Vancouver, day 20

Last night's dream involved a very tall tree, an illness that threatened death, and a whole lot of guilt. I'm still not quite sure what was going on (or how I got stuck in that tree, or why my mother was Asian, or why nobody would help when we were screaming and about to die from either a very long fall or whatever disease it was. Oh... maybe they didn't want to get sick too. Sigh....)

So, yeah, I was up early.

Work was entertaining today - another intern was there, so she and I hauled a bunch of Very Heavy boxes of books up the stairs, cracking jokes about the workout our arms were getting. It was the nicest weather all day, so I guess we had good timing.

When we'd done that, I alternated between fighting with the computer (I have a time-consuming task to work on on the computer - or, rather, it isn't time-consuming for me, but the computer takes a loooong time to think) and helping the other intern stuff envelopes: she labelled them* and tucked in a sell sheet, and I wrote and added the personalized notecards and slipped in the books for reviewers to read and review.

The three of us - boss, other intern, me - traipsed down to the post office, arms laden with packages, and then the other intern left and I returned to the office to fight with the computer some more. Marginal success... haven't quite figured out what I'm doing, but whatever it is seems to be working anyway.

I left not long after my boss and went to the Public Market for lunch, which I took outside. Seagulls are really kind of cool. I mean - they're loud and kind of obnoxious, but they're also kind of cool... though not when they're eyeing your lunch.

At three I returned to the office to meet with the author I'm taking dictation from. We started something fresh again, definitely my favourite of the three things we've worked on so far. He's a really good person to take dictation from: he talks slowly enough that I can keep up, but is patient when I ask him to pause or spell something. As far as I can tell, I stumble a bit for the first paragraph or two (when I'm still getting into the swing of it), but then my fingers fly for the next eight pages or so before stumbling on the last couple of pages. I'm getting better at fixing errors during pauses for breath, though.

I talked to my dad on the way home, and he encouraged me to look into the writing/publishing classes that SFU is offering this summer. My boss gave me a booklet of them last week, so I guess I'll take a closer look.

*I don't like labelling envelopes. You cut out the labels, which aren't in an ideal format, then carefully tape each one down with packing tape. The packing tape sticks all over itself and it's hard to find the edges. I was quite happy to jot messages on the cards instead.