J-J-J-JENGA!!!!

Ok, I have officially had enough of this stuff. Well, almost.

So, let me set the record straight about my current situation here in Ottawa.

The work here never ends, it just keeps on building and building. Imagine blocks of Jenga. You remember Jenga? It's a game where you have a bunch of sall rectangular blocks that you make a tower of (see picture). And, you take a block from the bottom and you put it on top. The goal is to NOT tip the tower, while still successfully taking blocks from the bottom and building the tower upwards.

My life is akin to a Jenga tower.

Every damn time I finish an assignment, another one immediately pops up. For example, I finish an assignment for Bootcamp, something for my optional course pops up. I finish that, I have a history piece to write. When that is finally done, another Bootcamp assignment is assigned. It's like a never-ending loop, a feedback loop that never ends. Just like Jenga, you removed one assignment, another one appears up top. And the only way to survive is to prevent the tower from falling.

I know a few people, along with myself, you has experienced a temporary mental breakdown due to the workload. Or, as I shall begin to refer to it now: a "Jenga collapse."

I live in fear of experiencing yet another Jenga collapse.

The first one occurred after just over a week into the term, when I was so unbelievably stressed about all the work and not knowing a single thing about Journalism. I panicked and experienced a Jenga collapse. Luckily, a talk with my dad calmed me down, and I re-built my tower.

It has not happened again, but, there have been a few close calls ... or, "Jenga wobbles."

With the term coming to a close, I finally finished two out of three of my end-of-the-term assignments. Just ONE more assignment stands between me and freedom!!

That is, until, my apprenticeship. I will be working for about two weeks at a scientific magazine here in Ottawa. I finish there on December 23rd, and then I hitch a ride back to Toronto early the following morning, so that I can be home in time for Christmas.

I can just feel the Jenga tower beginning to tilt and sway in the wind. But, like all good buildings, I have taken some preventative measures to prevent it.

- I watch TV, it relaxes me
- I watch movies, as it removes me from my current predicaments
- I read, to temporarily escape my reality
- I talk to my new J-school friends, as they are in the same predicament
- I talk to my family
- I sleep (well, at least try to)

Here is a video that makes me happy every time I watch it. It is the trailer for the Watchmen movie, coming out early 2009, which I am very excited for.