Hunting Season

The hunt is on for an apartment. Last night Katherine and I went to see our first one, which was quite good for practice in seeing apartments but which we would not take were it the last apartment in town. It's in a pretty nice neighbourhood, but each floor has a different base smell, and each tenant's room had its own patina of smell over the base. The paint was peeling, the floors were basically wooden slats, and there were broken-down spare mattresses standing in the stairwell. What's worse, it wasn't even really an apartment, it was a rooming-house. You can't call something an apartment unless it is a self-contained unit with a space approximating, I don't know, a living and dining room. What this lady wanted was a way to rent out three crappy, overpriced rooms for the trouble of one. Anyway, long story short, I feel sorry for the guys who agreed to live there and pay extortionate rent for a dire little series of rooms. Phew. Rant over.

Anyway, other than the apartment hunt, life is pretty quiet. I have plenty of schoolwork to keep me busy. Sunday I went snowboarding, I've watched some good movies with friends, and this weekend I met a second Jessica and Katherine and a second Mike B. One of those meaningful coincidence things -- I should get the Existential Detective Agency from I Heart Huckabees on it. Actually, I should have them come work for me because Lily Tomlin is priceless in that role and it would be beyond cool to meet her.

In other news, I'll be going away to Toronto for Easter (hooray!) to stay at Katherine's house and eat her food and make her show me around the city. And then that week, Chris, Colleen, Aine, and Niamh plan on coming up to see Ottawa. I cannot think of an uglier time than early April to come see Ottawa, but there's always lots to do, whatever the season. So it should be fun despite being unscenic. Nancy left a very nifty guidebook called Secret Ottawa, and I'm sure that when I have class they can just adventure on their own. They are good at adventuring, besides being tons of fun to have around. I don't have any exams until April 14, so I'm not too worried about the few days of studying I'll miss.

I suppose I should go do some of that "plenty of schoolwork" now. Bah!