How Montreal makes a mountain out of a mole hill

It's finally been done, the blog I have been longing to do. Hats off to this gentleman, I have never been able to get good pictures of the process.. I lack both timing (they plow my area in the wee am hours), and the patience to wait it out after those tow trucks start honking. Check out Chicagoan in Montreal: Snow Removal in Montreal for the real deal on how snow is hulled out of here.

Afterthought now available!

For those interested the January issue of the Afterthought is now in print. The student newspaper of McGill's Macdonald Campus. Check it out, click on the link to the right. If nothing strikes your fancy, I included a crossword for those who get a little bored in class.

School becomes a reality

Stomach still full I have only been able to drink liquids all day, tried yogurt.. no luck. Lesson of the weekend, stop eatting in large quantities over short periods of time. And yes Connie that is all I have to say about food :P
The rest of the day, research has almost come to a climax for my project which means the really cool stuff is soon to come! Rock lab accomplished, today I learnt about the formation of granites, basalts, etc. you get the drift - or should I say sinking feeling?!
Sadly I have my first mid-term tomorrow, Mathematical Methods in Ecology, thankfully it's math... and I understand that sort of thing. At least in theory. So hopefully this blitz of studying will pay off. Wish me luck for waking up in time for the shuttle at the ungodly hour of 7.10 am tomorrow morning.

Status BAD

To start this fine Sunday off, I restarted my computer earlier today, and this it what it said... "Pri Slave, status BAD, Backup and Replace." There's really no positive way to interpret such a message. I mean 'BAD' is a hard to interpret word, it's the antithesis of good. But since I don't know what else to do i'm going to ignore the problem for a while.. then seek help in about a week... I pressed F4 and resumed.
On a somewhat brighter note, taco night has now turned into taco day. Meghan couldn't make our usual nighttime tradition so we opted for a luncheon instead. However, not being aware of this prior to today, I also made plans for a taco night with a few other friends. Thus, I did 49 cent tacos twice in one day. They over stocked our order in the evening and I have hit a new tacos high, 11 tacos in one day. My stomachs rears up at my stupidity. Why you ask? Because I could - that statement may get me into some serious trouble one of these days.

Saturday night and it's time to eat! Dinner at Gregor's with Laura and Pattie. Mmmm, Dragon Bowl soup, it was incredibly good. Let's not forget good people and good wine as well. Hit the spot perfectly. and let us not forget the incredibly sweet rice pudding that Laura and I managed to put a giant dent in - stuff until it hurts!

After a good week of decent work, what else is there to do really? After working until 9.30 pm I headed over to Connie's to join her Amar and Noam for a good chill. A nice little gravity bong was the apparatus of choice. Being the dulling knob I am, I hit it a tad hard on the first go and spent the next hour looking at world as my seven year old self. It was a bizarre experience, all of my friends looked so grown up, and I felt like I was having a memory of childhood that I never actually experienced. I also slept incredibling on Connie's couch.
Pictured above is the remains of the night, and a perfect recipe for a food over. It tastes so good going down, but the next day is just not so swell.

p.s.: if the numbers 713, 714 or 715 mean anything to anyone please let me know. I think they're area codes?

Australia Day

Today is Australia Day, just like Canada Day but Australian! The most suitable picture that came to mind was taking a photo of my Australia bag (a $5 Manly Beach purchase) in the snow. I am still bitter that it's summer over there at the moment and wanted to juxtapose it with a snowy scene. To celebrate you can do any of the following;
1. Throw a 'Roo on the barbie. Kangaroo is a great tasing meat and has become a bit of a problem for the agricultural community. Become part of the tasty solution!
2. Walk around outside in shorts, tank top and thongs (flip flops). You may get nipply and a few odd looks, but completely worth it.
3. Go to the SAQ and ask for Bundaberg Rum... accept no substitutes.
4. Lay out a towel under the living room lamp and work on your tan.
5. To everyone you see say 'G'day Mate. How ya goin'?' This gets a warmer reception than one might think.
6. Head down to the St Lawrence and try your luck with the surf... Yes I do realise there is ice.
7. Tout some styling khaki wear and practice your Steve Irwin technique.
8. Squeeze into some sexy speedos jump into traffic and yell, "Thorpie says, it's fully sick!"
9. Dance Salsa to the Digeridoo (I know that spelling is incorrect, deal with it).
10. Anything else that reminds one of sun, surf, and a chubby koala sleeping at noontime.
If any of these are a little akward for you just visit the Australia tourism site and listen to the funny man talk in an accent about travel deals. Take the opportunity to peruse my photo album of pictures from OZ - the link is to your right. Then dream of sunnier times and places.
Cheers
Booth

Zzzzzzzzzzzzz

After three consecutive nights of averaging 3 hours of sleep... I zombied through the day and passed out on my bed at 7pm and woke-up 12 hours later. That means no pictures or exciting stories to speak of.

Working man

Today was one of accomplishments, at least for Yousseff. Today he was hired onto OZ Communications! Yay :) I'm really not entirely sure what exactly he will be doing - the job title was too long for me. The company however specializes in communication services such as using msn, aim, yahoo messenger, etc from your cell phone. How great is that?! The means I can chat on msn any time of the day or night. On second thought... that wouldn't work out very well for my productivity.

CSI: Miami buys chocolate milk!

Sunday being Sunday we of course went to 49 cent tacos. A highlight of the trip was watching firetrucks leave in a hurry - yes we are 5 years old! Oh and some of the Guay family and friends came along to join us, brought our part yup to a whooping 8 people!
The really exciting stuff happened after that though. As I told you prior I have recently learnt how to play poker, Meghan has too as of yesterday. Now poker wouldn't be the same if you weren't betting for something. Being students money is on the low side so we have decided to play for dares instead. Poor Meg lost this round and had to go buy chocolate milk from Provigo around 1.30 am wearing a 'mask' of Horatio from CSI: Miami (the incredibly creepy red headed one). For obvious reasons the night security guard was a little iffy about the whole thing and just kept his eyes locked on Meghan, ready to jump at any moment. The cashier just gave her a funny face, and we're not talking the haha kind. Hopefully for her Meghan's poker playing skill will get better, or Domer's will worsen.

Happy Birthday Oreo!

As you all know Monday marked Oreo's birthday, but since it wasn't the most convient day for a party, modifications had to be made. Today was the day the masses decended upon the small apartment Oriana and Christina call home. The party flowed with Mexican Flag shots (check the pics) and pulsed to a lively beat. It even continued on to St. Sulpice once all decent noise by-laws had been broken.
Check out my photo album for pictures from the night!

Friday, Friday, Friday!
A day of progress. School was school, that's not the really exciting part. The good part is this. I did three loads of laundry with Domers today. As a time buster I asked him to teach me Texas Hold'em. Dom is quite a teacher. After a few games so I could catch on we started playing for prizes, but not money, doing laundry was enough money for us. The first round was for dinner, sadly I lost and now must cook Domers dinner, but things soon got better. I won the second round easliy, haha now Domers must eat 2 cream pies (flavours of his choice) within half an hour. Finally, the big battle was for dinner at taco night. AFter a long and stressful fight, with odds leanign towards each numerous times... I WON!!! Ah victory is going to taste so sweet.
Laundry was then done and we jetted to the McGill hockey game with Meghan to meet up with a bunch of the Mac crowd. Great game versus Concordia, of course we won 4-2 :)
To celebrate, we headed to Brutopia - convienently on my way home - for a drink. Eventually being joined by Dan, Dillon, Ashley, Greg, Connie, Amar and Noam. But I left early, and must keep my strength for Oreo big birthday. Back home it was with the roomies, I did a little bit of homework (yes at some ungodly hour) then when I could do no more Meg and I doned the pants Dom brought back from Gabon for us, chilled and started to watch the in terpreter. Needless to say we were out cold within 20 mins. What funny lives we lead.

Ok, so Meghan found sunglasses. They were her grandmother's... so we all tried them on. Then played would you rather? Now how's THAT for the highlight of the day???

Mother nature you nasty, that's why you got syphilis!

I was going to talk about the frog I cut open find a lovely beating heart (it was brain dead). But this email is infinitely better. It explains how extreme the Montreal weather gets on a somewhat regular basis, and why Montrealers laugh at any other Canadian who complains about snow, ice, slush, low temperatures, etc. and basically any shitty winter weather. Please note the picture is not from today, but just imagine a thick layer of ice is underneath the snow (not far from the truth). And that it rained all the following day on it in temperatures hovering around zero.

From : Sarah Thomas
Sent : January 18, 2006 10:31:40 AM
Subject : don't go outside today (if its not too late)

this morning i left my house at 9 as usual for my 9:30 class. i just got to class 10 minutes ago and the professor isn't even there. it was the scariest experience of my life. as soon as i stepped off the steps leading to our front door i slid across the sidewalk into the street where all the cars were already stopped. all of the sidewalks and most of the streets in montreal are like this now. not to mention that its pouring out. before, all the ice was bumpy so even though it was still slippery, there was some friction. now the rain has made all the iciness as smooth as glass and theres no stopping anybody from sliding all the way down the mountain. the only hope was to walk in the tire treads of some of the streets that were flat enough. when i came to an uphill, i started sliding down, only to be held up by the guy behind me. at the top of another hill, there were police cars preventing cars from going down. all the cars were at the top of the hill on the other side trying to stay up. on large truck was constantly revving its engine and still sliding downhill. i had to cross this street, but it was terrifying because of that truck. behind the truck were multiple cars perpendicular to the road also trying not to slide down the hill. i was stuck in the middle of the road, bracing myself. if i moved i knew i would either fall and get run over by the truck, or start sliding out of control and hit a car below me before the truck came and squished me anyways. it was probably one of the most terrifying things ever. when i finally made move, i managed to keep my balance while sliding down the road, making it across before getting too far down. a man on the other side of the street helped me to get over the sidewalk and into a snow bank, which was deep and wet, but definitely not slippery. I walked across a field in the wet snow and came to the next dilemma. another street had to be crossed, and this one was steeper than the previous one. there was a line of people along the road trying not to fall and contemplating the traverse. One girl refused to go any further. we were two blocks from class, and she insisted that her friend call a cab so they could go home. i would not trust a cab in these conditions. so i started to cross the street...on step off the snow, i promptly fell on my left side and started sliding downhill, in a 6-inch deep waterfall of rainwater and snow meltage. i had taken my gloves off before this because they were too wet. one girl looks horrified when she witnessed my fall. i managed to get off the ice and continue to try to cross the street. it wasn't happening. it was so icy, i could not move from where i was standing without falling again. finally, someone pointed out a somewhat less icy spot further uphill. so i climbed uphill to a spot where i could finally cross. getting across the sidewalk proved just as difficult as crossing the street. i launched myself across the sidewalk into a tree, which i held onto until i could think of the next place to go. by this time i was also ready to go home, but home was further than class, and i didn't want to face that truck again so i kept going. with the help of an icy handrail, i made it up some stairs and started walking across a driveway to the next street. if i had not been thouroughly soaked enough, i was after i fell a second time on my back into another puddle. this time it was more difficult to get up. i considered crawling the rest of the way to class. i finally made it to the last street that was to be crossed. another steep one, i could not do it. one guy had these spikes attached to the bottom of his shoes (like those rubber things they have at EMS) and he was helping another guy cross. he told me if i could stay where i was he would come back and help me. it was difficult enough not to fall over, but i somehow succeeded in sliding minimally downhill until the guy came back and caught me. he got me across the last street and instructed me on how to get to my building by cutting through two other buildings. I found my way into the biology building and made my way upstairs. very humbly walking towards the back of the classroom, i took a seat and laid out my wet coat. the contents of my backpack are soaked. my coat is soaked. my jeans are soaked. and its cold outside. i sat there for 10 minutes waiting for the professor and then realized he wasn't coming if he already missed half the class. I don't want to walk back home, so i'm sitting in the computer lab while the comfortable office chair absorbs some of the wetness from my jeans. I almost feel bad for the next person to sit here. Now it's 10:30 and I have to get to the lab, which is all uphill. Maybe they'll let me go home and dry off. I wish i hadn't ever stepped out of my apartment.

Some how I have the incredible ability to not get tired. I just don't know how it happens. I never went to bed last night because I never felt tired. Well taht's actually a lie. It was probably 5.30 am when I was getting a little drowsy but by then if I had gone to bed I would have slept through the day and that really would never proove useful. Alnighters are no longer an uncommon thing for me, but they're not the most useful. I don't stay up because of the incredible pile of work, but my head is just racing often about next to nothing at all. Argh, I am slowly considering investing in the addictive sleeping pill. But drugs are bad, ugh. Aside from that, not much happened to my day. Met with my boss for our first meeting of the year. It looks liek I may be able to present a poster at an environmental conference in April, yay! Got home slept from 2.30-7ish and caught up on this blog and made dinner. It was actually pretty relaxing. Well no pic today but i'm taking the camera on an adventure tomorrow so watch out!

It’s birthday Monday! I have been trying to think what would be appropriate to honour both my little sis Princess Jennifer and grandma Oreo. And I’m still incredibly stumped. The best I could think of is start up a recycling program using austistic children. However I felt that it was unrealistic for the short term. Instead the best I can do is send out my best birthday hugs and kisses to each and raise a glass of American bought beer to Jenn and a shot of tequila to Oreo. My love to you both.

Ok well it’s Sunday, and who really does anything too useful on a Sunday? I caught up with a couple friends from around the world and realized how predictable my Sunday evenings have become. Every person I talked to on Sunday, whether by phone, msn or even in person asked if I was going to 49 cent tacos. My only response… it feels like hell has frozen over outside, and even that is not going to stop me! However, just to shake things up Yousseff came with us AND they sat us in a new area! I have now completely validated the simple ness of my life’s pleasures.

After sleeping over at the girl’s very comfortable apartment, a group of us met up for brunch at Place Milton. Honestly a first for me, and my poor over abused stomach had problems dealing with the food. Alas grease was not going to remedy this one. Ah well, back home I went to rest, shower and do those pesky chores until it was time to leave for the outing of the night. This time the much anticipated birthday of Ashley! Ok, so perhaps we’re a few weeks late but hey, better late than never right? The 30 people (two of which whom were also celebrating) all agreed that although late on the celebration a birthday is a birthday and it deserves the fun no matter what. And all of the birthday girls got fried penis’ (bananas) for desert.
There was however an issue raised. Does anyone know what this is? We know it must be a vegetable because it was in the vegetarian plate, but… wtf?! Someone enlightened me please!

Stupendous, really it's all I can say. Friday night was stupendous! The boys of Rhythm Method had their first big show, at Petite Campus. The concert was incredible and they were much bigger than the venue. Friday the 13th has most definitely brought on good luck. I could talk about the rest of the day but really, with the mild contender of having brilliant dinner with the girls before hand, the rest of the day pales in comparison. Not only was it a fantastic show but everyone was there. Truly there is nothing else I can say about it, but good times with goods friends, and some of whom were making great music. And with that I leave you with pictures of the band.

Rhythm Method

Nothing like a good light show!
Rock on!

Treat of the week

As an extra special treat, check out my Apartment stop motion tour. The end got cut off because my camera got tired of taking so many pictures.

Today I made a new friend... his name is John. Unfortunately I didn't take a picture of him, that is after all no way to keep new friends. You may eventually see a picture of him somewhere else... until then all you need to know is that his name is John, even then, it's not incredibly important to this story.
So I was walking up to my building and got a phonecall from Amar when I was about to enter - Hi Amar! - this call happened to make me hang outside the front of my building whilst talking. Not that I minded, today was gorgeous and I really should have found an excuse to stay outside for longer. While I was talking this scruffy looking guy smoking a cigarette was watching me, I don't blame him really, what else is one supposed to do while hanging outside the front of a building having a smoke? He was enjoying the fine weather as well, correct? After I got off the phone I walked past this dude and went in the building.
Right before I got through the locked door he burst in and apologised, he didn't realise that I lived in the building and that he felt he should explain himself. This is how I met John.
After exchanging names he asks, "do you like sci-fi?"
Ok, please no jokes here. I think we all know about my life-sized cardboard cut out of Capt. Jean-Luc, and all those taped shows, but really aside from some internet streamed X-Files I haven't been one for this scientific fiction for, well, years! Despite my recent drift from the genera I couldn't help but chuckle to myself. So I replied, "every now and then."
This opened up the gates, having lived in the building for 3 years John really didn't know too many people who lived there, and since the top 2 floors now consisted almost entirely of students he thought, well shit, he should change that. As a building warming, if you will, John had planned a gathering, some may even say party, that was based on the viewing of the start of the new season of Battlestar Galactica. Truly I was interested, if not for the show at least to see who else might show up. I really wouldn't mind getting to know some of the other people who live in my building. But as life has it Ashley's birthday celebrations are on Saturday, and really, I wouldn't miss it for this or any other world!
On a side note Meaghan and Youssef are probably going to hit it up, if anything to see who else is there. The benefit of going to a party in your own building is if it's not what you're into you can always say you left some water boiling. That is of course unless your landlord or janitor happen to be there.
The conversation went onto the fact that I was a Wildlife Bio student and he was rather excited. We talked about environmental philosophy and how religious and social beliefs and structures in the past have influenced our current cultural placement of the earth relative to us. He then brought up the fact that he has been working at a boy's camp for 4 years where they do all the hardcore stuff, like camping and portaging after you build your own canoe. The problem was that the camp's environmental policy was as old as it (about 80 years). The campsite area had over the years been cleared of all grass and herbaceous cover, leaving just exposed soil which obviously didn't last all that long. The current problem is that the circumference of the site is widening because the trees can not stand the degraded soil so they are slowly dying away. He asked me for my opinion so I'm going to look into it for him. Anyone who would like to help please let me know. We talked on and on until a friend of his came by and I let them have their chat. And thus ends my meeting of a new friend.
Now to explain the picture. The shuttle was full today so I missed my meeting with Connie, damn 211 - public bus arghgejsuble. I was going to have that as the picture of the day, instead you must settle for the corner of de Maisonneuve and Guy, featuring the entrance to the metro station. I am sorry... it's not even in focus. I tried to make it look like the fuzziness I prefer to see at most times, the reason why I don't wear my glasses or contacts much of the normal day. That was going to be my topic of the day until I met John, be greatful that I did. The fuzziness didn't really work out, owing to the fact that I tried to take it while not wearing contacts or glasses so it's just really fuzzy. I was really just taking the picture out of guess work and couldn't see the target area or the screen very clearly, the irony of my goal. I do sorta like it for the artistic appeal of people and cars in motion at a major intersection. Making it even funnier is that the guy in the beige tried to stare me down while I was about to take the shot. He didn't get away, I got him at a brisk pace, the sucker. But I do admit, it's a nasty photo.

So today I was stuck in a bit of a conundrum, wtf to wear? I know it does seem shallow but you'd wonder too if it was f-ing balmy outside (at least by Montreal winter standards) and your winter boots were as waterproof as a sponge. As far as the waterproofing goes, yes they do have stuff you can spray your boots and no I didn't use it this year.
As anyone knows once the temperature gets to around zero, the snow, ice, etc starts to melt and form large puddles on roads, sidewalks and the like. My boots still wet from the day before were not going to be adequate for the task at hand. Drastic measures needed to be taken.
Considering it's been chilly I hadn't worn a skirt in quite a while. This is something I was craving and the warm weather only made the hungry grow! Long story short, the only pair of boots I had that would keep my feet dry happen to be my rubber boots. And yes I decided to wear a skirt with trusty rubber. It didn't look incredible, but it also wasn't completely ridiculous either. And my feet are drier than an elephant's elbow so I'm definitely not complaining.

Double whammy

Since I didn't actually make it home last night I have decided to combine today and yesterday. It's still pretty early today but I forsee nothing else very notable happening today unless I make it happen, and in that regard I just don't have the want to do so. So here it is...
Yesterday I didn't make it to a couple of my classes simply becasue I haven't been sleeping well lately... My cough is preventing me from getting horizontal, annoying unless you sleep like a conehead. Since I don't, my lack of sleep has led to me sleeping through alarms/buses/ etc.. On the bright side, I did go to the most important bit of the day, my geology lab where I happily defaced minerals by scratching and squirting HCl solution on them. Note: don't let Max spray acid on mineral number 27 in the green box, it reeks of sulphur. Anyways, it's after this where gets exciting.
So on my way back on the shuttle I happen upon Ashley eatting a carrot. This is funny if you know her because it was an orange food item that is also healthy. Note, her favourite colour (see jacket) and she will very soon graduate a full fledged dietician ready to tell the world how to eat healthy! Our meeting was funny because we had planned to meet up for coffee that night anyways, this just avoided the hastle of me walking home then back over to her place. Since we were already together we decided dinner was more appropriate and called around to see who was free. Turns out that a bunch of people were at SNOAP (Open Air Pub in the winter) because yet another friend's band was playing there. So off we went to the lower campus. Now what else is one to do at a pub but drink? And luckily for me everyone was just drinking beers 'for the band' so I used up what was left on Ashley's discount card. Happliy tipsy and in desparate need of the loo we jetted over to Burnside, abused our right to the washrooms our tuitions cleans, and decided to continue with the merrymaking.
Sadly Dillon went to do groceries on discount Mondays at Provigo, Mic and his girlfriend went off to do whatever it is couples do and left Noam, Ashley and I to fend for ourselves. We recruited Connie in our mission and head to Santrapol for dinner.... mmmmm vegetarian salad. By the time dinner was over we had sobered up and couldn't be bothered with a bar and just sat at the girl's apartment and drank instead. So Noam and I ventured off to the dep and bought bottles of wine (mine was inspired by UFOs!). We all got comfortably drunk and I spent the night on the couch. Which brings us to today...

So being me I slept in ever so late missing my first class of the day. Which really is ok because I had already done most of the stuff we were covering in that class a few days before of my own free will. No biggie... Unfortunately I missed the shuttle by 3 minutes!!! And therefore also missed the class in which I only have 7 other classmates. So I will be noticably absent. However, once again I probably would have coughed through the whole thing anyways so perhaps better I stay home.To be perfectly honest I'm happy I missed it, otherwise I would have never seen the kids playing in the snow on the lower field. Does everyone remember those days? When your greatest worry in life was whether or not your parents noticed that you were short a mitten when you got home. Or how exhilerating it was to roll down a snowcovered hill, pound the snow at the bottom into a ball, which inevitably turns into a snowman, who doesn't stay together because it was the dry crap that fell the night before, not that lovely sticky stuff so you resort to eatting it because it's not yellow and better than the carrot you were going to use as Frosty's nose. Ashley will probably eat the carrot for you so don't worry it doesn't go to waste. Watching these kids was the next best thing to actually being there myself. So I stood and watched like a proper creep.

I also got to see poor old Norman standing in all his glory in that poor excuse for a park on de Maisonneuve and Guy. The snow had covered all of the pigeon poo and some friendly city goer realised that yes, even Norman gets cold. He looked brilliant. Who would have known that he was a medical wonder and regarded as a hero in China?

Here is my artistic rendition of me eatting a 49 cent taco at 3 Amigos. What else do I do on a Sunday? Truly?!
Today also marks the one week marker of the year and my new altered blog. Please let me know what you think. Was my more random version better? Would you prefer if I did these daily postings somewhere else and revert this one back to it's old ways? Or is it as Tony would say, grrrrrrrreat?! Tell me please people, either though messages here, on msn or via email.
Cheers

It's almost a shame to make another post... yesterday's was post number 42 - sigh, what a perfect number.
Well today has prooven to be full of little things that should get done.. so i'm finally doing them. My highlight was laundry... How exciting, I now have towels and clean bed linens. Since i'm still a little sick and probably won't be able to hold up too late tonight. I made the executive decision to give going out on the ever popular saturday night a miss. Boring, I know, but gimme a break. A girl's gotta do some real life chores everynow.

The day itself today was nothing special; school and disappointing trips to the library. Oh but the night! First it was a $6 trip to see a comedian and an improv group called Uncalled For. The picture to the left is of them becoming a transformer. Oh yes a TRANSFORMER! They will be at the infamous Clyde's later this month if anyone is interested.
Met up with a bunch of Mac people former and almost former, as well as other friends. Including Mark who jus got back from Cobourg/Mexico the same evening! Note Vanessa missed him greatly and they decided to wed, the 'wedding picture' is above.
Since we were on St Laurent already we headed off to Bifteck. The ultimate in 'I wanna go out, but don't want to put the effort into going to a real bar.' Unfortunate everyone else in Montreal had the same idea. And at an unexpected 10.30pm (who goes to the bar that early?!) the place was not packed but didn't have enough sitting room for us. The back up bar you ask? Vol de Nuit, everyone's backup bar. Where you can opt to pay $7.50 for two singles or just pile all of your booze into a double. And there is ALWAYS room, at least that early in the evening... plus no cover... I hate paying cover.
Anyways, we stayed until latish, then cabbed it home and went to Moe's for a cheap late night meal. Finally back to the Newport to pass out watching 'Robin Williams live in New York'.

It has finally arrived! The long awaited cheese. Despite the fact I had to go to the office on Universite (it really isn't that far anyways and it was warm today) and the cheese is warm and thus discoloured, I am a happy camper. Not all of you may be as excited as me but hey... to each his own. My collection includes, Brie, Old Gouda, Jalapeno Havarti, Parmisan, Stilton Blue, Bocconcini, Herb & Garlic Goatcheese and some nice mild spreadable vegetable stuff. Hopefully it will be back to its full vigor after a recooling.
N.B. please excuse the state of the stove top. I maintain that the black bits on the front two burners are from years of wear and tear, NOT large chunks of burnt food.

Cheesed off!

Ok, so the highlight of my day today was going to be incredible. I had forgotten cheese - not that cheddar junk but real cheese - at my dad's house on my way back to Montreal. Because there was so much of it, and he himself is not much of a cheese man, he shipped it off to me. This fromidable package was supposed to arrive today. I even had Yosef (the new roomie) stay until around noon to greet the delivery man. But there was a hitch, you can not buzz up to apartments in my building so the defeated Purolator man left a note in my mailbox and walked away head hung low. I arrived home and read the note... they had brought my package to a depot in Ville St-Pierre. But why?! I have no way of getting there. Would it not have been just as easy to drop it off downtown, and not in an industrial area hard to reach even by car?! They do have an office on Universite, I looked it up. I could have picked it up today even! Alas no, I had to call and get the package rerouted to the downtown office so I can pick it up tomorrow. The operator was obviously not interested in listening to me complain and took forever. The whole experience left me truly cheesed with the company and pining for my Stilton.

The last first day of school in my undergraduate career - knock on wood. In order to make it to my first class of the day Danielle and I had to wake up at 6 AM!!! By 7:40 we were on the Macdonald Campus and the sun was just starting to rise. It was truly inhuman and I plan on not waking up that early again for as long as I can stand it; I am in no way a morning person.
The only thing that could make me feel better was a good ole CC breakfast special, mmmm eggs, potatoes and coffee.
Remainder of the day went well enough, all I had was two classes today Mathematical Methods in Ecology and Insect Ecology, and not a lab in sight. The most exciting moment of my day was losing and then hours later finding the roll of toilet paper I had brought from home to nurse my cold. There is something special about finding something where you didn't know you left it.

Perhaps not a triumphant return, but a return nonetheless. I am finally back in Montreal after long weeks at home. Of course after attempting to unpack my stuff (a failed feat I would prefer to blame on the cold I'm getting) people came over. We chilled and watched 'March of the Penguins', a brilliant movie! (from left to right: Greg, Connie, Sarah & friend Linz)

January 1st 2006

Aside from the typical live healthier, my New Years resolution for this year is to start a diary. Not a written diary persay... I'm too lazy for that! Since I have my dearest camera back it will be a photo diary. To start it all off...

Although not exactly on the 1st, I figure a picture from New Years Eve is close enough. Afterall we were only about an hour off here. I can't really explain what Oriana and I are doing here, it's just one of those "make a funny pose" moments after we had already been drinking a solid amount.