there's no place like this place...anyplace!
Date: November 25th 2003
Feeling...: pretty good, I actually think I'll do pretty well on tonight's calc test
Listening to: "All I Want for Christmas is You" by Mariah Carey...quite possibly one of the most festive songs ever :D
Excitement brewing over: MAMMA MIA!! 4 more days...
Concerned about: nothing, currently...this morning I was kinda worried about preparing for my test but now I feel like I can handle it pretty well
People/things that made me smile: talking to George yesterday, actually...it's kinda strange cause I'm really not a phone person but talking to him felt really comfortable, like talking to a sibling almost
New thing(s) I�ve learned: from TIME magazine: 25% of dogs and cats in the US are overweight, but out of that only 50% of the owners of those pets admit that their pet has a weight problem. (I found that pretty funny :D...and also very relevant to the situation with my own Fat Little Boy)
Additional witty comments (heh heh heh): I completely forgot to put this into my last entry...A couple of weeks ago I was on my way to night school, and I was about half an hour early...so I decided that after weeks of passing its tacky flashing lights and so-lame-they're-funny slogans plastered EVERYwhere, I would become a part of Toronto history with a trip into Honest Ed's Discount Superstore.

It was exactly as I'd imagined it would be.

I was greeted by a gymnasium-sized room filled with rows and rows of tables onto which were stacked everything from tupperware containers to cheap Toronto souvenirs...a large staircase in the middle of the room took you either downstairs - to the foodstuffs - or upstairs - clothing for every man, woman and child. The walls were covered with more posters of irritatingly pun-ny slogans (example: "Squirrels like Honest Ed...with prices like these, they think he's NUTS!" *rolls eyes*) and 50s-style pictures of people with their eyes bulging out of their heads at the incredible bargains. They were pretty good too...in a dollar-store kinda way. What impressed me the most was that it was fairly clean...you'd almost expect a discount store that size to be pretty grimy but it wasn't bad. I still wouldn't buy food from there but I did happen to find a couple of pairs of mittens I liked and they were only $2.99 - cheap mitts, how can you go wrong...

a break for the "receiving wench"
Date: November 13th 2003
Feeling...: stiff...I've been standing for about three days straight and I think the space between my vertebrae needs to take some time to stretch out again
Listening to: the wind and thunder outside as Mother Nature graces us with some of the nastiest weather yet this year
Excitement brewing over: getting our fireplace installed soon!!
Concerned about: calc test tonight...not so much concerned as feeling like I should be studying and yet, here I am...not doing so
People/things that made me smile: my dog sleeping like a baby and snoring like an old man heh heh heh...having a fresh baguette for breakfast - Galati's makes baguettes that, second to those I had in France, are the best bread I've ever had
On My Mind: I've been reading "Voices in Time" by Hugh MacLennan, and a large part of the story takes place in Nazi Germany just before the start of World War II...it's just incredible how Hitler had people eating out of his hand. They truly believed in him as some sort of god...it all sounds like a giant cult
Additional witty comments (heh heh heh): After years of wanting one, my family (mainly my mom) finally invested in a fireplace and we're now going through the process of getting it approved by the townhouse management and so on. It's a gas fireplace, but it's designed to look like a wood-burning stove...the kind from "Anne of Green Gables", which stands on its own on four legs and has a cast-iron door with a handle, and has a pipe coming out of the top as a sort of rustic chimney. I'm so excited...it seems like the final missing puzzle piece in making our home a true sanctuary, a place where you can just curl up with a blanket and a good book and be surrounded by peace and quiet all day. I love my home, and I'll love it even more around early December, which is when it should be installed and ready to go. Now it just needs to snow to complete my idealistic scene...

On a contradictory note, I just finished four straight days of work and I'm physically exhausted. I was doing sales on Sunday and then from Monday to Wednesday I was in receiving...it's just standing all day, for hours at a time and I think I feel shorter today because the spaces between my bones have been compressed...On Tuesday, as I sat in my calc class after working for 7 hours and taking the subway to school, I seriously toyed with the idea of spending $100 and getting a full body massage at a spa or something...Fortunately between now and next Friday I'm only scheduled to work a total of 11 hours so I get a nice break in between. I prefer it this way - work, work, work, and then have a nice rest - rather than constantly having some small thing to do or think about. Speaking about having something to do, it's high time I get back to my calc work. Cheers!

the trouble with our society
Date: November 7th 2003
Feeling...: wonderful...I finally have a full day to just do as I please :)
Listening to: my "Back in the Day" cd...20 songs from my elementary school days heh heh heh
Excitement brewing over: my mom's b-day tomorrow...I don't know what it is, but for the past few years I've been getting more excited about other people's b-days than my own...
Concerned about: ummmmnothing, at the moment...I'm just having a good, relaxing day :)
People/things that made me smile: every time it's a bright day, at around noon the sun comes in thru my room window and covers my bed, and for the first time this week the skies have been clear...and having nothing else to do, I spent an hour or so just lying in the sun, soaking up its warmth and producing some vitamin D (heh heh heh)
New thing(s) I�ve learned: this is straight out of the November 3rd issue of TIME magazine: "A 15-year study of 3,300 young adults found that hostility and impatience nearly doubled their risk of developing high blood pressure. Another, even longer-term study linked hostility to smoking and drinking; hostility that increased with age doubled an adult's risk of obesity and depression." Nice prelude into my next part...
Additional witty comments (heh heh heh): I was at work on Wednesday evening when this woman called the store, and I unknowingly answered it...she right away started speaking in a harsh, accusatory tone and demanded to know why the rug she had ordered on October 20th hadn't arrived yet. I explained to her that since we didn't have it in stock and it had to be ordered in to the store, it would take between two to four weeks. Her reply was "well it's been 18 days for goodness' sake! Where are they coming from, exactly?" "They get shipped over from our Baltimore warehouse," I answered. "Well, I could drive down to Baltimore and back in less than 24 hours," she whined, "how long can it possibly take for them to throw the rug onto a truck and send it over??"
Me: Well, I'm not sure...18 days, did you say? It hasn't even been three weeks yet, and there's a process that needs to be followed...paperwork and so on. Besides we just finished a sale on our rugs so there are probably a lot of orders that are going through-
Her: That just means they have to throw some more rugs onto the truck and send it over! I mean there must be lots of other customers who are in the same situation as I am."
Me: *thinking*yes but every other customer has some degree of patience... *to her* The person who ordered the rug for you should have told you that it would take between three to four weeks for it to arrive. Sometimes they're here earlier than that but otherwise three to four weeks is the normal amount of time.
Her: Well...ugh...I don't know, I'm just really confused as to why it's not here (I'm thinking: Didn't I just explain that?...) I mean I don't see why you guys can't have them over here in a week, it really shouldn't take that long.
Me: *thinking* If your rug was hand-delivered to you all the way from Baltimore you'd better believe it would have cost you slightly more than what you paid for it, ON SALE no less... *to her* Well...I really don't know how to help you-
Her: Well, I mean, where IS IT?? I'm just really confused...
Me: *thinking* unfortunately I wasn't born with RUG RADAR...bitch *to her* If you just give it a few more days, I'm pretty sure it'll be in very soon...
Her: Well it had better be in soon because if it isn't I'm just going to have to cancel the order. Where is your manager, what's his name? I'd like to speak to him.
Me: His name is Robert but he's gone home for the day...would you like me to write down your name and number so that he can give you a call?
Her: Yes, do that. (gives me her info) And what's YOUR name?
Me: Jehan. J-E-H-A-N. (pause on the phone as she obviously writes this down)
Her: Yes. Tell him to give me a call as soon as possible because this is ridiculous. I think I'm going to cancel my order.
Me: *thinking* good, I'd feel sorry for that poor rug...you'd probably stomp all over it and ruin it anyway *to her* Alright, I'll give him the message.
Her: Bye. (hangs up)
This woman is the epitome of everything that is wrong with America. I fail to see how her life would have improved ten-fold had her rug been delivered to her four days earlier than was expected. That's the other thing...it was explained to her at the time of her purchase that it would take BETWEEN TWO TO FOUR WEEKS to arrive...yet 18 days later she feels justified in throwing a childish hissy-fit because it's not there yet. Well *pardonnez moi, Madame T�te-de-Merde* but I believe you have a slight hearing impairment. FURTHERMORE...how on EARTH is it MY fault that her rug isn't there yet? Was I personally responsible for its delivery to her door? Was there any need for her to have been so rude, so insistent that I find a solution for her "problem" when there was obviously very, very little I could do but sit on the phone and listen to her bitch? I wonder if it's ever crossed her spoiled little mind that there are more than a few people in the world who have larger problems than rug-delivery and that perhaps she ought to sit down and really think about what she accomplished through her shameful behaviour. My one regret was that I was unable to voice these thoughts to her, having the responsibility of being courteous and friendly. Oh but the dressing-down she would have experienced if it had been some sort of personal call...