Let me allay your fears now; I am not having a nervous breakdown, nor am I coming home early. I’m sorry for upsetting people. I promise to be more honest from now on. But not too honest… ;) Friends and family seem to read my blog, not hoards of strangers (though some day I’ll be featured in Now’s top blogs and that’ll all change and by god then I’ll pander to them with all the gory details) It’s amazing all the places your mind can go stuffing envelopes day after day. Felt good to vent though. Like an Indian dude finding inner peace on a bed of nails, I have raised above the paper cuts criss-crossing my hands to find a much more Zen place.

It may also have been the drum bashing session I had unexpectedly last night, and the wagon Sarah W. getting kicked off ‘The Bachelor’ that has relieved me somewhat.

Today, you get random thoughts, and unorganized lists.

“the weirdest thing is, I can’t wait to SMELL Ireland…I know that sounds weird, but I just find myself wondering what it’s going to smell like.”
This was Damien’s musing not mine, but I’ve appropriated it for here, because I liked the way his mind was working. (Not sure it would be wise to follow many of Damien’s trains of thought though) I wish that I could say Ireland smells of lush green fields and of hope but it mostly smells of construction work, and cow dung and greed. I told him to bring me back Maltesers and Salt n Vinegar Hunky Dory’s. He bleedin’ better. Or I’ll malteser him

I realise that my already small and cluttered table in work needs a clean. There are 4 drinking receptacles on it: a travel mug, a coke can, a litre water bottle and a polystyrene cup. I detest using the latter at all, so I reuse it. There is no supplies in this office, people keep boxes of plastic cutlery and paper plates in their cubicles. There’s stacks of polystyrene cups and plastic stirrers by the coffee machine; hundreds of teeny plastic pots of UHT milk in the fridge; paper towels in the bathroom; rolls upon rolls of kitchen towel to clean your dishes you’ve brought from home if you’re at least that conscientious. And yet, everyone’s got a recycling bin under their desks too. First they giveth then they taketh away.

Things I want when I get home:
-Driving lessons
-Laser Eye Surgery
-A veggie cookery course
-A cat
-A personal trainer

Things I like that I didn’t think I’d get into:
-The Shield
-The Apprentice
-Baseball

Things I Hate:
-Eggs on their own (I may be swaying. Megan made a gorgeous quiche which I lots of)
-Baked Beans
-Mushrooms
-Spiders, Beetles, Ants, Cockroaches (Mark does not mollycoddle me in the way that the kind veterans of NYC ’99 did. I have had plenty of encounters, and have had to deal with many ALL ON MY OWN)

New things that I love:
-Extra firm tofu. I made Tandoori baked tofu last night, with potatoes roasted with dill & curry powder, I amaze myself.
-Oh Henry bars (quickly takes a back seat when I get mail like Mum’s Easter package, and Windmill Lane’s job reference & dairy milk combo package)
-Maple syrup (the pure stuff – sweet sweet nectar of this unforgiving land)

Things I will not live without again:
-Broadband
-tbm

Things people love that I can’t be bothered with:
-Desperate Housewives
-The O.C.
-Buffy
-The Da Vinci Code
-Amelie

Arbitrary media that I love:
-Six Feet Under
-Microserfs
-Too many blogs to mention now.
-Seinfeld. Season 4 is out on DVD in a couple of weeks. This may override any poverty issues.

Things I miss from home:
-Quorn
-Normal sized bags of crisps and also, King crisp sangwitches on squishy fresh Brennans white.
-Fresh fruit in convenience stores
-Ella growing up
-Joey
-Govindas
-Spaghetti Hoops
-Free incoming calls, and cheap texts

Things I will miss from here:
-Free daily & weekly quality newspapers
-Actual defined seasons – snowy winter, rainy spring, sunny summer.
-Every colour face under the sun – and not just working in 7-11s, everywhere. I don’t know how some of the people in my workplaces understand each other, so many strong accents. So many different lunchboxes!
-Cheap restaurants
-Timbits
-The ‘cups’ cooking measures. Sublime. Simple. 1 handy tool.

Things I was surprised by:
-Spellings – Canadians use centre and neighbour and cheque…
-And in the same vein, use a mix of metric and imperial measurements. It seems Canada has a foot in North America and a foot in Europe. No bad thing. Except when cooking – its gets very experimental when you start to translate Delia’s pints into litres and then into cups. No notion where a fluid ounce fits in there.
-‘Eh’ – Makes so much sense in so many scenarios and I’ve found myself using it
-Overpriced supermarkets. Very expensive fruit, veg and cheese