The Turtle Has Emerged From the Shell

Greetings and salutations all six of my regular readers. I apologize for my lack of posts lately but school and work were both remarkably busy. Firstly, I would really like to thank everyone for their support and recommendations with the Guido situation. I did end up going to his Jack and Jill but someone else in the wedding party plied me with wine. It was pretty good, definitely wasn’t Frisky Zebras.

The next happening was that I got rear ended on Valentines day. My work place was nice enough to let me work from home so I didn’t get into an accident. Now I spent most of the day inside working away, however, I decided to step out of my house for the briefest of drives. While on the road someone trying to make a light slid through the intersection. My little Honda Civic decided not to be civil and slide into a huge pile of snow. Strangely after young Clifford (the gentleman who rear ended me, get you mind out of the gutter) went out to inspect the damage there was none. However, I needed four people to move my car out of the snow bank.

Another source of stress for me was the fact that I had to give a presentation worth 75% of my grade. We (my group) met with the three people who act as advisors to our programme and even though they were in the same room they each wanted totally different things for the presentation. Our group choose to totally revamp the presentation even though we had three days and ended up with something good. The end result is a presentation with a mark of A+.

Yet another source of stress is the fact that I have tons of work to do at work. This wouldn’t really stress me out so much normally but the problem is that everyone who could help and guide me through situations is gone. The two people who were tutoring me previously are gone due to contracts ending. On top of that my boss is on medical leave. Now the person who is replacing my boss is gone for a week for training. That leaves me feeling stressed.

So with all this on my plate what I would like to know is how all you people keep everything organized.

I promise next week there will be a much better blog enty.

I'm Ashamed To Share 1/8th of My Genes With You

I generally hate complaining and have made a point not to whine on my blog, however, today I’m breaking that rule. From now on we’ll call it a guideline and adhere to it loosely. The reason for this deviation is because I need to get some unbiased opinions on if I’m being a huge complainer or if I’m justified in feeling the way I do. So below is my rant and due to me being super irritated I’m missing out on doing my BioSummary.

The background to this tale of woe and peril begins much like most other tales of woe, with the announcement of a wedding. For the sake of this story we will call my cousin, the future groom and super Italian Guido. Now I generally dislike Guido for a multitude of reasons including the fact that he used to beat me up regularly from the ages of 6 to 17 when my family visited his house. He called the random attacks wrestling and my parents laughed it off when I complained. He was 5 years older and about 50 pounds heavier and he won every time until I reached the age of 16. At this point in time two important events happened. I hadn’t seen Guido in about 3 years in this time I hit puberty which is the source of my strength, I also started lifting weights which may have helped. Now one fateful day while he was pushing my face into the concrete I got irritated and I drew upon my puberty strength and smushed his gel soaked head into the concrete. For the first time he ended up with a bump on his head and I ended up with a smile. Needless to say the random attacks while watching movies ended.

Now fast forward 8 years. I see Guido perhaps twice I year. We share about 13 words at family functions. That is if you include words such as uhmm, hmmm and ahhh. I get a call asking if I would like to “hang out”. While hanging he manages to ask me between dude and bud to be in his wedding party. Now I dislike him and don’t see him often yet I don’t want to hurt his feelings, in other words I’m a moron. I tell him that I’m quite busy and that I won’t have time to be in the wedding party. He tells me not to worry I just have to show up for the ceremony, the rehearsal and the Jack and Jill. I tell him I have no money on account of being a student. He tells me I don’t need money. I tell him I’m not sure I’ll even have a coop position in Canada he tells me not to worry I can skip out on the Jack and Jill. At this point he say’s that it’s very important to him that I’m a part of this. I feel like I’ve run out of options and I become a super weiner and say okay.

Fast forward one year later the second time we speak in the year Guido asks my lovely lady friend and I to go out for a dinner with the wedding party. Again my Turtle sense is going mad but I ignore it and I say okay. I try to convince myself that it might be nice, that I should make an effort. I’m sure that’s what they tell people before they get lobotomies. Then the trouble begins.

The meeting place for the wedding party is at a place that is about an hours drive from where I live. Strangely it also happens to be about an hour away from where his fiancé lives. Adding further to the mystery it’s also about 45 minutes away for where he lives and is in the middle of no where. I have no idea why we need to trek so far away for wings but what the heck do I know. The godfather music comes on and I start thinking that he’s going to off me for past insults. Again I brush it off and say alright we’ll be there at 7:30. So Nikki and I set off to this place on in the middle of no where on the treacherous icy roads and get there on time. We proceed to wait for about an hour and are about to leave when the Guido crew rolls in.

Upon seeing this slack jawed, prissy, decked out in high fashion clothing to eat friken chicken wings crew roll in and I’m really pissed off. I start thanking God that I don’t share the usual 1/8 of my genes with my supposed cousin because my parents stole me as a child from an affluent Jewish family. The future Guido comes over and kisses me on both cheeks and says “I’m sorry we’re a bit late. You know the boys they have to drink”. At this point a ton of things pop into my head. I think of looking at her directly and saying, Yes, I can see why the boys HAVE TO drink. I think of saying don’t worry I think I’ll show a bit late for the wedding because I HAVE TO drink. Alas, I say okay. This is the last exchange of words we have despite her sitting directly in front of me at the table. Guido comes in and smiles and pats me on the back without apologizing and says hello. We speak for about 3 minutes about how school and how he didn’t know the place was this far then share no other words for the rest of the night (Note: shortly after we over hear the future Guido saying don’t order so and so because the last time Guido and I came here it was bad).

The Italian stallions then sit together and let the women sit together. In fact they tell the woman sitting beside her boyfriend to move to the “girls’ corner” in a scene reminiscent of a grade 8 dance floor. Now I find it hard to imagine why one would want to be as far as possible from their significant other, but perhaps it’s because I don’t have to drink to tolerate being in the same room as her. They then take ages to order trying to decipher what on earth the iconography of flames could signify in conjunction with wings.

Now for the rest of the brief evening Nikki and I are essentially ignored by every at the table. Blocks of red signify people that ignored us. The light blue is a person that spoke to me for about 5 minutes. It gets to the point were Nikki and I start making fun of the people at the table and they don’t even notice. Our jokes become more and more obnoxious and risky as time goes on. The funny part of it all is that no one at all even blinks at us at this supposed function to discuss things about the wedding. After Nikki and I finish eating I ask for our bill and we leave.

Now is it just me or does it seem idiotic to have me as part of this wedding party? Why on earth would he beg me to be in this farce? How should I deal with situation? Any advice on how to get through the Jack and Jill next week? Am I being unreasonable or is he really the prick I think he is?