First month at the place where the alders grow

I love it here! We live in a part of Toronto called Etobicoke, very close to lake Ontario (300 m). With a beach. With loads of geese (I love geese!) and other birds. The apartment is on the east side of our building, but nevertheless it gets fairly hot on days of 30 degrees and above… It is also very humid here. In other words: I'm loving it!!!!

We have visited one of the 3 (!) ikeas more often than is probably sane (it's 10 minutes away, and they have cheap food…). It takes either 50 minutes or 20 minutes to get downtown depending on choice of transportation (bus+subway or train). My supervisor visited last weekend, and during the day we worked together at the University of Toronto, she showed me around. Before then, I had only seen the Astronomy building (which is wonderful!!! openable windows, an AC you can turn on and off yourself, and are asked not to use unless absolutely necessary, a HUGE lounge, plants en masse, large windows, and view south, with the CN tower in direct view) - and now I got to see a little bit more of campus. What a wonderful campus!!! I need to bring my camera and post some photos! There are lots of old buildings in gothic style. Just a few block south of where I'm located, there is a street (Baldwin) with a plethora of super cute restaurants. We went to one, and the food was just wonderful!

There is obviously an immense amount of things to do here, which I'm saving for when my brother comes over for a visit in September. Because - the thesis has priority #1 for now. But that doesn't stop me from simultaneously enjoying the weather, the location, the apartment, evening walks to the beach, being together again, the rides to uni on the subway, watching people, being in a big city, still having lots of nature nearby, seeing stars and planets over the lake, existing…

The lake in the morning

This little girl had flown all the way from Brampton in 3 days (about 20 km away), and stayed one night with us before I got in touch with her owners who came to pick her up. Just as well, thought my own budgies, who found her a bit bossy... 

The Toronto temple - only 30 minutes away (!!!). I had some fun experimenting with HDR. 

Trip to Toronto

It has almost been a month now since I ended my 6 year long sejour in Winnipeg, and went east. So it's really time for an update on things. All bonds with Winnipeg are not cut yet though - the thesis is yet to be defended. And edited. Of course it would have been amazing to have all that behind me, and that was indeed my plan. On the other hand, it is nice to move in gradual steps.

The trip over was really wonderful - a 3 day camping trip, with husband and birds, trailer and tent, traversing a distance the length of Sweden (2060 km). We had a fair bit of rain the first night, at a camp site called Wolf River, a little bit east of Thunder Bay. But the tent did not leak, and it was ultra cosy to listen to the rain. All three days were rather warm, but our little Golf managed excellently! The second day consisted of lots of ascending and descending major hills bordering lake Huron, and it was pretty - of what we could see, a lot of time we were in thick fog. We camped a little bit east of Sault Ste Marie, in a wonderful spot just on the beach. We got our first swim for the year (about time…) and it was wonderful.

The last day felt never-ending.  We arrived into Toronto just before 3 pm, after an 8 hr drive (instead of the anticipated 6.5 hr), I think on the hottest day of the three days. The traffic was intense, but it was fairly easy to get to our new abode. Some serious unpacking commenced. It took 3 hours in all. It was at least 30 degrees and rather humid - I don't think I've ever sweated that much for such a prolonged time!!

I left winnipeg scrubbing and cleaning, and I started out in Toronto scrubbing and cleaning - the previous tenants had not cleaned out the place. Yeehaa… The caretakers had done a great job cleaning the grossest details - stove, fridge, toilet, so they were in excellent shape (to our great relief!!!), but floors, walls, cupboards, etc, needed a thorough scrub. It was a long day…

T-6 days

T as in Theresa travelling to Toronto (Tenting!). I bought a tent today at Canadian tire. Naturally it has a hole in the floor (and I did not buy the dirt cheap one! Perhaps I should have...). Naturally it's impossible to fit it back into the box in which it came. But! In exactly a week, we'll be camping!!! If the car doesn't break down I guess... The hitch holds. The trailer keeps in one piece. I'm a little worried about the birds too. I wonder how they'll handle 3 days on the road. And will D be able to jump to Winnipeg during the long weekend? Can I include a map here? Nice!



View Larger Map

Oh, what a relief!

So, it seems like my thesis is going to be awesome. And the reason for that is that I'm going to put in an extra half chapter (or whole chapter) that will bind it all together - something I'd totally forgotten about (not the binding it all together part, that was totally on my mind, but the how to accomplish said binding - that was a bit elusive to me as I was finishing my "last" chapter on Tuesday - and it was really so simple, starting to occur to me as I handed over the chapter to my supervisor, and feeling a bit bad about its (the chapter's) inabilities to accomplish the binding on its own.

Lol. In other words, there are some parts missing, that have to be done (and when they are, the thesis will look great!)  Which is ok, I know how, but it'll take somewhat more time than 3 days… In other words, my deadline is going to be moved, and I will work on this for a little bit longer (a bit ~ a month or max two). Am I disappointed? I'm sure my poor supervisor thought I'd be… (she didn't really suggest this to me, we had a great meeting discussing it all, and it felt nice to be able to look at the thing clearly, in perspective). But no! Actually not disappointed at all! I'm just very relieved!! It's been good working 13 hours a day - I've accomplished a lot. But, after 2.5 weeks of this, I'm quite exhausted. Indeed, even this morning, I had a really hard time dragging myself into activity. But my relief is more about knowing that the job will not be mediocre, and that I will be able to continue the way I've started.

These weeks have been very enlightening - I've forced myself to really work in a highly disciplined manner. I've learnt loads, which has felt wonderful. Not only about the topic, but how to fight the anguish, and be structured. That's how I fought it - anguish arrives when seeing too much at once. Then structuring it up, forming a plan, dividing into manageable pieces, and just take one at a time and keep at it, is the way to go. Prayer is an indispensable ingredient in this process...
I am not going to continue on the 13 hr schedule though… I'll aim for 10 hrs/day instead :) 8 - 18 should be good.

There's another benefit with this scenario: I don't have to be working here. I can be somewhere else, say… Toronto?

Happy.

3 weeks

ARGH! GAH!
3 weeks left. And my thesis just keeps getting bigger and bigger (i.e. more and more things added on to it). 2 weeks ago something awesome happened: The last obstacle on my road was flattened, and everything I need to do thereafter, are things I now know how to do (uhm except convert continuum flux to SFR - that obstacle showed up after).  But it all takes such TIME!
I have a plan: These coming 3 weeks I will be working from 8 to 21.