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.

Cleaning update

I talked to my roommate tonight about what she wanted me to clean. As I mentioned, I thought I was a fairly clean person. It turns out that I am. It's just that she's super clean. I think what it comes down to is the fact that she's never lived in a student apartment before. I'm used to student housing being slightly dirty (or in some cases, ridiculously dirty), so I'm used to ignoring small things like scuffs on the walls, etc.

I told her to make a list of things she wants cleaned, and then we'll take turns doing it. She kept protesting, "But I don't want to make you feel bad - this is your house too!" But let's face it, it's not like she'll lower herself to my decent standards. LOL. She wants stuff like the cupboards (near the handles) scrubbed, etc... Yeesh. I thought I left psycho-cleaner back in Owen Sound.

The small things

Argh. It's amazing how one small issue can make you completely infuriated. I woke up feeling good - ready to tackle a new day, be productive, etc., etc.

After I got out of the shower and was just going back into my room, my roommate comes out of hers and asks, "Oh Maureen, do you think the bathroom floor is getting kind of dirty?" After I gave the stunning reply of, "Huh?" She repeated her comment...

It's like, "Just fucking ask me to mop the floors if you want me to!!!"

I can't really complain, it's good that I have a clean housemate. Admittedly she's a lot cleaner than I am - she's forever scrubbing things down while I subscribe to the idea that a little dirt is good for you in life. I'm tidy though - I also wipe down the counters, I do my dishes a lot more often than her (mind you, I create more dishes), etc. She's the one who cleans the bathroom most often and whatnot, but then again, I'm the one who thinks it doesn't need that much cleaning. If I do clean up, it tends to be while she's not home.

Anyways, the main thing that bugs me is that she had to flit around her question instead of asking me flat out. She has no problem confronting me at other times (e.g. this weekend we had to agree to keep my door closed with a scarf blocking the gap underneath it because I was apparently creating a wind tunnel by keeping my window open.)

It wasn't until she left the apartment and I sat down to eat my breakfast that I realized how much of a bitchy mood I had sunk into. If I had been a more confrontational person, I would have loved to have replied, "No, I think it still looks good," as I slammed the door in her face. :) But alas, I'm not, and I probably will end up mopping sooner or later.

Tools of the trade

Okay, time for some amusing add-ons to my knitting exploits. (I had been too tired to write anything more last night.)

When my roommate first brought out the knitting kneedles, I didn't get a good glimpse of them and just thought they were extra long pointy chopsticks. Oops! Next, when we began our knitting lesson, I realized that I automatically held the needle like I would a chopstick. Then she had to fix my grip because I was holding the needle at the wrong end (with chopsticks, you hold the needle further away rather than close to the point). I don't know how we managed to survive the first part of the lesson because we were laughing hysterically.

As for the actual knitting - that was also a painful process. I don't know how she managed not to beat me up or leave me where I was. It's hard enough for me to learn to knit normally, but trying to learn from someone who doesn't have the vocabulary to teach me in English? Even funnier. I kept making my rows too tight and because they were so tight, I had trouble differentiating between the different threads of yarn so I'd randomly skip a thread here and there. She'd inspect my rows and then laugh when she found all the gaps in them. LOL

I can't believe how difficult it is to learn how to knit. Teach me how to program in a computer language? No problem. Ask me to figure out why wars start all over the world? Sure thing. Ask me to wrap yarn around a metal needle? Count me out.

She can be taught!

Dude, I'm totally learning how to knit thanks to my roomie. I'm teaching her French and she's teaching me how to knit. I completed four rows of my wannabee scarf tonight. (I'll just have to sew some buttons strategically over the random gaping holes in it.) I also think I'm getting the better end of the deal - my French teaching abilities suck. I kept having to check the internet to confirm everything I was telling her - right down to finding a pronunciation guide to make sure I was saying things properly. LOL

Failure to communicate

While living with Feng can be irritating, it does provide for some good laughs. (Actually, after nearly getting fed up with his antics last week, he's back in my good graces.)

He's been super helpful when I've had Chinese homework questions for the past couple of weeks, and I've reciprocated by helping him with English words or explaining things to him...

Case in point:
He just came in and asked me what "sole" meant. The only meaning I could think of was the type of fish. He looked at me like I had two heads. I finally asked him to use the word in the sentence he was having trouble with... Uh, "Sole author" is not fish related. I started laughing - I had completely forgotten about that meaning of the word.

Impossible to understand

I can't understand my landlords. It's not the language barrier that confounds me. It's their habits. I'm beginning to wonder if they're afraid of the dark. I also can't understand how as engineers they don't understand thermodynamics. I shall elaborate. Also, I should clarify that my landlords aren't that old - they're maybe in their late 20s early 30s, so senility isn't an issue.

First of all, they're incapable of turning the lights off when they leave a room. There's a light at the top of our staircase that is FOREVER on. It's on whether they're home or not. Even if it's bright daylight out, they have to turn it on in order to ascend or descend the stairs. I'll wake up at 7am and the light is burning brightly just to irritate me. One time they also left a mini lamp on downstairs overnight. The thing was so bloody hot when I turned it off the next morning I nearly burnt myself. (They had also left their laptop running overnight... I haven't got a clue as to what prompted that.)

I also have a beef with their refusal to be responsible with the house heating. I believe I've gripped about how they crank the heat up to 27 degrees at all times and while I keep turning it down whenever I see it up there. Now that the warm weather has arrived, I've discovered a new issue. They leave the windows open while the heat is turned on... And I'm not just talking about opening up a window here and there to quickly air out the house, I'm talking "leave them open all day while the heat is set to 25 degrees."

I'll admit that I was the first person to start opening windows when the weather turned nice. But I at least turned off the heat before doing so. And when I was done downstairs, or when the day began to cool down, I closed the windows on my way back up. The next day when I came home from school, the windows were wide open, and as I mentioned above, the heat was turned up to 25 degrees. I was flabbergasted. These people are freaking PHD engineers! They should be smart enough to know that having the heat on while the windows are open is not going to do anything except contribute to global warming! GAH!

And then this evening. Oh my gosh this evening. I'm in the kitchen drying my dishes. The heat's turned on again, but whatever. Shunde (the guy) is upstairs in their room. Shuang comes home and yells his name. She leaves the door wide open while waiting for him to come down. It takes about 3 minutes for him to come downstairs. Meanwhile the door continues to stand open, sucking out all the warm air of the house. You know what she called him for? To bring in the groceries. She had brought them all the way to the top step, but was incapable of bringing them those final five steps into the house. I was beyond flabbergasted at this point. I was speechless and trying not to laugh hysterically. And the sad thing is, it only took Shunde 2 trips (hell, can that even be called a trip when the groceries are literally just outside the door?!) to bring in the groceries. She could have done it faster than him for Christ's sake!

Nothing I learned from my time in Asia can explain this behaviour. Can someone, anyone, please please please help me understand what's going on here?!

Memories of Asia

Living with my new housemates has brought back a lot of memories from my exchange. Mainly it's due to the familiar smells - they don't cook often, but when they do, it smells like I'm back on the streets of Mong Kok with the various odors wafting around. I love it (even when I hate the smell).

Another amusing memory that they've brought back is of traveling in China. One of them, most likely Shunde, likes to hoark in the bathroom. The sound of it reminds me of walking the streets in mainland China. Part of me is vastly amused by this, even while the hairs on the back of my neck try to stand on end.

The final similarity between my apartment and Hong Kong is the random miscommunications that occur. One specific instance comes immediately to mind. I had gone to the gym one morning, and when I returned, I started chatting with Shuang. I told her in Chinese that I had gone to the gym, but I guess I said "gym" wrong. She proceeded to repeat the word back to me, then she kept saying something in Chinese that I couldn't understand. I kept replying, "I don't understand" in Chinese. After literally 2 minutes of this, she finally looks at me and says very slowly in Chinese, "I'm speaking English." That's when I realized that she had been spelling out, "G-Y-M" the entire time. I had been confused because the letter "G" sounds like the word "ji" in Mandarin. LOL. When I finally realized what was going on, I was laughing hysterically and embarrasedly. :)

New everything

It seems as though yet another new term has begun. I'm enjoying my term so far. My new apartment is a lot nicer than my last one which makes a big difference. My landlady/landlord are from Wuhan China and they're so nice! They keep trying to talk in Chinese to me. I'm able to understand a lot of what they're saying, after I stop to think about it first. I'm also picking up a few new words, and relearning stuff I had forgotten. There's another guy living in the house, a second year who lives in the basement. He seems nice, but I rarely see him or talk to him. I probably couldn't pick him out of a crowd either.

My classes seem a lot duller than the ones last term. I'm taking a lot of required courses that I missed while off on co-op and while abroad. Therefore I'm taking the continuation of my Canadian History Senior Seminar, American History since 1877, Arts in the Humanities, and The Global South.

My history seminar seems really interesting so far. My prof for that course is also the Dean of Arts, and he's very enthusiastic about teaching us how to write a proper history paper. The course requires that we write a 25-30 page history paper using lots of primary sources, and give a 15 minute oral presentation of the paper. Yikes! That's not the difficult part though. The hard part of this course had already passed - choosing a topic! We were allowed to choose ANY topic we wanted from Canadian history. That seems easy enough, but how do you know what you can talk about for 30 pages???

I ended up choosing to write about the Suez Canal Crisis. I figured that was something I'd be interested in, it was international in scope and so on. However, after our second lecture meeting, I realized just how many primary sources (original documents from the event in question) the prof wanted, and I also realized that I didn't feel like reading through a bunch of old government documents on the topic! By the time the lecture was over, I had decided to switch my topic. I'm now going to write about the experience of Canadian prisoners of war in Hong Kong in 1941. Ha! Now there's a topic I'm interested in!

I don't have much to say about my American History class. So far it's pretty mundane. Essentially I can take anything I've learned about in Canadian history and substitute "America" for "Canada" and get it right. Let's face it, Americans did everything before we Canadians did, and earlier too! I proved this point in my first discussion class when I drew upon my knowledge of the Canadian reform movement and simply applied it to the American context we were talking about and got kudos from the prof. Ha ha. Little does he know...

I had been pretty worried about my Arts in the Humanities class. I've heard terrible things about it from all my friends who've taken it - they've said it's boring, useless, no one goes to lectures, etc. Essentially the course covers the topics of humanities in every major culture/age in history. (e.g. We've already moved from the Paleolithic period to the Egyptians to the Greeks.) While I'll admit that the course is dry and not presenting any amazing revelations, the prof is funny and enthusiastic about teaching us. (e.g. When discussing the unification of Egypt, the prof flashed a photo from the Scorpion King and mentioned the legends behind him. He also recited Egyptian love poetry for us.) Time will tell if this turns out to be the terrible class everyone has told me it is.

As for my final course, The Global South, I'm enjoying it, but having a hard time with it. The course is essentially an introduction to International Development with a focus on Kenya, China, and some South American country I can't remember. It's neat because we're learning the background as to how the world has become so screwed up. However, I'm having a hard time because the prof has a thick Russian accent and is very soft spoken... The accent isn't as much of a problem as the soft spoken part is. I'll be following the lecture easily, then suddenly I'll miss something she says and have a hard time getting back on track.

Okay, I guess this is a good enough summary of my life so far. Make sure you check out my "Holiday Summary" post below that I just put online. :) I'll add some more funny stories and a few more posts that aren't novel-length when I've had a rest. :)

Axl Rose you are not

Dear Bryan,

I'm pretty sure you're aware that blasting your music past midnight is a no-no. It's very distracting. What's even more distracting is you singing along to the music. Your musical talent is disgustingly lacking and your voice sounds like a 3 year old with a cold.

Regards, your upstairs housemate,
Maureen

Must... Not... DESTROY!

Today is the closest I'll probably ever kill Bryan. Thank God - well, Bryan had better thank God, that Agnes woke me up before he did.

I was woken up by Agnes' moving around in the kitchen around 8:30. Less than 15 minutes after I dragged my butt out of bed, music starts BLASTING from downstairs. I can hear the lyrics, and feel the thump of the bass through the floor. How fucking rude do you have to be to play your music so loudly before 9am?!?!

A pleasant day indeed

Hoorah! I managed to guilt my mom and dad into coming to visit me this Saturday. ("I miss you guys!") Suckers. Little did they know, I did it all for free lunch and help with Christmas shopping. LOL. Just joking.

We had a terrific time together. My dad was dropped off at Chapters as usual. My mom felt guilty about leaving him there all day, but Melanie pointed out, "John? Bored by being at Chapters all day? Hell, he's probably so happy he's doing snow angels!" This was greatly amusing.

We girls ended up tromping down to Fairview Mall do try to get all of our shopping for the people living up North done. Since Mel had hurt her knee and was on crutches, mom and I got her a wheelchair for our shopping expedition. Wow! I think I need to go shopping with people in wheelchairs more often. I was pushing Mel around and we had people constantly leaping out of the way in the aisles. It was fantastic! This was espcially amazing since it's Christmas time and a Saturday - the mall was busier than normal and we still had great luck.

There were only two times when we had issues. Once, a couple of teenie-boppers accidentally hit Mel's leg causing her to yelp and her leg to spasm. You could tell the girls felt bad, but what could they do? The second time was my own fault. I wheeled Mel into the elevator and while I was trying to manoeuvre her inside it, I accidentally knocked her foot on the wall. Whoops. She forgave me though, so life was good.

Possibly the most shocking part of the day was dinner. My mom actually suggested we go to Cameron's Seafood Restaurant again! My mom did! My mom! Holy crap! I swear my jaw nearly hit the ground. Despite my surprise, I jumped on the chance. We met up with Scott at the restaurant and had another amazing meal. (My sibling wasn't too keen on the chinese brocoli though.) I had a great conversation with our waitress - I had ordered our rice in Cantonese (at my dad's badgering), only to find out our waitress spoke Mandarin. So we chatted for a few minutes. She was very impressed, and I was very pleased with her being impressed. :)

Afterwards my parents took me grocery shopping quickly and then we returned to my house. I had been excited to go back home, because Bryan had been gone the night before and I assumed he was gone all weekend. Alas, twas not meant to be. In fact, not only was he home, but his friend had moved in too. Damn. So now I'm crabbed out and keep catching myself deliberately finding reasons to be annoyed with them. Not that they've done anything (well, Bryan did blast his music for awhile, but that's nothing new). In fact, the house is a lot prettier now that the new guy had moved in. He's got all kinds of shiny cookware, garbage can, etc. I'm a little shocked - first of all, I can't believe Bryan has a friend who's so tidy, and secondly, how the hell can a student afford all this stuff? Dad? Never complain about moving me around ever again - this guy brought a huge TV, a couch, microwave, plates, etc, etc, etc. Egads!

Anyways, Agnes returned home and she brought me a gift! The recipe for her mom's apple cake! It's funny to read the recipe because it's translated from Polish, and her mom makes it from memory without measuring stuff. So when I read "1 cup of flour," she means 1 coffee mug of flour. :) (She even included that little explanation on the side of the recipe. LOL) I can't wait to try to make this baby! I seemed to be anxious to bake anything, because I ended up also baking a quick batch of shortbread cookies. They are very tasty.

It seems as though all I do on here is bitch about my housemates, but I can't help it. I want to KILL THEM ALL! (With the exception of Agnes that is.)

Part 1) As previously mentioned, Agnes and I went on strike against taking out the garbage. I finally ended up writing a snide note and taping it to the front door officially pointing out that we would NOT take out the garbage anymore, followed by another note explaining proper "Take out the garbage" procedures. Well, finally someone took the hint and the garbage has been removed. I shall have to create a garbage week roster so that this won't happen again.

Part 2) Bryan had been leaving his multitude of dishes on the counter for the past several days. When Agnes and I came home today, the first thing I noticed was that they were gone. Yay! Then I went and peeked into the sink to make sure they just hadn't migrated down there... Fucking hell. Yeah, he washed his dishes, but he left all the debris at the bottom of the sink - and there was A LOT! And when Agnes confronted him about it, he blamed Matt and Margaret... But I know that it was his mess. Matt and Margaret of course denied it was theirs as well.

Bryan and I avoid talking as much as possible now. We'll say hi if we must, but for the most part, we just try not to be in the same room together.

Bitch session done.

Oh. And I finally bought a UW hoodie. This has made me happy. I don't feel like typing anymore, so I'll leave off here.

Farewell!

My fault this time...

First off I'd like to admit that I was in the wrong last night. Lauda and I had decided to go out for dinner and catch a movie. She then invited me to go to Queen's for some drinks with Tao and his girlfriend, Denise, since she was visiting.

I was okay with the plan, but Lauda wanted to stop by her apartment (a.k.a. my old house) to change first. I had absolutely no intention of entering that place. Lauda kept asking me, but I refused. When we got there though, Michelle's car wasn't in the driveway so I figured it'd be okay if I just went to Tao's and Lauda's little livingroom.

Things were going well. And then Michelle came home. Lauda and Tao didn't do anything or say anything. The door to our little area was closed. At first I tried to keep quieter, but gave up since it was pretty obvious that I was there. Nothing happened. We all got ready to go out.

As we were leaving, Lauda called out "Bye" to Michelle. Michelle didn't respond. Lauda tried again (she was calling around the corner - we couldn't even see Michelle but we knew she was in the livingroom). This time she said, "Bye Michelle! We'll see you tonight!" Michelle asked, "Is Maureen coming back with you?" And both Lauda and I answered with a "No." Michelle then replies, "Good because I don't think my dad would like having her here." And with that, we left.

Lauda was pretty shocked by that parting remark. Where the heck was she for the last week I lived there??? I was unsurprised really. The only thing about that that really bugged me was that she laid the blame on her dad - the problems are between us - I did nothing to her father. I guess the other part of what bugged me was that she said t to my face. Understandably that comment was probably aimed at me as much as at Tao and Lauda, but if you have a problem with your tenants' guests, you should tell them instead of the guests themselves. Of course, I'm not a guest, I'm more of an enemy now.

For the rest of the evening, I harboured a lot of aggression about the incident. But the more I thought about it, the less I can really blame Michelle. I mean, who'd want the source of so much tension back in their house? She's probably angry about the July cheque she missed out on with me. (And I don't blame her for that - I gave her very little notice.) It must seem like I have a lot of nerve/gall to go back to that house after all that happened between us.

There. I feel better now that I've gotten that off my chest.

Drinking at the Queen's was a lot of fun. We didn't stay there too long - we left at about 11pm. (See? I finally was out of the house after 9pm!) Afterwards I walked home, had a shower, and surfed the net till nearly 1am. Yikes! Now all I can think about is going home and sleeping sleeping sleeping.

Oh! And one more FANTASTIC thing about coming home yesterday after work... Kyle, my new roommate, is a complete hottie! When I got home, he was wearing nothing but his boxers in the kitchen. I did my best to avoid gawking/drooling, but I guess I failed, but immediately after I arrived, he went back upstairs to put on shorts. DARN!

The tedium of being a summer student

I had a fun day at work on Friday. Well, I guess it shouldn't be described as "fun" but that's the best way to put it for now. My tasks for the day were to do some of the most boring jobs I'd ever anticipated. This meant I had to photocopy a stack of 60 page documents, find and print out another 300 pages worth of documents, making labels for tabs, and assemble filing folders.

How could this be described as fun? Well, it's because of my coworkers that I was so amused. While I was making labels (a surprisingly long and arduous task), one lady came and stood beside me (my desk is beside the office printer) and watched me for a bit. She had a small smile on her face which I noticed. In response to her chuckle, I grinned and simply said, "Oh the life of the summer student." She started cracking up and replied, "I didn't say it! I was thinking it though!" And later on my boss popped by my desk (while I was making labels still - those mofos took most of the morning and afternoon) and tried to make me feel better about my job. She tells me, "You know Maureen, that's a very important job you know. Without these labels there would be so much confusion." At this point I simply pasted a smile on my face and tried not to laugh hysterically. Here's a piece of advice for my boss: The only thing that makes me feel good about my job is the pay cheque. So there!

It seems to have been another event-free weekend. I had been planning on staying in Port Elgin for the weekend, but I cracked at the last minute and decided to go back to Owen Sound. I really can't stand the idea of staying in this tiny town for an entire weekend. It's silly, but I just can't do it! Thankfully I have a valid reason for going home on this upcoming weekend - I have an optometrist appointment in Waterloo on Friday.

My appointment means that I'll be taking Friday off of work and heading down to the big city. I've started emailing some potential apartments to arrange for house viewings. Hopefully I'll be able to find something.

Also related to the topic of house viewings... My friend Agnes and I are planning on living together. In the midst of our house hunting, I suddenly realized that if I wanted to lease an apartment, I probably wouldn't have enough money to put a deposit on the place! Thankfully Agnes and her mom were able to transfer the necessary money to me. However, because the money transfer was conducted online and blah blah blah, I was told it would take 3-5 days to complete the transfer. I totally forgot about the transfer over the weekend and then on Sunday I went and withdrew money from the bank machine and was floored when it told me I had a lot more money in my account then I thought I had. I spent a good 3 hours trying to figure out what was going on and it was finally my mom who realized that it was the money transfer. I blame my stupidity on the fact that it usually means 3-5 business days, not regular days. Wow, that's efficiency for you.

The rest of my weekend was pretty lazy. My mom and I went to one of my favourite places for lunch on Saturday - the European Bakery Cafe. Even while I was in Hong Kong I sometimes missed this little restaurant. They have the best sandwiches and even better desserts. Unfortunately they didn't have my favourite dessert, a nougat ring, so I left both empty-handed and empty-stomached.

The only other highlight to my weekend was that I went to get a picture framed. Before I left Hong Kong, my friend Limin painted a picture of some bamboo leaves for me in a very traditional Chinese style. She wrote, "To Mo-lin, from Limin" on it in Chinese characters. It was so pretty that I wanted to get it framed and framed well, so I decided to take it to a professional. It took forever to decide how to get it done, and we'll have to wait for about 2 weeks to see the results. Cross your fingers for me folks!

When I finally returned to Port Elgin last night (yes, I remembered my laptop this time) Tao had invited a bunch of co-ops over for a barbeque. So I got to crash the party and sit around and chat with them. (I had already eaten.) I had a good time - I had only met the students once, last week at the Bruce. Then ended up leaving to go play frisbee on the beach and I stayed home so I could finish my unpacking.

Thus went my weekend. I'm excited about this week for some reason - probably because it'll be a short week for me (again.) I slept really well last night and am in a good mood. Hopefully it lasts. :)

Waste of time

For the weekend I ventured home. It was fun, but unfortunately I felt stressed out because I still had final essays from Hong Kong due. I therefore spent the weekend procrastinating on them but enjoying myself otherwise. I don't recall exactly what I did, but I do recall watching several movies.

We also went to a breakfast buffet that sucked. There was very little food available, it was mostly cold and everytime something tasty did come out, everyone rushed for it and they'd run out! The only good thing about the restaurant was it's location. It was in a beautiful area called Walter's Falls. As you can see from the picture, it's in the middle of the countryside and is very picturesque.

The next week at work was the beginning of the grind. I can't tell you what I did on each day because they all blurred together. In other words, I'm being a total office grunt worker. I do all the jobs no one has the time/will to do. For example, for the past 2 weeks I've been organizing binders.

I do have one other task, and that's to update a Process Manual for my section. Essentially the task is to get all the information that's in my coworkers' heads on to paper. This sounds easy, but my coworkers are forever busy and thus difficult to tackle.

Other bonuses to working at the Bruce is the large number of students. There are a crazy number of co-op and summer students here on site. Only 3 of them are in my building, but we still have a blast. Right now the students in my building and I are having email wars and teasing each other. Right now we've lowered ourselves to composing poems making fun of each others' towns. Yeah. In my defence: this is a horribly boring job.

We haven't done much as a group yet. On Thursday Tao and I tried inviting everyone out for wings at a restaurant in Port Elgin. He and I were the only ones to show up. Apparently everyone else went to the restaurant later that night (at 10pm it turns into a bar). I didn't go because hell! I'm in bed by 10pm!

On Friday we did manage to get together for pizza. Apparently at one of the main buildings on site, the students there order pizza every Friday. Therefore we decided to partake in the bounty. Sadly when we got there, the cafeteria was so full that we had to get separate tables, so I ended up sitting with the friends I normally do. Oh well. Unfortunately lunch took twice as long as it should have. I ended up being half an hour late getting back to work.

This past weekend was Victoria Day Weekend, meaning we got an extra day off. This holiday is typically celebrated by drinking large amounts of alcohol and going to the beach to party. This is because this time of year usually has beautiful and warm weather. This was not the case this year. Instead it was raining, cold, and miserable. It actually snowed in a few places!

The happiest thing about this weekend was Friday night. I logged on the internet and there was Peggy, my roommate from Taiwan! I finally got to use my digital camera. I don't know how long we chatted for because I was tired, but I had a lot of fun. She told me about her trip to Yunnan - apparently I missed some of the scariest toilets in all of Asia. :)

Luckily the bad weather didn't bother me (ignore the fact that I had to turn on the heat in my house to stay warm). Instead I relaxed and did NOTHING all weekend. Well, not nothing. On Saturday my parents and I went down to Waterloo so I could go check out an apartment. The trip was a bit of a waste because we only looked at the one apartment. I did however get a haircut though. And finally buy a copy of the magazine The Economist, and buy a map of the world. (It was ridiculously hard finding the latter two objects.) We ended up meeting my sister and her fiancee for dinner before going home. (FYI: Seafood and spaghetti sauce don't go well together.)

On Sunday I felt the strange need to bake. Oh my gosh. I ended up being in the kitchen for over 4 hours! I baked three kinds of cookies (including some chocolate coconut drops) and made some evil peanut butter chocolate bar thingie. (Honestly, if you ate more than 3 centimeters of the peanut butter thing, you'd feel sick from the amount of sugar in it... Of course, this didn't stop me from eating it. :))

On top of the baking, I also cooked dinner for my parents. I had bought a jar of BBQ pork sauce. I had been hoping it would taste like Hong Kong BBQ pork, but sadly it didn't. :( It was edible, but very disappointing when you had been hoping for something else. My parents were likewise unimpressed.

Since Monday was the actual Holiday, there was nothing to do but laze around. My mom and I ended up watching a movie. I spent the rest of the day watching a TV series I've started downloading, Veronica Mars.

When my parents finally drove me back to my apartment in Port Elgin, I got to meet my landlady's boyfriend as well as my new roommate/flatmate. The flatmate's name is Lauda, she's from Costa Rica. I've only had the one night to get to know her, but so far I'm pretty pleased. She's super friendly and seems pretty funny. She's a Masters student doing an internship at a museum in the town next to Port Elgin.

Unfortunately because there were so many people in the apartment when my parents dropped me off, they fled pretty quickly... And it was about 5-10 minutes after they left that I realized I had forgotten my laptop in the van. I tried phoning their cell phones but they didn't have them turned on. What's the point of a cell if it's never on? Luckily for me, when they returned home, they got my message and were kind enough to turn around and drive it back. (It's a 40 minute drive one way.)

The plan for tonight is to go home, drop my stuff off quickly, and then go over to the town of Kincardine for wings with some students. I'm pretty exhausted though because I stayed up late last night reading a book. I hope I can survive the day at work because I'm falling asleep already.

First days of the last co-op

Less than a week after I arrived back in Canada, I had to move to Port Elgin to begin my new job.


My parents moved me into my apartment the day before I was scheduled to start working. The landlord had promised a lot of stuff would be completed (e.g. a lock on my door, walls painted, etc.) and pretty much none of it was done. I was also surprised to find a big white dog outside. Luckily the landlord's daughter had left a bunch of notes around the house. One of the notes said that the dog's name was Jaspar, and that he was very friendly. I soon found out that it was the truth. Jaspar was my pal while he was at the house.

If I haven't mentioned it already, I should tell you that I got my summer job working at Bruce Nuclear Power Development. Canada's only private nuclear power plant. I worked there once before as a co-op student from January to April 2004. This time I wasn't a co-op student - I was just a plain old summer student. I got the job by sheer random chance. (My name was literally drawn out of a hat.)

My first night was very unexciting. I met one of my new roommates, an old Chinese fellow by the name of Durren. He and I said "Hi" and that was pretty much it. His English isn't very good, so he doesn't say much to me.

My first day of work comprised of attending an orientation and doing a bunch of paperwork. Unfortunately I was late to orientation - my landlord's daughter, Michelle, offered to drive me to the place I needed to be, but I was like 5 minutes late because it was further than we realized. You all know that I like to be at places at LEAST 10 minutes early... So I felt like a schmuck walking in to a full room during the beginning of a presentation. Luckily no one said anything.

The orientation was unsurprisingly dull. I had received the exact same information during my previous job there. Luckily I stayed awake through it (mostly). I did see some other students falling asleep though.

I pretty much spent the day chatting up with as many people as possible. I met many of them, but haven't seen much of them since (we all work in different buildings). I did manage to meet a few from orientation who I still hang out with, so it was good. I even managed to snag a ride home with one guy, Sunny, from Toronto.

On Monday night I got to meet my other new roommate, ANOTHER Chinese guy named Tao. He came into my room and was wearing a University of Waterloo t-shirt. Yup - the guy goes to my university! He's an environmental science/business major. His English isn't perfect, but it's not bad either. (I'm very amused/happy that I'm living with TWO Chinese guys right after my HK experience - I try to randomly practice my mandarin on them, but they usually don't understand me.)

Tuesday I got to report to my actual work place. I was happy to find out one of the guys from orientation day, Henry (a Chinese guy from Toronto), would be working in my building too. We drove over to our workplace, the Learning Centre, together.

My supervisor for the summer is a nice older lady named Linda. She's very friendly and apparently I'm a lot like her own daughter. If her daughter is anywhere near as obnoxious as me, I feel bad for the lady.

For the most part, my first day of work was spent learning about the place and whatnot. I can't for the life of me think of what I did that day... I know I went to a meeting (and fell asleep in it because the room was hot and I didn't know what they were talking about). I also picked up my security badge. Oh yeah, for the rest of the day, I read through my employee manual and stuff like that because Linda didn't have anything for me to do.

She let me leave work a bit early, half an hour earlier than I normally could have. Because Bruce Power has so many employees (over 3000), they have their own bus system going to the two main towns nearby (Bruce Power is a 20 minute drive into the country). Well, I was waiting for a bus and finally saw one, but it didn't stop to pick me up. So I chased after it and asked the driver if the bus went to the main guard gates (where the Bruce Buses collect passengers). The driver said that I could get on and he'd drop me off at the gates... Well god damnit! The bus I was on wasn't the right bus! I had gotten on the bus meant for high school students! I felt like an idiot, and looked like one too. The driver was very nice and friendly about it though. I got dropped off at the main gates and ended up standing chatting with the guards for awhile - they were super friendly and nice. Finally the "real" Bruce Buses began to arrive. I was able to get on the right bus and go home finally.

Bruce Power helps to organize a community project called "The Living Snow Fence Project." Due to the geography of the region, in the winter, the main highway from Port Elgin to the worksite is terrible for driving on. We often suffer whiteouts (sudden gusts of wind that cause the snow to turn everything white - drivers can't see at all) and there are lots of accidents on the highway.

In order to alleviate the whiteout conditions on the road, Bruce Power employees have started planting trees along the side of the highway in order to block the snow. My supervisor helps to run the project. As her new employee, I got drafted into helping out as well. Therefore the last three days of my first week of work was spent helping out with the Snow Fence Project.

It was both fun and tiring. For safety reasons, I had to wear my steel toed boots. The first day I helped mark out where the trees were supposed to be planted (using spray paint and stuff like that). The rest of the day was spent sitting around watching the machines dig the holes.
I got sunburned because we were out in the sun in a farmer's field all day. It was fun and relaxing.

The second day was less relaxing. We had to get to the Tiverton community centre by 7:00am. That's really early. The plan for the day was to move all the trees to sit beside their holes. (The company wanted the community volunteers to do the actual tree planting so they could be involved in some way.) Oh my God. It was so hard. I helped to move 700 trees, each around 100 pounds (45.5kg).

I was the youngest person on the team (most of the others were older men). I did my absolute best to help out, but after the first 200 trees, my arms were trembling. We were having to left them off a large truck too, so the height made it difficult. By about the 500th tree, the guys on the team could tell I was exhausted and they suggested I hop up on the ATV (All Terrain Vehicle) and move the trees forward for them that way. Despite the number of trees, we were finished by about 11:30.
Everyone did an amazing job and we had a lot of fun doing it. (Half way through the moving, someone managed to find safety glasses for us because the tree's branches and dirt kept getting in our eyes.) We regrouped back at the Tiverton community centre and had a big free pizza lunch.

Sad anecdote: Unfortunately during my first week at the Bruce I only had my black sweatshirt that I had made in China. It's been cold here, so I've had to wear a jacket everyday. After lugging trees around all morning, I had managed to destroy my sweater. :-( It was covered in dirt and tree sap, and I wasn't able to get the sap out, so I had to throw it out.

After helping to prepare some more things, we got to leave for the day.
This was a good thing, especially for me, because by this time, I could barely move due to all the hard work of moving the trees. I honestly could not move the rest of the night. I could barely lift even a bottle of water to my mouth without wincing. I was in PAIN.

The next day I was able to get out of bed in time for work (barely) and drag my butt into the office. The morning was spent doing office work, but in the afternoon Linda and I went back to the community centre to help prepare for the volunteers who would be coming the next day. Not much to report on this day. It was just interesting to see how the team was organized and how they carried out the tasks.