In case you were ever a reader of operator<<, I can't post there anymore because I don't have the $US 39.95 right now for another year of hosting and I don't have the motivation to set the damn thing up to upstream somewhere else and plus, well Radio Userland sucks anyway (no linux version, crashes all the time, ...)

So a bunch of stuff has happened since the last time I posted anywhere. I somehow survived final exams, and came through with exactly the same marks I always get. Every term I think, "This is it. This is going to be the term where a really fail at something." Yet somehow school always works itself out. Amazing, but it sure doesn't prevent me from getting really stressed every time around.

If you are ever looking for a place to live for the summer in Montreal, go directly to the McGill online classifieds and you will find yourself a place so cheap and so quick. Even with all the talk of housing crisises and crazy rents, around here Montreal is just like any other university town -- students are desperate to sublet their places out and go home for summer. I decided to find a sublet after only 2 days living at my old hostel (Auberge Chez-Jean) compared to 1 month the last time I was here for exactly this reason. After minimal effort spent searching, I'm now living at 3623 St. Urbain for $275/month. The best thing about this house is that it actually comes with cool student-like roommates (again compare to last term I was here, with nasty Natasha the visitor unfriendly landlord, and where I barely ever talked to anyone)

This reminds me of a funny thing that happened at the hostel the other day. There was the Quebecois guy hanging around the place who looked pretty familiar, and I looked pretty familiar to him, but I figured we must just have seen each other around the hostel scene last fall. But after a while of thinking about it together, we realized that we actually had been roommates last term, in fact both lived side by side upstairs at my old place on Drolet! Thats how close I was with the housemates back then -- we don't even recognize each other after living together for 3 months. Fortunately I don't think that will happen this term.

I am way way way broke, but I this afternoon I managed to find room on a long lost credit card for one essential for my new place: propane. Yes they have a barbeque, but before today there was no tank, and it was full of ash from when the former residents had been cooking with coals (!?!?) Well I certainly can't live like that, so I spend this afternoon cleaning up the thing, putting it back together, and picking up a tank and propane from the (luckily) nearby gas station. It was actually kind of amazing that the whole thing didn't explode when I turned it on, because I wasn't quite sure about the "putting back together" part of the plan, but the only glitch is that the left burner must still be clogged with ash because it doesn't light. Good enough for me though and one minute later my chicken was cooking.

It's pretty stunning how domestic I've become since last term -- always buying groceries and cooking at home, I mean. That's what poverty will do to you. We'll see if it lasts once I start getting paid.

I almost forgot one other super cool feature of where I'm living. Not only is there internet access working the day I move in (score), but in fact wireless internet access ... (double score).