Work is this sine wave of excitement. I have intense periods of all kinds of stuff to do, followed by moments where nothing happens.

Now, if you believed that, I got a bridge to sell you.

Truth is ever since I started in this university business, the work flow has changed dramatically.

In the first year,  we had 2-3 intense rush periods – mainly at the beginning of semesters. Then it morphed into six periods of intense activities – adding the final exams period. For some reason someone decided that the summer – which used to be fairly dead – was going to be intensive course country. Of course, the 2-3 rush weeks turned into month long affairs, and then the midterms flared up, and then we took on this Africa project and bla bla bla…

Yeah.

Of course, This makes me react like every other sane human being would, I focus all day on nothing but work work work and then I avoid all external work like a bad cliché.

And if you believe that, I could rent you the moon for a very reasonable monthly fee. Ask me about it but make sure you use the promo code “GULLIBLE”.

I think I’ve done more external work, Facebook surfing, Twitter watching, Mafia War playing in the last three months than I ever did in the previous year. This creates an interesting vicious circle, where I’ll stay up later to “unwind” from the work day, but will inevitably end up doing some work (you gotta love the ole Blackberry). So the next day at work, when I start to lose my concentration I think to myself:

“Meh, I can take a 10 minute break since I worked until 10 pm yesterday”

Of course, 10 minutes turn into 25, and then when I get home at night I feel guilty about the long break I took at work, so that makes me stay up until 11 pm playing “catch-up”, and I always get to work 45 minutes earlier to kick start the day, but since I stayed up until 11 pm, I get sleepy, take a longer break. The next day I’m even more sleepy, so I pause more often and fell more guilt so I stay up until midnight… You see where this is going, right?

Luckily, I see it too.

I might flat-line soon too if I keep going at life this way. It’s really time to make some major changes in the way I manage my time.

Thanks for playing… Nobody was spot on, so what should I do now?

I’ll just have another drink while I await your suggestions. I promise I’ll be back to more substantial posts soon.

Oh, I did beat BluePaintRed at Tic-Tac-Toe over Twitter. Who said Twitter was a waste of time?

We had dinner there yesterday.

It was awesome.

It had been 10 years since I went there.

Hopefully we’ll go back before 2019. By medieval standards, I’m already dead.

Can you guess what was in all of these?

There might be a prize involved…

Now it’s your turn.

I remember
That born under the lily
I grow under the rose.

– Eugène Étienne Taché (1836-1912)

I’m so scared right now…

I’m guest posting as CissaFireheart’s place. Come on over and say hi, yes?

Yesterday I daddyblogged a bit about my Zadorables. It was after all Father’s Day on Sunday.

Just in case any of you start thinking that I’m this lovey-dovey mushy dad person, let me show you what I do to balance those moments of weakness:

AudaciousSon trying…

CutiedDaughter, aiming at a different spot…

That thing of course is the smoke detector. But I think you need a little bit of setup first.

LovelyWife comes from a family of extremely nervous people. Think of one of the funniest AFV clip ever, you know the one where people get scared because someone jumps out of a closet, or is hiding inside a recycling bin? Well  they react like that if you drop a fork, of if you pretend to throw something at them or if there’s an unexpected loud noise. Whenever we have dinner with them, we spend more time laughing then eating. I love those people really.

Of course, I’m trying to replicate that experience home whenever I can, as LovelyWife is known to have this high pitch scream that makes flies drop dead and glass shatter. One of my favorite trick is to trigger the smoke detector as I’m walking downstairs. It’s pretty easy to do, I just have to hold the test button in for a few seconds. It gets LovelyWife every time.

The Zadorables asked me how I was doing that, because they also want to be able to scare the crap out of LovelyWife.

I told them that I only had to blow hot air in the intake of the detector (it’s really the speaker). Like a good magician, I demonstrated after I had them stand at the bottom of the staircase, where they couldn’t see my finger holding the test button.

They then spent 15 minutes taking turns trying to blow hot air on the smoke detector. After two minutes, they built the cardboard tube. I took pictures.

What good are my kids if they’re not used as my very own personal entertainers?

Yesterday was Father’s Day.

I made out like a bandit. Both the kids have done personalized picture frames for me, and they’re both horrendous in that this is so awful that it’s cute kinda way.

My AudaciousSon’s frame, on the left, displays this poem:

Six years old: My daddy can do anything
10 years old: My dad knows a lot of stuff.
15 years old: I know as much as my dad.
20 years old: Dad doesn’t know.
30 years old: I wonder what dad thinks about it.
40 years old: Dad is not that dumb.
50 years old: Dad is right
60 years old: If only dad was still here.

Skipping the fact that according to this, I have about 7 years before my AudaciousSon thinks of me as an idiot and let’s not mention that I will not reach 90. Moving right along. On the plus side, the frame itself is full of hearts, and a lion represents my manliness. The backwards e in my name is actually an upside down G because they ran out of e.

My CutieDaughter frame, on the right as an acrostic with my name:

Michel
Intelligent
Clown
Humoristique (Humorist)
Et (And)
Loyal.

She glued little circles on the frame, shaped like a sun, some bugs and a flower.

Any art critique would give these frames a 3/10 or worst. I give those full marks, because that’s what being a dad is all about. The wobbly ashtrays, the pen cups too small to hold pens, the cracked valet trays, the painted rocks. I love them all more than anything else I own.

Of course, I’m convinced that one day, the Zadorables are going to look back on these gifts and think of them as dumb, weird or plain ugly.

Me? I’m just trying to keep that day from happening any time soon.