Life in Vancouver

I had actually written an earlier post where I explained my state of joblessness since I didn't know what to do and how to do etc. This state of joblessness is slowly changing and even though I ended up looking like a total idiot, I am slowly getting the gist of things. Its nothing great, just connecting some pipes around, making some electrical connections and stuff. But for someone, who practically never screwed a bolt in his entire life and who was basically as good as a deaf, dumb and blind person in most of the labs, the entire thing made absolutely no sense in the beginning. I didnt even know how to give a 24 V connection to one of the valves( the connecting positive and negative part) and the electrical shop guy was like " Dude, Is this guy for real?"..

Anyways, after all that, I do now know how to give electrical connections and stuff. The pain now, is that all the stuff which was ordered should reach before I can do anything. Thats an other thing here, whatever stuff you need for the experiment, you yourself have to order it from somewhere. Its not like you can generally walk up to some lab or technician and ask him to get it. Even when you ask a workshop guy to make you something, he will first give you a quote and then YOU have to pay him per hour charge for the work that he does. Its almost like the workshop is business in itself and not a part of the univ. Anyways since the paying is done by the prof, it really doesn bother me, but the cost of things around here is simply atrocious. I have orderd around $2000 worth stuff by now and probably some more.

Coming back to life here, this place is like the most beautiful place I have ever seen. I mean some of the views and sceneries basically is beyond your imagination. I dont think any place in the world can be more beautiful, seriously!. Alcohol is pretty much dirt cheap here, you get 6 bottles( a pack) for just $10. Thats real good beer too. The food is great as well, each day I am eating more non-veg than what I would in a month at IIT.

In short, to wrap things up, with some more good friends around, this place will probably be the best place on earth. But then, you cant have everything!