This is the voicemail that never ends, yes it goes on and on my friends....

Hospital voicemail systems have the longest messages in the world. It's very aggravating when I call someone, get their voicemail, and just want to leave a quick message. Instead of a generic message saying, "Hi, you've reached so and so, please leave a number," a lot of the voicemail messages here say, "Hi, you've reached so and so. I'm not available to take your call right now. If this is a medical emergency, please contact your family doctor or visit the nearest emergency centre. I will be out of the office from date to date inclusively. If this is a clinical matter, you may contact so and so at extension blah blah blah. If this is a research matter, please call so and so at extension blah blah blah. For all other concerns, please leave a voicemail with your full name, patient number, and a phone number you can be reached at."

It's even worse when you know the person is out of the office but need to leave a voicemail anyways. In that case, it's like a ticking time bomb of aggravation and I end up tapping my foot impatiently, afraid to not pay attention lest I miss the beep.

P.S.
Jill - don't gimme none of that crap about me not posting on my blog anymore! You apparently just don't visit here enough! You're still stuck on your smiling heavens in Australia post!

Checklist

Highlight the things you have done.

1. Started your own blog
2. Slept under the stars.
3. Played in a band.
4. Visited Hawaii
5. Watched a meteor shower
6. Given more than you can afford to charity
7. Been to Disneyland
8. Climbed a mountain
9. Held a praying mantis
10. Sang a solo
11. Bungee jumped
12. Visited Paris
13. Watched a lightning storm at sea
14. Taught yourself an art from scratch
15. Adopted a child
16. Had food poisoning
17. Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty
18. Grown your own vegetables
19. Seen the Mona Lisa in France
20. Slept on an overnight train
21. Had a pillow fight
22. Hitch hiked
23. Taken a sick day when you’re not ill
24. Built a snow fort
25. Held a lamb
26. Gone skinny dipping
27. Run a Marathon
28. Ridden in a gondola in Venice
29. Seen a total eclipse
30. Watched a sunrise or sunset (or both.)
31. Hit a home run
32. Been on a cruise
33. Seen Niagara Falls in person
34. Visited the birthplace of your ancestors (kinda hard not to)
35. Seen an Amish community
36. Taught yourself a new language
37. Had enough money to be truly satisfied
38. Seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person
39. Gone rock climbing (indoors)
40. Seen Michelangelo’s David
41. Sung karaoke
42. Seen Old Faithful geyser erupt
43. Bought a stranger a meal at a restaurant
44. Visited Africa
45. Walked on a beach by moonlight
46. Been transported in an ambulance
47. Had your portrait painted
48. Gone deep sea fishing
49. Seen the Sistine Chapel in person
50. Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris
51. Gone scuba diving or snorkeling
52. Kissed in the rain
53. Played in the mud
54. Gone to a drive-in theater
55. Been in a movie
56. Visited the Great Wall of China
57. Started a business
58. Taken a martial arts class
59. Visited Russia
60. Served at a soup kitchen
61. Sold Girl Scout Cookies (Okay, it was Brownie cookies. Same diff.)
62. Gone whale watching
63. Got flowers for no reason
64. Donated blood, platelets or plasma
65. Gone sky diving
66. Visited a Nazi Concentration Camp
67. Bounced a check
68. Flown in a helicopter
69. Saved a favorite childhood toy
70. Visited the Lincoln Memorial
71. Eaten Caviar
72. Pieced a quilt
73. Stood in Times Square
74. Toured the Everglades
75. Been fired from a job
76. Seen the Changing of the Guards in London
77. Broken a bone
78. Been on a speeding motorcycle
79. Seen the Grand Canyon in person
80. Published a book
81. Visited the Vatican
82. Bought a brand new car
83. Walked in Jerusalem
84. Had your picture in the newspaper
85. Read the entire Bible (!!! Excuse me as I laugh hysterically...)
86. Visited the White House
87. Killed and prepared an animal for eating
88. Had chickenpox
89. Saved someone’s life
90. Sat on a jury
91. Met someone famous
92. Joined a book club
93. Lost a loved one
94. Had a baby
95. Seen the Alamo in person
96. Swam in the Great Salt Lake
97. Been involved in a law suit
98. Owned a cell phone
99. Been stung by a bee
100. Read an entire book in one day

The other side of the tracks

Since moving to Toronto, I've encountered many lower class and poor people. Mostly I don't pay attention to them and they ignore me. I don't give money to homeless people. I'll donate money to homeless shelters or soup kitchens at times, but I don't give money to the people directly. It's sad at times to see the kinds of people who live on the street.

One day on the streetcar, one homeless gentleman kindly moved his stuff off the seat beside him so I could sit down. He was very polite but I'll admit that cultural conditioning made me feel uncomfortable sitting beside him at all. I took off my gloves and he tried talking to me, mentioning how he used to have 6 pairs of gloves but they got stolen, etc. I made a comment about it being too bad, and then pulled out my book so I could ignore him in the politest possible way. I couldn't help but feel worse for this guy because he must have had Parkinson's or something. He couldn't control his body - he was shaky, his head kept jerking in my direction, etc. I can't help but wonder what kind of life he has had to end up where he is now.

When I first moved here, a homeless woman came on the streetcar one evening and announced very loudly, "Excuse me ladies and gentlemen, I haven't had anything to eat in 3 days and am starving," and then she proceeded to go up to every person in the car begging for money. Again, I wondered what her life must be like, to have to debase herself so much as to make announcements like that - it must take a lot of courage, and humiliation, to have to do that kind of thing.

When I mentioned this occurrence to my friend Michelle, she told me that she knew of the woman and that the lady was only really after money for drugs. I didn't really argue with Michelle because let's face it, that's the case at times, but I couldn't help but wonder if maybe she was just being too cavalier about the subject, or just biased.

Last night while I was waiting inside the streetcar stop (just a 3 sided shelter with clear walls to protect you against the wind), the same black woman came in. I assumed she would ask me for money and I strategically turned away so I could ignore her until the moment came. I could see her reflection in one of the windows. She was muttering and smoking. I saw her squat down and I assumed she was just cold and wrapping her arms around herself. But then I heard a splat, splat, splat sound. I thought she was throwing up or something, so I glanced backwards. That's when I realized she had copped a squat, pulled down her pants, and was peeing inside the shelter.

I was horrified. There were a gazillion other places nearby where she could have urinated and the fact that she chose to do so in the shelter with me less than a meter away totally freaked me out. I barreled out of the shelter and was relieved to see the streetcar coming. By this point, I was disturbed at even standing next to her. We both got on the streetcar and I managed to secure a seat by myself. (I was terrified that she would try to sit beside me.) A bit of the way down the street, she started licking her hand - like a dog would. Bit long wet smacking laps up and down her fingers. Thankfully she got off at a stop before I did.

The whole occurrence really disturbed me. Obviously the woman was high/strung out/whatever and Michelle was right. I just wonder what happened to bring the woman to such depths that she would urinate in a shelter right beside one of the most busiest intersections in Toronto. What kind of events could bring someone so low? It's seeing things like this that really makes me appreciate the life that I've had and continue to have.

Stuck

Getting to work shouldn't be difficult. I wish I could say that was the case on Wednesday this week. I got FROZEN into my backyard and ended up being 20 minutes late to work!

To get in and out of my apartment, I have to go through my landlord's backyard which is surrounded by a fence taller than I am. The only point of entry in the fence is a gate with a bolt that can only be released by key. The problem was, the lock was frozen closed!

I have never ever had to deal with frozen locks before, so I ended up going downstairs, getting some warm water (the fastest solution, although I know that it would just freeze over again) and a pack of matches. I also phoned home, waking up my mom and dad to see if they had a better idea on the spur of the moment. Nope. Water it was.

I troop back upstairs and outside and manage to melt the ice in the lock so I can finally get my key into the hole... But, alas! The key wouldn't turn! The entire BOLT was frozen! Due to the shape of the gate opening, I couldn't maneuver anything into the gap to try to de-ice the bolt. I thought of getting my hair dryer out, but I didn't have an extension cord long enough to reach the fence! By this time, 20 minutes had passed and I was getting worried about being so late to work. (I had already taken a moment to email my coworker to let her know that I'd be late - turns out that I spelled her email address wrong and she never got the message. Oops!)

I would have tried climbing the fence, but it's not the most sturdy thing in the world - it leans over, so if I were to try to climb it, it would probably collapse. And only sturdy portion of the fence is the part where there's a coniferous tree in front of it... I didn't feel like being tackled by pine needles while trying to manage my escape.

I finally ended up calling my landlord. Crap. The call goes straight to voicemail. My last recourse was to start banging on his backdoor. Thank God he was home for once! LOL, he ended up letting me through his house and out his front door and later on, he fixed the gate so that I could at least get back into my apartment later that evening.

I now own my first bottle of lock de-icer. And, the landlord has provided an extension cord just in case there's another fiasco like this again

Cell phone woes

Wow, it's been a long time since I've posted anything relevant to my current circumstances. Nothing terribly exciting has happened recently, I thought I'd share a fiasco that occurred back when I first moved to Toronto.

As mentioned, I'm renting a basement apartment. When I agreed to rent it, I never thought about cell phone reception. It wasn't until the first week I was there that I realized I couldn't get a cell phone signal in the place! If I wanted to make a call, I had to walk to a window and hold my cell phone far away to get a tiny signal.

Since I figured I couldn't get reception, I signed up for a landline. I got the cheapest package available (like $14 a month). Two weeks later my family came to visit and that's when I found out that every other cell phone company got cell phone reception in my basement! It was only Bell, and companies that use Bell cell phone towers that didn't work in my apartment! I was so mad!

I love having a cell phone. There seemed to be no point in keeping both a cell phone and a landline, so I decided to cancel my landline, break my Bell cell phone contract (I still had about 8 months left on it), and get a phone with Fido. Well, all this was easier said than done.

When I went to get my Fido phone, I found out that I could have my old Bell cell phone number transferred over to my Fido phone. I was like, "Yay! Now I don't have to tell everyone my new number." (I had only gotten my Toronto number a couple weeks earlier when I first moved to the area.)

To transfer my phone number, I had to get my Bell account number first. So I went to the Bell store and told them that I needed my account number. The lady just asked for my phone number and gave it to me then and there with no problem. I troupe back down to Fido, give them my phone number and account number... There's a small error, but the transfer goes through. Yay! I have a Fido phone number now.

The problem is, about 15 minutes later, I start getting phone calls for someone named Kevin. It wasn't till 30 minutes later that I realized I gave Fido and Bell the WRONG CELL PHONE NUMBER. (As I said, I had only had my phone number for a couple of weeks and hadn't memorized it yet.) I gave the lady at Bell the wrong number, so she gave me the correct account number for the wrong phone number. And that's why the number transfer went through Fido. Essentially I stole someone else's phone number! I now realize that the reason I gave the wrong phone number is that I gave Fido my old Ottawa phone number but I used a Toronto area code.

Long story short, I had to wait until the next day before I could sort out the mixup, and I ended up being on the phone with Fido and Bell for nearly 3 hours trying to give back "Kevin's" phone number. Then, a month later, Fido tried to bill me nearly $500 for breaking a contract (because I had bought a phone and returned it the next day). Luckily the phone call to fix that mistake only lasted a few minutes.

Useless

You'd think that a city with over 4 million people, they'd have a better library system. Ugh.

Another poem (not by me)

One of my old friends from university (okay, we only had one class together ever and haven't seen/talked since) recently posted the first draft of a poem she wrote on her blog. I read it and was enthralled. So I've taken it upon myself to pimp it out. Without further ado, here's "The Violence of Fall" by Katherine S.

The Violence of Fall

It is reported that
The sheeplike trees,
Tended by the gentle warmth of May,
Watered along June’s fickle streams
Growing thick with fleece under the humid July
Greenhouse glass,
mirrored in high-flying August clouds,

Were murdered the night of September 8th.

Fleece felled,
Unsuspectingly assailed by volley upon volley
Of steel-forged drops,
Quietly pricked by the razor-breath of winter
Until jaundice spread through finger-veins,
And blood-bright vessels danced beneath the skin.
Battered and bruised by wind-whips,
Stripped to the bone.

And the distant sun,
When it peered above the hill,
Could barely find the remains of summer’s flocks
Among the feverish pools of mustard
And bloody torn leaves
That soaked the skeleton stems.

Welcoming package

I unexpectedly had to go to Montreal for the past four days for work. The Doctor who's taking over the program I'm working for asked for my help on some paperwork. I was asked on Tuesday and by Thursday I was in Montreal. I asked him for a couple of hotel recommendations and ended up booking a room at Le Roberval.

On my first night there, I crashed relatively early because I was exhausted. (Getting up for a 9am flight will do that to you.) At midnight though, I woke up for no apparent reason. Then I realized I was woken up by the sound of someone knocking on my door. I wasn't about to get out of bed and see who it was, so I ignored it and heard them leave.

Just as I was falling asleep again, the phone rang. It was the front desk. The woman on the phone asks me, "Hi there, did you hire an escort?" [Read: Prostitute - my hotel was close to the red light district.]

I'm like, "What? No."

The woman replies, "Oh, sorry." And then before she hangs up, I hear her saying to someone else, "A woman answered. You have the wrong room."

I managed to fall back asleep, but the next day I joked with the Doctor, thanking him for arranging the welcoming package to Montreal. :)

Truly an international city

I cannot believe how small this world can be. I was walking around Toronto's Eaton Centre a couple of weeks ago when I thought I recognized someone from my time in Hong Kong. I wasn't sure it was her though, so I called out, "Vris?" Lo and behold, the girl turns around and it IS Vris!

I met Vris through my friend Minnie when I was in HK. We didn't hang out all that much, but we did spend Chinese New Year's together with a bunch of other people while renting an apartment on Lantau island for a few days. She was super nice and fun to hang out with.

Prior to moving to Toronto, Minnie told me through Facebook that Vris was coming to Canada, to the University of Waterloo (where I studied!) for an exchange! The day that I saw her, she was in Toronto shopping with another former exchange student who apparently arrived in HK right after I left.

I just couldn't believe that I could run into someone from Hong Kong in the largest city in Canada! It's crazy!

Morning calm

The one thing I look forward to about going to work every is walking by Alexandra Park. There's nothing special about the place - it's just a regular city part.

What I enjoy about it is the people. It's close to Chinatown, so every morning there are little old Chinese men and women there doing their morning exercises. My absolute favourite moment though is watching the group doing Tai Chi on the baseball diamond. They look so serene going through their movements with the sun shining on them.

Convenience food shocker

I'm embarassed and mildly revolted to have to admit that I'm eating, and even enjoying one of those Uncle Ben's Expressions dinners. (You know, the rice and meat in a bag?) Except for the fact that it's a bit salty, I'm enjoying it a great deal.

The only reason I bought it is because I still don't have a microwave in my new apartment, so I needed something I could heat up on a stove without too much effort.

Life changes

Wow! After nearly a two month drought, I'm back! With lots of news!

As I'm sure I've mentioned before, I've been job hunting. Well, two weeks ago, I sent my resume to the University Health Network in Toronto at 4:17PM. 8 minutes later, I got an email asking me to come for the first round of interviews. Wow!

Later that night, I found out that my father had the day off, and he was kind enough to offer me a ride to Toronto. So off we rode so I could have an interview for an Administrative Coordinator position.

I wasn't quite sure how the interview went. Some questions went well, but the girl who was interviewing me (and whom I would be replacing) had the greatest poker face in the world, so I was never sure where my answers sat with her. She also told me more about the position itself. Essentially the Admin Coordinator role is responsible for running the National Canadian Research Training Program in Hepatitis C. That includes coordinating weekly web conferences, planning the annual meeting in Banff, and bookkeeping. Yikes!

The interview was on a Wednesday. On Thursday I got the call back to come in on Friday. This time the interview included the same girl as Wednesday as well as the current director of the program, a Dr. Heathcote. The interview was much more a "getting to know the personal side of you" kind of interview. I yammered on and on, all the while thinking, "Shut me up!"

Well, apparently my yammering worked. By the time I arrived home that night, there was an email offering me the job and could I please start on Tuesday? First interview Wednesday, second interview Friday, starting on Tuesday?! They apparently took me a little too literally when I said I could start immediately. Can we say slight panic? I had to pack, buy new clothes, etc. (The clothes were especially important since 3 of my last 4 workplaces were casual environments, so I had nothing to wear that was business casual!)

I kept joking that the planets were aligning with regards to this job. I sent the resume, got the interview within mere minutes, my dad could give me a ride (thus negating a 4 hour bus ride), I got the second interview, and then I got the offer! Yes, the planets aligned indeed!

Oh yeah, one other small problem with starting work on Tuesday. I have no place to live in Toronto. Hrm. This is when I called in favours. My friend from university, Stacy, was kind enough to offer me a place to crash for the first two nights, and my high school friend, Michelle, was nice enough to give up her bed too. (And I literally mean her bed: She doesn't go to bed till 3am whereas I have to be up and at work by 8:30am, so she chose to sleep on the living couch so she could continue to stay up late.)

So essentially I arrived in Toronto on Monday, got my transit passes, found my way to work, etc., and then I started the next day! I can't really tell you what my first week has been like - it has been crazy information overload! I was in training all week and so on. There's so much more to this job than I anticipated. I guess I'll just have to rise to the challenge!

Also, when I applied to this job, I didn't realize just how quite well known the program, or my boss, was! My supervisor (Dr. Heathcote) threw an annual socializing bash at her house on Thursday, and while I was going there with some of my coworkers, I found out that Dr. Heathcote is one of the top three, if not the most well known doctor in her field! Also, the liver clinic where the course is kind of based out of (I say "Kind of" because this is a national program) is also one of the foremost in its field. Yikes! Can we say intimidation factor???

Anyways, as I was saying, I spent my first week going to work and stressing. It probably wouldn't have been too bad, but then I'd come back to my friends' apartments and stress about housing too! I didn't realize how expensive Toronto housing was, and how difficult it would be to find a place! I called and saw a few, but they weren't the greatest, or they had already been rented!

But hooray for me, the planets aligned one more time! On Friday I was looking at apartments online. I half heartedly phoned a bunch to find out more information. I was generally in one of those, "Woe is me" moods - sad, intimidated, etc... The next morning I went to go see one of the apartments that I had made an appointment with.

PRETTY! I was salivating on the floor looking at the place! It's a basement apartment with only two windows but it's newly renovated (heck, they haven't even finished the place!) with its own set of laundry machines! It's so big compared to some of the other places I've seen! I left with the rental application and came back within an hour. I pretty much bullied the landlord into signing the lease (he wasn't going to sign anything till tomorrow) but we worked it out. So tomorrow, assuming the credit he runs on me goes well, I'll move into my new place! (Ignore the fact that it's unfurnished for now - I have a sleeping bag and I went home last night and gathered a plate, frying pan, etc.)

So that's my life in a nutshell. Tomorrow I have an orientation session and then the real work begins! I shall endeavor to update more often now that I have a job and am living in the big city again. :)

I see dead people

My cat totally creeped me out last night. We were sitting on the couch, me watching a movie, her being petted by me, totally content and relaxed with each other. Suddenly, she launches upwards on point, growls deep down in her chest, and stares at something just over my left shoulder.

I'm at home by myself, it's night, and my back is to the empty hallway. I was almost afraid to turn around because I half way expected some burglar to be standing there. But there wasn't. There was nothing at all behind me, but the cat was still staring fixedly on nothing.

Makes you wonder if animals can sense spirits after all...

50 Facts that Should Change the World

Found this interesting link on the web today: 50 Facts That Should Change The World. Some were scary, some were sad.

The only facts that I urge you not to take too seriously are the ones that are criminal in nature (especially the ones that mention the developing world). E.g. the child soldiers fact - no one can truly know how many child soldiers there are. The number, 300000, appeared in literature somewhere and no one has been able to figure out its origins. So the numbers could be higher or lower.

Ghost busters

Several weeks ago the doorbell to our apartment rang. I answered the door to find two young guys around my age standing there. They introduced themselves, saying they were from Pennsylvania and were from the TV show, "Ghostly Encounters." (I had never heard of it.) The one fellow explained that my home town was apparently as a "hot spot" for ghost stories and they wanted to know if I, or anyone I knew, had ever experienced an encounter from a non-earthly being.

Throughout this whole spiel, I was nodding like an idiot. Sure I don't really believe in ghosts, but a TV show (which I have heard of) actually did recently come to Owen Sound to do a feature on an older building in our town, the Billy Bishop Museum. So I didn't really question that these guys were who they said they were.

After they asked me about any potential "encounters," the dude doing all the talking started laughing. It turns out that they were actually representing Foster Parents Plan and were looking for people to sponsor needy children. They laughed when I explained why I didn't question their cover story.

But still, that conversation was beyond strange. Their whole joke about being ghost hunters took about 3-4 minutes to get through. So what was the point? It was so random.

Taking them all with me!

I think I tried to poison my parents and I last night. I made a kickass wonderful meal of chicken drumsticks, mashed potatoes, corn, carrots, and homemade bread. It was delicious! The only pain in the butt thing about it was that the chicken took a lot longer to cook than anticipated. We ended up microwaving the chicken just so it would cook faster.

Well, something must have gone wrong with the food. This morning I woke up feeling very ill. When my dad phoned later, apparently he had been feeling sick too. My mom just came home and admitted that she had suffered the same symptoms... We don't seem to have food poisoning since the symptoms passed very quickly, but given the evidence, I believe I shall throw out the leftover chicken.

I dub myself, "The Assassin Chef!"

Death of my tastebuds

Tonight, my mother made a cake. She decided to use a pre-made cake mix and packaged icing. The cake was delicious, but something went terrible wrong with the icing.

She used "Added Touch" vanilla flavoured icing. I could hear her in the kitchen griping about the icing being kind of weird - it wasn't whipping the way it should. She actually had to get a fork out and break apart the dry lumps.

When she went to get the cake from the cooling rack, I sneaked into the kitchen and swiped my finger in the icing bowl to get a quick treat. I started to run away from the scene of the crime, but that's when the taste in my mouth hit me.

Oh boy, something went wrong with that icing. Terribly wrong. With each step I took, the taste in my mouth got worse. It was like eating sour paint. I wasn't sure if it was just me, so I stopped my mom from putting the icing on the cake and took the icing out to my father to try. (I'd have offered it to my mom, but she has no sense of taste.) My dad was so revolted by the icing's taste that he actually spat it back into the bowl.

We suspect that the packaged icing had gone bad. I opened the second (unopened) package that my had left out, and it too had a terrible odor. Needless to say, the icing got thrown out (in the outside garbage - I couldn't stand the idea of having it sit in our kitchen garbage), and my mom ran out to buy some new icing.

The worst thing is that the taste lingered! Both my dad and I had to find something else to eat to get rid of the god awful flavour!

Taro soup sadness

One of my fave things to eat in Hong Kong was Taro/Sago soup. It's a soupy mixture of sago (tapioca pearls), taro root, and coconut milk. I remember watching Peggy making it once and it seemed really easy. I finally decided to make my own soup but couldn't remember how to make it, so I decided to frankenstein a pot of it by mixing a couple of recipes I found off the internet.

To make the soup, I had to search far and wide for the ingredients. I literally travelled to a small town about 1.5 hours away from Owen Sound to get the sago. Then this weekend while I was in Kitchener, I popped into an Asian grocery store to buy taro root. (Of course, it wasn't till I got into the store before I realized that I didn't even know what taro root looked like! I had to ask a random customer to point it out to me.)

Making the soup was a painful process.

Cooking the taro wasn't difficult, but chopping it up was. That damned root was hard! The sago turned obtained a glue-like consistency when I started cooking it. It took FOREVER to cook through. One of the recipes I was using also said that I had to drain and rinse the sago in cold water. When I did so, I promptly clogged my colander with the starchy glue stuff floating at the top of the pot. It took two colanders with multiple cleanings in between before I could finally rinse the sago properly.

Adding the taro and sago to the coconut soup base was easy. Now I have a large pot full of coconut milk, taro, and sago and it looks exactly the way I remember it! Unfortunately, it kinda tastes like crap. :( I added some honey to my current bowl, but now it tastes like bland chunky soup with a dash of honey.

I wish I knew how the Zhongsan Fishing Village restaurant made their sago soup - there was grapefruit in theirs and it was delicious!

So now I'm sitting here, trying to choke down my bowl of soup, simply because I refuse to throw it out. Next bowl, I'll try using regular white or brown sugar instead of honey.

If anyone else has made taro/sago soup before, can they offer their own recipe or suggestions on how to make it?

Please stand by: We are suffering technical difficulties

Bwahahahaaa. I'm sitting here watching CBC news right now. The commercials just ended and the weather forecast came on with a woman explaining everything... But there was no sound. She's standing there yapping away, pointing out the temperatures and everything... And then I guess someone realized there was no sound.

She starts twisting around to check her microphone, pauses, turns back to the camera, smiles and makes the "One second" gesture and says it (silently), and then the channel cut back to commercials.

I'm still waiting for the forecast...

Important words

I seem to be in a poetry mood lately, and so I thought I'd toss out a few of my favourite poems.

First I'd like to relink to this post. Because it still presents an beautiful but sad image.

Recently I was reading a short story and the story referenced a poem by Pastor Martin Niemöller who lived in Germany during the Nazi occupation. I've heard the poem before, but never really knew its origins. According to Wikipedia, this poem was Niemöller's response to the German intellectuals' response during the Nazi rise to power. Here you have it:

First They Came...

First they came for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up,
because I wasn’t a Communist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up,
because I wasn’t a Jew.

Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn’t speak up,
because I was a Protestant.

Then they came for me, and by that time there was no one left
to speak up for me.

Suddenly I've been beset by a fit of laziness. So I shall instead merely link to other famous poems that are either really powerful for me, or just really pretty.

"If You Forget Me" by Pablo Neruda. I actually just found this poem while looking for a poem website. I liked the pretty imagery in it.

"The Road Not Taken" by Robert Frost. Let's face it, we've all read this poem before, but it's so powerfully symbolic that I had to include it here.

"Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley. I have always loved this poem since I first read it in grade 10 English. I love how the author shows how fleeting life can truly be. Imagine what our lands will look like in hundreds of years.

"The Listeners" by Walter De La Mare. This poem has always intrigued me. It's a creepy but good snapshot. I'm always left wondering what the traveller was doing and why. The poem's cadence is among the best I've read.

"Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" by Robert Frost. Okay, so this poem isn't exactly profound (at least in my opinion) but I love the imagery in it. You can imagine yourself in the rider's place.

"Charge of the Light Brigade" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. Once again here's a poem I first heard in grade 10 English. The thing that draws me to it is the rhythm - meant to sound like galloping horses.

Those are a few of my fave poems that I can think of off the top of my head.

Can't teach an old dog new tricks

SHE DID IT AGAIN!

Walking the line

My mother's union went on strike last Thursday. Since I'm unemployed (and believe in their cause of course), I've joined them on the picket lines outside their workplace.

This isn't the first time I've been on a picket line. Back in 1996, my father's union went on strike for 7 weeks. I was about 13 or 14 years old then and he took me on the picket lines with him. We even traveled to Toronto to take part in the massive demonstrations in front of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario. I don't have many memories of the strike, but now that I'm older, I realize that my view of unions is very different from others.

I've met a lot of people over the years who are vehemently anti-union, and to be honest, I just can't understand why! My father has been a union member for my entire life. My mom has been a union member since 2004. To me, unions are a Good Thing. My History courses have shown how hard people have fought for the right to have unions. They're meant to help protect employees from their own companies and whatnot. The fact that they still serve the same purpose today makes me rather proud.

My mother's coworkers went on strike because they feel they aren't getting paid enough. The union conducted a survey and discovered that their salaries are in the bottom third for similar positions in the province. Then they found out that their managers are in the top third salary-wise. The union was demanding a pay raise - not even to be brought up to the absolute middle of the scale - no, they just want a raise to the lower middle area of the salary scale. Management told them that there simply wasn't any money to give them the raise. The big controversy now is due to the fact that the company recently built a brand new building that costs around $20 million! There's a lot of superfluous spending and needless additions (e.g. an exercise room that has no exercise equipment, a drive-thru window that's doomed to be environmentally-unfriendly, etc.). So when Management has the money to spend on this garish ugly building (nicknamed by the public as the "Taj Mahal", or the "Copper Kettle") but not the money to spend on their employees, it looks bad. Also, the Board of Directors has told Management that the pickets SHOULD be brought up to a fair wage.

Given the fact that unions are legally recognized, and they have certain rights, it's amazing how people have been reacting to the picketers. Employees on strike have the right to hold traffic up for 10 minutes. Apparently, no one told this to Management. I saw one manager actually bump 3 women with her car because she refused to be held up (which we have the LEGAL RIGHT TO DO). Another picketer got hit immediately after, and even had to be taken to the hospital because of minor injuries. She's probably going to end up pressing charges.

While walking along the picket line, we've received an amazing amount of support. People honk their horns as they pass by (much to the annoyance of Management who can hear all of this and are getting complaints from the neighbors about the noise - but the neighbors are deliberately complaining because the more they bug Management, the more Management will need to give into the union's demands). We've been receiving coffee and treats from members of the public and even from people who are still working in the workplace. Not everyone has been pleasant though. Some people have driven or walked by and yelled at the pickets for being greedy and whatnot. People don't seem to understand that a union won't go on strike unless they feel really strongly about the issue! They don't get paid while they're on strike, or if they do, it's usually only $25 A DAY. Obviously they'd much rather be at work than on the line. One or two people have made rude gestures, and one fellow went on a 5 minute temper tantrum. Overall though, the good has outweighed the bad by a long shot.

What's also surprising me is how personal people are letting things become. Some situations are understandable. For example, one union member was offered a full-time non-union job about 2 days before the strike, so she's been crossing the picket lines and according to inside gossip, she's been taking on some of the picketers work, making her a Scab. But even the reaction from Management is surprising. After the strike is over, both Management and the picketers are going to have to work together - but there's going to be A LOT of bad blood between the two groups. I don't get why Management can't be pleasant and just wait for the 10 minutes while we hold them up and so on. Instead, it's rather childish, they completely ignore us on their ways in and out. Also, amusingly, they have a small web camera pointed out the window and are watching us with it the ENTIRE time!

Luckily the other employees inside the building are being very supportive. ONA, the union for the nurses and public health inspectors, have encouraged their members to join us on their breaks and lunch hours. They've also been instructed to try to avoid taking on the work of the union members (within reason), and so on. Other unions from around the city have stopped by to help and disrupt the work inside the building. On Friday, some correctional services workers (aka jail guards) came to join us on the picket line. Canada Post and a bunch of the courier companies refuse to cross the picket lines too.

All in all, it has been a very interesting experience being on the picket line now that I'm old enough to appreciate the intricacies of the situation. I have a lot more appreciation for unions and the laws that help govern their relations with the workplace. So if you see a group of employees on strike sometime, give them a honk or a wave or anything to let them know that you support, or at least acknowledge their complaints! Go OPSEU!

Square peg, round hole

I've been cooking dinner for my parents quite often since I've been home. Since I do the cooking, they wash the dishes afterwards. This is a quick recap of last night's conversation/events in the kitchen.

> Mau pulls out the ingredients for dinner.
> Mau fetches her favourite sharp knife that comes with its own sharpening sheath.
> Mau looks at the knife and does a double-take.
> Mau yells at her mother, "You IDIOT! You put the knife in the sharpener UPSIDE DOWN!"
> Mau's mother starts laughing and comments, "I was wondering why it was so difficult to put in the sheath!"
> Mau's father covers his face with shame.

The whole situation was hilarious because I didn't even think before I bellowed out at my mom. I thought most people realized that if something wasn't moving easily, you shouldn't force it! LOL. I was completely dumbfounded that she managed to shove the knife into the plastic sheath. Unfortunately it seems like the sharpener is broken - I need to get a screw driver to pry it out this evening.

Car Karma

Oh Cathy, you and your car amuse me to no end.

This afternoon I arranged to meet Cathy for a lunch date. She ended up driving us to this little bagel restaurant near Bank and Holmwood. When we arrived, I hopped out of the car, locked my door, and started toward the restaurant door. That's when I heard, "Uh oh," behind me.

I turn around and see Cathy looking wide-eyed, trying my door handle. All she says is, "Maureen, I think I just locked my keys in my car!" Sure enough, she has done just that. And to top it all off, somehow she exited her vehicle while it was still running. She surmises that she must have opened her car door to see how close to the parking lines she was, and then instead of pulling out her keys, she just stepped out of the vehicle and locked it with the button like normal.

Luckily, or I guess I should say unluckily, she had had car problems earlier in the week and ended up signing up for a CAA membership. She was able to pull out her brand new membership card and call for some help.

It was interesting to watch her reactions to the whole situation though. Most people would have started panicking or gotten all irritated and angry at themselves. Except for her shock of doing something as silly as locking her keys in her car, Cathy was cool about the whole situation. She just pulled out her membership and made the call. Yes, she's quite the person to have by your side in an emergency.

Also, another bonus to the afternoon is that while we were waiting for CAA to appear, we stood outside by her car chatting. After about 20 minutes, one of the employees from Kettleman's restaurant came outside and gave us two free bagels, fresh from the oven for free! That was so kind of them! And I'll have you know that when CAA finally arrived and we were able to go in and enjoy our lunch, the bagel sandwiches from Kettleman's were delicious.

Spam

It amuses me that I get email spam in both Chinese and English.

Prison break

Ugh. I can't wait to escape my roommate

Strange habits

Everyone has little habits or ways of doing things that really make no sense but they believe that their actions make a difference. I know myself that I have certain foibles and ways of doing things that probably don't have any scientific backing to them (not that I can think of any examples right now).

I must share with you one of my roommate's actions today that actually made me laugh out loud.

This afternoon when I exited my bedroom I saw that my roomie was cooking her lunch. The strange thing though was that she had a tea towel draped over her head. It wasn't wrapped around, it wasn't tucked in or anything. It was like she had laid a newspaper on her head. I paused and stared at her and she saw that I was looking, but I just shook my head and said, "I'm not going to ask."

She then proceeded to explain to me that the tea towel was to protect her hair from absorbing the smell of her food. She had had a shower in the morning and didn't want the smell to permeate her hair.

I'd like to remind you that this woman has a degree in Biology and is getting a second degree in Environmental Engineering. On what planet could you believe that laying a tea towel on your head while standing over your pot would stop the smell from getting into your hair? Nevermind the hair, she was wearing her clothes for the day, her skin was exposed, etc. But this single thin piece of fabric, which covered maybe a quart of her hair (which is long and hangs to the top of her shoulders) was supposed to stop the smell?

I should probably mention that the towel had been nicely folded earlier, and thus the creases in the fabric created a little peak that seemed to act more like a chimney, drawing the steam into it rather than blocking it.

I can't wait to move out.

Officially withdrawn

I called the Grad Studies office at Carleton today. It's official - I'm no longer a Carleton U student. Umm, yay?

I have to admit, now that I'm over the shock of deciding to withdraw from grad school, part of me regrets it. I think it's like the trauma of childbirth. At the time it hurts and scares you so much that you never want to have a child again, but then time fades the memories and you're willing to go through it again.

At the time of my original decision to withdraw, I was so stressed out and then so relieved when I "escaped" from grad studies, but now I miss going to classes, reading articles, and so on. I remember being miserable and struggling, but it's like there's a fog between myself and the misery I experienced.

On a more positive note, I have another interview on Monday! Yay me!

Hallucinations

I've been up late several nights in a row. And by late, I mean staying up till 2-4am. One of the reasons is that I found one of my favourite comic strips, "For Better or Worse," posted online, and I've been catching up on the archives from 2003 to present day!

Last night though, I started to wonder if the lack of sleep was catching up with me. Around 2am I blinked and stared at the current comic strip I was looking at more closely. I could have SWORN the speaker in the one panel's eyes moved!

I paused and started staring at the panel, waiting, no, DARING the stationary character to move again. And it did! LOL, for some reason, the comic strips posted online in 2005 started having animated sections. Random people will blink, a person in the background will move, etc. It was rather disconcerting at first, but now I'm just relieved to know that I'm not hallucinating.

Losing my flip flops

I never used to wear flip flops. And I especially never wore footwear in the house. When I first went to university though, I had to buy a pair of shower shoes. My purchase took the form of a pair of $2 flip flops from WalMart.

I got so used to wearing the flip flops that I rarely took them off. I wore them not only to the shower, but also to the cafeteria, around my residence, and pretty much everywhere (except outside).

Surprisingly those flip flops lasted me for 4 years - not bad for only spending a toonie on them! They finally broke when I was in Hong Kong. I had to replace them, and ended up buying a pair of Diesel brand name flip flops while in Thailand. Unfortunately they were terrible fake products. They had had flowers painted on them. I think the flowers rubbed off in two days. Oh well. They're still ridiculously comfortable.

In my current residence, I keep losing a single flip flop (usually the right foot one). How do I do this? It happens when I go to sit at my computer desk. Without thinking, when I first sit down, I usually sit with my right foot curled up beneath me, which means I kick off my right flip flop before sitting down. Later I'll shift positions, and automatically go seek out my flip flop, only to find it's not beneath my desk. It's beside it.

I don't know how I continue to surprise myself by doing this. I've been "losing" my flip flop since I first moved in, but I'm also surprised (and amused) when I have to lean over, grab it, and throw it to my foot.

I think it's even more amusing that I'm actually dedicating an entire post to my flip flops, but hey, they're now a necessity of life for me. Anytime I take a trip anywhere, I always pack my flip flops for wandering around my new accomodations.

Asian geek

I'm totally an Asian geek. Last night I dreamt I met one of my fave HK actors, Nicholas Tse. Later on, I had a different dream where I was getting a mini-Mandarin lesson in a random university class.

Delayed departure

I was supposed to be back in Ottawa tonight, but I didn't make it. I got to the train station and went to pick up my ticket about 15 minutes before departure... Only to be told I was supposed to be there 45 minutes early! Apparently there were no seats left for me. :| Luckily I was able to rebook my ticket for tomorrow and hang with my sister and her boyfriend for another day.

We ended up going hiking in Hamilton. Unfortunately, a lot of the trails were really icy, meaning we had to go very slowly. On the way back, we found a much faster method of getting down the icy sections! See the video!

Stair sledding
Video sent by dendia

Sweet images

I saw this little poem/story on a web comic I like to read. I found it so beautiful (in a sad kinda way) that I wanted to share it with others. The comic is called Friendly Hostility. This excerpt was from a week the artist took off from the comic. It can be found here.

I knew it was the end when I woke to find you sleeping next to me, grave dirt in your hair, under your fingernails, streaked on your pretty face.

You smelled like the hydrangeas you'd been buried with. Your skin, your skin was translucent, thin and delicate like tissue paper.

It bordered on pale blue, bringing a moonbeam into the golden sunlit morning, into the cotton sheets tangled up on my bed.

I pulled the covers over us, pressed close and tucked your head under my chin like we used to before the accident, and went back to sleep.

Pre-pain status

I figured I'd type this quick entry out before the pain of my day truly set in.

I went snowshoeing today.

I haven't been snowshooeing since 2004. Cathy and I went to Gatineau Park and rented some snowshoes... We were walking around from 11am to about 2:45pm. I am so not looking forward to tomorrow when the pain sets in. My legs are already stiff and sore, and this is after a hot shower and an evening of relaxation.

We walked along two trails, the easy "Sugarbush Trail" and the "Blanchet Trail." The woman at the Visitor's Centre told us that the Blanchet trail had a few vertical climbs and whatnot, but that it was a good walk. She failed to mention that "vertical climbs" translates into "scaling a mountain"... That's right, somehow Cathy and I managed to snowshoe our way up the side of a mountain.

We probably got 98% of our way through the trail before finally turning back. We were both ridiculously cold and tired from hiking upwards... I can't decide whether going up or down was harder. Going up was difficult because we were climbing all the way, but going down was also hard on the knees/thighs because you were constantly leaning back to counteract the angle of the hill while wearing snowshoes. At least going down went faster than going up!

Despite my impending pain, I had a great day. It's so nice to do something different from staying inside, or going to a mall or anything else.

Entry denied

At my internship, we're occupying two different offices. We've got our main Peacebuild office, and we're also using a small office within NAPO's (National Anti-Poverty Organization) offices which are right beside our own.

We started locking out own little office within NAPO's offices and we keep the key in our main office. NAPO's main doors are locked with an electronic keypad, so entry is no problem.

However, this morning I happened to be the first person into work. So I went into NAPO's office to see if our office door was unlocked. No luck, so I go to get the key from our main office, only to realize that our main office doors are locked.

I ended up having to set up shop in the main lobby of NAPO and wait for my supervisor to get there so we could unlock everything and get the ball rolling.

The new KKK

I had a surreal moment on the bus this evening. I came out of my commuter daze to take note of my fellow passengers. At the front of the bus were three people wearing white winter jackets with their hoods drawn up. The fluorescent lighting on the bus made them stand out. For some reason, they reminded me of the KKK.

Early vs. late wakeup calls

Normally I'm bitching about the false fire alarms late at night around 1am. But I must recant my rants. I discovered this morning that it's infinitely worse to be woken up at 7am on a Saturday morning. At least with the night alarms it's easier to fall asleep again.

The amusing thing with this morning's alarm, was that once it was done, we were all trudging upstairs back to our rooms, when the alarm started going off again. We all kind of froze and were like, "Well do we go back to our rooms or back outside?!" Cathy and I popped into the lounge to look out the windows and when we saw that the firetrucks were leaving despite the alarms going off again. We figured it was safe to go back to our rooms, and sure enough, by the time we reached the 5th floor, the alarms stopped.

The worse thing about fire alarms these days is that you just can't roll out of bed and go out the door. It's too cold for that! You have to bundle into pants, get winter jackets on, running shoes, hats, and scarves.

After the alarm, I ended up staying up since I was awake from the cold. 2 hours later I was lying in my bed watching a movie on my laptop, when suddenly the alarm started going off AGAIN. I managed to get up (I finished knitting the line of yarn I was working on first), get into my jeans, and just as I was shrugging into my jeans, the alarm stopped again. Yeesh.

A story for my readers

Well it seems as though I've been in a non-blogging mood of late. Very well, I shall regale you with an amusing anecdote from my Christmas holidays.

My sister bought a new laptop back in the Fall. Its keyboard has all the special characters, and it also has special French keys on it. My sister didn't know how to use the French keys, so she asked me to play around with her laptop to try to figure it out.

I fought with her laptop for half an hour. I changed language settings, keyboard settings, I tried using the function keys on her laptop and nothing worked! I finally gave up, put all her settings back to normal and returned her laptop to her.

Mel started to check her email and then asked, "Umm, Mau? What's going on?" Whenever she tried to type on the right half of her keyboard, instead of letters appearing, numbers would come up instead.

I reconfiscated her laptop and rechecked that I had returned all her language and keyboard settings back to normal. Then I checked again, and again. I could not for the life of me figure out what her keyboard was still spouting out random signs and numbers instead of the letters. I even called my father in to help.

We were checking online help files trying to figure out what was going on. I finally clued into what was wrong when I came across a web page explaining how to use a laptop keyboard. That's when it hit me.

When I had been originally fiddling around with her laptop, I had turned number lock on! I forgot to turn it off! That's why half her keyboard was punching out numbers instead of letters.

I am so smrt!