And so the semester begins

Alas! It has been a busy week, and I haven't written in a week! I apologize. My review classes have kept me very occupied (math and probability/stats last week, some macro- and microeconomics this week). There are approximately 17 people in my class, 2 of which have yet to arrive to Canada ~ they're coming in from Korea. I think almost everyone - besides myself and one or two other people - has more than one degree. Master's in this, Master's in that (a lot of Math and some Engineering or Physics degrees), MBA, one even has a PhD in math already and is going for his second PhD, I suppose. I guess it's a very ambitious group, and I'm one of the youngest of the 1st-years in the program, but only by a few years I think. There are 3 girls, including me. There's one other one in the Economics degree with us, and the other girl is in Finance, but the 2 finance students have to take all the same core (1st year) courses with us. I've basically just made friends with the finance students and a little bit with some of the other ones. Everyone is very amiable. The professors, too, are a great bunch. They're relatively young - under 45 and many under 40 I would say. The math is hardly a review class - there is a lot of analysis-type material involved, which I'm not very used to, but after working through the problems and realizing I'm perhaps a little more apt than I give myself credit for, I felt better.
My roommate arrived on Wednesday, and it's been great to have her around. She's so cheerful and lovely, and the apartment is much less empty-feeling and lonely with her here.
There have been a few gatherings of the grad students and faculty from the Econ department recently. Last week we had a kind of inauguration dinner and drinks on Monday, and then a mini-golf afternoon (which I didn't go to), and a pizza party at a couple of the professors' house (they're married). It was fun! Chelsea (my roommate) and I picked up some colored chalk for the kids and we drew flowers and a bird on the pavement.
My father came to visit for the weekend: Friday-Monday (today). I'll have to write more later though, because it's bedtime! :) I promise next entry will be more detailed.
~Selina

My backpack's back!

On Friday night I got a call from Purolator telling me that a package for me had arrived. They asked me if I'd be available during the day on Monday so that they could drop it off.
"It depends what time on Monday," I said, "Because I have school that day."
The lady on the phone went on to tell me that any particular time could not be confirmed. "What about Tuesday?"
"Same thing..."
So anyhow she told me she could leave it at a receiving centre which is about a 2.5km walk west of where I live (bus only goes about 1km west on that road) for tomorrow, Saturday. Perfect. She gave me a tracking number and I was so excited to head out tomorrow to find my package of new or repaired backpack.
So Saturday came and in the late morning I headed west to find the backpack. I finally found the shopping area where it should have been and assumed it was in a Shopper's Drugmart because those typically tend to have Post-Office-like-businesses within. There wasn't one in that Shopper's though, but I had to go around within the store to get back out (one-way doors only), and apparently Shopper's was celebrating something so there was cake out in the middle of the store, so I had a yummilicious piece of cake and walked out.
The "PostNet" I was supposed to get to was only a one minute walk from the Shopper's, and there was one lady in front of me talking to a customer service rep when I got in. Another man came from the back in the typical-London-customer-service-with-no-energy-or-enthusiasm sort of way, and asked to help me out. I don't think he'd ever smiled in his life... and he was about 55 or over! From when I asked him what I was looking for he started looking all clueless. Then he started scooting in beside his coworker while she was on the phone to try and use her computer. She snapped at him, "Can you just wait?!"
So he walked away and went over to a different computer (I don't know why he didn't just try using that one the first time). Then he asks me for my tracking number and as it turns out... it's on the other end of town... waaaay south. And I look all perplexed and told him that I was told it'd be delivered "HERE, TODAY!" And he shrugs and tells in an ordinary what-can-I-tell-ya? sort of way. And then the other coworker, who was still on the phone calls my name and I turn around so confused because how would she even know my name? Anyhow, it turns out she was talking to that receiving centre (on the other side of town where my package was) and the mentioned me and wow! I just happened to be there at the exact time the lady from the other centre was talking to the lady from this centre.
Well it gets even better. I told them I didn't know how to get to the other centre and asked if I could get there by bus, but then the other customer in the store told me she would give me a ride because for a completely different reason, she had to go there too (she was missing some important information to send off some documents and so they could only do it from the main distribution centre... way down south... where my backpack had been mistakenly dropped off).
So we took the 25min (or so) drive down together. We talked about London and about Victoria and Vancouver. One of her daughters is moving to Vancouver in September. She was a very sweet lady.
We finally got there and I got my package and my backpack was inside - repaired - yay! And she got her documents mailed off. By this time it had started raining like crazy in London! My first rainy London experience! The lady was even sweet enough to drive me back to my own place - probably about 5-10min out of her way because she was from the North, too, but what a day! It was fantastic, and I didn't even get her name...
So my backpack's back! :) And I'm thrilled!
And that was the highlight of Saturday.

Weekend day #2: Sunday (yesterday)
My bed arrived at around 10:30am! Omigosh was I ecstatic! I couldn't stop smiling and belly-flopping on it! I was delirious with excitement! And then about 15 min. after the delivery guys had left, I got a phone call from the Bell cable guy, who was supposed to set up my cable that morning. He showed up twenty minutes later and I was still bouncy with excitement. But as soon as he stepped into my apartment he goes, "Uh oh..."
I was so surprised. I couldn't have the slightest idea of what could possibly be wrong with me apartment in the eyes of this cable-install personnel. "Uhoh?"
"Umm..." and he strode through my apartment past the living area and out to the deck. He spent about a minute or two on the deck looking around upwards, sideways, etc. Then he came back in with an uncomfortable and oopsie-daisies look on his face.
I returned him a questioning glance and asked him, "Is something wrong? Is there something wrong with my place?"
And he goes, "Ya, you're East facing. You can't receive a signal."
Omigosh! What? No signal? I can't have cable? So Bell can't serve anyone who is East facing only? Isn't that like 25% of the population? So many things were going through my mind! I was too shocked to be angry or upset, but I managed to put it all away to ask, "What are my options?"
He replied, "Honestly... Rogers," which, if you don't know, is their rival company.
What could I say? He left with an apology. I already have internet through Bell, though. What am I supposed to do now?
So I went back to the mall and returned the "All-In-One" kit that I'd required for TV cable installation. All-in-one my foot!!! And the guy who has been helping me almost every time I go in said, "Omigoodness! God just really doesn't want you to have TV!" (I can't remember if he actually said 'God' but it was something along those lines). So we laughed about it and that was good, but I'm definitely in a sticky spot now because I already have my internet with Bell, and my installation fee for that is non-refundable, but if I get only cable with Rogers, I have to pay an installation fee for that... whereas if I get cable+internet with Rogers then they waive the installation fees... I still haven't made a decision on what I'm going to do. I do prefer Bell over Rogers just due to past history and experience, but I guess we'll have to wait and see what happens. I don't want to spend a single day more without internet either...
Alas alas alas!
Anyhow, I have to go to school now, so hopefully next time you hear from me you'll here all the wonderful news of how great my first day was! *knock on wood*

“Loneliness adds beauty to life. It puts a special burn on sunsets and makes night air smell better.” ~ Henry Rollins

As I told you yesterday, I'd been feeling lonely since my familiar friend had to leave early the morning before last. The absence following his presence alerted me to how long I've been here already without familiar friends, without anyone ~ aside from, of course, the ephemeral visits of first my mother and then Matthew, and aside from also my brief encounter with Ayva. It has only been almost two weeks since my departure, but that is a long time without familiar faces when you come from a city where the next non-stranger is likely to be just across the street, just around the corner, or just getting off the bus... And for me those common findings were such the norm that I didn't even think anything of them, having grown up in the city for 19 years (The first 5-ish years being in Vancouver). Actually, to me sometimes the unlikeliness of going out without running into a non-stranger became irritating and a nuisance. But how quickly I have realized the loneliness that comes without the non-strangers at every stop, and mainly without the familiar friends to reach when spirits are perhaps flying a little lower than usual. I think yesterday was particularly difficult not only because my familiar friend had recently left but also because it was a Friday night. Don't get me wrong, I'm not the kind of person who has to go out every Friday night - or any night of the week for that matter, but I could almost feel London's energy and excitement growing for the coming weekend, and I didn't feel a part of it. Besides the fact that my every day is about as busy or non-busy as my last (there is currently no bell-curve-like shape to my levels of stress or responsibilities), who would I be celebrating a week's end with, when I know no one well enough?

Well let me let you know I found a solution to the problem of loneliness, perhaps even sadness in general. I must acknowledge and accredit here, though, a very beautiful person in my life who was my counselour throughout some particularly stressful times last year. I'm not sure how she would feel about my advertising her name freely on the internet. So I will just call her M (not because her name begins with an M but because with her first and last names combined, M is the mode of the letters - the most frequently occurring letter, for those not familiar with statistics jargon... although 'frequently occurring' may also be statistics lingo, I'm not sure). Anyhow, she always made me tell her of something feasible, realistic, and concrete that I could and would do for myself to show myself that I was taking care of me and that I was here for me. And maybe some people who read this would be laughing at the idea, but it frickin' works, if you take it seriously, and if you can find what that special something for yourself is at the time. For me last night... I gave myself a pretty fantastic date. We (myself and I) rented a movie, made dinner, bought a piece of chocolate cake for dessert, and drank wine. Deep, dark, red wine from Ontario (BC's tastes better to me, but I am adjusting). The movie was only mediocre. It was "Love in the Time of Cholera," and I've just finished the book a couple of months ago. The movie went all too quickly through important parts, cut out too much, and didn't give me the sense that years and years were passing by, which was critical to the storyline. Furthermore, the main actress who played Fermina hardly seemed to have aged, where as at some points Florentino seemed to have aged too much too soon. But moreover, the beauty of the book was not so much in the storyline itself but in the way Gabriel Grarcía Márquez writes, adds powerful subtleties, and makes you feel as though you are passing through the character's lives, feeling the extent of time and the lovers' emotions - happiness, pain, patience - for yourself. None of that was reflected in the movie. Despite all that, though, I had such a great evening! And by the time I was brushing my teeth and getting ready for bed, the feelings of loneliness weren't even a memory anymore, they had passed entirely.
So there you go, that is the cure to loneliness - company from your own heart.

Vacuums and visits and vroom-vrooms, oh my!

Wow I've really fallen off the writing wagon the past few days, haven't I? Well I sincerely apologize but I do have a few good excuses. One is that that I've been very busy still trying to get little pieces of my home together. In doing so I purchased a used vacuum advertised online. I wrote several emails back and forth with the seller, asking if it was good on carpets and double checking that it had an attachment for carpets. The seller kept assuring me that yes, it worked excellently on carpets and had the roller required for carpet vacuuming. Well they dropped the vacuum off on Tuesday and I was excited to be able to cross one more thing off my list. The lady was from Mexico and she spoke to me in Spanish. She said it was in perfect condition and the only reason she was getting rid of it was because her husband bought her a new one. She said, "If you have any problems just contact me."
I went upstairs with it and tried it and it worked well for about 2 min. but then every time I rolled the vacuum out and away from me (so it was on an angle instead of perpendicular), the motor would turn off and it wouldn't vacuum anything, and you can only attach the non-carpet attachments to the hose, it seems... so that means hard to reach places don't become any easier to reach and the non-carpet floor becomes a pain to do. And then I further realized that the cord-recoil button wasn't functioning either. I was pretty upset because she had assured me and reassured me so strongly about the functionality of the vacuum, and I believed her. And I started thinking how there should be a camaraderie between us Latin people and in particular Latin women, and how disappointing it was that there isn't... at least it didn't feel like there was any at that time. I wrote them an email right away (I didn't have their phone number, they only had mine and had called a couple of times but I don't have caller ID on my phone). I checked numerous times during the day for an email in my inbox, but to no avail.
The rest of that day was pretty crummy too mainly due to atrocious and inexcusable customer service. I got my cell phone exchanged because there were just things about the last one (a Samsung) that I couldn't get used to. Lines everywhere were so long, even though there were three people working at the phone kiosk!
Well I finally got a phone replacement - this one is a PINK Motorola, and the girl who sold me the first phone had mentioned it was available but I wanted to try the Samsung... and then when I came back the guy who worked there told me there was no other phone like the one I was looking for, and he said it with such certainty, but then I came back later and the girl I'd talked to before was there too and she straightened things out and I got my PINK PHONE :)
Then I went on to try and book an installation date for the cable through Bell. Omigosh I was waiting for over an hour while the representative took his sweet time and called some other higher-up representative or something... as it turns out, only a 2-year contract was available, not the 1-year contract I'd been promised when I bought the "All-in-one starter kit"... I don't want to go into it. Anyhow the bottom line is I got nowhere with them. It was kind of a nasty day, but then it got much better at night time because my dear friend Matthew drove up (10 hours?) to come see me (from Northeastern United States). I hadn't seen him in several months and it was so lovely to have someone dear and familiar nearby. We caught up until we couldn't keep our eyes open anymore and me being such a good hostess couldn't even offer him anything better than a carpeted floor to sleep on. At least I also slept only on carpeted floor. The sofas are comfortable to sit upon, but they're not ideal for sleeping. I don't know if it's that they're not long enough or if the angle of the cushions just doesn't quite suit my sleeping position(s).
Fortunately it has cooled down substantially since my first days here. We spent Wednesday walking to campus, going to the "Next Door Grill" for lunch, doing laundry, reading, catching up, and indulging in leisure. It was such a beautiful day, too. It was sunny but not too hot, and a refreshing, soothing breeze was blessing the day. For all the malicious that had been the day before, this day was marvelous! I even got an email from the vacuum people saying that they were on holidays for a week but that they would help me out when they got back ~ and they tried to call but I missed it 'cause my ringer on my new phone was turned way down and I didn't notice. (So the vacuum ordeal is still not perfect but definitely an improvement over Tuesday's lack of replies and communication).
Matthew left yesterday (Thurs) morning, after I stuffed us both with pancakes - perhaps partially to make up for my hostess-faux-pas of making spend two nights sleeping on the floor.
I went back to Bell in the morning after he left and tried to talk to the employee who had specifically sold me internet and the all-in-one cable package together. I had to wait in line over half an hour (even though the store had only been open for about half an hour when I got there), and then he made a number of phone calls and it was in vain. Apparently last time he checked someone on the other end of the line (and it's true - I was there to witness it) told him yes, a one-year contract was available, but now it's only 2 years available. What a mess. Anyhow he was actually a good rep, but Bell as a whole came off as being embarrassingly disorganized and unprofessional in their methods of communication. I still don't know what I'm going to do about cable...
I then headed to campus to meet with one of my professors-to-be, pick up a welcome package, and rent a bicycle. The bicycle, it turns out, was a little to long for me, so I was slightly uncomfortable. It was also about half an inch too tall, so I had to fall onto my leg when I stopped instead of just putting it down, and it was heavy and butch. I rode it home just for practice and could feel the adrenaline building up and rushing through my veins even though it's not too scary a ride. I hadn't been on a bike in years! It was a great feeling, but exhausting and too much work. The other problem was that I didn't have a backpack (I can't remember if I told you but I had to mail it in to Burton to get it replaced or mended - we'll see which soon I hope). So I was riding somewhat lopsided and having to compensate for unequal distribution of weight due to my one-sided purse. I ended up returning the bike, managing to get my money back, and buying bus tickets instead.
Since then not too much has come up. I've been mildly acquiring a few more things required for the apartment, and I've been reading material for school because that starts up very soon! I'm looking forward to going to school and meeting new people because having Matthew here and then having him leave made me realize how much I miss live social contact with friends and people from my circle....

The other side of the tracks

My mother left today. She was to catch a plane from London to Toronto, and then, a while later, from Toronto to Victoria. I went with her to the airport - in our rental car, then I had to find some way of getting home because the first return bus I'd have to take to come home is only Mon-Fri. I ended up walking by the fields of chirping crickets, the tall grass, stepping carefully over the criss-crossing train tracks on the highway, and listening to the dirt road grumbling and mumbling along the highway. I was singing all the while - mostly The Beatles' songs like, "If I fell in love with you, would you promise to be true, and help me understand?..." and The Little Mermaid's "Look at this stuff, isn't it neat? Wouldn't you think my collection's complete? Wouldn't you think I'm the girl... the girl who has everything?..."
It was a beautiful 1 hour walk to the bus stop. Just as I got there, I got a phone call from Mom, "My flight's been delayed." It would now be leaving to Toronto about an hour later than scheduled, but it wasn't to be a problem because her plane from Toronto to Victoria didn't leave until still another hour or more from when she would now arrive.
I got to the bus stop just in time. The bus pulled up just as I arrived - I love it when that happens! It's almost worth missing the bus a couple of times just for that spectacular moment of feeling like it's just your day and you don't have to wait for the bus. Anyhow, just before getting home - two busses later - I got another call from my mother. Her flight had been canceled. She said she had to go find her luggage so she couldn't talk for long, and she'd figure out what she was going to be do and call me back. She asked me to text Bere (my sister) so she'd know not to pick her up at the airport.
At first I was shocked and upset for her that her flight had been canceled, but then I felt a sly sense of selfish excitement creep in, and I felt and inward smile at the thought of having my Mommy with me for at least another short while longer.
I went back up to my apartment and started making some food, enough for two, in case Mommy would be coming back tired and hungry. I didn't make anything special, just salad and some stir-fry. Eventually I heard from Mommy. It turns out they had sent her on a different plane, and the reverse of before passed through me: I felt relief for her and glad that she'd get her whole Sunday to relax and recover from the discomfort of taking a plane all the way across the country, but at the same time, where before there'd been an inward smile at hearing she'd be coming back, now there was an inward sigh at knowing she wouldn't be.
We had laughed a lot yesterday because we were looking for a store that someone had mentioned to us. We were heading North on a highway-like road by fields and lots of land used for who-knows-what (it was actually quite nearby to where I was walking near the airport today), and the lady who'd described the location of this store to us said, "It's just past the railroad tracks." So we passed the railroad tracks and saw no stores... nothing... and a few minutes past the railroad tracks we decided to turn around and go back towards the railroad tracks. We saw someone filling a tank with gas and pulled over to ask him if he'd heard of the store. He said, "Oh! Yes, it's just before the railroad tracks," (which made sense because we were now heading in the opposite direction, South. Again, we headed towards the railroad tracks, eyes peeled, and nothing! We headed North again, nothing. Mom asked some person at a car garage about the store and came back not understanding well his reply. We stopped at a sketchy bar with greasy, old, scruffy men who eyed me up and down as I went in to ask the employees for help (Mom said it was my turn to ask)- of course the employees were two fit, voluptuous women with long black hair and false eyelashes, low-cut cotton tops and smiles the size of grapefruits. Unfortunately, they were less help than anyone. After 10 min. of them flipping through their iTouch phone, they gave me the address of a store with a similar name but with a downtown address -nowhere near where we were. Mommy actually ended up getting out of the car and coming into the bar to find me because I had been there so long (waiting for the women to figure out how to search the internet) that she thought some creepy man might've kidnapped me. As we were leaving the bar, we asked yet another couple about where this random store was and they, too, said "Just before the railroad tracks -- you can't miss it!" It suddenly occurred to us - perhaps simultaneously - that there may have been more than one set of railroad tracks along this road we'd been ironing with our car's tires for the past 30 min. At last we arrived to the store to find its doors closed. They'd closed at 4:30pm, even before our excursion to try and find them. To further our defeat, when we peered through the window, we saw nothing of interest.
And that is the story of the other side of the tracks!

Alas, no day with mom has been unproductive or unsuccessful. On the contrary. When she arrived I had a bare apartment with no furniture and no plates even to eat off of. Now that she has gone, I have just about everything I need to live except for a bed and a vacuum.

God bless Moms :)

~Selina

"God could not be everywhere at once, and therefore He created Mothers [and Sisters]." ~ Jewish Proverb

Let me begin by filling you in on yesterday, as I could not get internet before I had to go to bed.  Yesterday was overall a somewhat futile day because I went on an excursion to try and find a bed.  I attempted to go to a mattress store, but the bus routes I'd have to take to get there were very tedious and somewhat complicated.  I felt like I could do it though, so I packed up my laptop (for good measure) and headed down one street, made the first transfer and got to the intersection I'd hoped I'd reach.  That's when the surprise came... as it turns out, Google Maps sometimes severely under-represents distances... so what seemed to be a ten minute walk on Google Maps was more like a 10 min. bus ride from that intersection where I'd been dropped off by the bus.  I tried to start walking the distance but it was ghastly hot out and no shade in sight.  Of course I didn't have any fluids with me, so after about 10 min. of walking, I gave up and turned around and had to return defeated to downtown (where I was supposed to take another transfer of busses to go home).  I decided not to go home, though, and instead I walked around the downtown area for a little while, and just as I was walking I noticed a familiar face walking towards me!  And I recognized Ayva as she came towards me! We were both so shocked! Ayva is a girl who used to dance at the same studio as I did when we were younger and we've taken class together at Ballet Vic a number of times, too.  Well, I can hardly explain to you how it feels to see a familiar face in the midst of foreign territory and loneliness, topped with whipped frustration from the city's less-than-ideal transit system, and smothered in sticky sweat from the all-too-hot air.  Ayva dances in Toronto, but she was visiting her cousin in London. We stood chatting for a few minutes and that basically turned my day completely around and I felt so much lighter and happier and effervescent  after having seen her :)

Now, about today... My mother arrived today, and we rented a car together!  I took three busses from my apartment just to meet her at the airport.  I feel very proud of myself for having pulled that together --  especially given  yesterday's embarrassing transit mishap and failure.  So we rented a car and caught up all morning.  Then we had an appointment in the afternoon to go see a lady's apartment who was getting rid of a BUNCH of stuff for free... all we needed was a way of getting it delivered.   So we were pretty excited to at least be able to find a few things to start with and for a great deal!  When we made it to the apartment, though, we started looking through the furnishings and the available items and it was all but sickening to the sight and smell.  This woman had been a long-time smoker and lived with cats. Furthermore, her items were old, old-fashioned, tacky, and of questionable quality.  She had actually had someone else showing the apartment's items to us (perhaps from shame?), but we still felt quite awkward as we did not know how to leave without seeming rude.  In the end we took just two items - a garbage bin and a standing lamp, both of which could be salvaged.  The lady had perhaps three or four items that were decent and I would have taken, but of course those were the three or four items of the entire apartment that she was not parting with.
I think we both felt a little let down and disappointed when we left that apartment because the lady who showed us the stuff had been very enthusiastic and had made it sound as though it were great stuff we'd be seeing, but alas... it was nothing of the sort.
So next we went to see some used-furniture stores.  Interestingly, there's about a whole 2 blocks somewhere on the outskirts of downtown or something, where there are stores beside stores beside stores of used clothing, used furniture, or some mixed combination of the two.  Omigosh was that ever a great sequel to our most recent horror.  Most of the people walking around outside those stores were... well... not well off and not very pleasant, unkept, filmy, and - excuse me but - downright grimy!
Oh! I must tell you that I saw a cheaply made, faux-hardwood dining set in a thrift store (a table and four chairs), scratched but otherwise in decent condition for $500! $500? What? For faux-hardwood (I guess they call that laminate when it's floors... do they call it 'laminate' when its furniture?)? Scratched? In a THRIFT store? We just walked straight out of that one.

I was starting to get very turned off by London when finally we entered a little jewel in the middle of the rough, and in the jewel was another little jewel... a dining set. Hardwood! Real hardwood. Oak with a walnut finish.  All antique-looking and a perfect size for my apartment. I wasn't sure about it  - probably due to how dispirited I'd become about all the sketchy furniture and crude people I'd seen already in such a short time period - but thankfully my mother talked me into getting it. We ordered delivery from the same lady in the store (her husband's job) and now I have a dining set which I love sitting - or perhaps a better phrase to use would be, "posing itself" - in my dining/kitchen area!  A treat!
We also managed to find a few other little filler-furnishings in another little decent store along those couple blocks of expensive-thrift madness.
This evening we found further triumph in the furniture finding process by finding someone within the building who was selling a number of items, including a couch. So I finally have somewhere comfortable to sit that is not the floor! :) Hence my picture today at the top of the blog.
We also somehow managed to go to Costco today and buy a BUNCH of stuff and also to a grocery store. Thanks to Mom my apartment now looks much more like a home, and my fridge is full and I am super well equipped. And so I am so grateful for my Mom, who came all the way here just to be my support system and an amazing one at that.
Also, I want to take a moment to thank my sister, who, despite her busy schedule of taking two condensed summer classes, found the time to paint me four beautiful works of art (which arrived in Mom's suitcase) in warm red and orange and yellow colours, which now brighten my apartment so beautifully. They are fiery and sun-like and I know I am especially going to appreciate them so much during the winter to come.
Family is wonderful, even from afar :)

“I kinda like it in my brand new place. I’m responsible for me, don’t leave my keys in the door, I don’t even put my towels on the floor any more…” ~ Jewel

Okay, let me just start from the end of last night because it a was a little bit humorous. There is a light on my deck.   It looks like an old English street light – it’s cute.  Anyhow, it was on last night when I got home from using internet at a Starbucks nearby. And it was around 9:45pm when I got home and showered, etc. and was wanting to go to bed. So I went around looking for the switch to turn it off… and then I realized oh! there are several switches in my apartment which seem to do nothing! I was so confused!! And the frickin’ light wasn’t turning off! I didn’t want to have to pay for electricity all night long for that one lamp and on and on and on until who knows when I’d find the switch that turned it off… so – *blush* – I called my landlord. As it turns out, the light on the deck is turned on (and off) automatically by the building every night; it goes out at around 11pm.  Then the mysterious switches:

See, the thing is that all the main lights in our apartment except for the ones in the washrooms (2) and one by the entrance are those that are attached to ceiling fans, and so you have to pull on the cord thing to turn them on.  SO the mysterious switches are for – if you want, you can turn the fan on and then use the switch to turn it off, or you can turn the fan and light on and use the switches to turn them on/off  (I guess when I was turning the switches on and off the fan was off and the light too, and so I had no idea what these futile switches were for).  It definitely sent my head for a spin though, trying to turn off that outside light and discovering several futile switches in my apartment.

I fell asleep at around 10pm last night and woke at around 5am this morning – not too bad, 7 hours of sleep.  I think I woke up though because my back was a bit sore.  The yoga mat was not bad considering it’s about half a centimeter in thickness, and it helps that our floors are carpeted, but I wasn’t quite all that comfortable compared with my bed at home.  So I woke up even before the sun was up! But the good thing was that I got to watch the sun rise at around 6am, which is very visible and beautiful both from our living area and my bedroom! Another plus for large windows.  Also, I’m supposed to be getting a lovely red sofa delivered this Friday, so I am very excited about that And my mother arrives tomorrow!  AND my landlord offered to bring me a little cot to sleep on, so I might just take him up on that offer today.  People in Canadian London seem very helpful so far. They must be used to foreigners coming from all parts of faraway places and not knowing how they’re going to make it through the first week of living in an empty place (let me let you know it consists of a lot of doing things on the floor – eating, sleeping, typing on a laptop…).  The person from Bell who sold me a bunch of deals here and there, and I was also interested in cable so another one of his coworkers said, “Why do you do [such-and-such] so she can have [this and that] free, too?”  Yay!
And then the girl who sold me the cell phone, she also goes to Western and she was super sweet.  Apparently she takes a certain type of business program at Western and doesn’t like Economics, but that’s a different subject.  And then there’s the people from whom I’m buying the sofa and they’re driving here like 25km to bring it to me and the lady told me her husband and son are experienced movers and so we won’t have to worry about hiring movers, they’ll just do it for us! And then the landlord also seems very caring about where I’m going to sleep and am I going to be comfortable, and so on. 

I don't know if it's just a cooler day today or if my human body just takes about 24 hours or one sleep (whichever comes first, perhaps) to adjust to a new atmosphere's temperature and water density in the air, but today I feel much less disturbed and distracted by the heat and humidity levels of this city.
:)
Good news.

I need to go buy hangers for the body of clothing seems to have exploded from each of my two suitcases on the floor of my apartment.  Poor articles seem to have been trying to escape when the apocalypse came and left them all wrinkled and weary and strewn this-way-and-that in their tracks.
More updates later...

In the beginning...

When I arrived at the airport on the evening of the 9^th of August, one of my checked bags was too heavy.  My family and I started scrimmaging through the tightly-rolled clothing in order to take out the heaviest items we could find such that we would make the weight limit and not have to pay an extra $75 I’d have to pay for the extra 7 lbs.  Throughout all that commotion, I left my laptop behind at the check-in counter and went off with my mom and sister to have tea.  A couple of minutes later they announced over the speakers that a laptop had been left at the counter and I snapped out of my seat and ran down to get it.  All the employees, perhaps fatigued by their late night work, were chuckling at my negligence.  The lady who had it asked me what colour it was because it’s inside a black sleeve.

“Red,” I answered – it’s inside a red case.  And then they were all giggling again.  I didn’t but I wanted to scold, “What? You’ve never seen a red Apple before?”

I was a little embarrassed.
Then, when I passed through the security check, everyone thought my ceramic mug was full of tea because it’s heavy.  They wanted to confiscate it.  They were all somewhat dumbfounded when they realized it wasn’t plastic, it was ceramic, and indeed there was only a teabag left in it.  It’s a little eerie how the events up until now were almost foreshadowing, if you will, of the events yet to happen….

My flight from the Victoria airport to Toronto was supposed to leave at 11:40pm, but instead it left forty-five minutes late. The captain said it had something to do with a “snowball effect” of earlier flights having run late thus causing the plane to be late for check-ups, etc.  Anyhow, I was very confident in being able to sleep on the plane – in fact, running motors tend to make me sleepier, but I was appalled to find that – for whatever reason – I couldn’t sleep on the plane this time.  What’s more, this time I was actually the only passenger in the row of seats, so I could stretch out entirely and I still couldn’t find my REM.  That sucked. AND because we were flying East in the middle of the night, we were chasing a sunrise, a sunrise that came all to early in my opinion.   We finally arrived in TO, late, and I tried to stuff everything I could into my backpack – my carry on, grumpy with fatigue.  I counted my items: 1 for the backpack, 2 for the book I was carrying in my hand, 3 for the blanket I had drooped over my forearm.  All ready to go. I didn’t have much time to get to the next terminal to board my flight from Toronto to London.  So I asked someone what gate to go to (apparently that’s something they don’t think to print onto your boarding pass…)  I found the gate easily enough… it took about 4 minutes of fast walking to get there, and it was 4:35 when I sat down to wait for them to call us to board. But then BAM! I realized I’d forgotten my laptop on the plane! I had tucked it underneath the seat in front of me and my backpack in the overhead compartment, so ahh! Too many things to keep track of – disaster! I ran back and got there what could not have been more than 5 or 6 min. after the last person had left the plane, but then this unpleasant woman from Air Canada told me they’d made a local area announcement and then sent it to baggage’s lost and found… it was difficult to understand what she meant and she was very bad at directing me where to go, but I managed to run run run to baggage and just before I hit the doors there was a man who worked at the airport (security maybe?) by the doors, so I told him about my predicament and he fired up his little walkie talkie and whomever he spoke to said there was no laptop there, so he went running back to where I’d just been and left me waiting and watching my watch’s arms tick tick … departure was supposed to be at 8:10am… it was about 7:50, then 7:55, then he was finally coming back towards me at 8:00-ish saying it was at the baggage claim, so we went BACK to where I’d found him originally and my nerves were a wreck! He told me I’d have to clear security and then realized I was maybe going to miss my flight, so he rushed in through the doors, talking on his walkie-talkie to someone who had the laptop, and finally he came back - quite quickly – with my laptop and said, “Go!”  So I started running with a laptop, a book, a blanket in my arms, and a backpack with a yoga mat attached to it on my back.  Well I hadn’t taken ten steps when I hear something smash! I look down to see my cell phone had jumped out of my backpack and was now lying in three pieces. I ran back to get it and as I knealt down my ceramic mug flung out of my backpack and shattered on the floor in shards of beautiful chocolate brown exterior and a white, matted interior… it made me think a bit of a broken coconut but it hurt my heart, too… And people were looking and I just said, “I’m sorry… I have to go!” Stupid backpack had opened it’s way up with all my running about and my poor beautiful ceramic mug! I didn’t even get to say goodbye.  When I got to the departure gates, the ladies taking the tickets knew who I was and told me to calm down, I had time.  I guess planes never really ‘depart’ when they say they will… Well, I was walked out onto the plane – a small “Air Canada Jazz” plane that was maybe not even half full – and then all of a sudden in an unexpected pang of emotion, everything hit me: my leaving my hometown for the longest time yet, my fatigue, my anxious nerves and disappointment in (a) the Air Canada woman who used a sassy voice with me when I told her I’d left something on the plane, (b) the lack in communication across airport personnel, and (c) in my own silliness for having forgotten my laptop twice in less than 12 hours.  I think what I was most agonized over, though, was the shattering of my mug! My beautiful, perfect mug that I loved and which my sister had given me… And so the waterworks started and I was inconsolable for about 10 min. while two flight attendants awkwardly had to ask me if I would accept the responsibility of opening the emergency exit door (because I was sitting beside it) in case of an emergency.  They walked me through what I would have to do, even though I already knew because strangely enough I’d been sitting by the emergency exit door on a completely differently designed Air Canada airplane on the flight I’d just completed to Toronto.  As an aside: anyone out there can say what they want about my 5-year-old cell phone with a missing chunk off one corner and scratches and dents a-plenty, but when I pieced the thing back together and *click* it came back to life, hadn’t even turned off! Amazing! J
The flight to London was brief and I started feeling more able to breathe as I watched the clouds look like very much tangible, soft, like pristine tufts of the softest material one could ever imagine.  When we landed in London it was a grey, foggy day… not like those of Victoria, though. No, this one was grey but HOT and humid and dense.  I caught this “Executive” company’s taxi to my apartment, but when the men started trying to help me unpack my stuff from the little airport dolly to the trunk of the vehicle, one of them sent my telephone flying again (because I had taken it out of the backpack because I needed to call my landlord on the way to the apartment).  The poor phone shattered in three pieces again, and the men felt pretty bad. I just popped it back in place, though, and it was fine again… except now it’s giving me attitude, but I think that’s because of the heat.  Anyhow, my landlord seems to be a very considerate and kind person.  He helped me with my two huge suitcases all the way up to my apartment and we filled out a few papers together and the other formalities.

That’s about the bulk of my day(s) actually.  Yesterday and today seem to have melted into one extremely long day.  Today I got pillows, did a little unpacking, did a little grocery shopping, got a cell phone, ordered internet and cable packages, and so on.  Oh! Naturally the first thing I did when my landlord left me was hang up my shower curtains and have a luxurious shower.  Finally cool water to counter the sauna-like scorch of the weather in general and my apartment in particular.  East-facing is bright and fourth floor means no heavy footsteps above, but apparently those two great beneficial goods also combine to an almost Amazon-like atmosphere in Southern Ontario’s Augusts. I think I’m going to go take another shower now, because it’s too hot and water is included in my rent J
Oh! Lest I forget to tell you about my dinner!  I don’t have bowls, but I have one pot and one saucepan.  So I made a cucumber-tomato-olive salad in my pot and ate it straight from the pot.  I cooked chicken in my saucepan and then plopped it onto my pot (from which I’d already eaten all the salad by this time) and ate that from the pot too.
Tonight, I’m planning on sleeping on my yoga mat with some very comfy, firm, and fluffy pillows I just bought (I looked funny bringing them home because when squished together and also against my body, the covered me almost entirely from my collar bone down to my knees). We’ll see how it goes.