Happy New Year!

Jorghnassen and I wish you all a Happy New Year from Chicoutimi!

We're going to be heading down towards Waterloo starting tomorrow morning. (One guess who will be driving the Rav4 for most of the way.)

An Awesome Christmas Present!

I am taking my annual post-Christmas visit with Jorgh in Chicoutimi until the new year. Jorghnassen's father took Jorgh and I to the local SAAQ this morning, where he officially signed over his 1997 Rav4 to Jorghnassen. So now it is my our car and we are ready to go!

Yay! Thank you!

Merry Christmas!

I wish you all very happy holidays this season, and hope you are spending time with your loved ones and enjoying your time together, despite the less-than-white weather on the east side of the country and pretty awful dumps the west was blessed with.

---

And without furthur ado, here is the year-end round-up. I will probably forget to do this later this week from the miscellany of things to worry about - like getting a car and figuring out what I'll be doing in Chicoutimi after Christmas.

The many things (or lack of things) that happened this year are more or less well documented on my blog. Thus, dear readers (new and old and in-between) can peruse the archives and get the gist of each moment from A to Z - agony to zen.

January
Had weird dreams, and was also introduced to supply teaching at the adult education center. Posted some interesting art, along with a first foray in vectorizing. Douchebaggery continues.

February
Started to regularly supply teach at a school where it felt like total chaos. Most likely not my fault.

March
Stopped supply teaching at the school because it was total chaos. Not really my fault. Also: whining about taxes again.

April
Uploaded some cover songs/music on Tindeck produced by myself on violin and a shitty microphone on a headset. Surprised the bejeezus out of Norm. Somehow a minor internet celebrity stumbles upon this blog. And my brother starts becoming more of a real life celebrity.

May
Start of gardening season because the snow didn't melt until then. More douchebaggery occurs.

June
Actual training for Run for the Cure began, when I could have started earlier. The school year wound down with a good note, with the first foray into supply teaching French for elementary school, involving a violin...?

July
Wrote some short stories, attempting some creativity. Went to Boston! And Waterloo. But Boston! Sorry... Bwawston.

August
Focused on running some more, and attending the third wedding of the summer. Some more vector photoshopping!

September
Sketch that turned into a t-shirt (idea). Ran a bunch more. There was some sort of birthday in there somewhere.

October
Ran the race! Revisited Waterloo with Jorghnassen to help him move in. Hives. :(

November
Went to Montreal for the teacher's convention, and ended up staying two weeks due to being sick and losing my voice. :(:(

December
Spent some time in Montreal to help Jorghnassen become a doctor. ;) On a whim, I answered an ad for a teacher needed in Waterloo, and surprisingly enough I got the job. Now agonizing over getting a used car.

And to end on a cute note, here is a flash game about a bunny. Snow included!

A Can of Worms? Open?

To my relief, I secured a part-time job teaching math at a private high school outside of Waterloo, with Jorghnassen's help, starting in early January. The details of the job are still lacking, but the major detail in my quest for sanity has been more or less fulfilled. On the other hand, it caused a much bigger "deal" than it fixed: zero public transit and a 20 km commute.

I had thought of every single possible way I could get there on a regular basis.

Carpooling would be the most obvious one (and most feasible) if only I had asked the principal when he offered me the job; but I was only given his cell number and it apparently costs a crapton for him to use it for incoming calls... thus I am still rather reluctant on calling him through that number again. (And I know what you are going to say, so don't say it and stop saying it!)

Someone suggested getting a bike; cheap and ideal, but I loathe to find out what kind of physical shape I am in right now. Last summer, it took me 2 hours to travel 20+ km uphill, and 1 hour to roll it downhill.

Car sharing is great, but would run up quite a bill for daily commuting, compared to the final option:

Buying a car.

(The absolutely, unquestionably retarded option my mum demanded from me, despite it not being her decision, was that I take a cab every single day until I "matured" enough to know enough about cars to get one, which would take at least a year, and even then she told me I was "too stupid" to own a car. I won't even begin on ranting on the stupidity of this.)

I thought of buying a scooter or car as the absolute last option (barring the above), as I know probably less about scooters and cars than anyone I know, and I have the most overbearing, insane family of anyone I know. Fortunately, as I am the most inept of all my acquaintances, I have the option of asking advice from everyone else. And here are a few nuggets!

Rachel's brother, Pat, who had accompanied us to Bwawston, works with and studies in cars, and has a classmate who could probably locate a suitable used auto. He also offered to service it in his school. This would be in Montreal.

Ian has prevoiusly advised me to buy in Ontario, as the transfer between provinces would cost more than it was worth, but as I was uncertain whether I had time to do that before the job started, I opted for the former.

Shhh! told me that car dealerships would take care of everything in a pretty timely manner, and that it was well worth it for him.

Davy said to look into cheap enough cars within $3000 (if I could only think the costs would end at $3000 :( ).

And alas, I know naught about scooters except deep-voiced Eugene has one that he commutes with in Ottawa to the bus station. Though scooters seem quite cute. :)

---

To excuse my absence, I have been helping Jorghnassen fix up his presentation for his Ph.D. defense last Monday. Which he then passed with flying colours!

Photo

Hmm... something's a little off here...!

New Blogger Features :)

You might have noticed a few slight changes in the last little while. Firstly, I finally decided to fix the titles of each post, but I have to do them manually (ugh) because I was too clumsy to figure out where the "Title Field" button was. Secondly, I have the new option (courtesy of Blogger Beta) to put labels on each post, so now I am going to go back and do them at the same time. So don't be alarmed when you see your name for some reason in the labels even if I didn't mention you explicitly, because I am probably 1) making notes to myself and 2) wrong - where option 2 is more likely than 1. Thirdly, I put a site meter link at the very bottom of the page, like Jorgh's, so that everyone can see which person with a mysterious IP address is visiting our blogs.

Hopefully all these changes can lead you to a more pleasant and enjoyable blog-reading experience as you laugh at all the related things I've done, such as getting sick and/or paranoid.

P.S. Sorry for killing your news readers. :(
P.P.S. I think I might not have understood the concept of labels, because I think I have too many. :(:(

Return of the Christmas Tree!

Incidentally, the digital camera ceased functioning correctly this year, probably due to the contact points with the batteries, so I didn't get to take instant photos of the tree-making process this year. :(

To make up for it, below are the previous 3 years' Christmas Tree(s). They are all pointing to the left.



Why, you may ask, through the passage of time do all these trees look the same? It is because we have had this artificial tree for more than 20 years, and the ornaments for at least 15. On top of putting the tree together year after year over the last 20 years, I have had to do it by myself in the last three or four years, and I still haven't figured out which colour code on the tip of the bristle goes at which level of the tree. And every year, the tree seems to look worse.

From loss of its plastic needles to the vacuum cleaner, to the decrease of its perpendicularity from the demands of gravity, the plastic tree has its quirks.

Nevermind that the holes along the "trunk" of the tree have been deteriorating over time, to the point where it can barely hold up the stems of the bristles. Nor that the original plastic base that came with the tree broke into smithereens ages ago and we took to using a metal base meant for an actual tree to sit in, with parts that are meant to be drilled into the actual tree stump to hold it into place, thus destroying the "trunk" even further. Nor that the parts all get twisted and stuffed into a box at the end of every season, and come out looking even more flattened the next holiday. And dressing up the tree in rather (real) old-skool child-made ornaments pretty much guarantees the perpetual pathetic antiquated look.

This is an ode, to you, tree. Some people hold their real trees more dearly than an artificial one; but you, reliable friend, have never caught on fire and for that I truly appreciate you.

Other Freebies!

The cereal box (General Mills brand) offers free books too, through their "Bite Into Books" program. My mum likes to buy cereal in general (on sale, once again), so there are often four to five boxes of them sitting on the shelf. Last month, two boxes had that "specially marked" special code inside that could be redeemed for free books on their site. Wow!

At first, I thought their offerings were only targetted towards kids, but there is a set aimed for the adults who bought the cereal in the first place. I picked two books, written by John Lithgow: a children's book called Micawber, and Lithgowpalooza (no longer listed there for a soon-to-be uncovered reason).

Although I almost forgot about the book offer, I still remember which books I picked and I was slightly dismayed when I received the mail a few days ago with a rather light envelope that only contained one book. Then I opened the envelope and was even more dismayed to be holding the absolute last choice, Little Red Book. The accompanying letter mocked me further by lauding my choice of book(s?) and invited me to redeem further wonderful books such as this one.

Yes, Lithgowpalooza is all gone now. :(

P.S. Haha London Ontario

Free Samples!

I visit RedFlagDeals once in a while to find some online deals in Canada, and often I will just click and browse the Freebies. Well, nothing beats the perplexed expression my mum gets from the odd freebie arriving in the mail, addressed to her, opening the envelope and the "WTF" reaction. Except I was not awake this morning when this 59-year-old woman pulled out the o.b. sample, with a letter expressing futile hopes that she enjoys the trial pack.

Today, I signed up for the Olay regenerating cream sample, to make up for the awkward morning.

Chinese Vegetable and... Banks AGAIN?

As some of you might have witnessed, I have been growing some (unidentified) chinese vegetable over the last few months on my window sill. A few of them have grown to a harvestable size while I was gone, so my mum cooked it for me. Not bad, for about 3 months of agonizing over their stunted growth!

Desjardins called me today to give me another reason to bitch at them and about them, again. In a nutshell, the caisse changed their accounts last month, resulting in their unsuspecting clients having to pay fees for each transaction unless the client indicates otherwise. So I ended up paying for a bunch of transactions because their letter to me did not mention this.

I ranted to Big Pu last night about this, and both of us wanted to know if there were a way to protest their stupid new account structures. Protest? Because they're not a bank but a cooperative, which should mean we are supposed to have a say on this. I admit that I am a bad co-op member because I did not stay well-informed. The people who decided on making stupid user fees are even worse. But whoever voted these dumbasses in who created this shit should be punched in the kidneys.

Social Anxiety, and Banks... Again.

Being cooped up indoors 24/7 for much too long, I also realize when I have to conquer the urges of hiding away from the world and reaching outside when I need to. So at least when I have an issue, like not being paid for work done, I can overcome stupid fears, like that of using the telephone, and try to figure out who messed up. Fortunately, I didn't have to get upset at people to fix the problem over the line, and things are resolved.

---

I have an aversion to the telephone because the fact that I cannot see a person's reaction when I speak to them already comprimises a part of my brain telling me if I am being unwelcome or not. It comes from my deep-rooted insecurity, and the memories and fears of rejection that has plagued me throughout my inexplicable childhood. Thus, I would rather conduct transactions and communicate face-to-face as much as possible, comforted by the physical presence of a person.

However, the bank (or cooperative) is another issue. One time several years ago when I started studying at McGill, the caisse populaire didn't allow me to pay my tuition bill at the teller without charging me extra for some stupid reason, and the fact that the teller was cold and unhelpful didn't improve my thoroughly negative impression of banks.

I have never, ever liked banks. I would rather hide my money in a pillowcase in a box in a concrete vault at the bottom of the ocean on another planet in another galaxy. Unfortunately, on this planet, normal everyday monetary transactions require a person with some profession or other to have an account at a financial institution. Thus, I have one, at the Caisse Populaire Desjardins. And I avoid it as much as possible. (Though I avoid the RBC even moreso.)

But their internet banking gives me relief. Internet banking is a godsend, and should have come much, much sooner. I can pay my bills online. And I can OC-ly check my account every ten seconds to make sure they are paid.

Except if I am using Firefox, apparently. My second call of the day involved whining at the tech guy, and being told that the error page I kept getting sent to was due to me using an internet browser that was not "Internet Explorer or Netscape" ...!

Netscape...!? Didn't that die out when people were still trying to avoid the Y2K catastrophe that crippled hospitals, government institutions, financial institu-oh wait. That might explain it. (The fact that the monetary investment by everyone into the Y2K bug hadn't caused such a ruckus meant that they were reluctant to let Netscape die in the horrific Firefox wake.)

But wait - paradoxically, the Netscape investment didn't include creating internet banking back then. Otherwise, I'd have been saved the embarrassment of walking up to the teller and being told in none too many words that I was an idiot. What the hell are they using my money for? *rage rage rage*

Ms C's Random Food Review: More Junk Food

What: Double Stuf "Cool Mint Creme" Oreo

Comments: It is green. Very green. Like those glowing fluorescent neon colours from ten years ago when Nabisco thought it would be a great idea to make Oreos more "totally rad." But it is double stuffed, so I thought it would be okay. I think my mum bought this on sale (when does she not buy on sale?) at Zellers when Nabisco stopped producing this particular kind of Oreo because I can't seem to find a picture of it in their catalogue.

Review: At first, I thought that "cool mint" would mean a slight reminiscence of mint ice cream. But mint ice cream doesn't remind me of eating toothpaste. Nevermind that the cream looks like toothpaste...

The positive thing about the Double Stuf Oreos is the nice touch on the cookie itself - it not only has the familiar "Oreo" relief printed on it, but a detailed "Double Stuf" ornament, reminding us that Nabisco cares about our "double" stuffed cookie sandwiches so deeply as to create a completely different cookie cutter die that proudly decorates their concern for our satisfaction.

But it still tastes like toothpaste.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 Cookies.

There and Back Again

... but with fewer magic rings and giant flaming eyeballs. More girls in it tho. ;)

I prattled around Montreal for two weeks, all of the time being sick to some degree or another. As I discovered, it was the same thing that everyone was going through recently, although in my case I didn't get medical treatment for it (except getting cough syrup, but not for that extreme).



I met up with Jin last Sunday, who was also visiting with her cousin Kevin. Really nice guy, who was patient enough to wait with us while Jin was trying on bras and jeans all afternoon. Initially, Rachel was trying to get the girls together, but Jin's talents (with her cell phone) managed to assemble nearly everyone for dim sum. It was a miraculous, spontaneous gathering that barely involved Rachel's intervention.

The interview mentioned in the previous post went alright; I suppose I was mostly confused, as I was still suffering from a bit of flu, but I hope that I brought across, most of all, the impression of a teacher having grown from the complicated and ill-prepared mess that I was, to being ready and excited to start teaching again. It looks odd from my CV how someone with my background could have spent so much time waiting for a position, but I think it has made me all the better for it. (And if I dwell on it some more, I might end up changing my mind and get depressed again so I won't talk about it any more.)

Davy and I went into the wee hours of Friday night and Saturday morning writing a song. Actually, I would like to claim I helped write the lyrics, but I feel like I mostly guided Davy's words into something that made sense (and all the sillier lines were of his own twists). If we were more serious about the song, I would probably have liked to insert a musical interlude somewhere. ;)