November 25, 2008 - 2.04 |
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Almost a month into winter, I am starting to feel the coldness of the weather. I swear that my room is, for some strange reason, colder than the rest of the house. I don’t have the heater vent blocked but it just doesn’t have the same temperature as the other rooms. Having said that, Vancouver’s winter is nothing compared to the winters I spend in Ontario when I was in school.
The first year I was there, winter was kind of mild, according to those that had lived been living in Ontario. There was a lot more snow than I would experience in Vancouver but it was nothing overwhelming. I’m not a person that dislike coldness. I’m quite comfortable with a reasonable amount of coldness. Plus, I was living in resident which means I can turn up the heat as much as I like without worrying about utility bills. Next winter, I was in for a surprise. That time, I was on my internship in Mississauga, where I was staying with a relative of my dad’s friend. Her house was sort of at the edge of a residential area. There were no houses or big buildings on one side of the street. That way happens to be where the bus stop was. Every morning, it would be very windy. On the first day of work, I didn’t wear enough clothes since I was unfamiliar with how cold the temperature actually means. I was shaking at the bus stop. Lesson was learn and I wore a lot more on the next day. Then one time I almost missed the bus as I was running towards the bus stop but I was able to catch the bus driver’s attention from across the street. He stopped for me, which was very nice of him. However, since it wasn’t at an actual bus stop, there was a huge pile of snow on the sidewalk. I had to climb through it to get on the bus. It came up to my knees. Half my pants were wet when the snow that was stuck on them melted. But that experience became insignificant when 2004 came around.
My worst winter.
I was working in downtown Toronto and rented a room nearby. That whole building is rented out to students. It was divided into many rooms. The one I had originally looked at was in front of the kitchen. That was during the summer. I send in my deposit and went back to Vancouver during the short break I had in between school and work terms. I got a call from the landlord saying they’ve rented that room out to another person because my deposit was send in too late. However, there’s another room available which is smaller but rent will be adjusted proportionally. Seeing that I’m not in Toronto and won’t have the time to find another place, I agreed to it. Big mistake. That room was behind the kitchen. It was basically at the back of the house. I guess it’ll be the dinning room if the area was use normally. There’s a back door that leads to the backyard which had been turned into a parking lot. The room was smaller but that didn’t bother me too much. There was a TV. Basic cable and internet were provided. I was doing alright there until November comes around when it started getting really cold. The heater there barely warmed up the room. To make things worse, the door leaked cold air. I had to buy a roll of duct tape to seal up the door. Despite wearing my winter jacket, I was still shaking from time to time. INDOORS! That went on for over a month. Towards the end of December, I went and stayed with my cousin for a week or so. I was so glad to be out of that hell hole.
For the next two work term winters, I found placements in Vancouver and California. Vancouver’s winter is filled with rain, but the temperature isn’t bad compared to the experience in Ontario. And in California, it didn’t even felt like it was winter. I walked to work everyday for 45minutes each way (due to the rather pathetic bus system in that small silicon valley city). It was quite an enjoyable walk. I never wore anything thicker than a windbreaker.
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Posted in Real Life
Tagged as california, cold, mississauga, ontario, toronto, vancouver
