And runnin' runnin'

Happy Friday! Or weekend for those of you in another time zone ;)

I’m actually starting this early if you can believe it, because I really do intend to keep this up for the long term, which means I should probably make it more consistent and more interesting. So, on that note, I’ve decided to focus this on a few specific areas, rather than the ramble that I’ve been maintaining the last few months:

1. Work. I’ll still be letting you know how work is going, what it’s like to try and adjust to a new role (especially when that role changes frequently), and how I’m settling in.
2. Exploring Toronto. I want to see more of the city and this is a great place to talk about what I find. It’s also good practice to keep up my “colour” writing – I’d hate to lose the ability to describe a place and time in all this business reporting!
3. Books. I’ll let you know what I’ve read that’s good, what’s overrated and what I’d recommend.
4. Opinions. I read a lot of news in a week and I’d like to start analysing what I’m reading and sharing opinions. This can definitely be a back and forth. Tell me why you think I’m wrong in the comments and I’ll tell you why I’m definitely right.

Sufficient? I won’t necessarily include all four every week, and I can’t promise other details won’t sneak in, especially if it’s something especially exciting ( or especially lame) but at least now I have some parameters to stick to.

I started running again this week – just a couple 3km jogs to start with. I haven’t run in a while so I’m easing my way into it. I have some very hot purple Asics and a new folder on my MP3 player called “exercise” (mostly dance music) and I figure I’ll just try a few different directions and see where I end up and what routes I like. Tuesday I ran to Queen’s Quay and over to Bay, which was actually dreadful because there are too many people, too much construction and running under Union Station is like running through a smoke box. So yeah, Friday I ran the other direction – including dropping of a library book, multitasking FTW – but didn’t quite make it to the river. Next time ;)

This week I reread some J.D. Salinger. Last Saturday I hit up Eliot’s Books, which is a three story secondhand bookshop about a half hour walk from where I live. It’s very well organised, which means I found five out of the seven books I wanted easily. Sadly I’m still lacking Catch 22 and Nine Stories, but those will find me eventually. I own them all in NZ, but I miss them.

Work was very productive but I feel like my brain is mush. For one of the magazines, I’m working on 17 300-word profiles (they’re finalists for two categories in the Canadian Mortgage Awards). Because they’re all brokers and I’m asking all of them the same questions, and then when I write it up I have to find a different angle for each it’s way more effort than even writing a 5000 word profile about one person. It’s not hard, just repetitive. It’s not due for another two weeks, but I wanted to make sure I had enough time (no all-nighters for this intrepid reporter) so I’m almost done the interviews and more than half way through writing them up but I’m so over brokers. Except I’ve almost reached “drink the koolaid” stage because they’re all so enthused about their jobs. I’m like “I could be a broker, it sounds awesome!”

So if this blog gets renamed “Going For Broker” (see what I did there?) please call CAMH to make sure I get the help I need.