(no subject)
So, Dan and I arrived back in Toronto on Saturday. It was a relatively easy day of travel, with only a brief detour into horror when the cat peed in his carrier and then tried to claw his way out. Actually, nearly succeeded in clawing his way out. He was in a specially designed airplane cat carrier, which should factor in that the animals are in a high-stress environment. Apparently not.
However, when we arrived back at our apartment, our subletter was nowhere to be found. Now, this asshole has been driving me insane all summer, emailing me at least once a week about the most inane things, and implying that I am somehow trying to rip him off, despite the fact that we were only asking him to pay the rent, not even charging him more because it's a nicely furnished apartment. So, I was already extremely annoyed with this guy's attempt to single-handedly ruin my summer...and then he's not there. I told him several days before we arrived that we would be at the apartment between 6:00 and 6:30 on Saturday. He said he'd be there to hand off the keys. That was the last I heard.
So, I tried to call him. No go. His number's been changed. Some ghetto twelve year old has the number now. At this point I'm starting to freak out that maybe he ran off with all our stuff, or something equally shady. I run up to the nearest Starbucks so I can check my email -- nothing. No contact.
Finally we got the super to let us into the apartment, over and hour after we arrived. Once inside, we find a note from Scott's girlfriend..."had to leave...sorry!" INSIDE the locked apartment. No note on the door, nothing. Thanks. Really helpful.
There's also no sign of our keys. I call the cell number Shannon left and Scott tells me that "of course" he left the keys with the super, like that was obvious. Once again, a note on the door would be nice...left keys with Super, or something.
The super, however, was off-duty and wouldn't answer his door. I had to stand in the hallway knocking for five minutes while his wife called me a bitch through the door before he finally answered, screaming at me about bothering him. He was only mildly apologetic when I finally managed to interrupt him and make him understand that I had to bother him, because he had my keys.
Thus ends our returning to Toronto adventure. Bastard subletters.
Today I dragged Dan out to look at the York campus with me, so I would know where I'm going on Wednesday when I start classes. It is, quite literally, in the middle of nowhere. Two bus rides and a subway away from my place. One hour total transit. However, the campus itself isn't too bad, except that it's suffering from New College-itis, in that everything is half dead. I get that Toronto has warm summers, but why bother having huge stretches of grass everywhere if you don't want to water it?
The English Graduate Department is in the crappiest of the buildings, but at least it's close to the bus stop. All in all, I'm not too horrified with the prospect of going to school there. So, it beats one out of the previous three schools I've attended. And, it beats being unemployed.