So I finally went to the doctor...

He thinks I have a torn meniscus (cartilage) in my knee. Awesome. However, that explains the pain, popping noises, stiffness etc. He says it's not a bad case (no swelling or locking) but I have to go to physio anyway. Annoying because you have to pay up front, although at least it will be reimbursed 80%...

Other than that, just bemoaning my lack of a social life/social support in Guelph and waiting for something good to maybe eventually happen.

In which I am not quite THAT youthful

Two people in the last week told me they thought I was 25. I'll take it, I guess! It weirds me out a bit though. When I actually was 25, I was in Scotland, living an entirely different life - in some ways, I feel like I was an entirely different person. Odd how that goes. Never mind, it's been a fun ride one way or another.... even if the (cute) new departmental hire is a mere year older than me, with a solid academic job and a star-studded career.

The new post-doc, on the other hand, is 26 freakin' years old and gunning hard for a tenure-track position ASAP. He might do it, too. He has four times my paper count and a million NSERCs and whatnot on his record. He is hard-core.

Somebody remind me that it's not about competition and that I'm pretty freakin' lucky to have the most fun job in the world... even if it means living below the poverty line (at my age!)

That said, having a pretty fun semester so far. The big news (to me at least) is that I handed in a thesis draft last week. I was mad because it was a month later than I had hoped, but it is a huge weight off. Of course, this is only the start of the process - first my supervisor will make me change it all, and then we will send it to my committee and they will make me change it still further. Then the external examiner will tear it to shreds and then I will have to (gulp) defend it. But for the moment, it is Not My Problem until Mark sends it back. Hallelujah!

In the meantime, I am keeping myself busy with five piles of marking, four students to supervise, three side projects, two seminars to teach (and a partridge in a pear tree). I have an honours student and two internship students whose projects I'm responsible for, and one of the volunteer RAs just expressed an interest, so I've designed one for her as well. The more the merrier! I am still collaborating with Yale on a couple of things, and my labmate Tyler and I have a side project on the go that is looking really good right now. I looked at the pilot data today and am quite excited, so full speed ahead with data collection and we will see what we get.

Teaching is going pretty well too. I have two seminars and don't hate teaching them as much as I feared. They all just stare at me blankly the entire time, of course, but they do seem to be paying attention and I've just finished all the marking of that first assignment. It was kind of fun teaching them experiment design, since it's pretty much my favorite topic right now.

In other news, the new postdoc (despite inciting extreme CV-related jealousy) is totally awesome. He has single-handedly instituted Thursday/Friday Pub Night every week and for the first time in three years, I have actually met some people in the department who are not in my area. I had literally never seen these people before - sad. He also keeps inviting me round for games nights and dinner and this and that. It is glorious. On Tuesday I was at the grocery store when I ran into him and his wife, who scooped me up, bought me fried chicken and cider and entertained me until midnight before giving me and my groceries a ride home. Amazing how having ONE PERSON (okay, technically two people) in this stupid town who appear to enjoy my company and will actually go out of their way to hang out with me can have such a huge effect on my quality of life.

And the best part? One week till Reading Week, mega Del time and roadtrips! Cannot wait. I'm going to push through and work the weekend, in the hopes that by the time Del-time rolls around, I can actually take the week mostly off. Glorious!

There's a Reason that I Hate This Town

Most of the streets in Guelph are named after cities/counties or girls (Dublin Street, Surrey Street, Elizabeth Street, Alice Street).

There is also an Edinburgh Street and a Delhi Street.

How are these pronounced by Guelphites?

Edin-BURG and Del-HIGH.

Get me out of here...

the kindness of strangers

Things have gone all to heck with work. We should have been able to start testing my first real experiment for my PhD (code name Hot or Not) tomorrow. All was ready to go... until my undergrad assistant happened to mention today that she just remembered that one of the people she tested earlier in the summer while I was away had invalid data because the computer died halfway through testing. This data was what we were basing tomorrow's stuff on, and now I find it is all wrong. Everything has to be reanalyzed without that guy's data included, which takes ages.

So I found myself at the lab late today. I started around 3. It was almost 9pm by the time I looked up, so thought I should be getting home. I got outside, and the storm of the century was upon us! (see above).

It wasn't raining yet, but there was a HUGE lightshow above me - sheet lightning every few seconds, flickering all over the sky. I was terrified (I fear being hit by lightning!) But buses stop at 6pm on Sundays in Guelph (STUPID GUELPH!) so I couldn't catch a ride home.

Then the rain started. Torrential. I didn't have a coat because it was incredibly hot and muggy today, so I was soaked through within minutes.

I was huddled under a tree*, praying (SCARED OF LIGHTNING!) when a guy in red car pulled up and asked if I wanted a ride.

THANK YOU!

My rescuer said he hoped he didn't seem creepy, but he remembered being a student with no car (and he had rescued an old lady and her shopping during Tuesday's storm). I said, nope, not creepy, and I am incredibly grateful. He was a pilot called Cory who was just on his way home. He drove me to my block (not the exact house - I'm not THAT trusting) and now I am watching the storm with the lights out because the power keeps dying anyway. Incredible light show. My rescuer said he heard there were tornado warnings too, but haven't seen any funnel clouds yet.

I hope Cory got home safe**, but I will forever be thankful... and pick up all soaked pedestrians during lightning storms if I ever get a car.


* contrary to my dad's opinion, I DO know enough to come in out of the rain, even if trees might attract lightning!

** and that the rain hasn't knocked all my tomatoes off - they are almost ready!

There's a Reason that I Hate This Town

Well, there are many and none. It's not Guelph's fault, I suppose, but I want out of this place. I wish I'd coughed up the money/time away from work and gone back to Alberta for Folk Fest/Leslie's wedding/family holiday. Bah. As it is, I'm stuck here in the rain and everyone I remotely enjoy the company of has left town en mass. Lucky rats.

Giant Bucket of Slime

So I tried something really cool on the weekend. (Being bored and having no friends at least means I have lots of time to mess around in the kitchen and such). I read a couple of articles about making your own laundry detergent, and it sounded easy and kind of fun. So I gave it a try! I used a combination of this recipe because it was the easiest to follow, and this one, where I first saw it. (The description of making your own giant bucket of slime totally hooked me!)

I ended up sort of combining the recipes, while simultaneously getting a bit confused about the amount of water to use (silly Americans - they have these weird things called gallons that are basically 3.8 litres, but they also switch to cups occasionally. Confusing!)

So basically I used Ivory soap, washing soda and Borax. I used the cheese grater to grate the soap - it was way easier than I expected. Then melted it on the stove on low heat in about 8 cups of water (because I meant to use four cups except forgot my measuring cup actually holds two cups of liquid). Then I dumped in half a cup of Borax and about 3/4 of a cup of washing soda and stirred it. Dumped the whole works into a giant bucket and added an indeterminate amount of water - this is where I got confused about the whole gallons and cups thing. I think it ended up being about 6.5L. Stirred it really well and let it cool with the lid off, so some of the (possibly) excess water would evaporate.

The hardest part was waiting all night for it to cool, but this morning I had my promised giant bucket of slime! It's white and sort of gelatinous, but a bit liquidy. I did some laundry with it this morning and it seemed to work fine, except that the things don't smell perfume-y like they do with regular detergent. Which is fine with me. So now I have a big old bucket of detergent, plus enough to make at least three more vats of it. It was about $6 each for the washing soda and Borax, and $2 for three bars of Ivory (you're not supposed to use anything with too much colour or perfume or additives). Which is a pretty good deal for enough soap to last me for at least a year, plus the amusement of making it.

While I was hauling home my giant bucket from Home Bargains to make my detergent in, I saw the neighbour next door and said hi. He seemed very pleased to see me and invited me over to their house later. I said sure, but I don't think he believed me, because he turned up at the door an hour later and got my mobile number to go out later on. I really didn't feel like braving a bunch of new people, but sucked it up and went over and was SO glad I did. We went to a hippie bar called the Cornerstone to see live music, and then went out dancing. And it was FUN! Met tons of new people (though no contact info) and got free cake and a couple of free beers. Heck yes! Also, it is nice to know the neighbours. The one who talked to me seems to only live there part-time, but there are a bunch more of them - some combination of students and just-done-being-students, I think. Feeling much better just for having been out to socialize, and not feeling so much like a recluse.

book spree

I went on a book-buying spree at Chapters today. THANK YOU, Grandma and Tim! So exciting to be able to actually buy stuff for once.

Also checked out the Farmers' Market, which seems to be a good one. Only problem is that Farmers' Markets make me nervous. Always so crowded and shovey, you can't really see the prices, everyone wants to TALK to you all the time... makes me very uncomfortable. Silly but true!

I tried buying some shampoo bars at Lush today too. They are expensive, but I was told by girls I did my Masters with that they last forever. Seems a weird concept but worth a try! Also apparently they travel really well, which makes sense. Definitely smaller and more compact than liquid shampoo.

Okay, off to read my new books...

kidnapped by a helpful lady

Well, I feel like I've explored Guelph fairly thoroughly! I waited till noon to call about houses, which was probably silly but I don't want to piss off potential landlords. So I called the overly friendly lady that I spoke to last week and she said she would come pick me up. And she did, and had a chat with the overly friendly lady I am staying with temporarily, which let me off the hook for once. Once I was in the car, the lady said that she didn't have the one-bedroom available any more... but she decided to take me on a driving tour of the university anyway. !!

By then it was too late to escape (plus it was a nice thought, if strange not to tell me the place wasn't available BEFORE she picked me up). She then added that her friend Jocelyn had a room and she was taking me to see her. !!! So off we drove to Jocelyn's. I actually really liked Jocelyn - she reminded me of Auntie Barb, which can only be a good thing - but rather than a self-contained suite like I was looking for, she had a room with a pull-out bed. We had tea with Jocelyn, which I found quite surreal since I had basically just been adopted by this lady out of the blue! Good tea, though.

Then Lady 1 had to go to the mall, so I caught a ride out there and thanked her profusely for her "help", and scampered off. So a bit of a strange experience, but clearly well meant and anyway, I did get to see a good portion of Guelph.

At the mall I bought a mobile (email me for the number!) and, after going round the mall three times because people cannot seem to give good directions, found the bus stop. However, I misread the signs and ended up on the right bus going the entirely wrong direction. (Steph, sound familiar? but the 9 and not the 6 this time). I was on my way to see another house, but took 45 minutes to get there in the end because of going along the ENTIRE bus round. Hi Guelph! You're looking awfully familiar by now!

The house was actually a basement suite. So here's the deal:

Cons:
- dingy, kinda ugly
- not a whole ton of light
-shower but no bath
- landlord doesn't speak English so much
- separate entrance, but steep and narrow/scary stairs

Pros:
- big for a basement suite
- quite liked the landlord, although he barely speaks English so communication was difficult
- landlord says I can paint away the dinginess if I want
- laundry and utils included in rent (which isn't bad, $675)
- biggest pro is it come more-or-less furnished - couple of couches and chairs and a BED! That would save a lot of trouble in the mattress department.

So? What do you think? I have one more to look at tomorrow or Tues, but really need to decide fast because I can only stay here till Tuesday morning...

I will be so glad, by the way, when I have my own place. Two days of being uber-polite at all times is starting to wear! Every time I go downstairs it's a half-hour chat, which is fine, but bring on a solitary lair...

2009!

Happy new year! I am stressed. How come two weeks in Alberta seemed like such a long time when I planned it? Now it is nearly gone and by this time next week, everything will have changed.

However, I have a flight booked, a ride to Guelph, a B&B to stay at for the first few days, and a few houses to look at on Sunday and Monday. And the promise of a TA-ship that only involves marking - hoorah! Marking, I don't mind. (Teaching = scary). So really I'm as sorted as I can be, considering. Except that there's a lot more work to do before I'm really properly sorted (as in, have a home and an internet connection).

Oh well, I have had a great time at home. Lots of sitting around reading (yay!), some skating, some cooking, lots of sorting boxes (less yay). Lots of family. Lots of Corner Gas. It was fun.

So I don't really do resolutions, but I do try to reflect on things I've learned/new places I've been in the past year, because it makes me feel less pathetic. So:

New places:

- Prague
- New bit of Germany
- Cornwall (definitely have to go back)
- the Cotswolds
- Liverpool
- ermmmmm... Banbury? Okay fine, not too much travelling this year...

BUT I did get my masters, learn how to fence epee and sabre (kinda), learn some E-Prime (useful for programming experiments), try kick-aerobics, crash a lot of parties and convince some hapless university to let me into their PhD program. I've had worse years.

I'd say bring on 2009, but that would work better if I weren't dreading the next week. Hmmmm. Well, it can't fail to be interesting!

Happy New Year, everyone.