I had a ROUGH NIGHT but I FEEL BETTER NOW.

This website sucks! I had this whole long thing written out and I went to publish it and it was gone! Anyway here's attempt 2.0.

I don’t think I have emphasised enough how many things are wrong with this dorm room. I really lucked out. Neither the shower nor the window have been fixed as of yet. A plumber actually came by the other day, but it was in the morning after a long night (if you know what I mean) and Melanie (roommate) and I were both pretty out of it. She was sleeping and I was watching How I met Your Mother with my headphones on. So at some point we both heard running water, and then later he left without saying anything to either of us and it’s still not working. I put an ‘urgent’ maintenance request on it two days ago (quotation marks because the way these people overuse the words ‘urgent’ and ‘emergency’ suggest that they have different interpretations of them than I do) and today when I got home there was a maintenance guy in my room, but he said he ‘didn’t have the right parts’, whatever that means. My uncle gave him the ‘you guys better get moving on this’ speech since I don’t have the necessary guts to say stuff like that to people even when they need to hear it.

But I need to back up a bit and tell you guys why my uncle was there and why I didn’t spend the night there like usual. I actually felt pretty down about the room situation yesterday, especially when I noticed that the open pipe right outside my window was gushing suspicious liquid matter onto the ground. There’s nothing like watching people walk past your room, stop, and speculate about whether that’s a puddle of sewerage to put you in a bad mood. So I went and hung out with a few of my new friends for a couple of hours, and then I decided to head out to the Richmond Night Markets where a few other exchange folks were going, thinking I’d just hop on a bus and meet them somewhere along the way.

It was a bad idea! It turned out to be much further away than I had thought, and I realised after a while on the bus that I didn’t actually want to go out at all, I just didn’t want to be in my room anymore. Nonetheless, when I finally got to the bus station, there was nowhere I more wanted to be, so I decided I would get straight back on the bus back to campus. Unfortunately that was the last one that ran that night (why? On a Friday night, Vancouver, seriously?) so I got on a skytrain, thinking I’d get off a couple of stops before the terminal station in a place where I can usually get a bus. Unfortunately it was not the skytrain I’m used to and it had different stops, and I got kind of upset because it was late and I was feeling down already and it made me feel super vulnerable when I thought about walking round downtown looking for a night bus. So when I got off at the waterfront I decided to call my aunt and see if I could crash at their place for the night.

Luckily they were super cool about it, and a couple of buses and a mcflurry later I was back in North Van crashed out on a very comfortable mattress they’d laid out for me. I had a good night’s sleep, a shower, a nice breakfast and a bit of a venting session, during which they promised to send pictures of the various problems to my aunt’s sister who works with the company who actually oversaw the construction process here or something. They also took me to Super Walmart, where I bought a microwave and a mini-fridge at very reasonable prices and banished my bad mood instantly J

After that I’ve just had a quiet day of chilling in my dorm. A bit of ukulele, a bit of cleaning, a bit of eating cereal (I finally have a bowl, people!). I feel loads better. Also Steve doesn’t think it’s sewerage coming out of the pipe. Now that I look again I think it’s probably just water, which is still gross, but you know. Significantly less so.

In other news I hear Auckland’s public transport system crapped out the other night. Who would’ve guessed. Anyone see the opening ceremony? What’d you think?