I’ll have the stuff with a side order of stuff ..

… and finish off with a nice dish of stuff soufflé (puffed with only the finest air, blown up my ass by the finest hot air distributors life has to offer).

It really does seem some days that "stuff" is the only socially suitable term for the things that go on.

As many people who know me (or have kept up with my erratic, and sometimes non-existent, entries) already know, I’ve been battling with a problem with my left wrist since early 2001. At the time, the doctors figured that it was likely a bone chip, which x-rays nicely refuted, but subsequently sent me on a trip down the rabbit trail. Since then, I have had carpal tunnel tests which showed nothing, blood tests which again found nothing, and even an x-ray on my neck which showed no deterioration or mis-alignment. (before you ask "why your neck", consider that WWF star Adam Copeland, better known as Edge, suffered 9 months with what he thought was a shoulder strain, but turned out to be atrophy from a fractured vertebrae in his neck–at this point, anything is open to consideration). As none of these things have shown to be the source of the problem, I am now to go see a neurologist to determine if the "phantom" is, as I suspect, a pinched nerve in my shoulder. I must call today for an appointment and try my best to schedule it for a day when I don’t have to miss a day of work, as I can’t afford to lose pay.

Speaking of phone calls and money, another six months have gone by, and with it I must again phone CIBC to extend the interest-only status of my student loan. Many have offered their advice that I should be making payments on the largest of my loans first, but try as I might, they don’t seem to understand the reasonings behind paying the smaller ones first–the explanations are almost as much work as the payments themselves, but as I gain interest-paid credits on my income tax from all three of my student loans, and my income tax is offset against the outstanding balance of federal loan (which currently stands as the largest balance), it is most beneficial to keep the BCSL and CIBC-SL from growing by paying their interest amounts (and more when I can), and let that pay off the CSL balance … not to mention it feels like a far greater victory to see the smallest one paid off than to chip away at the proverbial mountain and merely see a pile of dust at your feet.

On a different note, tinted with some possibility, my brother (NatureBoy, for privacy’s sake), recently suggested that I look into the Open Learning Agency to see if they might offer courses that I can take a piece at a time around other requirements to fill in the remaining pieces of my currently incomplete education. While OLA (or more precisely Thompson Rivers University-Open Learning following a recent merge which I was unaware of) does offer several courses, their enrollment requirements and whatnot are rather sketchy from what I’m reading on the site. As time permits, I will have to contact them for more information, but it is nice to know that there is something worth looking at–heaven knows that the RCM is unrealistic for me, both by schedule and by finance. Perhaps I shall contact Mr. G to see if he might know anything about it, or possibly Mr. Stix (I think he is still the current co-ordinator-in-residence while KayCee is on her sabbatical.

anyhoo, I suppose there is likely much more stuff that I am either forgetting or omitting, but for now, I don’t think my poor diary can handle anymore stuff–I write so little it is likely to go into shock from the length of this entry.