NOT TO BUSY TO EMBARASS MYSELF

Things here have been very busy, lots of homework and lots of activities to take part in. Amidst the busyness I have taken the time to look like an ass once or twice.

While studying one evening I was highlighting my textbook with green crayon, jungle green to be exact. After I finished the chapter and the assignment I went downstairs to put it in the prof's mailbox. I stopped off in the lounge to meet some people I had not yet met and hang out for a bit. I went back up to my hall and went to the washroom. When I looked in the mirror, I had a big green crayon smudge on my lip, which explains why people were looking at me funny. I guess I was resting the crayon on my lip while I was studying.

In one of my classes we do dictation practice, where the class goes up to the he board and tries to write out the word the prof says in the international phonetic alphabet. While I was up there, I was in the corner, so I thought it was a safe place to pick a wedgie. And it was, I don't think anyone saw me. But they may have been suspicious of the chalk hand mark on my butt. Eek! Oh well, what can you do. Good thing I am not here to meet a man!

Again, during the dictation activity, the teacher said a word that I had no idea how to write and so I laughed. Unfortunately, when I laughed, I must have had velar opening because a large puff of air came out of my nose forcing a blob of snot to fly out onto the chalk board. Thankfully only the one girl directly beside me saw it.

IN NORTH DAKOTA

Here I am in ND. I got here about 8pm last night, much quicker than I was expecting since I had a little bit of difficulty along the way. Here are the events of the 24hours (give or take) of my journey.

The plan was to leave about 8pm Sunday night and make it to Brandon by about 1:30ish. That would allow me to sleep in sunday and then arrive in ND with plenty of time to spare ad relax. Of course that didn't happen due to a few circumstances beyond my control. I didn't leave the city until about 9:45ish, which meant that I would only get as far as Regina. On the way there my car was not running as smoothly as it normally does. I thought perhaps it was the extra weight of all the stuff I packed. It stalled a few times along the way, when I was stopped at an intersection and went to hit the gas or when I was trying to back out of the parking stall. I did not think the extra weight would cause that. I recalled that I had the oil changed that morning but I didn't want to pull over on the highway and check it, I would wait until I got to Regina.

I had called ahead and made a reservation for a single room. When I got there it turned out to be a smoking room and a suite so it was nearly $200. No thanks. So I drove around Regina for about an hour until I found a hotel. It was a Travelodge, so a little pricey but I did not want to take any chances settling into a no name motel when it was after midnight. I did manage to still encounter some a-holes though. As I was going out the entrance to the parking lot I had to walk through a very sketchy group of drunk men who insisted that I join them if I wanted a good time that night. I did not bother to check my oil that night because it was to dark to see anything.

I got up bright and early the next morning because I had a long day of drining ahead. I checked my car to see if I could figure out what was wrong. Turns out the genius males who changed the oil overfilled it. I hope there is no permanent damage to the engine. I forgot that it was a Sunday and so the earliest shop wasn't open until 9:30, which was still pretty good for a Sunday. It was a Canadian Tire shop, and for those of you who don't know Canadian Tire Auto Repair is my archenemy. But I had no choice and it was not the same same location as my last disasterous autorepair.

They drained the extra oil and I was on my way. Much later than I wanted but at least my car was running smoothly again. The drive through MB was much nicer than I expected and I gained some time. I also had lunch with a small town yokel. I was very disappointed though when I wanted a Turkey BLT but the Subway had no tomatoes. The border crossing went relatively smoothly too, even though I did not have all the correct papers. They did not search my car which made me happy. And now on to the interstate!

In Canada, when traveling on the highways it is common to find small towns right on the highway or at the very least a Petro or Esso station. Being accustomed to this I planned on getting gas after I crossed the border, I figured it would be cheaper. Not that I can tell because I couldn't do a $/gal to $/L calculation plus a currency conversion in my head. This was not the case on the ~120km of I-29 that I drove. You have to actually exit off the highway to get to a small town, and the signs don't tell what services are available until you have actually exited. I also wasn't able to judge how much farther in miles my car could get. My car has no gas light so after the empty line I am not sure exactly how much farther I can go. I had to venture off to some small town, well actually 3 before I found a gas station. And it turns out that I probably could have made it to Grand Forks.

On the bright side, the speed limit was 75MPH, about 122Km/h. So when I drove 130 I wasn't that much over the speed limit.