The 411 +1 on Mau's future

So you may recall from this post that I had decided to go off to France to work for a year and reapply to grad school in 2008.

I was going along with this plan happily. I had purchased photos for my French visa, filled out the application forms as necessary. Yesterday I even applied for a new passport so that I'd have more pages (I only had two blank pages left in mine.)

Well, yesterday afternoon I checked my email and there's a message from the fellow in charge of admissions at Carleton University. It turns out they're willing to waiver the requirement for my microeconomics credit and let me into the school as long as I complete my microeconomics before I graduate.

MOTHERFUCKINGHELLGODDAMNSHITFORBRAINSCOCKSUCKERS!

This means that I CAN go to the graduate school that I want to in September!!! My first instinct was to say, "Fuck it, I'm going to Europe anyways!" But after talking with my family and friends, and to my own conscience, I've decided to go to graduate school. Europe was my backup plan for grad school anyways, so I might as well get this stuff over with.

I still have to talk to the grad school guy - it's a long weekend so I'm still not "officially" registered, but apparently it's only a matter of time.

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!

Won both the battle and the war

I win! Ha ha. What did I win? The war with the landlady!

By noon I had managed to work myself up into such a state of agitation, I actually phoned my mom and work and arranged for my dad to come and pick me up after work. I was willing to sleep in Owen Sound for the final two nights and DRIVE to work. (This would require me getting up and leaving the house before 5:30am!

Anyways, when I got home, I was ready to start packing my things when Tao mentioned there was a letter from the landlady. Turns out she's gone until Thursday morning. Mwahahahaa! I drove her out of the house! Hee hee! So I've cancelled my ride home and enjoying the apartment for the last bit.

(I'm especially enjoying the fact that it's nearly 6:30 and I haven't started cooking yet. Mwahahahaaa.)

Stress makes for a sleepy Mau

Somebody help to wake me up! I'm at work right now and I'm fighting SO HARD NOT to fall asleep... So far I'm failing. I fell asleep for about 15 to 20 minutes just awhile ago. Since my catnap (done on purpose), I keep drifting off and jerking upright. Trust me, I'm not being stealthy at all about it.

In response, I tried drinking lots of water. That didn't work. I turned on my fan to blow much colder air on me. That didn't work either. Now I'm trying to eat a sugary snack bar to help keep me awake until break (15 minutes). I'll even bring some money so I can buy a sugary cappucino and hopefully that will work. I don't get why I'm so tired...

Well, that's a lie. The truth of it is that I'm exhausted from the stress of living in my current apartment. Last night the landlady finally spoke to me, to inform me that my last month's cheque had been dropped off. I kind of stood there and then screwed up my courage and told her, "Oh, well what about the July cheque? I've already put a stop payment on that one too." Ha. If I thought she was mad before... She was even worse. It's not like she said or did anything different, but you could practically feel the temperature in the room drop. I gave her dad a call to confirm they wouldn't try cashing the cheque and he was quite pleasant to me. Ha.

Lauda came home shortly thereafter and I asked her to let me know when she was going to be cooking - I can handle being in the same room as my landlady as long as someone else is also there. After less than an hour of me being home, Lauda knocked on my door to let me know that Michelle had left the apartment. While there's no way I can confirm it, I suspect she went back to her other city in order to escape me. In an effort to keep the avoidance game we're playing going, I went and cooked my dinner/lunch, prepared my breakfast, and had my shower all before 6pm so that I could hide out in my room. Luckily Michelle didn't return home last night. I'm hoping that she'll stay in the other town, Walkerton, until the weekend.

So that's why I'm so tired. I'm stressed out from last night (I was constantly jumpy, thinking I heard her car in the driveway) and now I'm stressing out about going home tonight. Oh well. I refuse to be run out of the house because of her.

On to happier news... After several weeks of oggling cell phones on the internet, I finally bit the bullet and bought one. My dad's union has an excellent contract. To summarize the plan... I have free call waiting/answering/conferencing/etc, 250 anytime minutes, unlimited weeknights (6pm - 8am) etc. Unfortunately it's a 3 year contract, but hopefully I'll use the phone enough to justify it. Amusingly I got the EXACT same cell phone that my friends Henry and Rishi have. (Henry had it first, then Rishi bought one, and now so have I. I'm a sheep. Bah.)

I guess that's all for now. I feel better getting that off my chest. Only 2 more sleeps in my apartment, then I'm home free!

Prepare for liftoff!

It's the weekend! Yay! I have been oddly excited about this upcoming weekend for some reason. I suspect it's because of the stress of the last week. Let me divulge the story of my life since you last visited...

Last weekend I ventured home for the night. My family and I decided to have a night out and went to see the Davinci Code. It was a good movie - surprisingly faithful to the book, although the ending was quite different...

Upon returning to my house, I was pleased to find out that the DVDs I had mailed to myself from Hong Kong had finally arrived. My parents were amused to see how movies are sold in China. I ended up tossing Serenity into the DVD player and watching it. Luckily it worked (mostly) and my dad and I watched it together.

The next day my mom and I ventured out to do some shopping and buy my dad a father's day gift. I had decided I wanted to buy him some headphones. My dad likes to listen to music quite often, but his current headphones are so disgustingly greasy and old that I can't bear to look at them. I bought him some freakin' expensive ones (supposedly they drown out outside noise) but he later determined they weren't comfortable enough. (He blames it on his
baldness...) So the plan for this weekend is to return his old ones and buy him a new set.

We ended up ordering pizza and watching another movie and then my parents drove me home. Why did I return home after only one day? Because on Sunday I had planned to go to Wonderland!

Everything went according to plan. I got up at 6am so that I could wait for Cory outside. Cory's a co-op student also working at Bruce Power. I had met him twice before and that was about it. Well, if I had known what his TRUE colours were, I would have told him to shove his offer of a ride up his wazoo! I was TERRIFIED on the drive to Toronto. He was driving 120 to 140km/h on the backroads, and when we finally hit highway 400, he managed to get up to 175km/h!!! Needless to say, there were times where I wanted to claw at the windows.

Another example of his stupidity was on a backroad near a small town. We were driving uphill and coming to a stop sign. Well, on the road were those strange marks that cause your tires to make weird sounds that warn you a stop sign is coming. Well, suddenly Cory swings into the wrong lane and finishes his drive up to the top of the hill in the wrong lane!!! That was the first time I felt like freaking out. I was NOT impressed.

Wonderland itself was great. (Photos are here!) I didn't actually get to go into the park until nearly 11am because one of the cars that was picking up a friend of mine was late. (We were supposed to meet at 9:45am.) Overall though I had a fun day. My friends Stacy (my old housemate) and Minnie (a friend I met while in Hong Kong) showed up to spend the day with me. I was so happy to see the both of them. We ended up hanging out the entire time I was there (Stacy's friend Max also came, and he was fun too).

I think I've gotten past the stage in my life where I need to go on rides at Wonderland. I only went on about 6 rides while I was there. The rest of our time was spent chilling out and eating. (Err, eating and rides... Not a good combo - I was more worried about getting sick than about the ride itself.) We ended up leaving the park around 4:30 and getting dinner in Orangeville. The ride back home was much saner and had good music. (Note to self: Steal Ana's CDs!)

The next few days were uneventful. Our landlady had been around for them. She was working around the house - painting it in order to get ready for her daughters to move in. She had seemed a bit stressed out and not too friendly, but I couldn't blame her for that - she'd been working non-stop. Well, on Wednesday she left the house with her daughters. Tao brought some of his friends over and left them in the dining room alone while he made some phone calls. I was in the kitchen for awhile (right beside them) and then left to go to another part of the house. I heard the landlady come back and nothing else. When I went back out to the kitchen, she asked me, "Maureen, who are those strangers sitting at my dining room table???" I mentioned they were Tao's friends, but that I'd send them to our common area. Nothing more was said.

The next morning when I woke up, there was a three page essay by our landlady attached to our bathroom mirror. It seems as though someone had stolen $400 from her purse that had been sitting on the dining room floor behind the table. She wrote that she was not happy and proceeded to write out some "new rules." These rules included having to eat and be out of the kitchen by 7pm, have our showers by 9pm, etc. I understand that she was upset by the money being gone. She thinks it was one of Tao's friends who took it. Personally I think it was her own daughter or her daughter's friend. (Her daughter's 12 and smokes and hangs out with a "bad crowd.")

The only problem I have is that now we're being told to stay in our little common area (which is very tiny) and stay out of the rest of the house. I'm paying too much damned money to be restricted to a small house and be treated like a child. There were a lot of other problems too - it took forever to get things fixed, they had dogs even though they said they were getting rid of them, etc... Therefore on Thursday, after discussing it with my parents, I decided to tell the landlady I was moving out. I was totally prepared to have an all-out fight with her. I approached her and said, "Michelle, I'm not happy with the living situation here. I've decided that I'll be moving out by the end of June." Her response? "OK." That was it. I was totally thrown off balance by such quick acceptance. When you're expecting a huge fight, that's not the response you would expect...

I was very relieved to hear that, but for the rest of that night, and Friday when I saw her, and even today when I returned home, she hasn't said a word to me. And I have done nothing but been pleasant. I greet her, but she ignores me. It's nice to see one of us can be mature about this.

Luckily for me, my pal Henry at work said his landlord had some empty rooms available. By the next day, I had signed my lease (for 2 months) and given my deposit. I'm going to move in on Thursday. Lauda and Tao are sad to see me go, but I just can't handle the friction in the house anymore. (Oh, and I should mention that Lauda told me that the landlady was very friendly and helped Lauda carry stuff into the house this evening... The same evening she ignored me.)

The rest of the weekend was just as relaxing as I had hoped. Now I know that the anticipation I felt for the weekend was due to the stress of living in this apartment. I'm already looking forward to next week when I move into the new apartment.

Tonight I was transferring all my photos from Hong Kong (currently on CD) to my harddrive so that I can burn them to DVD next weekend. I ended up glancing through most of the photos - I got all nostalgic and sad seeing them. I miss my friends from there. I miss the comraderie and sense of family between us. I did laugh though seeing some of the photos... I was sad though to realize I've forgotten some of the names of the people in my photos though. I need to go through them and add descriptions before the memories fade completely.

That's all for now - I have work tomorrow, so I should be off to bed soon...

P.S.
Tao had his 25th birthday two weeks ago! Here are the photos!