Back Again

I'm back up! My genius brother somehow got my laptop to work again. Several people had tried and failed, and I was sure it was a goner, but my brother proved me wrong. He tried to explain what he was doing as he went along, but it made my head spin, so I don't really know. But I'm back!

As the Greyhound to Kitchener arrived in Guelph and passengers were getting off, the first person to get off thanked the driver for his kindness and gave him a hug. I thought that was a sweet gesture and figured they might have had some kind of good interaction. But the second person clasped both her hands around his, looked him in the eyes, and thanked him as well. And every single passenger after that made a sincere effort to express their gratitude to this driver. I know most of the Greyhound drivers that do the route between Kitchener and Guelph, and this guy was new. It made me wonder what he must have done on the bus to have invoked the gratitude of all the passengers.

Bus drivers are in general the subject of aggravation for people. I've often thought that it's a profession I do not envy. It's a position where people require you to be exact when you're operating under unpredictable circumstances, and people confront you when things don't go well, but don't acknowledge it when things are good. I feel like people go to bus drivers with their problems as much as social workers.

But the position being one that attracts such negative responses made me wonder more about what this driver had done to receive such admiration. I wanted to ask, but didn't, and no one boarding the bus did either. When exiting the bus, I thanked him with as much enthusiasm, because I enjoyed the positivity, even if I didn't understand where it was coming from.

I hate the limitations of human perception. When I was at the Guelph terminal, I noticed that there are ornamental metal carvings of crowns placed in the crook of each light post. I obviously know the symbolism, Guelph is the "Royal City" after all, but it made me think of how many times I've been at that bus stop and failed to notice this decoration. I really enjoy that some architect or whoever thought to make such a detail, but their effort was lost on me for how many years I've been taking that bus. There are likely many people who have been using that bus for longer than me and who still haven't noticed it.

Recently I found two pennies on the ground. Separate locations, each event a day apart from the other. The phrase "find a penny pick it up and all day long you'll have good luck" holds more weight now than ever, since pennies have been discontinued for years. I wonder who's dropping them, or if they'd just been overlooked for such a length of time.

Laptop Down Again

Hey guys! Sorry it's been so long, my laptop is down again. Just tried to go on the Internet one day and it wouldn't let me. Checked my phone's connection, which was fine, so it wasn't the wifi. I did some troubleshooting, found a problem, called someone who had me uninstall the malfunctioning device, but the next step was to go on their website to reinstall it.

Well, I can't do that if the problem is I can't get online.

So I'm back at the KPL doing my blog. Next time I meet up with someone with a functioning computer for an extended period of time, hopefully I'll be able to get it back up and running. Until then, I'm using my smart phone for all my Internet necessities.

Last week I did two days of training for Mental Health First Aid. As you probably guessed, it's like First Aid, but for mental health. Went there through my employer along with my coworkers to improve our skills working with people who have dual diagnosis. It was kind of like my safeTALK training back in school, as they both had a focus on suicide prevention.

Last Friday was Friday the 13th. I got accepted by a new family to work with and I finally got my paycheque. It wasn't so unlucky. My laptop crashing did happen directly after I created the 13th edition of my resume, though.

I got a new phone plan with unlimited minutes. I feel posh. But when part of your job is making calls on your cell phone, it really is necessary. I mean, I was still pulling a profit, but you don't want to be clipping out a portion of your pay as you work, you know?

I've been able to voice-chat over Facebook with my Malian friend. Haven't spoken to someone who knows the language fluently in a long time. It really doesn't leave you.

Halloween

Whenever anyone asks me what my favourite holiday is, I always say Halloween. My rationale is that while Christmas and Thanksgiving give good ideas for how they should be celebrated, they feel the need to attach themselves to some kind of moral principle, such as sharing and reflecting on what we should be grateful for. Easter is attached to religious meaning, Valentine's Day is only applicable to people in relationships, etc. Halloween is about dressing up in costumes and eating candy. It's the most low-pressure, person-focused mainstream holiday.

But realistically, it gives difficulty for adults who choose to celebrate it. Since I'm living in a house now that isn't in student housing, I had my first real chance to hand out candy (even though my place was half family homes, children wouldn't approach it because of the student population, and nobody chose to decorate). I got two boxes of candy, since I didn't want to overestimate. One was full of fun-size chocolate bars, and one full of twizzlers and twizzler-variants.

Everywhere people were  offering fun-sized chip bags, but I knew better than to purchase. I remembered how when I was a kid, I felt the chip bags were disappointing because while they filled up a lot of space in your treat bag, most of it was air. I know that chip bags need air to avoid being crushed during shipping and they're not actually trying to rip you off, but if you're a kid and your goal is to leave once your bag is full, it's not a good feeling to find a good percentage of your earnings is empty space.

I know that people make fun of fun-size bars because a full bar would be even more fun, but let's be realistic. You can't expect a full-sized bar per house, and a bag full of fun-sized chocolate bars is as high-density candy profit as you will get. I had the Twizzlers as a nut-free option in the case of allergies. Even chocolate bars you wouldn't  expect (Aero and Caramilk) have a "May contain nuts" warning on them.

But no children came by our place, even though 'i saw them trick-or-treating and I left our porch light on and the candy visible. My roommates wanted to go out to the Apollo Theatre and watch a horror movie. The Apollo is a single-screen theatre that serves wine and beer and offers tables to set them on. Never really thought about it, but why not? It would be a weird stipulation that you couldn't be watching a program during the consumption of alcohol, especially since bars, planes, and other place with alcohol preset feature televised entertainment. We watched The Shining. This time slot probably was during prime trick-or-treating hours.

After that, we had a few friends over. They were dressed in costume. We weren't. I've got a costume from last year ("The Emperor of Evil"), but I didn't bother putting it on.

Recently, I ran into someone on the street selling a book he had written. The price he gave was $5. It appears he wanted to bypass needing a publisher. It's called Coryworld, and it's "A wacky and futuristic science fiction novella where children race and dance inside a simulator, except for two of them :)"

By Gap Yuet Bing Ding. I'll let you guys know how it reads.

I got a friend request on Facebook from the son of the chief of Karadie, the man who gave me the nickname "Elephant".  I don't even know how he found me, since he's never heard the name "Gryphon" (I was Ali Traore over there) and he's not friends with anyone who would know my Canadian name. But he had to be so beautiful, referring to me as "Gryphon Elephant" ( showing he acknowledges my Canadian identity while referring to something shared between us). And when he introduced himself, he spoke of himself as"From Karadie". Karadie is the local spelling, while the global spelling is "Karadje".

So much strength in a short message to me.