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It was winter but now it’s not.
HELLO!
The last time I blogged, I posted pictures of a beautiful day that we had and a walk that Candice and I went on.
Throughout the following week it snowed and got cold again. It then continued to feel like winter for a week or two.
However, over the past week it has been feeling like spring (aka early summer in Newfoundland) and snow has been melting and hats and mitts have been coming off. The nicer weather and warmer temperatures have also helped lift moods a lot.
Here are a few things that have been happening over the past month:
First off, looks like I’m not going to be able to graduate this semester. After a huge email battle with the mysterious and eerie registrars office (since you can’t actually go and talk to them for some ridiculous reason) and multiple blows to my self-esteem, I discovered that I am six credits short of the requirement. I mostly blame this on York’s poor communication skills (they must have received “needs improvement” remarks on their report cards as kids), as I was under the impression that I actually had more credits than I needed. *sigh* So after considering contemplating dropping everything and not graduating at all, I’ve come to terms with it (more or less). I’m in the process of figuring out how to complete these six credits over the summer by doing distance courses through MUN. Memorial must think I’m nuts, with both an application to get back into there for undergrad courses AND trying to get in there for grad school (and if anyone reading can help speed either process along, that’d be awesome!).
Second! Better news! I’ve got a new job! Kinda! I’ve started writing and taking photos for a blog here in Toronto called BlogTO. It’s a great website that talks about all types of different things going on in the City of Toronto. My articles are concert reviews and photos, and you can see the first three of my posts by going here and here and here. The second and third posts are from Canadian Music Fest, a five day music festival spread across the entire city featuring hundreds of bands at hundreds of venues. Because of my connections to BlogTO I was able to get a Media Pass for the whole festival, which basically allowed me entry to any show for free! The job doesn’t pay much, but I do get entry to shows covered, plus it’s great practice and a little bit of exposure. Besides all that, I’m glad to be able to do something new with my photos.
Third! Great news! Friends visiting us! One of Candice’s best and oldest friends has been in the city for the past couple of weeks and they’ve taken some time to have some awesome times together. Also (!!) our fantastic friends Amy and Steve came to visit this weekend! It was a super quick visit but we were able to introduce them to Ethiopian food, introduce them to the best place in the city to get beer and cake, order sushi at midnight, go shopping, check out Kensington Market and eat burgers, and have generally awesome good times (good times). It was amazing to spend time with them, and neither of us can wait to get home soon to spend more time with them and our other friends back home.
Oh, and in case you’re jealous of all the cool things Amy and Steve got to do while they were here, you can too! All you have to do is call/email/Facebook message/Twitter reply/comment on this blog post and come and visit us and you can have fun too!
That’s all I can think of at the moment it terms of recent news, and we wish we could let you in on our plans for the next fews months, but unfortunately we barely even know what we’ll be doing come mid-April. We’ll let you know when we know.
Subscribe to the comments for this postAdventures Are Had
Even though winter is ridiculously gross and cold and gray most of the time, sometimes the sun comes out and you get an opportunity to do some cool stuff.
For example, this past Saturday we went to see the Barenaked Ladies!
CTV held a free Olympics Spirit day at Nathan Phillips Square and we got there just in time to watch a full set of awesome from the Barenaked Ladies. For a long time I’ve said that they would be one of the few bands that I would pay to see in a huge venue, and they were just as good as I’d hoped (and it was free!). They played a lot of their hits as well as a few new (post-Steven Page) songs. Great afternoon.
The following day the sun was out again and it even warmed up enough to go outside without almost dying from the cold. Candice and I decided to put on our sunglasses and travel to the International Discount Foods in search of some delicious European chocolate.
We trekked over a frozen soccer field and eventually made it to the IDF where we spent some time browsing through the items we couldn’t read.
As fun as this all seems, the story has a very sad ending. Unfortunately, after close inspection, almost all of the chocolate in the store “may or may not contain gluten”. There was one bar that did not have this warning on its label, and upon trying to purchase it the cashier tells us that we didn’t have enough to use a credit card, and neither of us had enough cash or a debit card. So we didn’t get any chocolate.
Tragic.
However, we live to eat chocolate another day.
Engage-a-versary Dilemma
Hard to believe, it`s been almost a year since Tom and I were engaged. Or, more than a year. Umm, we’re having a little dilemma.
Yes, we remember when we got engaged, February 24th 2009. Except, last year February 24th was also “Pancake Day.” Hence the dilemma. Is our anniversary on the fixed date of the 24th, or does it change from year to year, like Pancake Day.
Believe it or not, the type-A Candice thinks that the exact date should be the proper engage-a-versary; however, the free-spirited Tom is an advocate for letting the day be determined by the dates of Easter.
Luckily, neither think they should actually do anything to celebrate other than acknowledge it’s existence!
Oh wait, perhaps it should be a season. We could celebrate any discrepancy in days between the two dates. I’m up for that.
In any case, I’ve been enjoying this past “reading week” and have actually completed a draft of my Major Research Paper that should only have minor revisions from my supervisor before I am done! Too bad I then had to spend the rest of the week dealing with a rather excruciating repetitive strain injury in my neck.
Oh hi there.
Didn’t see you there.
We haven’t dropped off the face of the map. Maybe just the face of the internet.
I guess we got caught up in Christmas, spending time with family and friends and eating and sleeping (all of which was awesome) and forgot to post. And then when we got back to Toronto to we were super busy, and then we were and the point where it had been so long since we’d last posted that we had to post some amazing to make up for the lack of posts since Candice’s Christmas Tree Disaster. So I’m posting this kinda-okay post just to get it over with! Yay!
I’ve been enjoying my classes so far this semester, and it seems like I might actually enjoy them this semester (I had a really bad professor last semester). I also only have classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so that gives me lots of time to be doing lots of other things like working and volunteering with a bunch of different groups on campus. I’ll post when anything interesting happens.
I was going to mention that it’s freezing here (again), but it’s actually started to warm up here a bit over the past day or two. Candice and I went out for the afternoon last Saturday and were turned into icicles by the time we got home. However the temperature’s been on an upward swing and that’s made things much more bearable, and I don’t worry that Candice is going to freeze to death walking to school. Today things have actually been thawing. It’s probably not a good idea to assume this will continue for the rest of the “winter”, but it’s an appreciated change. (Thanks nature.)
This evening Candice is going to a party thrown by one of her professors and I’m going to a rock show hosted by a band from St. John’s. I’m hoping it’ll be packed with Newfoundlanders.
Cop out post?
Cop out post of a pretty picture of Candice!
This was Candice last night, saying “I have no idea where we’re going tonight!”
Christmas Comes To Cook Road (kinda)
Since Candice and I won’t be heading home to Newfoundland until the middle of the month, we decided that we should try to bring as much Christmas fun and feelings into our little apartment as possible.
We picked up a small(ish) Christmas tree last weekend and then Candice found some decorations a tree skirt! We set the tree up last night:
If you look closely you can see the first present under the tree:
There are a couple other pictures on my Flickr page, and I’m sure I’ll be adding a few more over the next week or so.
United
I thought I’d talk for a second about some of the work I’ve been doing at York over the past few weeks.
York has developed a reputation of being a somewhat “dangerous” school. Every couple of weeks you’ll see a bunch of these posted around:
which are basically security bulletins, saying that something bad happened to someone on campus during the previous night. More often than not the victims of these events are women.
So a campaign called United Against Violence Against Women started recently, aiming to make our campus (and all other university and college campuses) safe for everyone. In the campaign we talk about the tragedy that occurred in 1989 in Montreal, when 14 women were killed at their school, simply because they were women in fields that were male dominated. Ridiculous, right? Add this to the ridiculousness of women not feeling safe enough to walk around their own campus at night, and we’ve got a big problem.
In an effort to educate people, we spent today talking to students about the events that happened in 1989 and how students can help make their campus a little safer. We also got petitions signed and collected personal statements from students to deliver to the president of the university, to make sure that he and the rest of the admin know that there is a problem that needs to be addressed.
We closed off the day with a short rally/vigil, where a couple of speakers spoke about the importance of all students helping their fellow students make the campus a better place.
As a male, sometimes it’s difficult/awkward to get involved with campaigns like this… I’m never sure where my place is. Is it weird to have some guy trying to talk to students about violence against women? Should it just be women as the face of the campaign?
What I need to remember is that this is a fight for all students. Someone mentioned tonight “An injury to one student is an injury to all students”, and she’s got a point. I know that when I see one of those info bulletins as I stumble to my morning class, I shake my head every time, feeling for the victim and feeling a little angry at whoever made that person into a victim.
This school has plenty of issues, no doubt, but this is one that students can actually take a stand on and do something about it. For once, this isn’t the school administration injuring students, it’s students injuring students. And that just feels ridiculous to me.
…and with that out of the way, I’m sure Candice’s post tomorrow will be much more cheerful. We’re putting up our Christmas tree tomorrow, so I’m sure there will be pictures to post soon!
The Countdown in On!
As Tom mentioned in his last post leading up to Christmas we are going to be putting up a post everyday to share some of the things we’re doing to get in the holiday spirit! This first post is a little lame as it is just introducing the fun that is going to happen over the next few days. And we’ve got fun planned. Last Saturday we bought an environment killing artificial Christmas tree, I’ve planned about 100 gluten free, vegan, low sugar Christmas cookies to bake, and we’ve started marking the TV guide for all the Christmas specials. Yes, that’s right. We’re the coolest people you know.
We’ve also got some plans to explore holidays in the city. Actually this started with a big Christmas tree lighting that happened downtown last weekend and that’s going to be the topic of my next post . . .
Countdown
So it’s the end of November, and while most people are looking forward to Christmas (not that we aren’t, we bought a Christmas tree the other day!), Candice and I find ourselves back in the situation of not knowing what’s going to happen next year.
Since we’ll both be finishing our respective degrees this year (fingers crossed) we both need to find something to do next year. It comes down to a couple of basic questions:
“Do you want to go to school next year? Y or N”
“If yes, which school would you like to attend? Do you think you have a chance of getting in?”
I’ve got a couple of schools on my “which school would you like to attend” list, none of which are directly related to my Math degree: two programs in Toronto (Urban Planning at Ryerson and Environmental Studies at York) and one in St. John’s (Post-Secondary Studies at MUN). All of these programs take my studies in a different direction and look at topics that I’ve developed a huge interest in over the past year or two. They all (basically) look at people, as opposed to my math undergrad which looks at numbers (zzzzzz). I’m tired of studying things in school that have no relation to what I’m working on in “real life”, so it’s time to change that.
Of course, I could reply “N” to the first question and attempt to find a job. I’ve been doing a lot of work with the student movement lately, and it could be fun/interesting/enlightening to work at it full-time for a little while. I even think it would be worth taking a year “break”, work at a job that’s meaningful and then dive back into school with a new, positive outlook (and perhaps some money from working). However, these “meaningful” jobs (especially full-time ones) are few and far between, so there’s that I wouldn’t be able to find something fantastic and would end up working in a call center for a year (no offense to people who enjoy working in call centers, but it isn’t on my list of places I’d like to work). It would require that I find a job for next year now (or very soon). I’m not a fan of making these large decisions this far in advance.
Anyway…. I’ll be sure to let everyone know when a decision gets made (*hint* I’ll probably end up in school). On the short(er) term, we’ll be home for Christmas in about 17 days (!!) and to celebrate Candice and I will be doing a TomandCandice.com advent calendar of sorts, where we’re promising to do a post per day until Christmas (… or maybe just until we get home. We’ll play it by ear).
Talk to you tomorrow!
PS:
Candice (sleepy), Tom (haircut)
Happy November, it was 18 degrees today!
I’m feeling quite relieved tonight after a slight freak out this afternoon that went something like this:
“Why am I still in school? I hate school. I love school. I know too much. I don’t know enough. I have too many exciting ideas. I don’t have any ideas. I need a snack.”
However, by the end of the hours I had set aside for working on my MRP I had finally figured out what I wanted to argue. I mean, I have known my topic for a while and have done a lot of research, but this afternoon I finally saw how it can all fit together. It took a lot of mental endurance. I must have been clenching and holding my breath a lot because by supper time I felt like I had used a lot of physical energy!
This may seem quite boring to you, but it has given me the little motivational boost that it will take to get a draft in before Christmas. It really is the most exciting thing going on in my life right now.
Tom and I did have a little excitement over the weekend though when his parents (en route to Cuba) stopped in for supper! We showed them around our apartment and the York campus before they had to take off again for an early morning flight. It was great that they could see and contribute to our space. I feel that anytime we can have friends, family, and love in our apartment it makes it a little better for us even after they leave. I’m sure Tom was happy too.
Right now we are debating whether or not we should go to the Christmas parade in Toronto. Pro - it is a Christmas parade; Con - it’s next weekend (again, it was 18 degrees here today and it’s November, a little early don’t you think?)