The Past Two Weeks

*warning: long post ahead*

I guess I'm guilty for not updating in awhile but I haven't really had time to sit down and put my thoughts into proper sentences/paragraphs for the past couple of weeks. Everything's been a whirlwind. I'll just briefly recap the happenings of my last days in Toronto and my first week back in Ottawa.

August 30, 2006
Turned 22. Nothing too exciting except I got a cake but my parents and brother ate it all before I had a chance to eat a slice. That's because I didn't want any and then the next day, it was gone.

August 31, 2006
Went to OP/CNE! Wooooooot! Got free parking on CNE grounds because a friend hooked us up with a parking pass. Entered through West Entrance and found Rita! How I miss working with her and so does she, working with me. Had to take a picture with her LOL. Anyway, exchanged the Family Play All Day Pass that my brother got when he went to CLF in July for Media Day and proceeded to head to my favourite rides. First up was Bumper Boats. I will never grow old of that. So much fun. I love targeting the older folks. They're funner because they know how to "bump". Next up was the Suburu F/X Adventure Theatre showing Ecozone. OMG. I felt sick afterwards. It's a motion simulator thing and well, the previous ride, Mars wasn't very bumpy. But Ecozone was crazy. Lots of rocking back and forth. I even had water sprayed in my face! CRAZYNESS. Next up was another favourite ride of mine, Wilderness Adventure Ride; affectionately known to OP staff as WAR. Love it. After doing the OP Maze (which isn't very fun anymore after they took out the swipe cards to time how long you were in there and the scaled back maze due to CLF) and lunch, we took the water shuttle over to the other end of the park. I wanted to play mini-golf, but the line was packed. My family ditched the other family that came along with us for CNE. Hehehe. I wanted to visit the Canadian Forces Exhibit because I wanted to sign the banner. I also lined up to sit in a CT-114 Tutor, the jet used by 431 Air Demonstration (Snowbirds) Squadron. COOLIOS. Since the CF was also trying to recruit people, the Warrant Officer and I had the following conversation:

Me: "I used to be an air cadet so I'm really fascinated with planes, especially the Snowbirds"
WO: "Have you ever considered a career in the air force?"
Me: "No because I already work for DND"
WO: "Seriously?"
Me: "Yeah. I work for CFSU(Ottawa) at NDHQ and I'm returning on Tuesday"
WO: "Nice. Well, good luck with that!"

Sccchhweeet. Also picked up some CF wristbands and dog tags. Sat in another fighter jet (I forgot the call number) and had my picture taken with it too. It looks bad so I'm not going to post it. LOL. Afterwards, my family headed back to OP and watched two Cinesphere movies. Then we went back to the CNE to check out the Arts and Crafts building. Same thing every year. Nothing too interesting but the crafts are still cool. Parents had a blast doing the taste tests. I had to hold back because I would have to take out my mouth guard and put on my retainer every time and it would be a PITB. Oh well. Missed out on the Manitoulin Island Strawberry Jam :(. Then we walked to the food building for dinner. Had a smoked polish sausage and chicken wings. It was alright, but I'd rather stay away from that, if possible.

Then we walked around CNE for a bit. There weren't a lot of freebies this year, unless we missed them all. Buggers. I love getting freebies during the CNE. One year, I got a box of cereal, a jar of peanut butter, Snapple drinks, etc. Hehehe. Then we called it a day/night since the home pavillion was closing shop. Oh well, like I said already, it's the same every year but maybe only slight changes.

September 1, 2006
Spent the day running around Toronto just to find a pair of pants for work. Wasn't too fun. Lost too much weight over the summer. Now I'm down one size. Won't go into details, but it wasn't fun calling different stores and asking them if they had my size. GRRR.

September 2, 2006
Spent the day packing up my clothes and other stuff for the move back to Ottawa. Didn't have a lot to pack since it was mostly clothes and food. :)

September 3, 2006
Received a message from Leon late at night saying he was in Toronto and wants to go to SCBC and his parents want to meet my parents! Last minute there...since parents wanted to attend the evening service. So Leon, Fiona, Jen P. and Kirk attended SCBC's English service. I think they enjoyed it. Too bad I didn't get a chance to say bye to my friends because we sat in a different section and by the time we got out of the sanctuary, it was packed. Anyhoo...the Ip's and Pang's had lunch together at Ruby Chinese Restaurant. The parents seem to hit it off good, since it was mostly about catching up and telling stories. Hehehe. Fi, Leon, and I just chatted about what I missed (e.g. the farewells). Spent the afternoon watching tennis and doing nothing. LOL.

September 4, 2006
We were supposed to leave the house at 8am but the parentals wanted to sleep in till 8am! Hahaha. So we didn't really leave till 9am, but since the highway was pretty empty, we managed to make it into Ottawa at around 1:30pm. Hit up Brooks first to drop off my stuff and the proceeded to Lees to pick up the rest of my belongings. OMG...I have too much stuff. But compared to other people, I don't have a lot. GRRRR.. A little stressed during moving -- what to move first, etc. Then I had the dilemma of what to unpack first. Basically, I had things strewn all over my room and a portion of the living room. And my closet is extra squishy this year because of work clothes. Parents stayed for dinner and mom cooked one last meal for me until Christmas. Buggers. Then the parentals left at around 7pm. I was too tired to unpack anything so I just watched TV and chatted with my new roommate, Celine. She's got severe allergies just like me! Hehehe. Then I went to bed at around 10pm for my early wake up call the next morning.

September 5-8, 2006
The return of Lydia to NDHQ. Amazing how 4 months can change a lot of things. Pretty much half of the CFSU(O) section changed with people being posted elsewhere and new people coming in. I got my building pass in 15 minutes but everything else from there on went downhill. After handing in my letter of offer to the HR dude, I just sat around doing nothing. Why? Because my computer accountwas in the process of being deleted. You probably must be wondering why it was in the process of being deleted if I was returning. Over the summer, I was kept on the system and my boss informed HR that I was returning. So she periodically checked the system to see if I was still there and I was. On Friday 1 September, she went to check and I was gone. No "Pang L@CFSU(O) GSO..." What the heck? Boss starts to freak out and went to get all the paperwork and called HelpDesk. She told the agent that I was returning on Tuesday so don't delete the account. The agent said no worries, "we'll just reactivate the account by simplying unchecking the 'cancelled' box and you do not have to resend the paperwork". Ok fine...so boss didn't do anything.

Tuesday rolls around and I wasn't reactivated. So my first day of work basically consisted of the following: I mailed one letter out and photocopied around 5 sheets of paper. And I got paid almost $120 for that. No wonder why some people hate public servants. The next day, we called HelpDesk to get this computer business sorted out. No avail. Again, basically did nothing and sat there, read manuals and edited a narrative for the website. Fun times. My bosses and I were beginning to get a little frustrated, since the same thing happened to me in January -- everything was held back because of problems in HR. URGH. On Thursday, my boss found me back on the system! Woo hoo! So I tried logging in but nothing happened. All the passwords I've ever tried, including the temporary one that they give out to new users. I finally got through to talk to a HelpDesk agent, instead of the answering machine. Explained my situation and he said to send in the paperwork again. I told him that I wasn't a new user but the paperwork is only for new users! URGH. So frustrating. I just sent in the paperwork to make them happy.

Anyhoo...Friday morning, I got a call from one of the HelpDesk agents and he finally understood that all I needed was to reset my password. 5 minutes with him and everything returned to normal. Account reactivated and I could finally access the computer. After staring at a new flatscreen monitor for 3 days, I was finally able to use it. Ahhh...soooo much clearer than that old junk monitor I had last term.

September 9, 2006
Got my bus pass -- and I didn't even have to line up! But I have a horrible picture. Ewwwie. First night back at Elijah Fellowship. Lots of new people to meet and since I'm the caring leader (I CARE!), I have extra responsibilities to get to know these people now. It's great to have lots of new people, especially the out of towners, because we were running low on the lower-years. There's also no co-ops...unless they haven't shown up yet. Weird...

September 10, 2006
Went to church the morning, had lunch at Mee Xim and then went to Ikea. OMG...that place is worse than the Wal-Mart at STC. Toooooo many people in such a tiny space. I don't think I'll ever go there on a weekend, especially Sunday. I just picked up the stuff I needed and left.

September 11-present
Work work work......nothing interesting to report there. Still having trouble accessing some accounts because I was "terminated" over the summer. We're working hard on getting that solved. HR also forgot to send my pay package so I had to ask for it. LOSERS. I hate HR. You would think that HR would have brains and know what's going on. Apparently, they don't have brains.

Karl's fare-the-well happened on Tuesday at Honest Lawyer's. It' s sad to see another one go and it's the third one in the past 2 weeks to leave for Toronto/Mississauga. I booked Foot Patrol to come walk me at 8:50pm. They didn't show up so I had to call at 9:00pm for another team. URGH. Maybe I should of just called them when I needed them instead of booking in advance. It was good times talking and stuff. The food wasn't all that great. I guess my boss was right. LOL. Came home at around midnight but didn't really get to bed till 1am because I was still jumpy. Woke up 5 hours later for work. OMG was I ever dead. I was sooo tired going into work that my boss thought I was sick. Hehehe. I also had to write an e-mail to be sent out to some NCR people in English and French. Made this huge grammatical mistake that I didn't even catch. Good thing my boss read it before I sent it. LOL. Went home for lunch and took a nap. The afternoon was a little better but my boss let me leave early so I could go home and sleep. How nice of him. :)

Anyway, I think that's basically the important happenings of the past couple of weeks. I'm all settled into my new digs (pics coming soon) and I'm loving life back on campus. Everything seems much closer. However, I'm still not used to the massive amounts of people on campus because during the summer months, it was soo quiet and deserted, yet serine and I loved it.

Congratulations if you made it all the way down here, especially if you read this word-for-word. I'm sure it was a good procrastination activity. I hope to update more frequently, but I doubt it, since my life right now revolves around a 8-4 job and well...I can't go on describing what I do on a daily basis because you would get bored reading about it and I would get bored writing about it. Hockey season starts tomorrow with full training camps and then next Wednesday, I'm going to catch the Leafs-Sens exhibition game at the Scotiabank Place with a bunch of people. That should be lots of fun. And I'm bringing my LEAFS TOWEL!