The Whole Erk Catalogue Tales of a Geek Abroad

Tomorrow at 730 AM I have to be at the Calgary International Airport to get ready for my flight, which leaves at 1030. That will be the end of my Pre-Departure, and the start of a new section of my life, let alone my blog. I want to say something sweeping about how tomorrow my life will change drastically, but really it changed drastically when I started uprooting my apartment and stuff, this is just another step on the road.

Speaking of roads, here are some fun Driving Anecdotes!

Jen managed herself pretty well on the ride. She's upset, and I am not surprised, but she's tough and holding together well. I have my extreme excitement and trepidation to keep me from being too weepy, but I choke up a lot too, particularly when I said goodbye to my mom and sister. The drive out to Calgary was miserable in a lot of ways, particularly regarding traffic. We got stuck behind a semi-truck which apparently had some kind of vendetta against us. He was driving at about 60 kph in a 90 zone, but as soon as he reached any kind of passing lane he'd accellerate to 120-130 kph, and try to block us from passing him. The, when the lane ended, he'd slam on the brakes and drop back down to 50-60. Eventually Jen passed him at something like 140 kph, and I gave him the finger as he well deserved. Later, on a long two-lane segment, he started racing up to us and tried to cut us off, forcing us to drive behind him for the rest of the way until the next two lane! We went neck-and-neck for a while, then with cunning driving and better maneuvrability cut in front of him and took up the passing lane, while a particulalry slow van occupied the slow lane. We got rid of him and he never passed us again. There were other bad drivers, but he was the only outright malicious one. Another noteable fellow was the guy from Manitoba I call "Goatman". We were driving out of Golden, through a windy mountain section with about two feet of shoulder on the right before a steep cliff to a river far below, and a double-solid on the left with traffic going by. Goatman saw a herd of mountain goats... "HOLY SHIT," he thought. "MOUNTAIN GOATS IN THE MOUNTAINS!" and slammed on his brakes, nearly causing us to rear-end him. He just stopped, ignoring us honking at him, and didn't seem to notice when we finally managed to slip past him illegally. He was too busy looking at the goats. Jen and I were discussing how much we wanted to graffiti the back of his car to say "I <3 Goats".

It is really starting to sink in that in a week or so, I will be settling into life in a completely foreign country and culture. For the most part, I am excited, but I'm getting pretty nervous now too. There are a couple problems that contribute to this: the first and foremost is that my truck hasn't sold yet, so I am much more broke than I would like to be on arrival in a new country. That won't be too serious as I also have a paycheque coming up, and if everything goes horribly wrong I am content to live off of rice and tofu for the first month until my JET money comes in... my cash can go to rent, paying Chris for home furnishings, and minimal survival necessities. I don't think it will be a serious problem, I am not completely dry and I am very cost-efficient when necessary.

Though money is troubling, my biggest issue is dealing with going away from Jen. If we'd decided to break up, the parting would almost be easier... since we decided not to, the parting is worse but I have a lot more to look forward to (particularly her coming to Japan in a year's time). She's extremely great, and it's gonna be really hard to deal with being alone, especially since until I have some money to ship my computer from Canada (or to get a new one) I am not going to be able to talk to her much. I'm going to miss my family too, it has been great spending some time with Mom and Robin these last couple months. We have our differences but I love them dearly and I've never been so completely out of reach for such a long while. I hope I can make it back to visit around Christmastime: Jen is living with my mom so it's a nice easy single-stop trip if I can afford the time and ticket.

My not-so-little sister is 21 today! Congrats, Bin, you can drink almost anywhere in the world!

And yet, you still cannot drive, or fly an airplane. /sigh.

I am all sunburnt from roofing Dad's shed. We stripped off first an old tarp that had been tacked on some time in the 70's, then the rotten plywood and particle board beneath that, then the shitty shingles that were probably replaced in the 50's or 40's, then cleaned off the nails to reveal the original boards from '05 when the thing was built. Dad pointed out that the shed probably hadn't looked so good since before he was born. We managed to get the first sheet of roofing up today, but it was too hot to stand on, the tarpaper was just gooing beneath our feet, so we won't finish until tomorrow morning. It was good work, I like being outside. That is the main problem with design, for sure!

Jen and Robin left this morning. I already miss Jen horribly, but I will see her again on Thursday. It meant a lot for her to come out, and it made me realise just how much I appreciate her. There are not many girls that would go out of their way like that for a boyfriend, especially right on the brink of having another super busy school schedule...

I am sleepy and feeling kinda sick but instead of going to bed I am listening to music and writing a blog entry. Why am I illogical like that?

I can give one reason: it is because this is my blog, so I can make pointless entries if I wanna. Woo, spam!

Today I took some photos of the violent rainstorm here in Okotoks. I will try to post them tomorrow. I miss Jen a lot, two weeks until I go home and get to be cuddled again. Today was a very stressful day and I could really use a good cuddle.