7:30 pm – Monday 17th January 2005

God I hate cleaning.

Well, it has been quite the long weekend. Saturday of course was the moving day. This had me cycling over to the U-Haul depot in –10C weather to pick up the truck and bring it home. Then lots and lots and lots of putting stuff into boxes. About 1 pm I called Ryan and Brandon, and then came by a bit before 2 pm. We packed and loaded (mostly Ryan and myself), but when we were finished and we went to start the truck, no juice! We think I may have left the lights on alas. Ryan tried to jump start the truck to no avail, so we called U-Haul and they sent a guy around who managed to get it going, so that was good news.

We drove it the mile or so to my new place and started unloading which took about 45 minutes. After that we tried to get rid of the old couch, but the local Salvation Army wasn't taking donations for some reason, so in the end we left it next to the dumpster. Finally after returning the truck we dragged our exhausted bodies to Appleby's for dinner at about 5:30 pm which I shouted the guys in thanks for their help. That night of course I was completely exhausted.

The next day (Sunday) I lay in bed for a long time. I had been thinking of going to the UU fellowship, but didn't make it out of bed in time. About 11 am I got out of the house, said hello to Dan and then went to the lab. After that I walked downtown. There was a big march and demonstration to protest a white supremacist group the “Northern Alliance” which had been anonymously distributing leaflets in town. I missed the march itself, but apparently there were at least 700 people there and lots stayed behind for the speeches. I bumped into Chris, and he told me Val had been hospitalised for depression. Later I bumped into Chris S., Ewan and Meredith and so I hung out with them. We had crepes for lunch and as we were there, Bonnie, Rafaela, Cassey and Bonnie's Dad walked by. We hailed them down and had a good chat, it was the first time I'd seen them since Xmas. After lunch, Ewan and Meredith gave Chris and myself lifts home which was nice of them. I napped for a while, and then talked to Bonnie a little bit around 5pm.

That evening I was intending to hang out with Jen and her boyfriend Roger who I hadn't met. I had time to shave my legs and make myself presentable before they showed up at about 6:30 pm. We went to one of the bars downtown which was really very dead. We ordered food and played a game of pool. By a neat coincidence, it was the local Celtic music night, and so we got some very cool entertainment courtesy of that. About 8 pm we left and drove to the local hot springs where we spent about 2 hours. It was very nice to relax and chat, although as Jen and Roger were being very “coupley”, it would have been nice to have Bonnie there. *sigh* About 10 pm we left and they dropped me off home, I talked to Bonnie on the phone for a little bit before crashing.

Today was the official public holiday for Martin Luther King Day. I got to the lab about 10:30 am expecting to meet the Indian master's student for a discussion. He didn't show up, and at midday I went for coffee. I finished a letter to Tiffany I had written before Xmas, and looked at a grant proposal I had written before Xmas. I got home about 2 pm and Bonnie had met with her cool professor. She was in a bit of a funk, so I tried my best to cheer her up and told her to get out of the house into the sunshine. After that I napped for a while before I went over to start cleaning my old apartment. I swept and mopped the floor, and there was so much dust! I still need to take some stuff to Salvation Army, as well as clean the oven and refrigerator. I got sick of that about 7 pm, so I went to the supermarket and came home.

At the moment I am sponging off a wireless internet connection which is somewhere in the building. Not the most moral thing to do, but fairly convenient.

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