And colder yet

I've been out for the first time since Christmas - I figured I should do my bit as a consumer and visit the post-Christmas sales.

 I came very close to come back home again very quickly. It was incredibly cold out; I don't think that it's stopped snowing for long since Christmas Eve, and at the moment it's coming in from the north on a very bitter wind. I was wearing my nice winter coat, and had dug out my hat. I was wishing I'd brought my gloves, too.

I stopped off on the way back home for a coffee, at a coffee shop that's about ten minutes walk from the apartment. It's cold enough that the foam on the top of the cup had frozen solid by the time I was back. And it's scheduled to get even colder tomorrow, too - I wonder if I can find an excuse to stay in tomorrow....

It's cold outside....

I woke up this morning to find that it has snowed overnight, and that it was indeed still snowing. There's probably around a half inch of snow lying on the ground, and the thermometer is telling me that it's currently -7

The road outside the apartment hasn't been ploughed, and there's not enough traffic to get rid of it otherwise. There are also no pavements on this street (or should I be calling them sidewalks, to fit in with the natives?), so while there's nothing there that I need to keep clear, there's also nothing there to walk on. I assume that I can't get stopped for jaywalking while walking on a road if there's no sidewalk.

The temperature has been floating above and below freezing for the last couple of weeks. The lowest I've seen it was -11, and that was during the day. That said, it was quite a lot warmer during the night - I think it clouded over. But I've been bundled up in my nice warm winter coat, and have scarcely noticed how cold it is - I mean, when there's a Tim Hortons on every corner, you're never far away from a hot cup of coffee.

Hmmmmm

It was my downstairs neighbour's birthday yesterday; I offered to take him out to dinner.

In the end, it was cancelled. He popped up to see me shortly before we were due to go out. He said that he'd gone out for a few drinks with one of his friends on the Friday night, and thought that one of his drinks had been spiked, as he was feeling terrible, and had no memory at all of most of the evening.

He's just popped up again now. Apparently, there are other things that he doesn't have memories of. Specifically, that he'd gone for a meal at one of the restaurants downtown, run up a fairly large bill, and then run out. And how do they know it was him? Because he'd left his wallet behind. Which does rather imply that he wasn't especially rational at the time; it doesn't exactly take a criminal mastermind to realise that leaving your wallet at the scene of the crime is not the wisest thing to do.

He doesn't even remember being there; I've suggested that since they apparently have CCTV of him, he can ask to see it, and see if there's anyone with him. He did try to tell the police when they called him that he'd had his drinks spiked, but of course after this amount of time, there's nothing left in his system that would work as evidence.

I may just spend the next few months safely locked inside the apartment...

Brief update

There's not really much more to report from the last couple of days...

None of the companies I've applied to have replied yet, but it's not been too long as yet; though I'm going to stick my neck out and say that the ones where I applied as temporary Christmas staff are unlikely to get back to me now, as it's definitely cutting it a little fine. Still, I'm in no major hurry to start working again.

The weather remains disappointingly warm, too - it's finally started to drop below freezing during the day, but not for too long, and there's very little snow. I think we've had around three or four snowfalls, but they've all been followed by weather warm enough or rainy enough to melt it again. There's the odd bit of snow dotted around, but really very little. Clearly the reputation of Canada being snowy is just a rumour put around by the Canadian Tourist Board to keep foreigners away so they can enjoy their own country for a few months of the year.

Unemployed....

I managed a little longer than expected; but I've just quit the job; I'd finally had enough.

My team leader was pushing for me to get two signups an hour; after a three hour shift where I got a total of one, I realised that I was just wasting everyone's time.

She took my resignation surprisingly well. On the one hand, I'm a little put out that she didn't even try to talk me out of it, but on the other, I think the last couple of weeks have made it quite clear that I'm not cut out for a career in sales. Curse me and my willingness to take no for an answer!

So tomorrow, I get to start looking for another job. Preferably one that doesn't involve trying to sell things to people who clearly don't want them.