Help me brainstorm! I want to buy a TV. I don't have a car. It looks like I could only get a TV delivered during the week when I'm not home, which would mean they'd leave me a note and I'd have to go somewhere to pick it up anywhere. Can anyone think of any better ideas than go buy a TV and then call a cab? Does anyone know any places in TO where you can buy a TV and have them deliver it on the weekend?

So my grad was a bit disappointing. They grouped us by degree instead of by discipline, so I didn't get to sit with the people I've shared classes with for the last three years. Because of the risk of SARS, we didn't shake hands with anyone, so I didn't get to shake hands with my profs because profs aren't going to stand up for the honour of giving their students a dignified nod. (Although the director of the department I used to work for was in the audience, and he shook hands with me on my way back to my seat). And they didn't announce with your name if you'd earned First Class, which was disappointing because I'd unexpectedly earned First Class and I wanted the world to know!

I couldn't find any of the profs I wanted to talk to after the ceremony, although I did find our department's secretary, who has helped me at least as much as the profs did.

Now I look around at all I have to do before tomorrow and cringe.

Bad emotional state. Too much too fast, I guess. Bluh. Seriously considering just going to sleep and starting over again tomorrow.

Got paid today. Yummy!

I can't believe my 2 weeks here are almost over! This time tomorrow I'll be on a train! And I'm just starting to feel comfortable with my temporary life here. Of course, it helps that I'm not paying for a thing right now.

But tomorrow I get to go on the train, so for 4 hours I can just sit and relax and drink and eat and drink and watch cows. And if cows get boring, I can watch Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon.

Imposter syndrome. Quite a few people in my position have this - the feeling that someone's one day going to realize that I'm not really a grownup and say "What are you doing here? You're just a little kid! Go home to your parents!"

The strange thing is the grownups in my life either don't remember this or have never experienced it. I describe this feeling and ask how long it takes for it to go away, and they're all "What are you talking about?"

I think this means we've won

Holy fuck I'm tired. So tonight I'll listen to the show and then go straight to bed. Then I just have to get through tomorrow and thursday, and on friday right after we finish I get to go on the train, which is a treat (even though I'm still having after-dinner liqueur angst). Then straight to bed and graduate on Saturday. Then Sunday is off. Then the next week...OMG full-time work starts. FOREVER! GAH!

They say the average Canadian lives at home with their parents until they are 27. This means that for everyone who left for the last time at 20 like I did, there's someone else who stayed until age 34.

I heard some of my colleagues at training talking about undergrad students in our program who were in their early 20s doing their first degree; they were talking about them in 3rd person and as though it was an unusual phenomenon. I found this odd. It is a small program and a professional degree, but it's a BA program that would certainly have great appeal to people of suitable talents. Then one of them mentioned that she'd been playing her musical instrument for one year less than I've been alive. I reacted with surprise because I hadn't realized that she was older than me, but when I told the group my age they were surprised that I had fallen into a career at such a young age, and that I have my own apartment at such a young age.

One of the training people mentioned to me that one of my colleagues has known that they wanted to work in this field since the age of 18. I thought back a bit, and realized that I was first drawn to this field at age 16, when it was mentioned at a university recruitment presentation and it hit me - "I could so do that!" The person I was talking to was even more shocked by this news.

Now I know that I've landed here more through a series of strokes of luck than through any planning or goal-setting or merit on my part. I know I'm not in my lifelong career, but rather doing what I'm going to do until I figure out what I really want to do. I know that one or two different decisions by various people I've met would have put me somewhere far less comfortable.

What surprises me is that other people are so surprised that I've managed to land on my feet. I know not everyone does - and there's certainly no shame in that, life is difficult and complicated and I haven't figured out how to handle it myself - but I've always thought what I've done is simply what you're supposed to do. You're supposed to decide what you want to do in high school, study that in university, graduate, get a job and an apartment. The grownups have always told me that this is what you're supposed to do, and then they're surprised when I do it. If it's so rare and unusual that people are surprised when your life unfolds this way, why is this what is expected?

Today is pretty decent. Learned about government workings and how to handle secret documents. Mmmm...secret documents...

After we let out for the day I went down to the water and read for a couple of hours. Made decent progress reading, and saw boats and ducks and red-winged blackbirds and some beautiful doggies and watched a seagull try to eat a giant piece of green pepper. No bunnies today though :(

Ate some leftover Four Seasons pizza (eggplant, asparagus, mozzarella, feta, onion, red pepper, garlic, no sauce. Nummy!), now I'm enjoying wine and Monty Python, and then I have some kind of chocolate cake or brownie to enjoy later. If I get tired within the next two hours, it will be a perfectly satisfactory day.

I also heard that it takes people 6 months to get used to a new full-time schedule. That's quite a relief for me - I've never been able to adjust to full-time before, but that's because I've never been on this kind of schedule for more then 4 months. So I won't be wandering around in a daze for the rest of my life.

I'm nervous about tomorrow, but I can't write why here.

I just noticed that the ads at the top of my blog seem to be co-ordinating with the content of my blog. I never noticed this before because I have Webwasher at home, but it's excellent work. Good work Google! (At least I think they're Google-served ads). The next paragraph is just a random attempt to see if I can influence the ads.

Enlarge your penis! Penis penis penis! How can I enlarge my penis? I wish my penis were bigger! Penis penis penis!

I went for a walk by the water today. I was walking around this isolated little path, all alone, and I saw this little bunny hopping along. It was tiny and brown with perky ears and a fluffy white tail. I haven't seen a wild bunny in years, so I got all excited and said "Oooh, hello bunny!" I sat down to watch the bunny hop around a bit, all happy like a little kid, and then when it hopped away under a bush I said "Bye bye bunny!" Then I stood up and saw there was a guy suntanning nearby looking at me like I'm psycho. (I saw like 4 more bunnies in that area too! I'm going back there to sit in the sun and read and watch bunnies!)

I watched LOTR yesterday and today, and it's one of those movies that you can just look at, regardless of plot. Of course, it's a decent epic too. I don't think any of the actors involved are sexy, but it's surprising how many of the characters are sexy. Aragorn is sexy, even though he has facial hair and I don't like facial hair. Frodo is sexy even though he has disgusting feet. Legolas is sexy, even though he's blond and I don't find blonds attractive. I didn't find any of the characters in the book sexy, I don't find the actors sexy, but somehow in the production of this movie they got a group of very sexy characters together. Not late-night fantasy sexy, but the kind of sexy you just look at and go "Mmmmmm"

Now I've exceeded my monthly quota of the word sexy and lost the respect of my readership.

Damn I'm hungry! I thought i had all kinds of food this morning, but now it feels like I have nothing. I guess I'll have to sacrifice a microdinner (I found them! They did have them at the depanneur, but they were at the bottom of one of those freezers that opens from the top, next to the ice cream). I bought quite a bit of food, but I go through it fast because it's not worth it to buy staple foods. For example, I'm currently craving pickles, but it wouldn't be worth it to buy a whole jar since i'm leaving on Friday.
I'd order a pizza, but I don't feel like waiting.

So it's instant micro food now. Tomorrow I go to the depanneur and buy eggs and a small quantity of bread, perhaps hamburger buns. I think I'll splurge on something like peanut butter even though I'll never use it up, and perhaps on a pizza tomorrow night to eat in front of the Simpsons with some wine. (Wine is more expensive here, and the selection is completely different!)

I found a good lunch place where you can get practically anything, so I'll be taking advantage of my comp and indulging in salad bar + something else for lunch every day. Then Subway for an after-work snack and cook or reheat something for dinner. I'm paying for everything in cash here (I usually debit grocery purchases) so it does hurt a bit to see my wallet empty so quickly, but I have to remind myself that I'm just spending my comp. Hopefully it will hurt less when I get my first paycheque.

I'm surprised how shabby this neighbourhood is. It's all small, crumbly, older houses, and any stores and such are in houses, not in their own buildings. When you get near the big shiny government buildings, there are food courts full of every type of fast food, small chain clothing stores selling generic business-casual clothes, and a street life full of tiny bistros and cafes, but this looks like it's all for the government employees. On the weekends, it's a ghost town near the government buildings, and even in the neighbourhood there aren't many people walking around. I'd thought that a neighbourhood so close to the government buildings would become somewhat yuppified, but that hasn't happened yet (I don't know how long the gov't buildings have been here). What I see here is poverty. Not student poverty. Not "young professionals living with a roommate in a tiny apartment in a gritty neighbourhood because of housing costs" poverty. Not gang war poverty. Not new immigrant poverty (surprisingly, most of the low-level service jobs here are not filled by immigrants, but rather by locals of all ages who look like they've been here a while). It looks like the poverty of the uneducated, although my French is not good enough to confirm this. It looks like a shabby neighbourhood of those who, despite probably being fluently bilingual, never completed enough education to work in the big shiny government buildings and live wherever the local yuppies live. It's the kind of poverty that has always scared me the most, because I've always interpreted my main marketable skill as bilingualism. So why can I earn a living doing what I do and these other people can't? I can't answer that question.

Of course, I might be wrong about the whole thing. This is just my interpretation of what I see, and I don't know enough about the local politics and culture to read this correctly.

I must confuse the cleaning people. When they come into my suite, they see that I've been reading the Globe and Mail, watching RDI, drinking wine, wearing office clothes, working on a computer. Then they see three stuffed animals on the bed.

I just saw this horrible commercial! A little boy pulls all the stuffing out of his stuffed aminals and sticks them on the ends of some golf clubs. It's supposed to be cute and funny, but it's horrible! Think of the poor stuffed aminals!

The closed Parliament for the summer today. Looks like same-sex marriage won't be delegalized before Sept 15. Although it looks like politics are on our side, it is all too marginal. So the mission for the summer is to convince our Liberal representatives that public opinion is in favour of same-sex marriage

To take a tangent from the current discussion:

1. Do you wear shoes in your own home?
2. Do you prefer visitors to your home to remove their shoes?
3. When you go to someone else's home, do you prefer to wear your shoes?

I don't wear shoes at home, because that's the way I was raised. However, since I now live alone, I might walk a few steps into the apartment wearing shoes since there are no parents around to yell at me for stepping off the front mat.

I prefer people to remove their shoes, unless they are men who aren't wearing socks because man feet are icky. But if they don't remove their shoes, I'll just shut up and vacuum when they leave.

When I'm in someone else's home, I tend to remove my shoes automatically because, again, that's how I was raised. But in the summer, when I like to wear a skirt and sandals, I prefer not to remove my shoes because I hate being barefoot in other people's houses. If it's a situation where I know I will have to remove my shoes in a house in the summer, rather than being able to innocently wander in while still wearing them, I angst about how I can include socks in my outfit, get into the house in my shoes, or avoid the event.

You?

4:30. They finally say "Merci, bon weekend." Grab my jacket and purse, and leave the room and head to the elevators as quickly as I can without looking like I'm bolting. Drop in at Subway for a sandwich to take home with me. Button my coat, open my umbrella, and walk into the pouring rain. Drop in at the depanneur. Find, in the very back corner, a few cans of soup, one of which is vegetarian. Back to hotel, go upstairs, collect Globe and Mail and La Presse. Drop purse, set umbrella to dry, take off boots, hang up wet coat. Hang up "Do not disturb" sign on the door, lock deadbolt and chain. Turn off alarm clock. Turn on TV to my normal RDI background noise. Fire up computer. Turn on phones. Put on soup. Take off makeup and apply zit cream and moisturizer while taking in all communication that has occured since last night. Soup simmers gently in background. I have TV, internet, DVDs, books, more than enough food for the evening and a depanneur across the street, and no obligations for the next 64 hours.

Bliss.

I guess an advantage to a full-time schedule is that it makes weekends so much more special.

I know I promised daily blogging, but I have nothing to say today.

Woke up, went in to training, learned about the documentation services available in the morning, had lunch with the girls (it's hard to get vegetarian pizza without olives around here. Also, it's strange to hear the people who say "au fur et au mesure" also say "le lunch"), worked on computer "training" in the afternoon, got some take-out fries, went home to the hotel, ate fries, talked to my mommy, intook various forms of media, talked to mi cielito, had a glass of wine, now I'm blogging this, then I'm going to do some homework type reading and go to sleep.

I guess I should clarify what my sociolinguistic research a few days back was all about. My mother says housecoat. I absorbed the word bathrobe from various media, so I assumed housecoat was a one-off. Then I heard it said by someone my age and got all confused, so I was thinking maybe it was a geographical thing. But further empirical research suggests that's it's a generational thing - the older generations call it a housecoat, and my generation either inherits the word housecoat from their parents or absorbs the (I assume American) word bathrobe from media (which, I think, at that age is children's books). And thanks to the people who suggested dressing gown, because I never realized that that's what a dressing gown is. I always associated it with some kind of old-fashioned garment, but now I can honestly say I own a dressing gown.