Art, science and love.

Xu and I recently got our first apartment (woo!). It is about 850 square feet, just over $800/month, on the 16th floor (technically the 15th because there is not 13th floor…but we’re 1603), have a 20 ft long by 4 ft wide balcony with a pretty neat view and we are right around the corner from Jane and Finch.

The Jane-Finch community has one of the largest concentrations of criminal gangs of any area in Canada. It also has “one of the highest proportions of youth, sole-supported families, refugees and immigrants, low-income earners and public housing tenants of any community in Toronto” (p.5, A Report of the Jane-Finch Street Involved Youth Issues Coalition, December 2002).

Lovely, I know. But we’re not right at J&F, we’re actually spitting distance from York University, so I’d like to claim that we’re actually on campus.

We were both super excited to be moving in today, we packed up some stuff last night and talked about what colors we were going to paint the rooms and about the entire process of moving. We got really excited to bring our new kitten onto our new pad and start the next part of our lives. I tossed and turned all night because I was so excited. This morning I went to the apartment earlier than him to get the keys and scope the place out a little bit.

My excitement hit the floor when I walked into the apartment. It was a complete and utter disaster. It smelled like paint (from the worst paint job ever) and smoke, there were cigarette butts on the ground, dirt all over the floor, rips in the screen door, a burnt out light, a moldy bathtub (which I was promised would be fixed and all better the last time I complained about it) and Tim Horton’s cups on the belcony. I just about hit the roof. I told the landlord it was unacceptable and blah blah blah - so he’s sending his wife to clean it - apparently.

So I call Xu, super upset, telling him not to come and that I want to just burn the whole place down. Once he calms me down we finally decide to just carry on with the plans, sans kitten - because it is too dirty for a sickly kitten to be frolicking around. We moved in a bunch of stuff and to lighten our spirits took a fun trip to Ikea where we bought new chairs, a great painting, a shower curtain and other things to make the place feel a little bit like our own. Oh, and had meatballs, of course. Now… Come Saturday we’ll have EVERYTHING moved in (thanks to all our friends), our kitten will be here (technically our kittenS will be here - we are babysitting for a month! exciting) and we won’t be sleeping on the floor (also exciting). Hopefully we’ll have our own Internet soon… the people with open WiFi don’t really splurge on the fastest net. And hopefully we don’t destroy the place while hanging our new curtains tomorrow. :S

I’ve moved so many times in my life. I think around 15 or 16 times and I’m not even 25 yet. Never have I had a moving experience this terrible before. I guess coupling it with a really sick kitten doesn’t always set it in the best light to begin with (and that I’m just getting into the middle of a super duper crappy sickness that is making me miss Camp Inquiry … AND that we had KFC for dinner…that never makes an experience better) - but I think its the merging of two people into one area, and how we’ve underestimated everything. I mean, we’ve lived together for a while, but now this is OUR space and we get to decide what to do with it. So we just want to make sure we do everything right. (And make sure we don’t get any cockroaches…*shudders*)

Here is our apartment in its current state…yes, we are sleeping on the floor… yes, we have pretty much nothing in here… yes, we know it looks like no one lives here. But, this was just one car trip of stuff to get us started. I’ll do some “after” pictures on Sunday…or when the place is actually finished.

This is our VERY GREEN bathroom... ...it's grrrreen.

This is a pile of garbage that is behind the building. CLASSY.

The view at night.

My temporary set-up. This is where the dining table will go when it actually gets here from Guelph.

The view during the day - we face West (mostly).

This is my new Urban Outfitters rug - I lurve it.

This is the new Ikea picture that has ultimately made me decide not to paint my living room. It looks nice against a blank wall. At the same time it meant changing the colors of at least 3 other major pieces of stuff in the room... le. sigh. But its a great painting (and makes an appearance in "Sims 2 Ikea Stuff" expansion pack).

This is the main room (and that's my main man). We are sleeping on the floor in the middle of it, and shit is kind of everywhere. But...we're trying to get used to it and get things in their right place.

And it is off to bed for me - I’m sleeping so much. I hope the sick is gone soon. crycry.