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Which technically began as a terrible evening, whereby on Thursday afternoon, my dad printed my e-ticket back to Canada to discover that my flight back was NOT on Friday 11pm as I had thought, but Friday 2am. And I was slated to have dinner with an aunt too. Bleh. So rush rush rush to pack my bag. Fortunately, I didn't have a whole lot to pack. I'm still nursing a cough too, so there was some arguing over what kind of medicine I should bring with me. I just brought some Mucosolvan and Strepsils.
So, this would make it my FOURTH LONG HAUL FLIGHT IN AS MANY WEEKS. My Fridays have all been about LONG HAUL FLIGHTS: the long haul back home to Malaysia, long haul to South Africa, long haul from South Africa, long haul back to Canada. I would be quite happy to not see the inside of a plane for another year, except, of course, there's the upcoming campus visit and convention season.
Only alleviated by the presence of some really adorable kids on the plane. The one in front of me, in particular, would put his hands over the back of his mom's seat to me, and I would tickle his palms, and he would just shriek with laughter. It was the adorablest.
When I got off the plane, I went through customs to be sent to immigration. Which is WEIRD to me because normally unless there's some visa or permit issue, I would just get waved through, but not this time, for some reason. And the guy at the immigration counter was very nice to me, and told me, that though last time I got back into the country through waiting for a temporary resident permit to be issued, so I could get a study permit extension, it was still on record that my last entry was irregular.
Also, that my work permit application had been rejected. FML, because this is the second damn rejection I've gotten from the stupid CIC. Why? This time, because I hadn't submitted two passport photos, apparently. THERE IS NOTHING ON THE CIC WEBSITES, NOT IN THE DOCUMENT CHECKLIST, ABOUT PASSPORT PHOTOS. GRRRRRR. But like I said, the fella at immigration was very nice, and wrote down for me a few notes on what I should send back to the permit folks.
Then I got out to get my luggage, only to discover, IT WAS UNLOCKED. And I FREAKED OUT. Once I got to a quiet corner, I unpacked a little....
Dad gave me his grandmother's silver belt the other day, you see, to keep, as a family heirloom. That night we were also counting some very old coins. I mean, Very Old, as in, coins ranging from 1874 to 1956. And there was a silver belt which had belonged to my great-grandma, which I'm pretty sure features in one of my aunt's ghost stories, which I will post another day.
AND I COULDN'T FIND IT. In fact, I was sure I'd packed it into a little toiletries bag, the one which United Emirates gives out for free every so often, and I found one of them in my bag... with regular toiletries. And I pretty much had a crying fit on the airport floor. I also couldn't find my running shoes. And I just about freaked that someone had gone through my bag and stolen shit out of it. It wouldn't be the first time I'd lost expensive stuff from my bag (the last time was when my bag passed through US customs, which gave them the right to break locks, and my luggage came on a later flight, which gave them the TIME to rifle through my stuff. I lost a pendant with gold flakes that my family bought special for me in Australia).
So I was QUITE MISERABLE ALL THE WAY HOME. (Which involves some 40 minutes of busing to a terminal, some 30 minutes of waiting in the cold for the inter-city bus, and some 1 hour of getting back to Hamilton.) Compound this with the fact that my shiny new Nokia X2-02 doesn't work here in Canada (and it's a dual-SIM! TAK ACI) and freaking out over the fact that I may have left my North American Samsung back in Malaysia and thus had NO WAY OF COMMUNICATING EXCEPT THROUGH EMAIL..... yeah.
I just unpacked all my stuff and discovered that, THANK GOD, though the belt WAS in a toiletries bag, it was a different toiletries bag than I imagined. I pretty much fell over and cried when I found it. Also, have all three pairs of my shoes. AND my Samsung phone. Hopefully it works after being recharged... North American telco is just so goddamn broken I don't fully trust it to work when needed.
So, this would make it my FOURTH LONG HAUL FLIGHT IN AS MANY WEEKS. My Fridays have all been about LONG HAUL FLIGHTS: the long haul back home to Malaysia, long haul to South Africa, long haul from South Africa, long haul back to Canada. I would be quite happy to not see the inside of a plane for another year, except, of course, there's the upcoming campus visit and convention season.
Only alleviated by the presence of some really adorable kids on the plane. The one in front of me, in particular, would put his hands over the back of his mom's seat to me, and I would tickle his palms, and he would just shriek with laughter. It was the adorablest.
When I got off the plane, I went through customs to be sent to immigration. Which is WEIRD to me because normally unless there's some visa or permit issue, I would just get waved through, but not this time, for some reason. And the guy at the immigration counter was very nice to me, and told me, that though last time I got back into the country through waiting for a temporary resident permit to be issued, so I could get a study permit extension, it was still on record that my last entry was irregular.
Also, that my work permit application had been rejected. FML, because this is the second damn rejection I've gotten from the stupid CIC. Why? This time, because I hadn't submitted two passport photos, apparently. THERE IS NOTHING ON THE CIC WEBSITES, NOT IN THE DOCUMENT CHECKLIST, ABOUT PASSPORT PHOTOS. GRRRRRR. But like I said, the fella at immigration was very nice, and wrote down for me a few notes on what I should send back to the permit folks.
Then I got out to get my luggage, only to discover, IT WAS UNLOCKED. And I FREAKED OUT. Once I got to a quiet corner, I unpacked a little....
Dad gave me his grandmother's silver belt the other day, you see, to keep, as a family heirloom. That night we were also counting some very old coins. I mean, Very Old, as in, coins ranging from 1874 to 1956. And there was a silver belt which had belonged to my great-grandma, which I'm pretty sure features in one of my aunt's ghost stories, which I will post another day.
AND I COULDN'T FIND IT. In fact, I was sure I'd packed it into a little toiletries bag, the one which United Emirates gives out for free every so often, and I found one of them in my bag... with regular toiletries. And I pretty much had a crying fit on the airport floor. I also couldn't find my running shoes. And I just about freaked that someone had gone through my bag and stolen shit out of it. It wouldn't be the first time I'd lost expensive stuff from my bag (the last time was when my bag passed through US customs, which gave them the right to break locks, and my luggage came on a later flight, which gave them the TIME to rifle through my stuff. I lost a pendant with gold flakes that my family bought special for me in Australia).
So I was QUITE MISERABLE ALL THE WAY HOME. (Which involves some 40 minutes of busing to a terminal, some 30 minutes of waiting in the cold for the inter-city bus, and some 1 hour of getting back to Hamilton.) Compound this with the fact that my shiny new Nokia X2-02 doesn't work here in Canada (and it's a dual-SIM! TAK ACI) and freaking out over the fact that I may have left my North American Samsung back in Malaysia and thus had NO WAY OF COMMUNICATING EXCEPT THROUGH EMAIL..... yeah.
I just unpacked all my stuff and discovered that, THANK GOD, though the belt WAS in a toiletries bag, it was a different toiletries bag than I imagined. I pretty much fell over and cried when I found it. Also, have all three pairs of my shoes. AND my Samsung phone. Hopefully it works after being recharged... North American telco is just so goddamn broken I don't fully trust it to work when needed.
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