So I got assigned a little sister today with the Big Brother, Big Sister mentoring program. Her name is Alexis, and she was born in 1999, which makes her only 6 years old! How cute is that!?! She’s not even in 1st grade yet! She has an older sister, Ashley, and a baby brother Dallas. Ashley needs a big sister too, but they thought I’d do better with a younger kid, and so do I.

I’m so excited. Here are the things I think we both can do, since she enjoys both indoor and outdoor activities:
1. finger painting
2. baking cookies
3. ice skating
4. building a snowman – her idea
5. bowling
6. doing arts and crafts
7. hiking (summer)
8. biking (summer)
9. rock climbing at the Y
10. going to the playground (summer)
11. playing games
12. reading

She sounds like she’s from a good family, but her mom just wants to have an outside positive influence on her daughter. And that is supposed to be me. We shall see if it works out.

My sister and I had a wonderful thanksgiving dinner, thanks to our hosts – Alan and Vanessa. For the menu, we had a succulent, falling-off-the-bones 25lb bird, stuffing with cranberries, lovely roast venison, oven-roasted green beans, mashed white potatoes (or marshmallows according to Bethany), mashed sweet potatoes topped with marshmallows, fresh dinner rolls, pumpkin pie, and maple pecan pie. Everything was wonderful, and just absolutely fantastic. If you don’t believe me, Bethany must’ve exclaimed, “This is good!” a thousand and twenty times during the course of eating her mashed, er, marshmallows. We celebrated thanksgiving with Bethany Ann, Baby Matthew, Dan and Sheri, our hosts, and Mr. Lance. Priceless pictures will be posted soon.

Before we called it a night, we headed up to Brattleboro to greet Els and Todd a happy thanksgiving, along with their usual odd and endearing assortment of friends, comprising mostly of foreigners (us including!) who were anxious to get talk-time with my sister who does immigration for work. It was pretty funny. As expected, there was talk of prostitution and surprise, surprise, naked Glenn. Some things are just too predictable.

Anyway, speaking of thanksgiving, I do have to give special mention to a certain Andrew Yohn who has recently left Keene to go back to school at RIT. I have to give you a special thanks for a wonderful summer and a great friendship. Keene has not been the same since you left.

Thank you also to my friends who have been watching over me while I am going through my Andy-withdrawal, with Vanessa taking the forefront. I would’ve put up a post just for Andy’s departure (which happened to be pretty dramatic and post-worthy), but I’ve been kept busy this whole week and never had the time.

So to each and every one of you, happy thanksgiving.

Congratulations, Ate Noreen for passing the PT board exams! Yay!!! No more studying for you!!!

Happy Birthday, KF! Matt Belamy, captured in CD format, is on his way… Hold off some of your celebration until he gets there.

Happy Birthday, Daisy! I got your thank-you card. The best part was that you were more surprised to NOT see my car! Man, that was a loooong drive. Next time I won’t get lost again. I’m glad you’re liking Ok-Go. Anyone liking it at the bakery?

Happy Birthday, Ethel! I have not forgotten you, yet…

Monday night, I was at the Moose Lodge with Chris, Joanne, and Andy, playing the very exciting game of Bingo. Yeah, that’s right, (singing) B-I-N-G-O, B-I-N-G-O, B-I-N-G-O and Bingo was his name-oh!

Anyway, I won 2 games that night. On the second game, the Bingo announcer called out the winner number: “O-69, O-69″, and I dutifully shouted, “BINGO!!!!!!!”.

I think that beats the Kimball’s story, Casey.

I’ve been attending a lot of seminars/classes about leadership these days. Just yesterday, I went to this one called, Leading to Greatness: Building True Success Wherever You Live and Work. It was big. Carly Fiorina (CEO of HP), Richard Branson (CEO of Virgin), Rudy Giuliani, and Jack Welch were among the few who were there. It was live via satellite though. So yeah, I was being a little sarcastic when I said it was big. They had a few interesting speakers and I did actually learn quite a bit. But I’m not here to talk about that. I have another story to tell at the end of all this.

Then there’s Leadership Monadnock, an 8-day, 8-month long program that gives you all the information you need to know about the Monadnock region, encouraging the participants toward public service and involvement in civic activities.

Lastly, a week or two ago, I also attended a communications seminar, Assertive Communications for Women. These are all sanctioned by my manager, and funded by the company. So, with all these seminars I’ve been attending, one would be inclined to think that I have my eyes set on going somewhere… the leadership track, maybe, or something. Or something.

Well, last Friday, during an Engineering meeting, the VP was talking vaguely about our vision and where we were moving forward with our developments. All of a sudden, he says he was going to put someone on the spot because there was something this person had written that he had found striking. Then he sort of quotes from an informal report I had written about my trip to England. The moment he mentioned my name, or maybe even before that, I started slowly shrinking down into my chair, in an effort to become invisible. And if that wasn’t bad enough, he then proceeds to call to me and say that I should say something more about the trip. I honestly thought he was kidding. When he didn’t back down, I even said, “Are you serious?”.

Leadership track. Sounds hilarious now, doesn’t it? Anyway, I manage to stand up and stay up (after a few urges), and actually say something, which was nothing at all like what I would say had I had the chance to think about it.

It was pretty painful. I’ve tried blocking it off in the dark recesses of my mind but it conveniently keeps popping up in conversation at work. I get picked on a lot, and it was funny for everyone else but me, so it’s okay. At least the VP thought I did all right. I tried to apologize to him profusely, but he kept telling me that I had no reason to. Hey, at the very least, he thinks I can write. Of course, he probably only quoted because it stressed what one of his points was. So the same people who pick on me – my friends, have even accused me of brown-nosing. For the record, I actually meant what I wrote, even though the truth is, it wasn’t really what I meant for that statement that he used.

I don’t know why I’d become this bad but attention has become unbearable. If it needs to be given, make sure I’m not there. Don’t put the spotlight on me. Especially do not make me stand in front of people to speak. So, no, I do not want to lead people. I only want to be good at what I do.

I thought I had a clever way of ending this, but while trying to think about it, I keep dozing off every 5 seconds. So, no clever way. More time for me to sleep. Sleep!

I’ve totally abandoned my blog. I suppose that’s what having a life does. Well, that, and I don’t have time to write at work anymore. I actually eat with people now, go figure. For a long time I used to eat at my desk and write blog entries or read my magazines/books. I was such a loser. But, I do still enjoy eating by myself sometimes. It gives me time to read and I never have enough time for that.

Anyway, let me get to the important stuff. Pictures. Proof. Black mail material. I’m only putting up choice photos, and then I’ll post links to Kodakgallery so that you have the choice of whether or not you want to see more photos. Trust me though, it’s worth the 2 minutes** you’ll spend looking.

1. Vanessa’s Pimp ‘n Ho halloween party

2. Pumpkin festival – Andy, JC, Casey, my sister Donna, Mia

3. Costume party at the Mole’s Eye in Brattleboro – Andy the cow, Kimderella, Chinese waitress, Cat woman Vanessa

** not applicable to dial up