lunch at william's coffee pub

so today, i was late to church. woke up at 8:00 as the haine's family was getting ready to head out the door. the dog was whining for half an hour and finally they came to get her out of the kennel. laid in bed listening as they ran around upstairs, opening and closing doors and drawers and then finally they headed out.

got out of bed at 9. i made myself breakfast. half a chunky soup with brown rice. it was quite hearty. then i prepped my brown rice by washing it and soaking it. so that took me up to 9:30. then i'm drawing a blank because i must have dilly dallied and i don't know what i did. i took a shower at 5 to 10 and headed out the door 10:15. as i was in the shower i distinctly heard someone walking around upstairs but thought it odd because the whole family left for church already. i was puzzled.

as i hurried out the door, i noticed that shelby, the dog, was not in her kennel, which is odd because she is usually there for sunday morning's because the family doesn't take her with them to church. then i got to the front door and it was unlocked. also weird because when the family leaves for church they know to lock the door. i said a couple hesitant "hello"s but no reply. i was late already so i left and walked to the church. i was thinking the worse the entire way to the church. what if the trespasser rummaged through the house and stole things and i didn't do anything about it. what if the trespasser stole the dog? agh

at the church, i looked for tammy, my landlady but she was nowhere to be found. i found her oldest daughter in the nursery and she said that her mom was at home. oh...i got it. (sigh) tammy has a bad case of poison ivy on her face and she didn't want to scare anyone so she stayed home.

so after church, i went out with miriam and allison. they're girls my age. miriam is a teacher and allison is studying to be an physical therapist at mcmaster university. they're best friends. we were supposed to go out last night but they called to cancel so we went out to lunch instead. we went to lunch at william's coffee pub. it's a lot like bread garden. good eats but a bit pricey. i ordered a dish of bruscetta and a side of soup. it cost me $8.03. i was shocked. anywho, the food was all right, not the greatest but satisfied the hunger. we talked about our studies and places to visit in ontario, lake country in the muskokas and port dover. they offered to take me to port dover one day and i accepted. it's supposed to be nice but not as nice as the muskokas which are 2.5 hours north of toronto.

miriam dropped me off at home and because i had a lot of bread at lunch i felt completely sleepy after lunch and took a nap. yay nap.

the kids played outside my room with their friends and they were laughing and yelling and it was a "great" wake up call. i woke up at 4 and got down to work. i typed up notes for ed, who wasn't there for friday. dinner at 5: wraps - sandwich meat with vegetables and cheese. yummers. then back to work.

i have a teachback tomorrow. i'm a bit nervous because we're actually teaching a Rehabilitation Teacher. RTs have a complementary program to ours. they work with people who are blind or visually impaired and they work on daily living skills, like how to cook, dress, get out of bed, etc. so i'm a bit nervous. i was getting cocky about it because i got a perfect teachback last week but today's sermon was on pride. Proverbs 11:52 when pride comes, then comes disgrace. it's as if the good Lord knows what i need to hear because last week's sermon was on gossip and i was running the mouth...(sheepish smile)

my sister called today with some great news. my friend, anna from RMBC, in vancouver is pregnant. before i left she said she was trying and voila it's a done deal. i'm so ecstatic for her, yay. congrats to anna and sam. then my sister also said that jordan and jen are expecting one too but i wasn't so interested to hear. maybe because of the way jordan acted when he left. his life, his happiness. he's moving back to revelstoke to work as a construction worker and jen, well she's pregnant so i don't know what she's going to be up to. i don't know them all too well. so yay for them too. but double yay for anna and sam.

tonight is my cousin's engagement announcement party. whoppee!

so i must get back to writing the lesson plan and reviewing the steps.

bummin'

so i slept in till 11 this morning and it was refreshing. saturday's are my catch up days for sleep. indeed. i ate a bowl of chunky soup for brunch. hmmm. it had lil baby hamburger patties and vegetables. seeing how the veggies were in a can with liquids they were mush. i heated it up in the microwave but the saran wrap exploded and i ended up wipind down the mess. had some melba toast with the soup. i got full pretty quick so i just rinsed out the rest of the soup's contents in the sink. it was mostly mushy veggies left.

i did the laundry. i washed my blanket because, well, this week, caleb went out golfing with his dad and sisters after dinner and when he came back he was covered in dirt and grass stains. he came into my room and sat down to have a chat. it was nice. he sat on my bed and had his feet up and made himself comfortable. so, yeah, that had to be washed at some point. the stuffing inside the blanket bunched up in some of the corners so i had to massage it arround some.

i bought a sink strainer yesterday at the dollar store and it is such a nice thing to have. i can finally pour my tea leaves into the sink without using my hands as a strainer. also, i've tried pouring the leaves in the toilet but that's a huge turn off. anywho it has been convenient.

so i looked up on the viarail website and i compared rates between a regular adult fare and a student pass fare. so i spent $11 on a passport picture (which i was told wasn't necessary, i could have just brought in a lil picture of myself, arg.) and $16 on the card itself. i was feeling a bit...bad about spending all that money so i had to check the rates. it turns out that i will save $120 on my train tickets to quebec in two weeks. yay for me. i feel great now. hip hip hooray.

what was left of the morning, i sat down and read "a widow for one year". i read for almost an hour and a half.

then i was good and brought out my o&m foundations textbook and read from it. snacked on some melba toast and lemony hummus.

decided at 3 to watch something. so i clicked on gladiator and vegged out for 2.5 hours. had pizza for dinner and watched "out of time" with denzel washington and eva mendes. tried to burn a dvd full of data but it didn't verify so i have another coaster. i wish burning dvd's aren't so hit and miss.

my room is dimmer because i've got a 60 watt bulb in the ceiling socket. the old bulb that was in there would flicker anytime someone was stomping in the vicinity of it upstairs. tom, my landlord, has promised a 100 watt bulb soon. i've been using a small desk lamp that was a present from my students, peony and christy. it has come in handy plenty of times.

i was supposed to go out with two girls from the church but they bailed on me. they had "plans" but invited me to go out to lunch with them tomorrow and i accepted. i had half hoped that i wouldn't have to go out tonight anyway. so it worked out.

ed msn'd me and he's doing better. yay. not the best but better. i've offered to type up my notes for him so i'd better get on that.

i'm going to take a shower and head for my pillow.

i'm going to walk to church tomorrow.

splendid

today, by all accounts was splendid. i got to spend most of it with kate. we met on the bus from downtown to school, sat next to each other and ended up running errands all over town.

i told her there was a six-year-old's birthday party going on at my place and i told her i didn't want to go home. she invited me over to her apartment for dinner. so i accepted and away we went.

it's funny. usually there are things that bother me about people after spending a whole day with them but i didn't get that at all with kate. she's cool and easy going. she's a christian too and we have that in common.

after class, we went to get our police records checks done and walked 10 minutes back to college where she had to meet with someone for her student loan. then i had to wait for the registrar to sign my form for an international student ID card. then we went downtown to the post office to get her loan processed but she didn't have her void cheque so... she couldn't get it done today. we walked 6 blocks to the train station to get my int'l student card. walked back to the bus terminal and went back to her place. we stopped at the dollar store to pick up a few things and went to zehrs (superstore like) and picked up some frozen dinners and a salad.

we walked back to her place and sat and chatted and made our dinners in the microwave. we listened to switchfoot. i left her house at about quarter after 6. it was 11 hours in each other company and it all went pretty smoothly. so all together it was a great day.

when i got home, caleb (the six year old who had the party) was distraught because his older sister had misplaced a tiny toy car and he wanted to play with it. i got on my hands and knees and tried to help him look for it. i put my face on the carpet to look under the couch but nothing. finally katy, (the older sister, second youngest in the family) came and showed him where it was. it was in the proper compartment of the case and it was the only place we didn't look. as i prepared to go downstairs, sarah (the oldest daughter) hands me a letter. it's in that familiar handwriting and i don't believe my eyes. it's from one of my best gf, penelope. she sent me a card.

i kept saying 'no way, no way'. and there it was a card and letter from her. i was so touched i started to well up and get all teary-eyed.

i spend the next hour and an half writing an 8-page letter back to her. the stamps are fitting. they're the one's with the queen. i'm sending it to her in england. ha ha.

one of my classmates, ed, who is near and dear to me, has fallen ill and it doesn't look good for him. he's not doing so hot and i am scared for him. i hope he does better. he has a wife and daughter and i'm sure they're worried. his birthday is in 2 days. sigh.

ed is a quiet leader. he is quiet in big crowds but knows how to joke and laugh. on orientation day, it came out during an icebreaker activity that he did not like cats and had put a cat down because it was vicious to his lil' girl. well, the head instructor of the program is a cat lover and made a note on her paper next to his name - hates cats/cat killer. we all had a good laugh because he was in hot water in a fun way. he's had it rough the last couple of weeks. the stress of the coursework and the hostile group environment is not great for his health. i pray that the doctor's are knowledgeable and that his body will get itself corrected. if he's out for too long, he won't be able to complete the courses and if worse comes to worse, he'll have to drop out. that's the last thing i want to see happen.

so on that sad note, i go to rest my eyes.

now a shower and then to bed.

painful fieldtrip

so today, being thursday was a fieldtrip day. we went to oakville, which is an hour out of brantford, very close to toronto. we had to go visit a small company who made tactile maps for people who are blind or visually impaired. we had to be there by 10 and so, Ed, the driver told me to meet him at mohawk college at 8:30 to be safe. natasha met me there too. so in order to be at the school for 8:30 and the way the buses run, i had to be up at 6, get on the 7:10 bus and be at the school for 7:45. great.

i end up sitting there for 45 mintues listening to my md and waited.

the drive into oakville was kind of...filled with concern. ed wasn't feeling very well. he was feeling pain and it was difficult to watch him suffer through that. he felt a sense of duty driving us and i felt bad that he made the effort on my account when he should have been at home sleeping.

we got lost. the address was the wrong one and we spent 45 minutes driving slowly through a long industrial park to try to find the place. we were on the wrong side of the highway. we got there 5 minutes late but it was all right, they were good enough to wait for us.

during the presentation, ed grimaced and tried to walk it off outside. it wasn't good. he was in a lot of pain. we were the first to leave, perhaps we seemed rude but ed had to go. i offered to drive but he said he was fine when he was sitting down. he did a great job handling that van on the 403. he dropped nat off at the school and i told him i needed to be at the walmart and he drove me there because he lived a block away and wanted to make sure there was backup just in case the pain was too much.

he did fine, went home and slept it off. he was feeling better a little while ago. he wants to come to class tomorrow but i doubt that he'll make it. i hope he gets a whole lot better. that is, i hope he feels less pain.

sigh...

i went to walmart to get my picture taken for my international student card. i'm going to quebec city for thanksgiving so in order to get a good deal on the ticket i need to apply for and get buy an international student ID card. bought a curling iron and some saran wrap. went to zehrs and bought garlic hummus and some melba toast. waited for the bus outside and it was burning hotness. must have been 28 degrees. melting.

got home and had lunch. leftover rice and chicken strips. went to nap for 2 hours and woke up for dinner. dinner was leftover cabbage roll meat stuffing and perogies. good stuff. tried to work on school stuff but got distracted with zip.ca and reading "a widow for one year". it's starting to get into the new parts that weren't in the movie "a door in the floor".

my light just turned off for 10 minutes and came on again. it must be loose. will have to ask tom, the landlord to take a look at it. for me.

start(led)

making the move to brantford was made easier for me. i had the great fortune of having my parents with me. one of my best friends remarked that it was like the first day of kindergarten. my sister teased me relentlessly about how big a baby i was being - needing my parents to come with me. i used to resent it but now i know i needed them here with me.

after we first arrived in toronto, we spent 2 weeks together. and when it came closer to the time that they had to drop me off, i kept putting it off. i wouldn’t set a time for them to drop me off. the first time they dropped me off was a false start. i didn’t know it then, of course. it was labour day and i cried that first time, i felt abandoned. but i knew that they were nearby because they were going to be in toronto for another week. on tuesday, mom called to tell me that uncle benny from ottawa was going to be coming in for a wedding and wanted to have lunch with me. i didn’t care all that much about uncle benny, he’s a lovely man with a beautiful family, but i wanted to see mom and dad so i agreed to it. they drove an hour to get me and we drove another 2 hours to get to the dim sum restaurant. after lunch we took our time. we did some last minute shopping for my room and then we headed downtown to visit toronto’s biggest camera store. my father was unconvinced that the one he went to in mississauga was the biggest so that’s why we went to the mother of them all. he didn’t buy anything, he just browsed for the time on our metered parking. we had dinner in chinatown and then we headed back to brantford.

they came in for a little while and busied themselves – my mother did the dishes, my father checked out the room and bathroom. then it was time for them to go. it was quick and far from painless. long hugs and quick kisses on the cheek. mom yelled out last minute advice on the way to the car, “take care of yourself,” and “call if you need anything.” i had a huge lump in my throat and the tears came easily.

they call a week later from the airport and were about to board their flight and i half wished they didn’t. i cried some more.

i’ll leave goodbyes to the birds. it’s easier without sentiment.

i miss my family. i miss coming home and lounging around the house, fighting for time on the computer, and making myself a snack, usually something microwavable. i miss the witty and sometimes insulting banter with and between my siblings. i loved that we knew each other’s moods and when to back off, and if we didn’t, it would be made abundantly clear. i miss being able to be moody. here, i always have to be content, polite, and helpful. i miss feeling accepted and loved. here i am accepted but not loved.

i am without the bare necessity of family. i am alone. i am far too right from the left coast. there are no mountains and vast bodies of water here. i am stranded too far inland to make anything of memories.

hmmm

so today was the second day of school. the first day of school we were in the college roaming around in partners, one under blindfold and the other guiding/teaching. it was a good shock. was nervous about teaching in front of others but it comes back naturally so it's no big deal. because i just finished my masters, i’m catching on faster which is not to say that i don't struggle at times but i'm hoping the other students don't feel resentful of it, you know. i'm trying to keep my big yaps shut but i do ask a lot of questions. dumb one sometimes, i'm one of those. (roll of eyes) today we were actually on site in the blind school. it's huge and it's so amazing to see so many students with visual impairments in one place and they're so independent.

we work in groups of four and it's really neat because we can criticize and thank God that we all get along right now. it's only day two, right? we have 2 O&M instrutors that are going to share teach the group and it's slow going because for each new skill one person teaches on a partner and everyone else is just standing around and watching. but like they say repetition is good. we have to do these daily journals and they're a pain. augh. hate it. i actually have homework everyday and for sure i cannot or rather i'm going to try really really hard not to fall behind.

every thursday, i'm going to head into toronto for a field trip. whee. not looking forward to finding someone to commute with. boo. i'm sure it'll workout though. we find out all the information tomorrow at the college. the people seem nice and i'm getting along with most everyone. the family is great. it was awkward at first sitting at the dinner table but the kids are starting to warm up so things are good. other than that, i'm sleeping late and waking early. the bus system here is atrocious. it really does stink. in order to make any connection, you have to go back to the terminal. so it's not so cool that they only come into my cul-de-sac at the top of each hour so that means if i need to get somewhere i can only leave the house once every hour. suckeroonis. but i don't have many places to go right now but school and i haven't figured the other routes for the malls. i'm sure they'll be plenty fo time for that.

fingers crossed.

better get back to those silly journals. boo.