Random Act of Kindness
I was just on my way back from the mall (it's only a few blocks from where I live) and was waiting for the walk sign to come up. It's a rainy day today so most people were carrying their umbrellas. An older gentleman was waiting behind me - all I noticed about him was that he was tall and skinny and wearing a pair of pink sunglasses. What touched me was that a few minutes later, a younger boy (probably in University of maybe even high school) came up behind him and put his umbrella over the older gentleman's head. The man was very appreciative to say the least.
With the very disturbing news broadcast that I woke up to (that decapitation on a bus in Manitoba), it was a very comforting thing to be reminded that there are still very kind and thoughtful people out there.
What To Do?
WOW...I didn't realize that a month has passed by since I've last posted. Minus the time since I've been in Vancouver (almost 3 weeks), life was extremely busy and exhausting.
Packing up after I finished work was tedious. So many tiny things to shove into small places in boxes that were already crammed so full that it's surprising none of the burst on the way over here. The great debate... do we bring it and pay for shipping or do we throw it out (bad for environment, waste of money) and buy it again when we get there (waste of money #2)? SO, most of the stuff came with us.... which brought us to another problem (continue reading). Anyhow, I spent Thursday and Friday of that week marking grade 5 provincial math exams which didn't really help much in terms of the massive amount we had to get done before leaving, but it was a good experience and I earned a couple of extra bucks on the side.
We left on Sunday the 29th and maaaan... was the car FULL or what! We had to bring 2 check in bags each plus at least two carry on bags with us on top of the stuff we were going to attempt to ship with the car. I also should mention that we had about 6 boxes that we thought we were going to take to Fredericton to ship out (what on earth were we thinking!? It's only a cavalier!!). All this meant that we had to delay our departure to Fredericton until Staples opened so we could take the 6 boxes to ship from Saint John. The girl who was working at the desk.. not so bright. She gave us a way bill that was for international shipping rather than domestic so, midway through our drive to Ottawa, we received a call from them saying that they wanted us to come back into the store to fill out the proper form. Yah.. sure. We were near Montreal by then!
Back to what I was saying. We eventually left Saint John with the car crammed FULL.. you could barely see out the back window. Heading straight for the Regent Mall (for the very last time ever!), we went to purchase a cell phone for my brother as we THOUGHT there was such thing as a family plan which allowed one person to purchase a plan, let's say $25/month and share it with up to 5 members in their family. YAH RIGHT. They SO ripped us off and lied to us. ARGH. Be very paranoid with Rogers.. they are so full of it.
Anyhow, after visiting our family friend, we had dinner in the park with my brother. Originally, we wanted to go to the Dip, but we couldn't get reservations. Instead, we ordered out and ate at Odell Park. It was really hard to say good bye to the Kan family as we couldn't say the typical "see you later" or "come visit" kind of good-bye (he has ALS).
Skipping over our journey to Ottawa.. we arrive in Ottawa and it is freaking POURING rain out. JUST LOVELY! We were there for Canada Day but didn't actually make it downtown for the celebration during the day. However, we did attend the fireworks. I think it may be something about being in the capital for the national holiday because people were so drunk and so high (you could smell weed everywhere and the place was crawling with cops).
Ottawa was pretty low key. Spent a lot of time with our friends.. couple of BBQs and lots of time on the phone arguing with ROGERS. We found out later that it was really $25 PER phone and not $25 for ALL phones. Plus, we paid for a TWO year contract not a THREE year and they couldn't manage to resolve that until I called them and starting really going on and on about how ineffective they were and how unethical their company was (this was 6 or so phone calls later... at least a good working day was spent on the phone with them).
We departed from Ottawa and headed to Toronto. This is the first time I've been to Toronto and not had a huge list of "to do" or "to buy". We've done the tourist thing and shopping is kind of necessary when you are headed to Vancouver (plus,O space is an issue)....so.... we were actually kind of bored. We did go to the zoo for a day and saw an strich doing some strange dance and then proceed to mate with the other ostrich (ya.. right in front of us!!) and I guess, that was the most interesting thing we did in Toronto!
Being here in Vancouver ... it was sort of dream-like for a while. It's all starting to set in though and not really in a great way. I'm so bored! I don't really know too many people in Richmond. I getting increasingly paranoid about the job situation.. probably because my brain is in overdrive thinking about applications and that there are no suitable job postings AND the worst, re-visiting the feeling of sending in application after application with no response. Being in a new city with no job come September is my current nightmare. So bad, that it makes me think I need to head back to NB (no.. that's not going to happen)......
