Home made nuggets

Fantastic voyage?

Second (already 10 days ago), I flew back to Paris, and I had 2 funny stories while leaving Canada. First, as often my luggage were loaded (especially given the fact I took most of my stuff in case I would settle in Paris), so it was of little surprise that I was a few kg over the limit. While the woman at the counter was starting to explain that I should either take off some load, or pay some fees, I heard a young woman on the next counter saying she was lucky to be a student and be allowed to have an extra 8kg over the limit! That was some kind of luck, since it was more than enough for me, and luckily I did have my student card with me.

Then, I proceeded towards customs, and started wating in some kind of huge line up. I had done the check in roughly 1h20 before the flight departure, and when I asked when we should cross the gate; the woman at the counter replied: “1h30 before take-off”… Yes, I had to go back in time and magically get through customs instantaneously! By the way, the line was far from over behin me at the check in, I would say another 100 people were still waiting (I had arrived 2h in advance at the airport and rarely saw a line that long, I can’ t imagine what kind of mess the A380 will generate).

While I nicely turned and turned (like the last level of the snake game), I started noticing people who checked in next to me going through a priority line, and then people switching from the long line to the express one. So I asked one security guard if i could do the same, to which he answered that they must be VIP’s… He didn’t even bother checking, even when i told him that students who checked in the Economy class are no VIPs… I continued my wait; and as I was one of last person of my flight left in the long line, I asked another security guard who checked for my flight and came back saying there was no rush; they hadn’ called our flight yet. A while later, when I finally passed the metal detectors, I hear the last call for my flight “all passengers must be on board”. My reaction was not to panic; those who know me already guessed, I WAS ANGRY! Instead of rushing, I took my time, simply walking fast (but not running) ad even stopping at the WC. I made it among the last 10 passengers of a huge 747 (of over 500 passengers). My suggestion to the steward was to give feedback to the airport, because we left 15 minutes late because the stupid security guards couldn’ do their job properly, and for some reason the check-in ran super late!

So long TO

Yes, I haven’t posted in almost 2 months, a new low for me. Let’s say finals, administrative issues, interviews, moving out and travel have kept me busy. And yes, I did pass all my classes (some were close as expected).

First, thumbs down to Graduate House at UofT. I asked to be able to move out after my final exam, but they were not accommodating when I know for a fact that it takes at least 3-4 days for a new resident to move in. All these greedy idiots wanted was a full month rent when I wanted to stay an extra 48h. They didn’ even let me stay an extra 24h, and wanted me to move out at 3pm when my last final was at 6pm that Thursday.

Overall, yes Grad House was convenient and had fun social events (yes food nights!), but the administration was horrible! At best they didn’t try helping; at worst they were amazingly rude, and looked like they tried to make it as stupid as possible, not even following their own rules! For a non-profit branch of a public University supposed to help students find affordable housing, they did the exact opposite (not helping, while not being cheap). Overall, very bad value for the money. I would not recommend it; and rather suggest to find 2-3 roommates and find a small house close to campus. That will be my sense of education in UofT: get as much money as possible from students while not delivering…

Who knows when I will come back to TO; and who would have expeced that I would have mixed feelings leaving some good friends, in a place where I did have some good times…

Sushi Rollin’

Only 4 weeks left in Toronto and this stupid Grad House. Instead of complaining some more (as I often do), I will share a positive experience.

Today at Grad House residence, there was a “Learn how to make Sushi” event. I had heard that it was not hard, and for trying it myself, I must say it isn’t that difficult indeed! The ones with the rice on the outside is slightly more challenging, but I managed to get some good ones. We had nice teachers (fellow residents, RA’s to be exact), and the rice was ready, but cutting the cucumbers, avocado and the rest wasn’t bad. There also was some green onions, and I must say I experimented and really liked the end result! REALLY TASTY! No need to mention what a pleasure it was to eat! For $2 grocery contribution, that was just the best event I experienced at this crappy residence. I ate 3 full rolls, and made 2 to go (hope they’ll still be good tomorrow; I heard the rice might dry out).

Coupled with the Rotman Amazing Race on Friday, it was a fun week-end after all; good memories within my last weeks ina town I haven’t enjoyed overall.

Now that’s DIFFERENTIAL

Once again Toronto weather comes back in my posts. It is especially cold today (-15 before windchill, which means it probably felt closer to -30), and it reminded me of a post I should have written last Friday. Last week was especially humid with quite a bit of rain, and the prospect of the coming cold weather made me anticipate a lot of ice on the street. But I had no idea the drop would be so sudden! On Friday morning I woke up to go study at the library, and since Thursday was very warm and humid, I decided to not take my big winter coat but only my rain jacket. I was right since it felt like +15 (was actually +10) and heavy humidity would have made me sweat way too much under my big winter coat. I was lucky enough to come back home for lunch, since on my way back home around noon, I noticed that it was getting windy, and dryer and could feel the temperature drop. I had lunch and went back to university with my big coat, and as soon as I went out, the freezing wind made me glad I made the first good weather estimation since I was in Toronto.

In summary, between 11am and 2pm the temperature had dropped from +10 to -10! A 20 degrees differetial in 3h! And this is without counting the windchill!

From Britain to Gaza

My beautiful girlfriend told me she crossed the path of a huge convoy in Tripoli with dozens of ambulances. Only the ambulances were British… It turns out that a huge organized group is traveling from all over Europe to Gaza and help out. I just wanted to make a shout out to this great initiative.

http://vivapalestina.org/

Rotman no talent night

I haven’t socialized a lot during my time in Toronto, but I must say that from time to time I am pleasantly surprised. Last Tuesday was the “Rotman no talent night”: an occasion for MBA students to have fun and either display real talents or simply fool around.

Some performance were simply amazing, especially one guy with an amazing voice who sang in Urdu/Hindi. I didn’t expect he had this kind of talent, personally my favorite of the night. Then was a 2008 alumni who had an incredible talent for stand up comedy; it was very Rotman oriented, but I’m sure he only tried to keep his performance relevant and he could have done the same for many situation. He truly became hilarious when he impersonated our teacher to perfection! There also was a couple of my friends who performed the classic YMCA (and won the best performance of the night award), and a couple of band and guitar players who were very talented.

Finally, a special performace from a monster! A short Taiwanese guy (no more than 1m65) who is a fitness/ body building adept (master should I say). Everybody in the MBA program turns to him for work out advice, and he is extremely helpful; I should add he is probably the nicest guy I have even met. But you can’t be fooled by his personality, he is also one of the strongest guy I know, and proportionally to his size, probably one of the strongest PERIOD! Coming back to the talent night; they decided to call athletic guys on stage and do a push up contest. As soon as the guys new Dave (the Taiwanese monster) was part of the competition, they didn’t take it seriously. The MC who is a chubby girl (taller, and probably heavier than Dave) sat on his back while he was positioned for his first push up; and Dave went on and did 8 push ups! Amazing performance!

Altruism!

I am giving free tutorials, and met a new counseler at the school I teach at. During our brief chat, she couldn’t believe I was doing it to help out! For you information, most of the tutors are in the Faculty of Education at the University of Toronto, and need a certain number of teaching hours to graduate and be able to teach as a real teacher (being in charge of a whole class, right now we are not allowed to be with students without a real teacher being in charge, so we are pretty much helping only).
Another type of people are those who want to use it in their resume as community work that will eventually help them (one guy is planning to apply to Medical school, and these guys need to prove their empathy through this kind of work).

When she asked me what I was studying, hearing I was doing an MBA made her even more surprised.

I think this is the kind of mentality that causes the kind of economical downturn we are experiencing; by only looking after ourselves we end up making decisions that have negative effects on society while hoping we will end up as winners… Why not simply help out, just during our free time whenever we can, just to remember that this is how we can make the world a little better (not as a full time job, but just giving a few hours of our spare time). Simply treating others like you would like to be treated (and everybody needs help sometimes)…

Mistycal

Nothing new in my life to share. Toronto’s weather has been changing dramatically within days (as usual should I say). Going from somewhere in the -20C last week, to a record +11C today. What has also surprised me is the amount of mist we got; I guess the temperature differential in a portuary region (huge lake Ontario down South) can explain part of it. Today when walking out of school, I saw some kind of thick mist that I thought was light rain… You could feel condensation on your skin, let’s say humidity has been unbearable today.

On another note, I’d like to share something that came to my attention a couple of weeks ago and that disturbed me. You probably have heard about this statistic saying that about 70% of people don’t wash their hand after using the washroom; to be honest I never believed it until very recently. But for some reason I have noticed that people that people who wash their hand with soap are a small minority of people I cross in the washroom! On the other side, it is rare that people just walk out without stopping at the sink, but the big majority barely rinse their hand with water, and some take the time to dry them with some paper towel… I would say 50% only rinse their hand with water and run out! Is it really too hard to put some soap, rub your hands for 10 seconds, and THEN rinse?!?! It is funny because these guys probably think that people would see them as dirty if they didn’t make the water pit stop; but to me it is not any better AT ALL! Disgusting!

My friend the Sheep

In this holiday season, I want to share a funny anecdote (it’s been a while).

Abody (my girlfriend’s little brother), an 8 year old boy who in previous years was too scared of the sheep bought for Eid El Kebir, was courageous enough to play with it this year. He was happy, and called it his friend, and when came time for slaughter, he started crying and yelling, saying he won’t touch his meet and was opposed to the cruel destiny that his father would inflict on his “friend”. He even swore not to eat meat anymore. My girlfriend told me that the same thing happened with her younger sister, and that in her case it took many weeks (almost months) to get over it and accept eating meat again.

Well, little Abody might have a world record here! Within 5 minutes he stopped crying, and the curious little boy watched the slaughter and even helped holding during the skinning!

This reminds me of my cousin. She had a goldfish that died when she was really young (something like 5 or 6 years old), and since she doesn’t eat fish. She can’t stand the cooking, the smell… Fresh fish I should say, because guess what: CANNED TUNA IS JUST TOO GOOD TO GIVE UP! Yes, she refuses to eat fresh fish, but she eats quite a bit of caned tuna! Go figure!