ACCOZZAGLIA

So I’m not entirely out of the woods yet, but I think the inertia of ten months hard work is starting to show some promising results.

Last Friday, CIC delivered an employer-unrestricted work permit, good until 2009. On Monday, I applied for my beginning-with-9-SIN. At last, I can answer with, “Yes, I am able to work here without having to jump through a big, slow hoop.”

At the co-operative, I am making a hefty impression, even if that impression is off-putting to a lot of people. After spending most of the year struggling with my own intenral strife relating to worrying about upsetting other people, I’ve decided that I just cannot care about it the way I used to, because there will always be those few who are going to detest me, no matter what.

The trade-off is worth it. In a 30+ house collective (all the houses are fairly old, many Victorian-era), our house went from being a fetid, fly-infested, stinky, grimy, and dusty place last September to being the showcase house in the organization. It has taken a devoted, dogged amount of persistence and patience. Many people made this possible, including the former house rep who stepped down in May. In her long-anticipated resignation (career and relationship beckoned for her), I was unanimously nominated and voted as her replacement within the span of about ten seconds. I protested, because I never said whether I accepted the nomination or not.

But it was inevitable, given the amount and kind of work I’ve invested into this grand old house. It’s hard to believe, but I’ve fallen in love with this house, and when I drop off my keys for the last time, I want the place to look a lot better than how I found it in September 2005.

We spent a portion of the day using a power washer (mmmm, power tools!) to remove years of grime and pollution from a wood deck and from all concrete steps and walks. Meanwhile, we had maintenance strip old paint from the porch with an electric sander; the maple and spruce underneath has held up to time pretty well, and with water seal and oil stain, this should last for a lot longer.

In the house, I repaired my new room, which I moved into in mid-May. This involved using a tub of spackling on all the holes, cracks and peels, followed by primer and two very calming colours — one an accent, the other richly sage. The effort extended into the hallway, where as of yesterday, our house’s wireless router was mounted into a rail-mounted wire storage basket, enabling the entire house for the first time to have wireless internet access from every bedroom and common room save the basement.

To do this, I had to install my own CAT5E dual wall plates (one jack for the DSL modem connection to the hall, and the other an umbilical cord between the router and my server). Unlike the fire department’s non-compliant inspection of all the dangling CAT5E cables the previous maintenance staff dangled around the house around 2000, the new setup involves a twisting of the pair of cables behind exposed sprinkler piping, fastened on the far side by plastic tie wraps. That it’s practically invisible and fully functional yielded a part of me a big sense of satisfaction — a kind of “I did it!” feeling. :)

Where before the hall-parlour was just barren and dreary, there is now a reclaimed love seat, motion picture mounted posters from the 1980s, and a nice IKEA rug. This makes for a splended reading area. It also serves nicely as a waiting lounge for when both floor toilets are in use.

I was warned that being a house rep in summertime, when summer-only house mates trash the houses, would be the very thing to burn me out. Incidentally, we have more people now than during the school year (when we had full 13-room capacity), and somehow, we’re holding onto the distinction of being a nice place to live. Other house reps have expressed peripheral jealousy, but seriously, they could be doing the same to their places if only they cared.

Hrm, seeing that the co-operative p0wntz me something serious, it’s also crazy to think that I’m the house’s rep, the division’s rep, and the board’s corporate secretary — as well as author to a membership policy, responsible for re-writing the non-discrimination by-law (which was approved by general vote), involved with the new building’s architecture and infrastructure planning (go Toto toilets and green roofs!), and quietly re-engineering the entire information architecture for how this org stays organized.

Two years ago, I was given feet. And it so turns out I handle the marathons better than expected. :)

In my room, I have a couple of linux boxes in preparation to be kiosks, placed in each of the houses. My room looks like a geek bomb struck it. The boxes were either frankenboxes or handed to me to fix and restore. And yeah, they’re running . . . well, at about 70% of expected functionality.

A room in the basement is about to be converted into a bicycle maintenance work area (I’m looking to assemble a frankenbike from the incomplete bicycles left abandoned out in the shed). This might also double as a lab for assembling other reclaimed computers.

Speaking of, I’m slightly mortified by the sheer number of people in this neighbourhood who just toss out perfectly operational electronics. Given the toxicity for a lot of it, I’m surprised they’re not getting fined.

Twice a week, I go to the gym to work out, which basically hammers apart my propensity to stay awake all night and work on stuff. And really, were that not enough, I joined the intramural softball team.

Naturally, my focus, through all of the above, is to start a new assignment, now that my 9-month assignment from the west coast just came to successful completion. Remember, it’s momentum.

My CGPA came back a couple of weeks ago. It’s not quite what I had hoped, but this is before the correction of some unambiguous mathematical errors. On the bright side, I was invited to a subject program — urban studies — which required a certain level of performance. This made me very, very excited. :)

So, you might notice that I ramble, and that something obvious is missing: I have no social life. Periodically, cheekybrit and I spend a few hours together, hitting up our favourite food haunts, but by and large, I just end up staying busy to the point where to have a social life would be detrimental to all the stuff I’m wanting to accomplish.

And yet, I FEEL LAZY. I think I’m challenged by some kind of disconnect, really.

[OK. This is the important part of the entry worth reading, btw.]

So, I have this 33 1/3rd birthday party coming up in August. It only happens this one time, so after waiting for nearly five years for it to happen, I’m not letting it slip by unnoticed.

If you live or will be swinging by the GTA and do bother to read this dead journal of mine, then you’re invited! :D

Incidentally, my 33.333 falls on a Tuesday. Frustratingly, I also have a board meeting that night. So, plan for Saturday, August 12th, from 4pm to whenever. It will be a burrito and sincronzida (literally, corn tortilla quesadilla, but so much better) theme, and I’ll be working on making all this stuff. Volunteers who know their way around a kitchen and love working with Tex-Mex and interior Mexican are welcome!

Also, there will be a voluntary money jar in the kitchen for chipping in $3.33 per person to help cover for the cost of all the very authentic, very fresh ingredients (including my own legendary homemade guacamole, pico de gallo, and a variation on svairini‘s magic black bean recipe). The burritos I make, for reference, are sized a lot like the American burrito chain, Chipotle. Put another way, my burritos are about a kilo (2.5 pounds), require three hands, and are about the size of a Rockstar energy drink can. My sincronzidas are made with fresh tomatillos, lime juice, caramelized valencia vidalia [note to cheekybrit: have you any idea how tired I was when I wrote that?] onions, and queso cotija (a kind of Latin American version of parm reggiano, but sharper and tastier). For once, I might even bother with making margaritas. We’ll see.

No expense shall be spared. Well, within reason, really. :)

For more, just email me. Ta!