This has been one of the busiest weeks I can remember. First of all, the big news is that I got a new job. I’ll be working for a software design company in Montreal as a project manager. It has all come together so quickly. On Monday night, I started discussing the possibility with my friend who owns the company. We spent the next few days working out the details and logistics. By Thursday I had agreed that I’ll take the job. My main concern is that I don’t want to lose sight of my original goal of being a full-time photographer. Also, I don’t want to give up improv. I’ve worked very hard to be a part of Big in Japan, and to have the honor and pleasure of teaching improv as well, so it is a major priority. However, the company has been very understanding about my ambitions, and we’ve made some special arrangements in my contract to allow me to continue pursuing my goals. It’s going to mean that I’ll be flying back and forth from Montreal almost every week so I can be in Hamilton/Toronto for the weekends, but I think it’s worth it.

There are some decent upsides to the job. It pays pretty well, which is always good. I’ll also get to travel. Part of the job involves managing a team of programmers in Thailand, so I’ll be spending some time in Asia. This will be a good opportunity for me to sharpen my management skills. I’ll have programmers, graphic designers and marketing people on my team.

My birthday was cool, actually. I didn’t want to do much because I was totally beat from all the work I did this week, and emotional wrestling with the concept of working for a living. I got a nice gift from Jadine… I had the book Shenzen: A Travelogue from China on my “Things I Want” page, and she got that for me. Saturday night, I had dinner with the family in Mississauga. My brother gave me a nice bottle of French wine, and my uncle gave me a copy of Borat on DVD. Chenque! I also got a neat gift from Manyk… a bubble level to hopefully help me get my photos hanging parallel to the gravitational forces of the Earth. Another fun surprise was that my new friends in the Second Life art community got together to throw me a surprise party. It was held in the brand new outdoor concert venue that I built there.

This was the first event held there, and I was pretty happy to see it working well.

Another thing that’s happening is that there have been some changes in the plans for the studio space I’m hoping to rent. I had a meeting about that today. The landlords are reluctant to build the small studios that we had requested (I had earmarked 600 square feet), but have offered a compromise. They’ll build much larger studios (in the 2000-2500 square foot range) and we’ll divide them internally ourselves. In return, they’ll make the rent much cheaper. So for the same price, I’ll be getting about 1200 square feet. I just have to pitch in to build a wall across the 2400 square foot space to create my partition. 1200 square feet is absolutely massive… big enough to easily shoot full-body photos of groups of 10 or more. That is all the space I’m likely to need for a long time. Apparently it will be ready to move in at the end of April.

And finally, The Emergency Broadcast System debuted tonight. It was me and James and Allison competing in the March Madness improv cage match at the Bad Dog Theatre. I was nervous about it, actually, because we hadn’t rehearsed together. However, we hung out a bit before the show and had some beer instead. A little bit of nervousness is good though. In the end, I think we played very well together, and we won our part of the competition. That means we get to compete in the final match on March 25. Thanks to Hesi for coming out to vote for us!