Today is the day I've been waiting for for the past four months. Today is the last day of my second term at Bruce Power. And boy oh boy, has it been a long and dreary wait. When I woke up this morning, I was immediately ecstatic and excited to realize it was my final day. The night before I was hyper with the thought of not having to go through a term like this again. (I'm aware of the fact that it could, but right now I'm being optimistic.) I cannot wait to break the monotony of my current life.

Last weekend my mom and I had some quality time together. On Friday we chilled and watched a movie together. On Saturday, we ventured out to look at mattresses for my new place. For the evening, I made a delicious recipe called smothered chicken. (It was a mixture of spices sprinkled on chicken, topped with fried onions, mushrooms, green peppers, and cheese.) Finally, on Sunday, I was the perfect date for my mom. I took her out for brunch at the Rusty Gull. We then ventured out to the movies to watch Step Up. (Cheesy but cute.) Afterwards, we went out for a bit of shopping. It was a very pleasant day indeed.

As for my final week in Port Elgin, I spent a lot of time hanging out with Tao and Lauda. On Monday night we went to Strauser's, one of the local bars. It was deserted! We were honestly the only people in there. We ended up ordering a lot of appetizers and playing pool. For pool, Lauda and I teamed up against Tao. Oh my gosh. We got schooled by him. Tao's a freakin' hustler! He would sink every ball in less than 3 turns practically. I of course played like I was in pre-school. I only got off 1 or 2 good shots and the rest were pitiful. But I have to admit, I really enjoy pool... As long as I don't have too much of an audience to mock me.

The following night, Tao's department had a farewell dinner for him at Queen's. Lauda and I also tagged along. I have to admit, I was not impressed with the food or service that night. Every single time I've been to Queen's, I've had terrible service. I guess the entire table felt the same way, because afterwards Lauda heard the waitress make a snarky remark about our table being a "waste of time."

I was amused when Tao whipped out a mooncake to share with everyone. (Mooncake is a traditional treat at the mid-autumn festival in China. It's made of preserved duck egg and lotus paste.) I had had it before and didn't care for it, but I figured I'd try it out again. I ended up leaving my small slice sitting on a napkin. LOL. I forgot how salty the middle was. Lauda also left hers alone. I think the rest of the table felt the same as we did but were politer in actually finishing it.

I was also amused by Lauda's attempts to enjoy her dinner. She and I bother ordered cocktails for dinner, but hers was a strawberry daiquiri. And we were sitting on the patio. And there were wasps. At one point there were 6 wasps crawling around the sugar rim of her drink. LOL. She'd try to shoo them away and take a quick sip. I was impressed because she nearly finished the entire thing! And even after the waitress took away the glass, the wasps stuck around because Lauda was wearing perfume. Poor girl.

Last night was spent finishing up my packing. I felt like thumbing my nose at all the things that had aggravated me over the past few months at this apartment. But I resisted. Instead I hung out with Jean and Liz and cooked myself some dinner. (More correctly: I overcooked myself some dinner.)

And now the end is at hand. I'm packed, and ready to go. I'm counting down the hours till I can escape...

Las comidas estas muchas deliciosos! (Translated from Spanish: The food is very delicious!)

Oh my gosh. Last night, Tao and I went to Lauda's parent's house for an authentic Spanish dinner. We ended up having real chalupas for dinner! (Flat deep fried hard tortilla shells topped with goodies.) Lauda's mom cooked everything from scratch. From scratch! We had refried beans, guacamole, chicken, beef, etc. etc. The only things that she didn't make were the 3 sauces - green salsa, pepper salsa, and tomato salsa. They were SO DELICIOUS! *dies* I ate so many, as did Tao and Lauda. The nicest thing about them was the variety of toppings that were available. I'm used to eating Mexican food with the same generic toppings (Old El Paso sauce, lettuce, cheese, and tomatos - nothing else). However, when you added the other things like refried beans etc., they added a nice new texture/consistency and subtle flavours. It was mucho delicioso!

After dinner, they prepared us some drinks. Lauda informed us that having alcohol with every meal is a very normal thing to do in Latin America. Her father therefore made me some Kahlua with cream. This is when another cultural difference came into play. I'm used to my Kahlua cocktails where it's like ¾ milk, ¼ kahlua. I pretty much got the opposite mix for my drink. I could barely sip the beverage because there was so much alcohol in it. But trust me, I got it all down. :-)

Amusing anecdote: While chilling in the kitchen, I happened to get a glimpse into the cupboard holding their liquor. I immediately laughed out loud. Right beside their stockpile of liquor was their stockpile of prescribed medications. Excellent combination.

And then, to make things even better, her mom had made this AMAZING dessert too! It was vanilla ice cream with some kind of soul-eating crumbly stuff on top! Soul-eating not a good enough description? Well then. I believe the crumble stuff was a mixture of flour, pecans, brown sugar and butter. And on top of the crumbly stuff was even more soul-eating goodness. Caramel sauce. It was frozen all together and absolutely amazing. I'm glad we only had a bit, because it was so rich, any more would kill us.

After we were done gorging, we retired to the deck to watch the sun set. As you can see from the photo, it was a gorgeous view! What a perfect evening!

One of my fave pics from the night: Spider in the sun.

Before I forget, I should mention one other thing. I'm on Facebook.com. Well, several days ago, someone named Catalina added me. I recognized her name, but couldn't remember from where.

It turns out that Catalina was the co-op student who came after me in Business Objects. I had exchanged emails with her giving her advice on the job and tried to help her find a place. That was the last I ever heard from her until she added me to facebook.

Well, lo and behold, yesterday I got another email through Facebook being sent out to all UW students... It was a request to help vote for Miss Universe Canada. And sonofabitch, Catalina is a candidate!

That's so random and cool.

I had the most wonderful weekend from the 11th to the 14th. I, along with my sister, Melanie, and mother, ventured up into Northern Ontario.
We had to take my niece up to Timmins and drop her off at her dad's. It was a wonderful drive up there. It takes about 9 hours to drive to Timmins. We stopped in North Bay for lunch and I had an excellent sandwich/salad/soup combo. We made it into Timmins late at night and simply fell asleep right away.

The next day we met up with my other sister June - she had come down from Moosonee to meet us. We hung out for a bit and then ended up splitting up. My mom, Melanie, and I went to visit my grandmother while June ran some errands.

I was very happy with my grandmother's visit. I don't see her very often (e.g. I haven't seen her since 2004) and her mind is a bit frail so her thoughts wander a lot. However, this time she seemed to focus on me for a lot of the visit. She kept asking where I was and making sure I was nearby. Why's that you ask? Because I'm "the strong one." Let me elaborate on this. My family and I decided to take my grandmother for a trip out to the mall - she has a difficult time walking and therefore hardly ever gets out of the nursing home. Getting my grandmother from her wheelchair to her van is an ordeal in itself. She was afraid she was going to fall, but we kept reassuring her. Essentially Melanie and I had to drag/shove her (although in a much more gentle fashion than I make it
sound) into the front of the van. She was so happy that we were strong enough to get her in there, that's why I was "the strong one." My mom was able to converse with my grandmother in Cree quite a bit. The most I ever had to say really was answering her questions as to where my mother was.

After our visit, we went back to the hotel room and chilled out for a bit. We couldn't decide on what to do, so we ended up just going to the Casey's restaurant next door and having dinner. However, that wasn't the end of our plans. One of my siblings made the brilliant suggestion of having a couple of drinks... It was SO MUCH FUN! Every time the waitress came to our table, we'd order a different cocktail/margarita/martini. We had 5 rounds each of different beverages and they were HUGE! Needless to say, Mau got a bit drunk. We were especially amused by the fact that our drinks were taking forever to make. It turns out that the bartender that night wasn't the regular bartender, so she was unfamiliar with all the drinks we were ordering and whatnot. The chick was probably a pro by the time we were done with her. My top 3 favourite drinks of the night were the Drive by Fruiting, Raspberry Fusion, and the Vanilla Creamsicle. So.
De. Li. Cious.

On Sunday, we followed a similar pattern. Wake up, go shopping, visit grandmother. It was fun. Nothing more to be said. (See? Who says I can't keep my stories short?) Oh yeah, before the shopping/grandmother part, we also went for a picnic (a.k.a. buy fast food and sit in a park and eat it) and played mini-putt. That was the first time I ever had a salad from McDonald's. I've gotta get those more. Except for the deep fried pieces of chicken spread on top of it, it was pretty good! I also realized that I truly suck at mini-putt. I was in second last place! :-( That made me sad. (Ha, and I should mention that the only "hole-in-one"
that I got was courtesy of June - she knocked her ball into mine and got me in the hole!)

For dinner we ventured downtown for Chinese food. Unfortunately at this point, the past two nights of sharing a bed with my mom caught up with me. I was exhausted, sore, and had a killer headache. The others went for a walk downtown (apparently some hobos tried to pick them up) and I snoozed in the van instead. Precious sleep ensued. We returned to the hotel. My mom and I decided to chill out in the hotel room (we were both tired). Mel and June went back to Casey's for a couple of drinks/dessert.

Oh yeah, Melanie attempted to smother my mother in her sleep. Apparently Mel doesnt' like it when people snore non-stop for 8 hours.

Then it was the end. The next morning we left and began the long drive back down to Owen Sound. It was an okay drive - it rained a lot, which made the drive seem longer than it was. We decided to stop in North Bay for lunch. Mel and Mom wanted to eat at a place they had stopped off at the last time they were in North Bay. They only things they could tell me about this restaurant was that it was a truck stop and that it had super powerful hand dryers in the washrooms. We therefore drove ALL the way through North Bay, past all these delicious restaurants, in search of a place we weren't even too positive of the location of. (We got slightly lost while looking for this stupid place.) Eventually we made it (darn it) to the restaurant. It was a cleaner truck stop... But amusingly, upon entering, we saw a sign that the restaurant would be closing in a week. Ha. Maybe they should have installed more hand dryers in the washrooms to attract repeat customers.

I finally made it home. I can't recall if anything interesting happened over the past week... I mainly just vegged out and relaxed. It's odd to realize that this week is my first full week of work in like, a month.
(I've been taking a day off each week with the time I banked.) I did go see a movie with Henry and Liz - we saw The Devil Wears Prada (this is my 3rd time). Henry was practically the only guy in the theater. He claimed he felt all girlie afterwards.

My weekend went well. I mainly relaxed, watched movies, and played on my computer. I have another story from the weekend to tell, but it's still unfolding... I shall post as soon as I feel it's safe to do so... It's gross but funny (well, funnier for those who aren't around me - but from my point of view, it was funny, but is now exasperating and frustrating).

While on my Timmins trip, I read a giant novel (well, it was a kids book, but big) and started on the second. (I highly recommend reading it
- it's called The Amulet of Samarkand and the main character is freakin'
hilarious!) I got my dad to get some books from the library for me...
I'm now attempting to read Jane Eyre (by Charlotte Bronte), Wuthering Heights (by Emily Bronte) and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr.
Hyde (by someone who's name I can't remember.) I'm try to read classical novels because let's face it, they're famous. I want to know why...
(Although after having read the original Dracula book, I don't know why it was so famous... It was boring and the ending was anti-climatic.) I've also been on a real magazine kick lately. I guess it's because they're fun, light, and pretty. I just like the random advice they provide...

Anyways, I should end this off. Hopefully when school starts, I'll post more often. Can't wait to see everyone!

Oh the horror of it all! It's been over three weeks since I last updated my blog. I wish I could say that I was busy studying for the exam I finally had last week, but I'll be frank and admit that I was procrastinating in various ways. I read non-textbook books, watched children's movies (shrek 2 and The Emperor's New Groove, etc.) and played the Sims 2.

In the midst of all this procrastinating, other events occurred. I was originally supposed to go to Niagara Falls on a family vacation. We were going to meet my oldest sister and her family unit there, but at the last minute, the trip was cancelled. I'm not terribly disappointed. Niagara Falls holds no real appeal for me - it would be neat to see again now that I'm older, but the only reason I wanted to go in the first place was to see my sibling and niece. Instead, our plans were changed so that June and Cara would come to Owen Sound instead. I was quite pleased since that saved everyone a great deal of driving.

(Okay, this post is beginning to sound rather 1950s... "This was pleasant" "How quaint" blah blah blah. Must modernize it.)

Anyways, to skip past a lot of boring stuff, my sister ended up arriving last Friday. I took the day off of work so I could be there when she arrived. Our first night was uneventful - just a lot of yapping and whatnot.

The second day, we wandered around downtown, but I was exhausted and ended up leaving early. That night we went to see Pirates of the Carribean 2. Dad and I dragged mom and June out to see it with us. I enjoyed the movie thorougly. There were parts which I'll admit I could have done without, but overall it was great - some old gags, some new ones. Old characters and new characters. The only part that kind of ruined it for me was the company - mom and June kept bashing the movie afterwards which of course brings down the overall mood you're in. Oh well.

On the third day (this is beginning to sound like Genesis) we all piled into the van and drove down to Kitchener to visit Mel. We were hell-bent on doing as little shopping as possible and doing as much quality time as we could. We failed. Okay, not failed... But in the afternoon we went to St. Jacob's market to putt around. That was fun, but it was still essentially shopping. The only shopping I like to do nowadays is food shopping. I bought myself a samosa and some other goodies I can't remember.

When Mel was done work, we ventured to Kitchener to buy some dinner. We went to the same Chinese buffet that I went to when I first arrived back in Canada. I'm sure you won't be surprised if I say that the food was as bad now as it was then. At least this time I didn't burst into spontaneous bouts of laughter. (Actually, we were accused of being "troublemakers" at this restaurant by a waiter - we were loud and unruly (like normal). My sister and I had a random wrestling match in the bathroom of the restaurant - each of us trying to soak the other one.)

After stuffing ourselves and making asses of ourselves, we ventured out to Mohawk Casino. As most of you know - I don't care for casinos, but I sucked it up, and went along for the ride. (Ha, as if I had a choice!) It took me about an hour to even put money in a machine. I then promptly lost the $20 I limited myself to. Quelle surprise. I spent the next few hours wandering around the casino, watching Melanie win $400, watching my other sister and mom lose their money, and oggling the main guitarist of the band that was playing. I suddenly get the stereotype that all musicians are hot...

Everyone was pretty hyped up after the casino (probably due to the stimulating decor that all casinos have) so we went to Moose Winooskis (I know I spelled that wrong) for a midnight gorging. We consumed more alcohol before finally heading back to Kitchener.

The next morning was fun filled with sibling irritations. With 4 women in one apartment and only one shower, a lineup formed. June declared she would be next in line even though I had already claimed the position. Mel then decided to leapfrog over the both of us and declared her intentions by running into the shower when my mom finally vacated it. The problem was, Mel didn't take off her clothes when she ran into it... So I got my revenge on her by turning the tap on while she was still dressed! Unfortunately for me, Mel got her revenge and threw a bucket of cold water on me while I was having my own shower...

We had been planning on going and playing mini-putt and doing stuff other than shopping, but our plans were nixed by a torrent of rain. Therefore we did what we always did in KW - we went clothes shopping. Just before we left, we went to the Chinese grocery store so I could do some quick shopping... I bought chicken feet! Tee hee. My sisters were absolutely horrified. Mom and June then drove me home so I could go to work the next day.

A week flew by, and then suddenly it was Thursday and I had the next 3 work days off. Melanie arrived in the afternoon, and soon thereafter, June, she, and I ventured out to Sauble Beach, one of Ontario's most popular beaches. It's been YEARS since I've been down there. Unfortunately I didn't have a bathing suit, so I just flaked out on the sand and read my textbook (my exam was coming up in 2 days). June and Mel did their own flaking thing and swimming. Afterwards, we wandered up and down the streets, poking in and out of the difference shops. I bought myself a couple of sunglasses because the pair I bought in Hong Kong finally broke. I dig my new sunglasses, but they scratch really easily.

When we finally dragged our butts home, it was time to commence drinking. We ended up staying up till about 1am. (I know that sounds wussy, but remember, we're all used to getting up by 7:00am) I think I went to bed even earlier - remember, my morning call comes at 5:30! We had fun though as usual. Much alcohol was consumed.

The next day Mel and June drove up to Huntsville to pick up my niece and bring her back. They stopped at Wasaga Beach on the way home. I on the other hand got to chill in good old Owen Sound and study for my exam that was the next day. I wish I could stay I studied hard, but I spent half the time reading a library book my dad left within my reach. I finished the library book... But not the studying. I don't remember what happened after that, but by the end of the night, Cara and them had returned.

The next morning, Mom, Mel, and June went out yard saling while I stayed at home to do some final cramming for my exam. I believe my siblings and niece went to Sauble again. I went to write my exam. My exam centre was in Georgian College. That's another place I hadn't been to in a long time. I think I did okay on the exam. Not stellar though (and no, the reading I had procrastinated on wouldn't have helped me). I just felt very rushed - 4 short essays in 2.5 hours is a very odd timeline. Oh well. I was just happy to get it over with.

The next few days were filled with random bits of shopping, relaxing, and whatnot. On Saturday night, we went to Pizza Hut and threw Cara a surprise belated birthday party. It was a blast. Everyone was in a great mood and there were lots of laughs.

Finally on Sunday, we ventured out to Toronto to go to ROM and Ontario Place for the Chinese Lantern Festival. We stayed at U of T's Victoria College Residence... I have to agree with the rest of my family - that residence sucked ass. It stank, was dirty, most things were broken etc. I was not impressed. But the residence experience was lessened by the trip to ROM. I hadn't been to ROM since I was Cara's age, so I only had a few vague memories. I enjoyed it. It was amusing to walk through their Asian exhibits and realize that I've actually BEEN to the places they were talking about! (e.g. there was a whole section dedicated to the Ming tombs.)

Ontario Place I'll admit though turned out to be a bit of a flop. There were gazillions of lanterns, similar to the ones I saw in Hong Kong during their Midautumn Festival, but that was about it. There were only a few food vendors and shopping stalls. The food wasn't very tasty/authentic (they sold chicken balls - how authentic can that be???), and they only sold the type of waffles I didn't like. :'( Plus the bargaining was a total bust. They wouldn't bargain with me! And I tried hard - I spoke Cantonese, I spoke Mandarin. I used my "I'm a poor student" line - nothing worked! I was bitter. I was also bitter because my brand new batteries decided to die, so I only got a few photos before it died.

The next day we fled back to Owen Sound. June ran off to Sauble Beach again with Cara. Everyone just relaxed after all the running around we had done. That night I bade my sibling and niece adieu and went back to Port Elgin.

(Finally, we're catching up to the present...)

This past weekend was the civic holiday, so I had another long weekend. (Yay holidays!) On Friday, we chilled in the house and watched TV/movies. On Saturday, my mom, niece and I went to the Markdale Ice cream Festival. Here are the pics! The festival is a non-profit deal - Chapman's, the ice cream company, donates ice cream to the festival and all the profits made from the ice cream go to charity. I have to admit, the festival has definitely improved since it first began. There was live music, dog shows, rides, dancing, etc. It was fun. Cara had the most fun at the petting zoo. You can tell she's a real animal magnet - even the goats were kissing her! I got totally sun burnt at the festival - I didn't even think about sunscreen... And getting home was a nightmare. Due to the longweekend, traffic was horrendous. It took us about twice as long as it should have to get home.

The next day I took Cara to see the Ant Bully in the theater. It was fun, but when we emerged, I checked my cell and found out that our ride (aka my parents) had ran off to Hanover! The NERVE of them! We ended up getting a taxi back home and chilled out, playing on our separate computers.

On Monday, we went our for some shopping and ended off our day with a family dinner at my Uncle Bill and Marsha's. My dad's cousin was visiting, so we made it into a family occassion. The food was fantastic and filling.

I believe this post means that I'm all caught up on my blogging. I apologize for the delay, and for all the typos. But it's a pain trying to play catch up on my life... It doesn't help that I just uploaded a month and a half worth of photos to my flickr account. Go check them out, since most of them aren't alluded to here in my blog.

Catch ya on the flipside!

Finally alone!

I had a good weekend. Nothing terribly exciting ocurred, but it was enjoyable. I think the thing thing I enjoyed the most was having the house to myself - my dad had to work and my mom went with him so she could work on her van. This has been my first time since I've returned to Canada that I've had the house to myself.

So how did I take advantage of this time? I cleaned. And cooked. Does that seem as backwards to you as it does to me??? Despite what this sounds like, I enjoyed doing this. (Maybe I enjoyed the fact that I knew my parents wouldn't be home to mess it up within 5 minutes. Hee hee.) I operated for most of the morning on a couple of donuts my mom had bought, and by 2pm, I realized I was starving, so I ran over to A&W to buy some fast food.

For dinner I made the executive decision to have kebobs for dinner. I cannot recall ever seeing my family make kebobs, so I thought I'd rectify the situation. By the time my parents came home, I had all of the meat cut up (beef, chicken, and pork) as well as our veggies. (Green/orange pepper, zuchinni, and onions. I forgot the stupid cherry tomatoes in the fridge!) Dinner went very well! There were some good lessons learned:

• Don't bother including dad in the kebob eating experience - he ended up snagging an uncut piece of pork chop and tossing it on the BBQ. Buttmunch!


• Soak your skewers for longer than 2 hours. I've heard 24 hours mentioned before...


• Make sure you create some kind of system so you'll remember who's kebobs are who's. Mom and I could only tell after we bit into them - hers were honey garlic and mine were hot and spicy.

I've discovered that I've become obsessive compulsive about going to Blockbuster on the weekends. Even if I'm not in the mood to see a film, I ALWAYS go there! And I never come out empty handed! I ended up renting Evolution, and Legally Blonde.

I don't recall what I did on Sunday, but it was more of the same. I played on the computer a lot... I remember that much. Oh yeah, and I went grocery shopping. I'm attempting to plan my dinners each week. Fridge space in my new apartment is at a premium! (As a matter of fact, I'll be bringing in ANOTHER mini-fridge in order to alleviate some of the problems.) Tonight my plan is to make pad thai... Hopefully it won't be soggy like the past few times.

Anyways, as usual I'm at work, so I'm gonna skidaddle!

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!

Shattered hope

You know how you can sometimes pinpoint the moment your spirit breaks?
Today, I could hear the shattering sound that signaled that all the hope I had carried that something better might come along was lost. What happened to create this awful realization? I had had no work to do yesterday. I ended up reading my textbook for the most of the day before I finally contacted a lady who had mentioned she might have work for me.
She told me to talk to her the next day and she'd have something for me to do.

Well this morning I came into work and when she finally contacted me, she told me to ask Donna (a lady in business services) for work. I track down Donna and she leads me over to the shelves that act as mail boxes.
She tells me that they had devised a "big project" for me to work on.
She then proceeds to hand me a roll of paper towels and a bottle of Windex... My big project? Cleaning the shelves and relabeling them.
That's the moment when Bruce Power finally broke me.

(Sorry, there was a bit of exaggeration there. When I got back from lunch there was a message on my phone from another coworker saying they have a bigger project with more responsibility to work on from now on. I hope they're right, because if I had to do two more months of this stuff, I think I'd crack.)

Other than work stuff, the rest of my life is good! I had a great long weekend. On Friday I went to Waterloo with my mom to visit my sister. We ended up going out for cake at Symposium and playing mini-putt. On Saturday I dragged my mom and dad out for a walk around Harrison Park.
It was a great walk. Later that night, my mom and I went to see two
movies: The Devil Wears Prada (hilarious) and The Lakehouse (adorable).
I can't recall what I did on Sunday night... I think my mom and I watched Desperate Housewives and we did the same thing on Sunday.

I've moved into my new house without a hitch. I don't have much to say about it yet. It's much cleaner than my old one... The sounds echo like crazy though because it's all wooden floors. My housemates seem very friendly and chatty. All in all, I feel pretty encouraged by my first 2 nights here.

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!

Nei gei hai psst!

Today near the end of the day, Henry and I walked to the cafeteria so I could buy some cookies. (Nothing beats the cookies in the vending machine and microwaving them for 30 seconds.)

Earlier on our way to lunch, Henry and I had been following Annzley down the hall, and Henry kept trying to get Annzley's attention by making a "psst" sound. She ignored him because she thought the sound was a leaky pipe.

Well, on our way back from the cafeteria, Henry kept making the Pssting sound at me. Suddenly he says, "neigeihaipsst."

I was like, "What the hell?" I realized he was speaking Cantonese. So I tried to translate the sentence out loud. I kept saying it over and over trying to figure it out. "You. You umm. You something is Psst." Well, he starts staring at me like I'm a freak (a sensation I've become familiar with). And repeats what he said once again.

That's when I finally realized what he was saying. "Leaky pipes. Psst." I don't know where I got Cantonese out of that, but I nearly died laughing when I realized what had happened.

Great office!

Greets y'all!

I had a fabulous weekend. I'm enjoying my summer - it's not nearly as exciting as Hong Kong was, but I have no reason to complain. I'm often relaxed, and I enjoy my weekends even if I didn't do anything on them.

Case in point: This Friday I met with my Academic advisor. As you may recall, I had been freaking out because I thought I might not have the necessary courses to graduate university. I finally managed to get my advisor on the phone and was trying to negotiate a later meeting time on a Thursday to come meet her when she suddenly asked me Where I was working for the summer. I told her that I was at Port Elgin, and suddenly she claims, "I'm from Port Elgin!" It turns out that she works in Waterloo Tuesdays to Thursdays, and from Friday to Monday, she works in Port Elgin. How cool is that? We decided to meet at the Tim Horton's after work so I could discuss my courses.

I had a really good talk with her. She figured out all the courses I needed to graduate, and gave me suggestions on which ones I should or shouldn't take. (For example, I wanted to take a 3rd year history course on Canada in World Affairs, and she suggested I avoid it because she knows I have trouble managing work loads.) So she was very helpful that respect.

I also asked her advice on getting my Masters degree. She named a few places to help me get my search started. Amusingly, she started by recommending the London School of Economics in downtown London, England. She described it as, "A not inexpensive school." The moment I heard London, I then asked, "Do you have any other recommendations for schools in Canada?" (I later searched the LSE and found out that it's tuition was $24,000 CANADIAN dollars! That's only tuition! Nevermind living expenses etcetera. I just about choked.)

On the way to Owen Sound, I told my mom that I would drive the van. As most of you know, I loathe driving. I'm a terrible driver and am extremely paranoid. But I have to admit that it would be nice to not be at the mercy of my parents any more. I just mainly need to practice in order to gain more confidence. My mother later told me that she had been slightly nervous the entire way. (With one or two exceptions, I had done a damn good job thanks very much!)

The next day we all headed down to Waterloo again so I could sign my lease. I got to see Agnes again. That was cool. Turns out the lucky wench gets to go back to France! Our reunion was short and sweet, and the best part was that we've already chosen which rooms we get.

One room is much larger than the other, but the small room is a lot brighter instead. Agnes asked which one I wanted, and I mumbled something to the effect of, "Well of course I want the bigger one," to which she replied, "Good! Because I want the bright one!" I think that's when I had to pick my jaw up off the ground and laugh. That was a lot easier than anticipated. I'll now have a dark blue room that's fairly large and has a HUGE closet. (Peggy - it's bigger than the closet we shared in Hong Kong!)

After signing the lease, my mom, dad an I left again. Mom and I went for a shopping spree during which I spent a stupid amount of money. I feel bad about it in retrospect - I should have waited for a sale, because god knows the stores I shop at have sales every month practically. But I'm afraid that if I take my stuff back, I won't be able to find it again - and I got some niiiiice stuff to wear. I'll have to inspect my clothes again - maybe I will end up returning some stuff after all.

After a not-so-quick stop at the Crossroads Restaurant buffet, we returned home. I stayed up late surfing the net and reading.

The next day was uneventful like normal. I baked some "Maple Pecan Butter Balls" and had a nap before going grocery shopping and returning to Port Elgin. We finished the day off by going for a walk along the water in Port Elgin. I pretended to be a photographer and snapped a bunch of photos. The one displayed it my favourite - it's my mom and dad walking into the sun.

I also finally snapped some photos of the students who work in my building. You can check them out here.

Finally found a house!

Well well well. It seems that a whole week has flown by without my noticing. Let us look as to why this happened.

I had a short work week last week because I was scheduled for an optometrist appointment on Friday. Therefore on Thursday night I had planned to go out to the bar with a few other students. Some of the co-ops apparently go out to the bar every Thursday night - my one pal, Rishi, stays out until 2am each time. That's veritably INSANE! I get up at 5:40am - I need more sleep! Anyways, since I wasn't going to work the next day I planned to join them finally.

Sunny and I agreed that he'd phone me and then we'd head over together. I got all dressed up and wasted time watching TV waiting for his phone call. That didn't come. And didn't come. I tried phoning both him and Rishi but neither answered their phone. I was feeling a bit put out. Finally Sunny phoned me at 11:30pm - turns out he had fallen asleep and had just woken up. I ended up going over to his house and we chilled out in his room until 1pm-ish.

(Turns out Rishi had gotten into a car accident - hence the lack of a reply!)

After I left I went for a very quick bike ride (quick because my bike pedal was falling off). It was a beautiful night - you could see thousands of stars in the sky. Gorgeous. I then returned home and promptly broke my glasses so I sat around surfing the web, holding my glasses in place.

The next morning my parents came to pick me up to drive me to Waterloo. We took a different route to Waterloo than normal (backroads). We got a bit lost because our google directions weren't accurate.

We got into Waterloo and picked up Mel so she could join us. Not only were we getting our eyes checked (err, my dad and I), but we had also planned to look at some apartments for me to live in during the fall. We had to rush off to meet the first landlord right away.

I ended up seeing 4 houses throughout the day. Compared to a lot of student housing I've seen, these were nice places. I ended up giving a deposit to one apartment close to where my first apartment used to be in Waterloo. Amusingly the landlord told us that it was possible to steal the neighbour's cable connection and get 1000 channels.

We had lunch at the Student Life Centre on campus before heading off to the optometry clinic. My appointments went well, but I must say, I have never been in so much pain during an eye exam! I had two exams - one for my contacts, and one for a general eye exam. The contacts one went well, but I was writhing in pain for the second. The doctors put the chemical in my eyes that forces your pupils to dilate. That wasn't bad. What was bad was having them shine an insanely bright light into them. Of course I'd instinctively try to shut my eyes, but they pried them open instead. Cruel jerks!

Our appointments took insanely long. I thought it would only take about an hour for the appointment, I was in there for at least 1 and a half hours, and my dad was in there for around 2 hours! Crazy!

To give us some time to recuperate, we went to Boston Pizza for dinner. I offered to pay for dinner and we had a fabulous time. Our waiter was cute and hilarious - he reminded me of Jay Manuel from Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.

When I got home that night, I made the decision to accept the one apartment I had looked at. I was about to phone my sister to tell her to give the landlord the cheque I had given her... But then I remembered to check my bank account. That's when I realized that my rent cheque had come out for my June rent here in Port Elgin! Meaning I didn't have enough money in my account for a deposit!

Much panicking occurred, but as usual, my heroic parents came through for me and floated me a loan to help me put the deposit down on the house. Mom? Dad? You guys totally rock!

The rest of the weekend was pretty uneventful. On Saturday my parents and I went for a walk around Harrison park. (See the photos here.) (This is my favourite photo!)My mom and I watched an adorable film called "Little Manhattan." On Sunday we went out shopping (how can I shop so much when I don't have any money in my account???) and then went to Port Elgin.

Today I came thisclose to suffering a nervous breakdown. I was beginning to plan my course schedule for the next term. I glanced at the course requirements for my degree and suddenly saw that was missing 10 courses! I nearly threw up on my keyboard. 5 panicked minutes later I realized that I was looking at the wrong requirements - that was for some other history program. Dear lord. Relief is the sweetest sensation in the world.

Now I'm trying to grab hold of my academic advisor at UW so I can set up a meeting with her to discuss what I do need to graduate. Still waiting to hear from her... Her office hours are insane.

Wish me luck folks!

Tree killer

Today I killed a small forest.

Greenpeace hates me now. How did I manage to accomplish this feat? Through photocopying. I received the task of duplicating some binders today at work. Combined, they probably held about 700 pages of information. The photocopying took me about 2 hours, if not more. After lunch I returned to the lady to get another job, and she pointed out that all the documents I had photocopied had a small set of random lines near the top of the page.

I don't really understand why these lines/streaks were a big deal - they were not covering any information, they actually overlapped with the lines already on the sheet (so instead of looking single underlined, it would look trip underlined). When I did ask why it was a problem, the lady could only respond with, "Oh, well the guys who use these will complain."

Therefore I had to throw out (recycle) about 700 pages of brand new, practically nothing wrong with it, paper. I'm not terribly impressed with the wastage. And now my feet hurt from standing so long assembling the cursed binders.

Last night I went for a walk with Lauda. We went to oggle some potential gyms... Unfortunately the one I'm thinking of going to is kinda far. I don't know when I'd go either - I like exercising at night, but I'm usually getting ready for bed by 9. And when I get home from work, I just feel like relaxing. The walk itself was good though - long and effective... Although the slushies we bought on our way home pretty much nixed any health benefits we may have attained.

Later in the night, after I finished cooking my food, Tao and I taught Lauda how to play Mahjohng. Well, he taught her more than me. I just randomly tossed in helpful rewordings here and there. I lost all the games we played.

Tonight the plan is to go home, chill for half an hour, then head out to the beach to hang out with Henry, Rishi, and Liz.
It'll be fantastic because the heat here has skyrocketed in the past few days. We're now usually sitting at around 31 degrees, with humidexes of 40. Everyone else is completely suffering, but I find it positively cozy. I attribute this to the fact that I didn't try to acclimatize myself to the Canadian climate upon my return, so for me this feels like a regular day in Hong Kong. Heck - not even a regular day - it feels like a warm spring day. Mwahahahaha.

Anyways, there's 15 minutes till work is done! Adios!

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. :)

Mmm, wings!

On Wednesday several co-ops organized a trip to Kincardine to go to a pub for chicken wings. Check out the photos here. It was a lot of fun. The best part was getting to meet students from other parts of the Bruce Site. Unfortunately the way we ended up sitting down made it so that I was sitting with the people I normally talk to, but I got to chat with some new students too.

Tao and I ended up ordering 30 wings and sharing them (we just wanted the different types of sauces). I caught the bill this time, so we're even from our first wing night out. We ended up giving Azza, a co-op student from Halifax a ride home.

Oh. I don't remember if I've mentioned it or not, but my new roommate has also finally arrived. Her name is Lauda and she's from Costa Rica. She's currently a volunteer at the Southhampton Museum. She seems super nice and friendly. She chats a lot. And her favourite word is "sick" (e.g. "That's so sick!" - meaning "cool")

I don't really know what else to say about her. She likes spicy food. And eating tripe. (I actually got to try some of her tripe last night - it was kind of bland and reminded me of some of the mushrooms I ate while in Asia.) Is it true that tripe is cow stomach lining? Whatever. It was neither bad nor world changing.

The co-ops at work have been harassing me. I get up at 5:40am everyday and am at work by about 6:50am. Well, every Thursday night, one of the restaurants in Port Elgin gets transformed into a bar/club. Well, this "transformation" doesn't happen until 10pm! Rishi and Sunny have been harassing me to go with them to the club. Don't get me wrong, I totally want to go, but I'm usually in bed by 10! I can't go out until 2am (like Rishi - and he has an hour drive to get home afterwards too!) and get up at work at the regular time. I feel bad about constantly saying no, but at least I'm sticking to my guns and not giving in. (Peer pressure is a pain.)

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.

Return to Canada

It's been exactly 20 days since I left Hong Kong. I can't believe how little time has passed. It feels like so long ago since I was there. Once in awhile, while sitting at my desk, or doing a random task, I suddenly have a flashback to Hong Kong. The sensation is both weird and oddly reassuring.

A lot has happened since I've returned, so I'll try to cover it all in one big post. :)

My idea of flying from Hong Kong to Korea to the United States to Canada was a bad one. The flight from Korea to America wasn't bad because there was no one in the seat beside me. People were very well behaved, and the crying children were far enough away not to bother me. The food was awesome on the flight as well. I ate lots of Korean spicy stuff that was wonderful.

Amusing anecdote: While on the plane, I saw an American a few seats in front of me trying to eat a noodle dish with chopsticks. Instead of slurping them up like normal Asians, he was lifting up an entire mess of them into the air and trying to dangle them down into his mouth. I had to force myself not to laugh.

Customs and immigration upon arrival in North America were relievingly boring. After that was complete, I was back in Canada, with my parents waiting eagerly at the arrivals gate. I was happy to see them. I think I was a little weirded out by seeing them. It felt like just yesterday I had been saying goodbye to them, and suddenly here I was again, saying hello.

Despite the fact that I was greasy from having travelled for over 24 hours, and jetlagged, we decided to grab dinner at the Bifteque. (A fancier restaurant in North America.) I spent the entire meal yapping about Hong Kong, and also trying to restrain myself from talking too much. I'm always afraid that I'll annoy people by talking about HK too much.

Amusing anecdote: While at the Bifteque, after deciding what we wanted to order, I nearly nearly nearly yelled out for a waiter in Cantonese. That was the freakiest feeling. I think that's when I realized I was really back in Canada - I had become so engrained with the culture in HK, I didn't realize what had become second nature to me.

After dinner we returned home to Owen Sound. I passed out in the back seat because I still had my cold, and I hadn't slept very well on the plane. I didn't wake up until we got home. I wish I could say something exciting happened, but nothing did. I tossed my bags into my room and attempted to sort through all the crap I collected during my travels.

The next day I just walked around Owen Sound getting reaquainted with the city. It was neat to walk around with a different viewpoint. There's one retirement home in the downtown area - I used to think it was so tall and neat... Now I look at it with derision. Tall? It's only 5 floors! That's so tiny! The town was amusing, but rather dreary to look at. None of the leaves on the trees had bloomed, so it was depressing a bit.

That evening I went to the town of Port Elgin. My mom had found me an apartment there for the summer, so I went to check it out. Within about 15 minutes of seeing the place I had given the guy his cheques.

The next day I went to Kitchener. The purpose of the visit was to go clothes shopping, since most of my clothes didn't fit well after being worn so much, stretched, and whatnot during my 8 months in HK. I had a good time despite being exhausted and sick the entire trip.

On the first night my mom and I decided we wanted to go have Chinese food. My sister took us to a Chinese buffet... This was my first time having "Chinese" food since I had come back from HOng Kong. Oh my God. It was hilarious. I kept laughing hysterically - there were only 2 dishes out of 20 that remotely resembled REAL Chinese food. Mom and Mel kept chuckling at my reactions.

Amusing anecdote: While sitting at the restaurant, I suddenly got all excited because I saw a guy coming in wearing a shirt with a Canadian flag on it. I was thinking, "Oooh! Look! Another Canadian!"... Then I remembered, "Oh yeah, I AM in Canada. Dumbass." I was so used to getting excited by seeing other Canadians during my travels that it was habit to keep an eye out for them.


After dinner, my sister took my mom and I over to her massage school. Then we walked downtown Kitchener. We stopped by a Chinese grocery store and I was all happy because I realized I could buy all kinds of dumplings and stuff when I go back to school. (They even have Barbeque Pork buns!!!) My mom was horrified by the foods I had to eat. Silly mom. We then stopped by the "Hong Kong Plaza" and as you can see, I had to snap a few photos.

After dinner, my mom and sister decided to go to the nearby casino. I didn't feel like going but they weren't about to drop me off first. Instead they drive to the Casino (getting lost in the process), and then LEAVE ME IN THE CAR while they went gambling! I was so frickin' tired I ended up sleeping (and it's a good thing too because it was cold cold cold. I used all their jackets/sweaters as blankets and slept while they were gone.

The next day was the shopping spree. I bought lots of stuff. It was so much fun being able to clothes shop! I wasn't able to buy anything while I was in HK because the clothes there are built for tiny little stick people who are half my height. So new clothes make me happy. Not much else happened that I can remember - we went out for breakfast and dinner, and then returned back to Owen Sound.