?” Of course it was too late…but she said something in Spanish that I didn’t really catch but I think it had to do with the fact that they take the best two out of three assignments. Hmmm…I just checked the Syllabus and there’s no mention of that. My comprehension of Spanish is quite lacking after six weeks.

I then headed out to Vero’s with the final exam haze in my head and when I got there, I just didn’t feel like I was done school yet, even though Vero was freaking out that I was finally done! I did get an excellent grad gift from her in the form of a case of beer and the film Short Circuit 2! By the end of the night, I was starting to feel like the weight on my shoulders was starting to lift.

In what may very well be a contender for the greatest week ever, let me document the highlights of this week so far:

– On Monday, I received notification that I passed my PM-05 competition. As memory serves, I had failed my first attempt a year or two ago due to one question being false. This was quite the blow to the Palmer ego but I believe this was a lesson towards myself that not everything is guaranteed in my life. I took this to heart upon the next competition I applied for and I must admit that throughout the process, I was hesitant to express my feelings on each portion of the process. But now that I have the notification saying that I passed it, things are great! Now we will see if I can be staffed within my section in that promoted spot.
– On Tuesday, not only did I get to enjoy a great day outside with my work team, but I attended my final University class for my Bachelor of Arts in Communications.
– On Thursday as I write this, I just received a tuition reimbursement cheque for $2,600 which is going straight to Vero as I had to borrow some money to attend the past year of classes. This has been quite the ordeal to get this money back and at one point, I had given into the fact that if all I had to spend was $2,600 to get a University education, then so be it. But this is quite the surprise that is in the mailbox.
– Tonight shall be my final exam for my Bachelor of Arts in Communications. While I do not feel confident, I also feel that no wrong can come of this.

Promotion, money, and finished studies…not too shabby. Grand kids who are reading this in the future, ask your Grandfather how he enjoyed this moment in his life.

The weekend is also shaping up to be quite exciting…Friday night out with Carrie and friends from Toronto…Saturday is a BBQ at Alex and Holly’s place…and I shall be a free man from education…for awhile at least.

P1070638, originally uploaded by palm0014.

As Matt likes to call me…

P1070617, originally uploaded by palm0014.

Offering candy canes to all…

I’m on a photo spree tonight after zonking out from studying.

Hey, this is some good news. I shall be referred to (in some circles) as ‘Mon oncle Ryan’ as Vero’s sister gave birth to a baby boy! Neat-o. I’m pretty excited to be the awesome uncle that any kid would want to have. Let it be noted that if I fill his backpack full of beer on our hike up a mountain, it’s for training purposes.

Hey! Vero and I are godparents as well. That’s a touching invitation…nowadays, I wonder what being a godparent is all about? I asked the question and it doesn’t seem like they expect much from us (like do I have to show him the Christian way? Do I have to demonstrate how to NOT shotgun a beer?) but I am willing to take notes from others on what they would expect from a godparent.

Congrats to Steve and Anne-Marie on welcoming a cool kid to this Earth!

I have two tickets to Paul McCartney in Halifax for sale. I’ll let the two of them go for $250. Let me know if you’re interested! Too many conflicts on our end halted us from attending.

Yesterday I got a whole heck of a lot of sun on my skin which is fine by me. We had a team planning session which was held at my colleague Marie-Annik’s place. I must admit that I was upset with myself for not believing that she had a pool. Yesterday was probably the nicest day I’ve seen in awhile and that pool was calling my name all afternoon!

After the meeting I headed out with Benoit to Long & McQuade to pick up this neat little amp for his Dad’s bass guitar. It’s a Vox reproduction and fits in the palm of your hand, plugs into your guitar and you can either listen to it or plug headphones into it. Awesome!

I then headed to my final Spanish class…which could conceivably become my final class of University ever. Mark this day…June 16 was my last University class (until I decide to go back again!). It was…nothing different. I’m in exam crunch mode so all that’s roaming through my mind is “How do I conjugate the third person for an imperative command with an irregular verb?” ARGH, brain overload!

I had my five minute oral exam which consisted of me chatting with my professor. I personally felt I bombed it but hey, what do they expect? I’ve only had six weeks of Spanish training. I will tell you two things that I’ve realized over the past six weeks…1) I am not interested in learning languages. I had a sneaking suspicion of this after learning German. 2) I find six weeks compressed class time makes it hard to learn another language. I believe my brain needs time to soak it all in, not get hammered with it. Granted, this doesn’t apply if I were immersed into the culture and have to learn it in six weeks. But for a guy who only speaks a few phrases in class a few times a week…meh?

So there you have it. I now have one final exam and I have graduated with a Bachelor of Arts with a specialization in Communications. It’s been a long time coming. The first few years were not hard at all to handle as it was when I first met Vero and she was also in school…so we shared something in common. In fact, I would say that it helped us out because we could understand the concept of “No, I can’t see you this week as my brain is melting from studying so much!”. When she went ahead and graduated before me (the nerve!), she has been quite understanding when school stuff comes up. In fact, all my friends have been understanding as I just don’t have a lot of time for them. Well, I hope they are understanding. For all I know, when I try and rekindle a friendship in the near future, maybe they’ll have changed their phone numbers on me! Ha ha.