3 weeks left.

As many of you know, this term has been very disappointing for me. I should not have returned to Nemak. But it’s almost done and no need to bore you over the details.

I will give you a short review of Windsor, after living there for over 7 months. On a scale of 0-10 hazy pollution clouds (where 0 is current Beirut and 10 is Ottawa) it gets 3 hazy pollution clouds. There are not to many positive things I have to say about Windsor, so consider it to perform bad in all categories but the few I mention. Really the only redeeming detail I can think of is that it has a decent service industry. I must say that when I call a cab it comes usually within 5 minutes (and has the cheapest fare in any city I’ve been to). There are always ample ones waiting downtown or at the train station. It’s very convenient. As well, there are quite a few clubs and bars that have cheap cover and very cheap drinks. (as cheap as $1 mixed drinks some nights)

Windsor locals are very peculiar. I found out that they use the imperial Fahrenheit system for temperatures above 0 C and then switch to the metric Celsius for sub-zero temperatures. In fact when I say a temperature like 35 C they all look confused. On the topic of temperature, it’s absurdly hot and humid. Two days last week it was mid to high 30’s which with the humidex was 50 C. I’ve become a little climatized since moving down south, but these temperatures are way beyond my capacity to deal with. Many of those days I just took my mattress and just moved to the basement to get some relief.

I found something new about Thunder Bay. When people who have been to TBay talk about it after being away, I frequently hear mention of Persians (No…not Iranians), or the Hoito but I was ordering Chinese food a few weeks ago and I had a craving for Bon Bons (No…not candy) and apparently they are a TBay thing. Basically for those who don’t know, they are dry deep fried breaded spare ribs. There’s one place in TBay that Kas orders from when I go over and they have the best ones I can ever find. But they don’t have them down here. What they do have in Windsor is the best Hot and Sour soup ever at Wah Court. I may even miss that soup…but I certainly won’t miss Windsor.

I seem to be perpetually sick since I returned from TBay about a month ago. Maybe it’s the haze or the heat, or maybe I have an infection and need some antibiotics. (It might have to do with my body not dealing well with the air conditioning at work change to humid heat at home) Either way it’s been really irritating me. I went to a walk in clinic to try to get some tests for my kidneys (Oh yeah, doctors are monitoring my hypertension finally and were doing tests). Clinics and hospitals always depress me, but I can’t help wondering why each person is there. After the receptionist noted that my home is on a funny name for a street (Why do people think that Dog Lake Road is such a funny name? It’s the road to Dog Lake. What is wrong with a lake called Dog Lake? Surely it’s better than the pretentious Lake Superior…), I sat down for an hour and a half and watched people go by.

One of the first people I noticed was a couple probably in their 70’s. The husband looked in pretty bad condition and they were waiting for a on call doctor to come in. The nurse was explaining the delay to them. If I caught it right, the man had shingles and it was pretty severe. The wife sat there looking very devoted but concerned. Made me sad. Another was a woman in her late thirties/early 40’s sitting alone with a huge black eye and a expression that looked devoid of any hope. I hate to make judgements (well…maybe not) but it’s hard to draw anything but domestic abuse from the picture. Next a Muslim man came in with his wife and two daughters in their early teens. They sat down while he went to register. After waiting, the wife was called in, and after a few minutes she came out and called her two daughters in. It was an interesting series (from my observation) as I couldn’t see why the daughters (who to me seemed the real reason they went) didn’t go up themselves to start. Different culture I guess. It is interesting to speculate though.

I’ve been reading a lot more than I usually do, to pass the time, so I’ve been ording books off of Amazon. If you order $39 it’s free shipping and since I refuse to pay shipping, I aim for just over that mark. My last order I picked 4 books and I was around $2 short to fill in the order. So I tried to look for something cheap and saw a book, Spellbound, for $3, so I said what the hell. I had heard of a documentary on the US spelling bee called Spellbound and assumed it was the novelization of it. Well…I was wrong…it was a romance novel, which I refuse to read. Serves me right for not reading the description. I have to figure out where to remove it from the recommendation engine on Amazon because now I’m getting recommendations for junk. Sigh. I’m sure I can find someone who wants it. (Mike? heh…just kidding…shameless plug!)

Well, I think that’s enough for today. I’m off to Waterloo again on the weekend then a few weeks later back for Frosh Week (and maybe a few minor months of school).

Currently Listening to: Gone Forever - Three Days Grace

Random Wikipedia Article: Hoito