You're a vanity whore

Then on Thursday at work I got to talk to Alex about my work permit. He basically told me I would have to do everything on my own if I really wanted this extension. I started calling CIC and the HRSDC to get some information, but what I was getting wasn't very promising. I came home for lunch hoping there would be food here, but I ended up eating chips and bread =[ I went back to the office and started outlining the process to get this LMO from the government. It just sucks to depend on people who are rarely available, considering there's a short deadline for this. After work I came home and helped Mareks prepare his stuff for PMRI. Then after he left I went to the gym (finally, after more than a week) and came back home to rest.

This Friday things weren't very different at work. We finally finished "the new way of doing things", so maybe next week we'll be using that (although we'll be busy with new cycles of 2 past projects). I spent most of the day installing things on the server room. I wanted to go for sushi during lunch, but "f*" Johnny wanted to go to the Chinese place instead. I ate congee once more, and then we got back to the office. Now I'm home and soon I'll go to gym and Food Basics before coming back to get some rest. Voila.

SeeYa,
Feliploko, who'll have his performance reviewed next week.

More tears are shed to answered prayers than to unanswered ones.

There was no time to edit this post in time =[ Tuesday I went to work and kept working on our research project, came home for lunch and Mareks was here because he felt a little sick in the morning. I ate the rest of the pasta we cooked the day before and a little bit of his rice too. After work I got a ride with Kaizer as usual, went to Cobs to buy bread as usual, and then went to Express as usual. We had a workshop from H.E.A.T. and I got to chat with Julia on the way back to Finch station. Once I got home I just did random stuff before going to bed.

On Wednesday there was work again, and for lunch I went to Congee Royal with my co-workers Francis and Mike. On my down time in the office I tried to solve the impasse on my work permit extension and found out I need to take a look at a lot of stuff before applying =[ Anyway, I came home after work and Mareks and I decided to go to Fairview Mall buy a swimming suit for me and new batteries for his watch. We came back, stopping at Winners on the way back for some gym pants and Food Basics for some fruits. Then we started watching Capote, but Mareks thought it was boring and went to sleep =/ I finished watching, though, and actually enjoyed it. After the movie I went to sleep.

SeeYa,
Feliploko, pure privilege.

Ploko ploko, ploko loko, ploko lokoplo!

Long weekend! Sunday was laundry day, and we also planned a night out with this Latvian guy we met at Church: Janis. For some reason he wanted to have dinner with us before going back to Vancouver. We met him and his husband at Chinatown, and we went to this Chinese restaurant that didn't really make it to my top 25 restaurants on Spadina & College. Since Mareks divided the table in Latvian speakers and non-Latvian speakers, I was forced to speak only to Janis' husband Randy. That was a nice thing, actually, because we work exactly in the same industry. But then a friend of his joined us for dinner and I was often left out of the conversation.

After dinner Randy had to go to the airport catch a flight to Winnipeg, and the rest of us ended up going to a Latvian bar on College (Einstein). The holy people drank tea and the unholy drank beer. We had silly conversations about maps and other stuff, and then Mareks and I left when they started a comedy show that didn't look so promising. After fighting the snow to get back home, we got ourselves warm and started watching this documentary about the history of pride in Latvia: Homo@lv. After that we went to bed.

On holiday Monday the holy guys slept in and lazied out during the morning, and then started organizing and cleaning the apartment in the afternoon. At 3pm we tried to go to Fairview Mall to buy some stuff, but it was closed. We managed to find Shoppers open, as well as a Dollarama and a Chinese supermarket. We then bought some things and walked back home on Van Horne avenue. Once home I finished organizing my papers on the living room, and now I'm free to watch movies and post here =] That's all.

SeeYa,
Feliploko's duspsis.

Attention all passengers on the Yonge-University-Spadine line

Friday didn't go quite as it was expected. I went to work, had lunch at Pizza Pizza with Kaizer and Rizly, and spent most of my time trying to set up "the new way of making things". Instead of making my co-workers wait one more day for that, I asked them to do things the old way and let me export the data to the new way once it's ready. After work I took a ride downtown to go pick up Anthony for our YAY Snowboarding event. It took us a while on the streetcar, but it wasn't until we reached the subway that our plans were completely ruined. Due to an emergency situation on Rosedale station, the whole yellow line was delayed over 60min =[ When we finally made it to the other side of the problem, it was too late to join YAY. We stopped at Yorkdale to try to watch a movie, but our timing wasn't very good. We then ate something and waited for Linda to go pick him up. Hopefully next week our activity will be better.

But the day didn't end then. I took the TTC to the Food Basics close to home to buy some fruits for Mareks, and as I was leaving to catch the bus, I heard a woman begging for help. She had a little dog and a grocery trolley to carry, and she was feeling the pain from a hernia disc problem =[ I obviously offered to help, so I had to battle the crazy wind while carrying her groceries and mine. Luckily she lives in an apartment complex right behind the bus stop I use, so I didn't have to pretend it wasn't heavy for too long. She offered me money, but I had no reason to charge for that - I'm sure someone would do the same for me. So after waiting 10 more minutes for the bus, I finally got home and protected myself from the cyclone (ok, it wasn't so bad, but it was pretty close).

Anyway, Saturday Mareks got back home and we had breakfast together. I finally had a chance to go to gym get my stuff back, but I could only find my goggles and cap. They probably threw my swimming suit out, or maybe it's lost in that mess that they call lost-and-found section. What makes me mad is that I called to ask them to set my stuff aside for me, and they even got my name. At least the swimming suit was cheap, and it was about time to buy a new one anyway. Unable to swim, I left to go to Hong Tai and meet Mareks to buy groceries. We were about to pay when we got a call from Diana saying she was leaving to pick us up and go to Pickering. We didn't have time to eat lunch, so we left right after getting home and organizing everything. We drove a few minutes east to take a look at this house that Diana might rent soon, and it looked quite ok for me - although she wasn't very impressed by the mosque we saw on the neighbourhood. We came back and since I had already eaten junk food on the way, I didn't eat proper dinner or lunch that day. I finished my day chatting on skype and watching Dexter.

SeeYa,
Feliploko, who enjoys new connections.

viena vēlas

And once more I start delaying my posts for whatever reason... Anyway, Wednesday was pretty boring. I went to work, the other lead on my project decided to change something in the way I was doing things and that delayed the work of everybody =[ For lunch I came home and quickly ate something with Mareks who had missed school that day. After work I came back home and did nothing useful besides helping Diana call some other potential landlords. I got lazy to go to gym, so I didn't pick up my stuff there =/

On Thursday I did nothing at work because the new way of making things was still not ready. I went to Subway for lunch, and after work I saw Mareks for just 5min before he had to go to PMRI. Earlier that day I started a conversation with this guy from the eurovision portal, and when I got home the conversation continued until very late at night (which is extremely late for where he was from). Once more I didn't go to gym, and my stuff remains there waiting for me.

SeeYa,
Feliploko; the future expectation.

Export yourself

The posts are getting shorter because I don't have to explain my routines anymore. Soon I'll have a gap to deviate about something other than my everyday life =] Until then, let's continue logging.

Monday I had lots of meetings at work for the new project we're doing. Apparently my contribution on this will possibly get my name on a research paper that my boss is writing. Let's wait and see. I had cereal for lunch because I was lazy to cook, but when I came home I had proper dinner. Oh, it was Valentine's Day, so I bought Mareks some flowers and he bought me chocolate =] We were going to go to Ikea and then to the gym, but we ended up staying home helping his sister call some potential new landlords.

Today it was the same thing at work, but at lunch I cooked some beans on margarine for a change. Around 4:30pm I got a ride with Kaizer until Castle Frank station, and then I took the subway to Spadina to go buy bread at Cob's again. I also bought coffee filters to donate my old coffee machine to my office, but I can't find the machine anymore =[ After that I went to Express, and we had this cool meeting about a mosaic project that is coming up soon this summer. Then I took the TTC all the way to my gym and I swam a little bit. Now I'm finally home and soon I'll go to bed.

SeeYa,
Feliploko, who forgot his swimming stuff at the gym =[

Even broken clocks show the right time once a day

Yesterday was my one-year anniversary with Mareks. We had a lovely and simple day that started with the usual breakfast. We organized some things at home, and then left to take the 199 to Scarborough Town Centre and finally get our commitment rings. They fit nicely and look very good =] We stopped at H&M and Sears to buy sunglasses and a dress shirt, and then we took the 43 to go to AMC at Kennedy and Progress. We finally watched The King's Speech after changing our minds twice about it in the past, and we both enjoyed it. After that Mareks went downtown to rehearse and I went to swim. The pool was crowded, even after the family hours were over, so I gave up completing my routine exercises. I bought some fruits at Food Basics before coming home, and then I waited for Mareks to finish the day.

Today we woke up and started doing laundry right away (as usual). Mareks left at noon to prepare everything for his concert at the church, and I left one hour later to go watch the service. Most of the ceremony was in Latvian and I didn't understand a thing, but it was nice to see Mareks play and sing. After the service he introduced me to his Latvian friend, and she introduced me to everyone else in the church x.x We went to the back room to have some tea and snacks, and also listen to the rector of the University of Latvia give a long speech. I talked to this Peter guy who knew an incredible lot of what I studied and work... We left at around 4pm, and before taking the subway we bought some nuts and fruits in Greektown. Once at home, we finished laundry and now we're surfing the web before going to bed.

SeeYa,
Feliploko. P.S.: I'm a guy.

Mubarak stepped down

Last Wednesday I had that dinner with Zulema I mentioned before. She came over after I finished work bringing some vegetables for the salad, and after we decided what to cook we had to go to Food Basics to get some more ingredients. We made Chop Suey, and although we did it right and the taste was fine, it wasn't anything spectacular - at least the salad was amazing =] Zulema went home around 9pm, so after that Mareks and I simply watched some episodes of Dexter and Tudors (respectively) and then went to bed.

On Thursday I was bored at work again, but at least my manager decided to include me on this project he is organizing with Mike. Some of us went for lunch at Congee Royal, so I ate my usual corn and tofu congee (with some fried tofu rice noodle roll on the side this time). Back to the office I tested some things on Quality Center for our new project, and then started reading some documents about it. I really like my VP Harvey's writing style! It's very smooth and informative. Anyway, after work I got a ride downtown with Kaizer and went to Ossington station to buy some clarinet reeds for Mareks. I agreed to meet my mentor Kevin at the station after that so we could grab a snack and chat a little bit. We went to this bakery on Dovercourt called Nova Era, and I had a couple chocolate croissants and a decaf cappuccino. We had a really good conversation, and I'm glad I have the chance to chat up with him once in a while - it gives me confidence somehow. We parted and left on the subway later on, and I came back to have proper dinner with Mareks and then go to sleep.

Today (Friday) there wasn't much to do at work again, so I just helped out on the project I'm not involved with and handled some reports and other stuff for my manager eventually. This time many of us went out together for lunch, and we decided to have all-you-can-eat sushi. They didn't have enough vegetarian options, so I ate fish again =[ After work I came home to have dinner and then Mareks and I went to Scarborough Town Centre to buy some clothes for his church concert on Sunday. We ended up buying gifts for one another as well, since tomorrow is our one year anniversary =] Before coming home we stopped at the gym so I could swim and he could run, and then here we are finishing up our Friday.

SeeYa,
Feliploko, who's having the best relationship so far.

Words with backpacks

So Monday evening I went grocery shopping, and I also stopped by at Winners to buy shampoo =P After that I went to Fitness Institute to swim, which is something I've been doing frequently since the year started.

On Tuesday I came to work and copied/faxed some stuff for Mareks in the morning. After going home for lunch I volunteered to help my manager export some data from our client's files to our database. That took the rest of my work day, and still when I was about to leave, Brian emailed me more stuff to export. I got a ride with Kaizer to Castle Frank station, then I took the subway to Spadina to go buy some bread at Cob's. Then I took the TTC again to SOY, where my weekly meeting was about to start. The group is full of new people once more, but it wasn't this time that we could recruit more members to our coffee-after club, I still went to Second Cup with Rauf, Nate, and Damian, and ordered my classic Decaf Pumpkin Spice Latte with Soy Milk. we chatted until the place closed (around 11pm), and then I went back home.

Today (Wednesday) I simply started working again on my exporting project and I finished just a while ago after coming back from lunch. Zulema is coming over for dinner tonight, so the evening should be fun =] Enough for this post.

SeeYa,
Feliploko, who's a part-time vegan.

Temos que pegar os seus seios.

So I couldn't post yesterday, but that's no problem because I'm posting today. After waking up and spending my morning at PMRI, I took the bus to finally get back home. I stopped at RBC to deposit my paycheque and then went to see my Marekoso. We had laundry to finish and some homework to do, so we were pretty busy until the evening. I invited my landlord Joe over to take a look at our laundry machine, which hasn't been working properly later. He said he will replace it, so next week we'll probably get a new one.

Mareks was craving sushi, so I googled a good place that we could go and found this place at Finch and Leslie that looked ok. We changed, then walked to Finch to take the bus. The place was actually really nice and inexpensive, maybe we'll go back there one day. On the way back we talked about some serious stuff, and that reminds me of how I like feeling that something is long-lasting. Once we were back home we checked some stuff online and then went to bed.

This morning we went back to the routine. Many of my co-workers are working on a new project now, and I will replace Amor on a project that was put on hold for a while - next Thursday it starts again. Until then I have very little to do around here. In the morning I fixed our wiki and exported some stuff to our Quality Center, as well as faxed some documents that I needed to fax. I went home for lunch, but since I had no time to cook I just ate some cereal and came back. Now I'm bored and tired of playing solitaire, so I decided to post =] No big plans for tonight yet.

SeeYa,
Feliploko, who was up to some cereal damage.

Que isso valha pra qualquer pessoa

Today wasn't a very interesting day, since I'm at PMRI. I've been having trouble sleeping here because all the time I feel (and sometimes even dream) that the staff is already waking us up. Then I get confused with what's real and what is dream and I end up not resting well. I woke up at 5:30am today, took a shower and got ready for all the procedures. We had pre-dosing blood draws, than high fat breakfast (blergh), and finally dosing. After that it's the usual 4h sitting straight at the main room, which I spent reading The Life of Pi.

After lunch I could go back to the bunk rooms, so I started watching Dexter. Sometimes I would stop to read a few (or many) posts on my blog history while listening to music, and of course I was always interrupted for the blood draws. After dinner I napped for a while to avoid getting a headache, and around snack time I went back to watching Dexter and reading the blog. I noticed that February is a peculiarly busy months for relationships. Most of my kind-of-long-term flicks started or ended around this time of the year, while the rest of the year had mostly one-time dates and meaningless encounters. Of course it has nothing to do with Valentine's day because that date is in June in Brazil...

Anyway, I can't wait for this day to end so I can go to bed and wake up tomorrow to go back home. The paycheque I receive will help me pay off some debt, and hopefully I won't be owing so much anytime soon. Ever since I started working I didn't yet feel like I had a significant amount of money to really spend on myself. But there's nothing to complain - I am really happy that at least I have money for my basic needs and to slowly pay off everything I borrowed. 2011 will mark a great beginning in my Canadian life; I can't wait to start living that =] And that's it.

SeeYa,
Feliploko, who's still the youngest in many groups

To atliek nosargat

Yesterday was a day like any other. For the past 2 weeks, Mareks has been waking up before me and kissing me goodbye instead of the opposite, so that was the case for yesterday morning too. I woke up moments after he left, took a shower and toasted 4 slices of bread to eat with margarine. Then I did the dishes, turned Dalton on, brushed my teeth and got ready to leave. The snow from Wednesday was still on my way, so my feet froze with the pieces of ice that got inside my boots. The 24 didn't take long to come, but there wasn't any 42 coming when I got off at Sparks Ave. So, I walked the rest of the way and still arrived at the office a little early. Amor and Jason were already there, ready to leave, so that's what we did. The highway looked incredibly slow so we took Don Mills Rd instead - bad idea, it was even slower. We arrived at Toronto Hydro in 1h and we had no trouble going upstairs with our expired IDs. Luckily, Jason remembered the lock code for our room and we managed to get in and start working.

I had a small salad and a large soup for lunch, which was enough to satisfy my appetite. In the afternoon we continued working and we decided to leave around 3:30pm to avoid traffic on the highway. It didn't work quite well, so I took another hour to get home again. Mareks had cooked me dinner, so I ate with him and talked about usual stuff. We napped a little bit and lost track of time - at 6:20pm I got up in a hurry remembering I had to meet David in 10min. We rushed out of the apartment and fortunately all the buses and subways were right there waiting for us. We were 20min late, so we decided to watch The Rite instead of The King's Speech. Aside from Anthony Hopkins and the looks of the lead actor, this movie didn't have much to appreciate. It was a fun time with David though, and I had a chance to eat Kit Kat again. Once back home, I helped Mareks with his homework and then we went to bed.

This morning the ritual was the same, but due to a lack of margarine I ate my toast with hazelnut. I arrived at the office a little later this time, and most people were already there. My team decided to wait 1h to see if the traffic in the highway eased a little bit, so while we waited I chatted with Johnny and Rodrigo about that CRTC decision to mandate usage-based billing. I admit I feel a little awkward with Johnny's weird closeness. Anyway, my team left the Test Factory at 10am, but we only saved 15min of travel since there was still a little bit of traffic on the highway. We got to Toronto Hydro and continued the work from yesterday.

They had cheese tortellini today, so I ordered that with a small soup this time. We finished our work in the afternoon and I delivered the reports to the client before leaving. He was satisfied with the work, so I'm guessing we'll be hearing from him again pretty soon =] Jason dropped me home again, and once more Mareks had food for me. We chatted for a bit and then I got ready to leave. Now here I am at PMRI watching Dexter, listening to Voxtrot and waiting for dosing tomorrow. Let's see what comes next post.

SeeYa,
Feliploko, ou Égalité