Involuntary meditation

Dinner's ready on the stove, a simple meal of alphabet pasta and inexpensive sauce. I've had to learn a lot about how to eat well on a budget, and wish I would have learned that lesson much earlier in life, but can't go back and redo that, so will keep doing my frugal best going forward. I still have an internship to apply to and a paper section to write, with the dim hope of getting to some managerial finance reading before bed.

I've been under so much stress of late that I literally cannot think at times, and my mind draws a blank when I consciously try to think of something. It's as though my mind is keeping me from freaking out about things, trying to help me keep moving with the stress of a new part-time job, the 9.5 hours-a-week that the job takes that I desperately miss already, but which is providing me with valuable Canadian work experience.

I spent four hours today trying to apply for my Off-Campus Work Permit, including the train ride to and from school in which I brought my laptop along to do readings for the paper section I'm responsible for. I'm glad I went to school, though, as wrestling with the scanner and trying to get legible passport and study-permit grayscale copies, plus the system time-outs with the CIC website, easily would have cost over $40 with all the time I spent on it. And after all that, it wouldn't accept my U.S. debit card or the one credit card that I theoretically still have space on. In short, I'll have to request a special form that CIC has to mail to me, then I bring that to my bank with the $150.00 payment. Hopefully it won't delay the processing and I'll still be on track to be able to work full-time starting mid- to late-April.

The joys of being international, one step at a time. Dinner!