"This is a joke, right?"

...that was my first thought when they showed me the new place they had picked out for me. The school talked to my landlord and I went down to check out a new place with my landlord (whom I've never met before) Mr. Bak (The head bus driver/ maitenence guy/ electrician/ anything else the school needs guy) and the landlord's mom (hey why not!). I'm just glad it didn;t take my whole lunch hour. So the school wants to keep with the same landlord because they have a contract with her for at least four more months, but after today I will have to make it clear to them that I really don't care if the school loses money on the arrangement.
So to make a short story short they drive me to a building near where Nick lives, my first warning was when they opened the door to a ground floor apartment, I pretty much knew from that point that it was going to be shit. I don;t like ground floor apartments, my current one is ground floor. You have no light and lots of noise and there are bars on your windows. I'm cool with some stairs. So I walk inside and see that this place is sbout 2/3 the size of my current place, which is already the smallest apartment I've seen here. This place was basically dorm room sized, and crappy Ryerson dorm at that. It had a tiny fridge, a small bed, and a small desk and a average sized wardrobe. It actually took me a second to figure out the size relations of those objects. This was partially due to teaching a morning of kindergarten and I always feel that in whatever small way I pull thier intellect up they pull mine down the same amount- law of the conservation of energy and all that. But it was also that at first you look at that room and say "Wow, all of this furniture is oversized! There's barely any room at all!" But then it hits you that the problem is that the room itself is jsut the crappy furniture's ugly friend- making them look better in relation. So it being small wasn;t the only problem, it was also very dirty. They assured me that they would clean it, and I assured them that I had heard that line before. I made mention of the fact that I had spent many hours cleaning my current place despite promises that it would be cleaned. This was of course when everyone in the room exhibiting a very selective comprehension of English. When I noted the water damage on the wallpaper they said that the wallpaper would be redone. Which is great cause nothing fixes a leaking structure like two more milimeters of paper. The kitchen was worse than the other one, a beat-up rice cooker replacing the beat-up hotplate. So anyway the three of them were all looking at me expectantly. They actually thought I was going to take it. The best part of the whole day was the surprise on thier faces when I just bluntly said 'No I don't like it" and proceeded to walk out. They were shocked and perhaps a little offended. What really got me was that a few years ago I probably would have tried to look for the best in things, probably agree to take the place and then kick myslef for it later. Luckily I've evolved beyond such niceities.
So I went back to the school with Mr. Bak and I figure sometime during the rest of the day he informed the school that I wouldn't take the place. Its unfortunate but there are only two higher ups that I could have talked to about it myself and I didn;t see either of them all afternoon. So tomorrow I'll go in and talk to someone, because in all fairness I should give them time to decide what to do next.
On a happy note I've kicked my cold and aside from a few nasty pieces of phlegm I'm still dislodging I feel fine. I opened a bank account today and now should be able to buy a phone this week. I didn't do much on the weekend except for rest up. I did go across the city to find a western market that sells protein powder but my directions were crap and I ended up in the world famous Jalachi Fish Market, which was a cool little cultural experience but I was frustrated that I never found the market I was looking for. I have better directions now and will probably go back one day soon.
I hoped for this blog top be more about cultural experiences and less about my personal bitching but I guess I've just been a little self centered lately. Sorry readers, you get what you pay for.