I giiiiiive uuuuuuuppppppp :(

Another one of those tax-related worries. For part of the year last year, I mentioned that I was considered self-employed or I was supposed to get some business number otherwise. I didn't register a number and now my taxes are a million times more complicated, including filling out another separate form for a reason absolutely escaping me.

I spent the weekend with Jorgh ripping our hair out over these forms, and tomorrow we're heading to H&R Block and hope to GOD that someone out there will do this for us.

Telus Tells Us That Customers are Dumb and Should be Taken Advantage Of

Today's rant is not so angry and not full of rageahol, but it would have been ... about half an hour ago. I forgot by one day about topping up my cell with the Pay and Talk thing through Telus, and I was in for a mean surprise when I filled it this morning just before driving off to work in the Rav4. The account balance was zero, no thanks to my stupid memory, and the rate was now nearly doubled from 25c/min (ridiculous anyway) to a terrificly gouging 40c/min.

I was absolutely livid all day, but I didn't have time to rage at any service reps until I got home a while ago. I spent the whole day rehearsing in my head all the irate customer phrases that I always read about, where people make seriously silly or amusingly irritating demands to the service people.

I, myself, have never done any sort of negotiations (read: angry raving) in that sense, since I'm such a square that I follow the laws and regulations and other ridiculously arbitrary rules imposed by some faceless authority.

But after reading a few articles in the last few weeks about negotiations, creating opportunities, or just punching your way through a crowd (which I have had to do more recently like through Oxford Street, without the punching), I felt ready to give them the most convincing ANGRY IGNORANT LADY CUSTOMER conversation. The following dialog is an embellished paraphrasing.

Me: I just topped my account this morning with this card, and I want to know why my rate has changed.
Rep: You let your account go to zero. The rate goes up when you recharge. That's how it is.
Me: Wait, so you're telling me that since I missed recharging by one day, I can't get my rate back down?
Rep: You'll have to buy a 50 dollar top up card.
Me: I don't want to do that, that's ridiculous!
Rep: Sorry, that's how it is.

I'm not one to back down anymore, especially being so mad at stupid things lately. Like having to deal with my kids running around the computer class this afternoon clamoring at their classmates' computer components, going "This is not your own! OUR OWN!" (I'm so evil.)

Me: Well, I find this completely ridiculous. I try my best to top up every month, and this one time I miss the expiration by one day and I get this? I want to get my rate back!
Rep: Well we can change that just this one time.
Me: Yeah, you do that.

***ROCKIN'***

OK, well... I don't think this deserves a *rockin'* since I actually negotiated away the remaining balance that I did have, but it was much better to get my rate back by sacrificing the little balance I had, than to pay 50 dollars for another card that I was never going to use up anyway. (You'd have to look at the Telus Pay Per Talk plans to understand more how this works.)

MS Office Excel Still Wins :(

One of the things I have been telling my students (especially the most clueless ones about computers) is that there is software out there that they don't have to pay for. In fact, there is such a massive, continuous supply of freeware, shareware, open source awesomeware, that one never needs to buy software... unless it's for k-12 schools. :(

The software suite I am talking about is MS Office. Nothing really major wrong with it - it's definitely a useful set of programs - but there are a number of things that I can point out that need to be removed, fixing or enhancements. (Formulas, for instance. I don't give a @#$%ing crap about MathType. Stop asking, dialog box!)

On the other hand, the free alternative, Open Office, offers the same functionality for 100% less money. That is, maybe you might have to pay for the electricity and internet connection to download it, but it's freeeeeeee.

However wealthy a person may be, the moment someone says "FREE", anyone and everyone with half a brain would jump on the chance to try it out. Hence, I have been recommending to the masses to use OOo (OpenOffice.org) when their trial software has expired, to avoid going through the "Miss, I couldn't write my essay because Word just expired" crap.

Too bad I discovered today that OOo has one big, huge, black mark on its awesomeness. I can't believe that after 5 years of so many people asking for chart and regression options such as giving the equation of the regression line, and no one has made it yet.

I especially find the second to last comment stupid, about how he believes that because it is open source means everyone is at fault. (We're soooo sorry that we don't know squat about coding. We're soooo sorry that we want to use this program in schools and my students don't know what the crap is going on, let alone how to get a stupid regression line to show up. And on top of that, we're soooo sorry we like your program and want to make suggestions, while nobody asks how this should be done.)

I have something on my face...

... otherwise, why would those girls be looking at me at that Zehrs?

Jorghnassen, of course, is the reason why.

We walked by an aisle going to the cash register and I looked straight at her, as she stared straight at me. She stopped talking, and the other girls continued oblivious to her silence. I was wondering if the asian (chinese probably) girls at first were long lost cousins or something because I seriously have no idea why that particular one was staring at me for much longer than a stranger would at another person. Then I realized that none of my cousins are anywhere in proximity of the Wawaloo region, and they didn't look anything like anyone else I knew.

As we loaded the things in our basket to the cash, I looked back at the girls who were still standing at the aisle, still curious at first. Now hiding behind a goddamn clipboard that she was holding, she was peeking from behind it and still chatting with her friend and staring at us. At me. Wha-?

After a few more covert confirmations that I was being stared at, I mentioned it to Jorghnassen. The ill-concealed spying from the girls was rather disturbing. By then, we were already moving away from the register, and he looked back and he thought he was actually the one being stared at. Then I got more disturbed.

Now before you think I'm becoming jealous, it was because Jorgh is teaching a course right now at the university, and the girls (or one of them anyway) are probably in his class. He says the spy-girl looks familiar, and he could probably confirm it next class.

I know I'm not always the most restrained of girlfriends in the PDA department, so I can gather that seeing your prof with a girl who *looks* like a university student (but who is probably glad she's not a university student anymore) holding his arm might look suspicious, and smacks of unethical behaviour if one thinks that student-type is in the same class as the prof is teaching. And I know that one has a right to talk to other people in public about people you happen to recognize in public.

Nonetheless, it's not polite to stare! >:(

Whine whine

There is one thing I loathe to look forward to in April. Don't get me wrong, April is a great month; great surprises often lurk in April. (Wink.) It's the time of year when the sun finally sticks its spindly million degree nose out and melts the remaining scattered clumps of white stuff, leaving behind black piles insulating the white stuff. (Anyone who lives in Quebec will know what I mean.) And it's that time of year when I get off my sorry butt and start my new yearly tradition of sweaty 5K training, although it's going to be kind of difficult this year with a toenail broken from kicking a clump of hardened white stuff hibernating behind the car tire a few months ago.

No, it's that one thing in April that I always whine about, and it's just around that time of year again. HINT: it's not avoidable, unless I want to get fined by the CRA.

Fortunately, Jorghnassen is also in the same boat this year, having never gone through the scalp-scarring, brain-jarring, seizure-inducing experience of filing his own taxes. So he took the easy way out and paid for Impotrapide. Even with a program for his filing, it is not that simple, as he has now been in two provinces earning incomes and getting hosed by the government more ways than usual.

In the meanwhile, I have to defer the yearly hair-pulling by another week as I have a pile of algebra corrections that are inducing another type of hair-pulling.

Back and Forth, Back and Forth...

"Back and forth, back and forth; I'm beginning to feel like Sisyphus!" -some merchant, Zeus Master of Olympus

Once again, I took to the task of driving back to the homeland, while Jorghnassen had the monumental task of keeping me awake and calling for rest stops at every other service station. Our primary goal was the week-long vacation in our home province. Our secondary goal was to obtain the Rav4's summer tires from Jorgh's dad in Quebec.

Our first stop was in Toronto, to attend the pre-wedding Ning fling at a Dave & Buster's out in the middle-of-nowhere-Toronto. All I know is that one of the Ikeas was next to it. (I-KEEEEE-AAAAAHHH...) I haven't seen Ning in a long time, and even then it was a brief coincidental meeting in Quebec City as she was walking in old town with her now-fiancé Steve. They're supposed to be getting married this week. So happy...! :)

After spending overnight in Toronto with my cousins, we spent all day driving to Montreal, and then I spent all evening correcting Calculus final exams. The marks had to be submitted the next morning at 8 a.m. by email, otherwise I would have had one hell of a commute. I called Davy up as soon as I arrived, certain he would be having his party, to send my regards, and he promptly told me to get our butts over there. Unfortunately, I could not complete my corrections until 10 pm.

By the time we arrived, Ian had already scuttled off, having waited all night for our arrival. On the other hand, Ivo had been asleep and appeared half-dead on our arrival. Then he slept some more. ;) We spent the rest of the evening chatting, sipping tea and whatever else was left, and singing more Beatles songs.

Checklist of Montreal/Quebec Things to Do Eat:

• eat poutine


• eat poutine from Ashtons


• buy maple syrup in cans


• buy bagels by the dozen


• eat and buy tasty bread


• buy or eat own weight in cheese and curds


• eat sushi (!?)

(The last one actually makes sense if you remember what my mum does for a living.)

My favourite thing to do with friends is to make food for them. (Heck, any excuse to get the old roomies together.) So we ended up having one supper in Montreal with homemade sushi (unfortunately not Sushi Sunday but still good).

I managed to secure some of SUMS' doorstops Calculus textbooks for the school. Another reasonable excuse to make this trip's expenses tax-deductible. :)

Eventually we made our way to Quebec, but none of my siblings could make the trip. My bro is recording a new album, so all his evenings are taken up; my sister was entertaining her 'rents-in-law. And arriving in Quebec... my mum was working. Alas, we were also booked for pre-Easter supper with Jorgh's parents and brother in downtown Quebec, so we had virtually no time to go anywhere nor do much shopping. :(

I do feel like we ate a lot though...!

I was pretty bushed by the end of the week. And I still had to drive back to Waterloo, and then the next day yesterday was the first day of school.

... also I had to stop in Toronto for about an hour or so to drop off the bags of bagels, cheese curds, and beans for my cousin. We got back in Waterloo at about 10:30 p.m. and I worked late into that night at making new lesson plans.

Ooh you can bet your sweet patootie I'm completely off my rocker. I made a class blog for my computer class and I think it shows. (In order not to let random strangers get to this blog from the other one, or vice versa, you'll have to ask me what it is.)

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.

Holy carp holy carp holy carper

Dawson College shooting:
I sit at home pretty much all day (except the 1 hour a day I get up and go, as per yesterday's post and I don't have much else to do except look for a job and read the news. Except I didn't read it until 3 pm, after I turned on the TV and there were images of cops running around Montreal downtown and people being loaded up on stretchers.

Donnah lives next to College Lasalle, which is right in the neighborhood. I called her a little while ago and she said she was fine. She was taking the 24 bus from Westmount to home, and first spotted a bunch of students running in the opposite direction. (She thought someone might have bombed one of the jewish temples or schools again.) Then the bus divered its route, but was stalled on the road. The police cordonned the whole area, and there was apparently a dead body on the road. @_@ ... Later, she got off the bus still far from home, but the police denied access to everyone for the whole block. So she got home by taking a (rather long) detour by way of orange line to Sherbrooke and back home by 24 bus in the opposite direction.

Then we chatted about finding jobs again. Life must go on, eh?

I'm freaking out because it happened downtown and everyone I know in Montreal has at some point needed to go downtown to do something, so any one of us could have been a bystander or witness. Also, I'm angry because, and I quote what I told Felix: "kids are still kids and they're stupid!" >:@ (By kids, I am referring to the shooters.)

Montreal residents, please report your status!

Yes I Was Travelling.

I'm currently listening to this orchestral but hilarious History of Canada on CBC Radio One. Radio Two will be playing the program again.

Sunday June 11, 2006
From the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts at the University of British Columbia
the CBC Radio Orchestra welcomes Canada's favourite storyteller, Stuart McLean - the
host of Vinyl Café - for a program of words and music
Stuart McLean, narrator
Mario Bernardi, conductor
CBC Radio Orchestra
Clifford Crawley: Overture on a Canadian Theme (or two)
Cameron Wilson & Stuart McLean: History of Canada
John Beckwith "Polka" from Music for Dancing
Cameron Wilson & Stuart McLean: I Remember Wayne (world premiere)

I went to Montreal this weekend, but it was a bit too hectic to do much. So you'll have to forgive me if I haven't called anyone nor posted. On the other hand, I witnessed PJ getting a nice suit. Finally!!! (We'll have pictures up when he comes by later next week.)

I'll have to take back that "Worst Onramp 3V4R" on the Quebec map that I commented on. I haven't driven very much throughout this city, just up to boonytown Valcartier and back. I avoided going on the highway, due to my complete disdain of Quebec drivers stemming from the funeral incident.

But I decided after having sufficient experience, I was ready to tackle the disgusting roadways of Quebec near the bridges. My mum had warned me that it was kind of crappy.



For the first time driving by myself, I actually thought I was going to die. There are stop signs on the onramps. Mysteriously appearing onramps. LOTS of mysteriously appearing onramps. And then a really weird curve in the road. With an onramp on both sides mysteriously appearing. LOOK.

If the highways look like spaghetti to you, that should explain why Quebec drivers are completely insane.

Words cannot convey the anger.

Do it with EMOTICONS. >:( >:o >=( :@ >:t >>>>>>P

Two kids set fire to their geography textbook next to the tree on our lot. Then they took off. Then I ran outside with a bucket of water to put it out. Then I went to school to find the policière but nobody had a goddamn clue where she was. Then I came home and blogged about it.

I'm just waiting for the old lady upstairs to get home so I can get her to find the cop.

ADDENDUM: I finally got hold of the old lady upstairs, whom I successfully related the story to in my terrible, terrible French. She was quite nice about me bothering her on her lunch break and offered to call up the policière from the school and leave a message (since she calls the most often) and I left the bag of smouldering textbook with her.

---

I should probably also tell a bit of backstory to this. During this school year, there have been incidents of drug use and breaking and entering in this building, since the students at lunch and after school have absolutely nowhere to go except other people's private property. They especially like to break in to the basement apartment because the entrance is in the back of the building. The old couple's daughter lives downstairs with her husband and family of three young girls.

Needless to say, there has been almost no action taken by the school or police, other than taking down reports and handling phone calls. Finally, there was enough of the neighbourhood disgusted by this that the policière of the school had a meeting with everyone to inform us what was being done: sensitisation pamphlets. Essentially, NOTHING. GOOD JOB, SCHOOL.

Landscaping and Neighbours

It seems that our landlord is a complete douchebag, so I took it upon myself to pick up the trash that mysteriously appears every day on the lawn, by the parking lot, around the garden and other spots that the wind and tunnel effect spews schoolkids' leftover lunches. And drugs.

Anyway, my very least favourite chore is picking up trash. The candy and chip wrappers aren't too bad because they aren't filled with goop or shit (so far), and there aren't massive piles lying around, only scattered. But what I hate the most is that the garbage is mixed with the leaves that a certain idiot landlord believes will decompose on their own, sitting in untouched, weed-infested and barren corners of the yard. It's even worse - they're leaves that the wind tunnel also scattered from the yard of the school.

(One of the things I should have suggested during that meeting two weeks ago between the school, the police, and the neighbourhood was that the school get these goddamn messy kids to come and clean up their trash because I was tired of doing it... but it was mostly about drugs and they didn't even have a concrete program to deter it.)

I was just outside a moment ago, picking up leaves and trash. I don't have a rake nor large garbage bags, so I was doing it by (gardening) fork and grocery bag. I also took some time to weed out some massive dandelions sprouting between the paving stones. It's quite time-consuming, but it would definitely help prevent more from spreading and aggravating our allergies further.

We noticed that our side porch was excessinely sagging some time ago. I suspected it was because the soil under it was sinking, but there is probably much more to that. During May and June when there are crazy rain storms, the entire walkway on this area gets flooded. Foot-high flooding. Fortunately none of the water gets into the basement. Unfortunately because of that, the landlord doesn't do shitall about it. Thus, due to years of flooding and soil being inevitably washed away, the ground has sunk a good couple of inches. You can feel the angle of depression walking around there.

The porch itself now feels precariously unbalanced. There is evidence on the side of the foundation that the steps have sunk about an inch or two each. I'm getting kind of nervous about the stability of this thing, but we don't have young kids jumping around on it so I don't think there's much to worry about yet.

I did dig up a couple of paving stones to see if I could determine what could be done, but I have no idea what to do. There is nothing for me to compensate for the sagging walkway, and I'm no carpenter who can fix porches and fancy wooden stuff.

As I was putting the stones back, there was some sort of repairs going on next door that necessitated cutting down some electrical or telephone cable. The people repairing the wires never suggested I get away from the area, and they didn't mention anything being too dangerous to touch, so I mostly ignored them.

That is, until they turned on the chainsaw. Suddenly wood chips from above were raining down on me. I looked up, and they were chopping something down from a pole. I quickly scurried away like a rat, kind of pissed that they weren't even considerate of me "down there" pulling up stupid roots and picking up leaves. Once inside, I watched the rain of dust and woodchips piling up around the area where I just picked up other people's crap.

I've been hiding at home since then. They're still humming away at their chainsaws and wires. People are utter morons around here.

I don't have a broom either.

Happy Mother's Day!

My mum and I were debating on whether we should go to the flea market in Ste-Foy yesterday or just go home. She says that she enjoys looking at junk and not buying it versus actually buying useful things. Although last week, she did start eyeing the suspicious looking 80s pattern chairs (you know, charcoal flecked with random green and pink specks - I'm sure you had something like this in your house) and then I said "Let's get outta here." I think if I had a couple of bucks to set on fire, I'd do that instead.

I planted beans outside in the garden that I dug up. I just hope that nobody steals our beans or sprouts like during the year my dad died - they stole our melons. >:( As I previously mentioned, there are rednecks as far as the eye can see around here, so what would they do with a chinese melon?

Our garden is too desolate for any sort of raiding though. For now, there are only tulips growing by the side of the building, left by my brother from several years ago. There are also metric tons of vines overgrown on the fence that nobody ever tends to, so I take it upon myself to cut back some of the vines. I don't even think the landlord intends to do anything about them. In fact, they were creeping across the entire lawn last year before I viciously pulled them out of the ground and slashed the bastards to death.

Soon the rain will come. When it does, the vines will start showing their leaves. That is when the massacre will begin. Mwa ha ha ha ha!!!

Open Letter to McGill Web Page

Dear McGill Web Page,

Yuo suxx0rs.

Unthankfully yours,
Everyone on the goddamn planet.

P.S. Tell Alumni to stop bugging me for donations until you fix it.

Every time Jorgh asks me about something that necessitates me looking up something about McGill, the discussion always falls upon the waste of webspace called McGill.ca. I am sure everyone who designed it is especially proud of how it is completely unreadable and unhelpful. I don't recall any news web site requiring the use of SIX narrow columns on a front page squishing in TEN different headings. It's confusing, it's disorienting, and it actually keeps people from reading the front page at all, except to unsuccessfully scan it for a link to a godforsaken useful document like an exam schedule.

Every single link on the front page goes somewhere different. That doesn't sound like a bad thing, but having a header that says "Student Information" versus a link that says "Student Services" somewhere else on the page lets you believe that McGill paid these people just to make as many webpages as possible with as many different combinations of the words "student," "full range," "faculties," "admissions," and "pat ourselves on our butts for making these fantastic web pages."

To be completely fair, the design is probably not up to the webmaster. I can emphasize with the poor prole who had to endure the hours of, "But I'm telling you, I want the web site to be completely white so all the text can run together like a massive word jumble. And squish the whole thing together in the middle of the page some more because I don't like using up the entire screen."

And yes, I know how completely ironic it is for a person who has such a messy looking blog to complain about how terrible another web site looks, but I made this site on a whim whereas WE PAID FOR MCGILL'S THING WITH OUR BLOOD TUITION MONEY.

OMG THOSE GODDAMN F@$%ERS

It suddenly dawned on me.

On one hand, I was working at that school for 19 days (actually 18, and one was a snow day but I still didn't get paid for that >_<), and the 20th they got someone else to replace me. That other supply teacher will also be there for exactly 19 days until the regular teacher is scheduled to be back at school.

On the other hand, the collective agreement states that a supply teacher who works a consecutive 20 days or more for one teacher on indeterminate leave will be paid as a regular teacher (ie. full time schedule, depending on what the teacher was working at).

I was being paid per period (and a little more). That means I wasn't getting shitall for most off periods where I was working full time including all the supervision. That means that if I had less than 4 out of 4 periods then I get paid per part of a day. That would make sense, except I worked every day on a full time teacher's workload, and did everything and more than required of any supply teacher.

So if I had continued on that job, I would have had to have been paid at the sane rate of what teachers are supposed to be paid at doing this crazy crap.

OH THOSE LITTLE #@$%!!!

So Long, and Thanks For All the Sh!t

1. Thanks for not telling me what your intentions were for Monday, on Friday when I was actually present at school.


2. Thanks for messing up all the students who believed that the next teacher who would replace the classes I was teaching would be THEIR OWN.


3. Thanks for giving an explanation to the cooperating teacher in the math class what was going to happen for the next three weeks, at least. Oh wait, you didn't.


4. Thanks for telling me indirectly that you weren't going to do shitall about the discipline problems that was going on in class for the same students that I kept telling you about having these discipline problems.


5. Thanks for calling on Sunday to tell me I was getting axed in so many words, and that you already lined up a supply teacher on Friday.


6. Thanks for making it pretty clear that you don't think things were getting better, though clearly they were starting to.


7. Oh by the way, thanks for being intimidating and sly in your decision making process. Maybe next time you should ask me before you screw around with a hundred students' lives.

Taxes Again

One of the reasons I can't go out and play this month is because of each weekend devoted to the time known as tax season. (Yes, month.) My mum decided this year to give me her papers and have me do them for her, because I have "nothing better to do." I have already whined enough about it, and I'll whine again. I hate^infinity having to do this shit. I oblige myself, to get the return, but no matter how much I have coming back to me nor how many times I write these things... I will never ever ever do it without breaking out into fits every five seconds.

Tax software that the CRA approves costs money. That's about 50 dollars every year, for something you do yourself for free every fricking year until you die. I am a big cheapo miser, a learned trait from my mum and siblings (whereas my dad wouldn't really care and he would let someone else do the task for him).

Web programs aren't that much better. They all have deals where they let you do them for free, provided you have a net income less than $25000. But what if you made more than that? BAM! $19.95 plus $10 for every extra return. I might as well have bought that box at the store.

Yes, peace of mind for me is not spending a damn penny and doing it by hand. With a little help from my friends, Pepsi and day-old Bento. (Mommy working at the sushi stand on Saturdays is a goddamn blessing.)

And so I spend my weekends yellingly scribble away at the crumpled and stained draft forms. After a dedicated two minutes, I scour the net for easier solutions. WHY OH WHY didn't they make these programs with Quebec returns???

---

In other news, the Jorghnassen will be teaching probability and statistics all of May at McGill.

Also, I am still teaching at this school for another 3 weeks. By then, once again, the total time spent there will not be anywhere close to the required 60 days.

EDIT: OK, I just got a call two hours ago and they told me that I'm *not* teaching the same position anymore, but that I'll be replacing someone else (who is replacing yet another teacher on leave), at least for Monday. I'm getting sick of this bullshit.

I am not alone!

I, among the millions of this country, am not immune to the April 30 deadline. The running joke is that there are 2 seasons here: hockey and tax. (There are probably wittier comedians out there who have already capitalized on that joke, like "we're still finishing off the 1998 playoffs," or "hurrrrrrr....")

Anyway, the point is that I am actually trying to do them earlier this year, thus keeping my brain from exploding from the frantic scribbling of hastily smudged random numbers on April 29th like all the other years. Why? ... Well, this is the first year that I actually worked (making peanuts, but whateva). Mind you, even peanuts get taxed into hell. Peanut butter hell. That gets taxed too.

The web-based program (of the same software you can buy in stores) by Intuit, Quick Tax Web, will allow you to prepare your taxes for free, provided you don't make enough money to qualify for the low income earners' discount. At least that was the case when I did my taxes through it last year. And the years before it. But now they want to charge me for making too much for the discount. :(

I talk to Felix about taxes, who has it even rougher (considering he has to do like a billion different forms more than me, living in California and all). I suggested he become a hermit in the mountains, but he shattered all my dreams when he said, "Hermits pay taxes." :(:(

A good strategy for tax time is to invest into RRSPs. Basically, you stick money away in a registered investment account (thus the money doesn't get taxed until you take it out), and never touch it again until you're close to death. (My concept of retirement is kinda screwy now.) My parents haven't always been the best of investors, but now my mum is urging me to get them to lower my tax burden (if any). So I went to the CRA's web site to figure out how much I am allowed to contribute. If you notice on that page, you can make an account to log into the site and they'll tell you how much you can use, rather than do it by hand... But in order to make an account, you need to find your income from last year's tax form. But if I had that info (which I don't because it's lost in the jungle of my room) then I wouldn't need to use the site to figure out how much I can use. GHAWFAFACXZCAAAAAARRGHHHH Oh, by the way the deadline is Wednesday which is why I'm doing my taxes this early. :(:(:(

If you are doing your own taxes, and you feel like pulling out your own teeth... don't worry, you're not alone.

STFU GRRR

Mommy inherently believes everyone is a bastard in the world, looking out for number 1.

Usually, when the school boards decide that the schools must close due to bad weather, they tell the schools to call people at home in the wee hours of the morning. The idea is that they get to everyone, like teachers, caretakers, professionals, etc. in a chain of calls. Of course, if you don't reach someone then you're supposed to get to the next person on the chain. The secretary or someone higher up calls everyone not on the chain. Like a sub. *cough*

Since nearly all the schools are fricking closed today across the province, including the one I'm working at downtown, the most sensible thing should be that someone decides to call the subs. Or at least leave a message on the school answering machine to mention that "OMG no skool" or whatnot.

The least sensible thing is to have me wake up about an hour before school, start preparing for crap, turning on the tv and radio to see that every fricking school is closed, call the school, get caught in a message loop with no one answering the phones, and have mommy proselytize that everyone is a shithead.

Thanks for making the entire world your enemy. :|

Not something to write home about, people!

But I will anyway. I worked (supply teaching) recently at the Adult Ed for a few days. It's a very nice place with reasonable resources. The staff is exceptionally nice, and the principal will bend over backwards into pretzels for absolutely everyone. I have never seen anyone so accommodating for its own sake.

The part that I wanted to mention was that I finally got to drive myself to work for the first time last Friday. And my mum lent me the car today to drive myself to work again. :D And to top it off, I also drove up the gajillion bus hours to the base to work this afternoon. ***AND*** as I had picked up my mum from work this evening, she said finally, "Oh, it seems you can drive now."

Oh, throw a dog a bone...

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I think I haven't shut up enough about the hot water tank. It has finally been changed thanks to the senior landlord (a.k.a. the guy's father) and the brown gucky stuff is out of the system. Now all it has to do is heat up the damn water. WHERE IS THE HOT WATER????? 

The Landlord is a #$&%head!

Actually, it's been 5 days since we discovered our hot water tank no longer makes hot water, since it would rather excrete its stinky brown contents slowly into the small tray-like basin it's sitting on.

My mum and I called the guy's cell a dozen times and he has yet to show any sign of life. My mum even mentioned that she got past the message "completely full voice box" to leaving a message in the last day or so, but that means he probably just deleted all the voice messages. GODDAMN #@$%.

Ok, gotta go boil more water now for the dishes.