That's some catch, that catch-22.

So my week hasn't been going all that well, thus far. I mean I guess it is only Wednesday after all so I suppose there's a chance that things could get better...yet, as I sit here typing this blog, from Oakville, I can't help but think it won't.

I have 4 days to finish a task that hasn't been accomplished in 9 months. Translation: there are 24 hours in a day so expect to be in the plant a lot. I guess the money will be nice. Even getting here to Canada was a chore. I was working Tuesday when they asked me to come up here. I worked a normal day, went home packed up, got a rental car and was on the road around 6:30. I was cruising along fine, going to cross the border at Sarnia because it's faster and it leaves you with less distance to travel in Canada. I got the the booth and the guy tells me I have to go to Immigration....sweeet. The weather forecast in Oakville was Snow with blowing wind and Ice, so you know, delays were precisely what I was hoping for. I got into the office and this guy asks me for my paperwork. I give him what I have, which really shouldn't be necessary because when he runs my passport he'll see that I have a work permit from the last time I was in Oakville, less than 3 months ago. He doesn't look that up, he's fixated on the paperwork that I'm "supposed to have with me". I've given him all that I have but it's apparently not the correct paperwork. I ask him what is the right paperwork, because this was all I was given, and it was sufficient the last time I was here. "I don't know what the right paperwork is." he says. If you don't know what the right paperwork is, I ask, how can you be sure that this isn't it? "I' know " he says. This dialogue could have come straight out of a Joseph Heller novel. Let me also say that I was having hard time taking this guy seriously. He had an unusually slope-y forehead and buckish teeth. He had a grass stain on the shoulder of his otherwise impeccable uniform and all I could think of was that this guy was a cigar away from being the groundskeeper on donkey island. Seriously. And you know how I get whenever I think of the word Donkey. Anyway he told me to go home, so I was escorted back across the border to begin my 2 hour drive back home. Not before I had to pay duty on the items that would have been duty free had I been allowed to enter the country. I got back to my apartment around midnight and went to bed. After all I had to be up in a few hours to try and find documents unknown that would allow me to get into Canada, and then I had to drive there. It really is a boring drive.

The day prior to this I had my first actual class of the semester. My prof is a kook, but he assign tasks that allow you to work at your own pace, six of them to be precise, and there is a final exam but it sounds like it will be pretty straight forward. So long as I get through the tasks he assigns I'll be fine. I did get rolled by the proprietor of the bookstore though. He sold me 3 "required" text books (260.00 U.S.) and as it turns out only one of them is really required, the one that was 45 bucks, naturally. Not to mention I had to buy a circuit board (120.00 U.S.) which brings my grand total for class supplies to just a hair under 400.00 clams. That's a new moon record, for now and all time.

I'm driving a purple Taurus. The car that says "I've given up on my dreams" only better because it's purple

4 days to go. wish me luck.