TTC, do we need it? Do we need it the way it is?

I don't understand this. Is this the economy, or just me? I an not becoming any younger. I do not have high hopes for a good, well-paid job or successful business, I have to stick to what I have. And the reality of my life is: I do not have a lot. I have a minimum paid job and another one I have to endure.
And I still cannot afford a lot. I cannot have a car. I cannot eat what I want and buy things I need, when I need them. Car looks pretty much like a necessity in a big city like Toronto. I don't think it's right. I think that at least in big cities we should rely more on a public transportation. It could be more convenient, practical and economical for many people who have to buy that darn thing because they do not have a choice.
Look around - in the morning we see hundreds of cars around, wasting gasoline, polluting the atmosphere and carrying ... one maximum two persons in it! That much trouble, gas, car insurance just to carry one person to work? Think about it.
I think it's a biggest and most wasteful and completely out of hand madness. How many people live in so called residential areas, where you are so far from any store, or mall, or anything? You don't even have a designated pedestrian path. If you need a napkin or salt or whatever, you are supposed to open your garage, take out your car and go to the store! Add the price of gasoline you've spent to buy a lighter or a box of matches or a screw driver, or a can of cat food! Tell me about living green after that, about frugality and economy! What a stupid joke.
By the way. I was standing on a bus stop for 20 minutes today, waiting for that dam**d bus to go to work, with other people who are "stupid" enough not to have a car. The bus came full to the brim. Luckily for me the driver let us to get in, well, some of us.
It vividly reminded me about my old country. We had to get to work like that, as if we were sardines in a can, neatly packed inside. But my country had been tinkering with socialism for almost 70 years. To see this in Canada just does not sound right.
May be our authorities should better sell our TTC to some 3rd party? May be we 'll be actually able to sit on a bus and come to work on time? Though there might resurface another problem: how much we'll be paying for our comfort in that scenario? Answer that question if you can.

A girl with a Coke bottle...

Image:Cocacola-5cents-1900.jpg licensed with PD-US

It was an ordinary morning. Just a regular working day. I was taking my usual bus route to work - not a complicated one. I go to Keele/Finch intersection and then 4 stops from there take me to my work. On a good day(or empty pocket) I can actually walk home from my working place, I do that sometimes, when I feel like it. If there is no rush and weather is good, I can be home in 40 minutes, not bad for a big city, distance-wise.

But my story is not about my healthy life style. On that day while on a bus, I noticed a girl. She was probably my kids' age, give and take. Young, she could even be pretty, if not for her gross overweight -400 or 500 pounds she was, I don't know.

What really upset me - she was sitting there drinking Cola from a 500 ml bottle. I was looking at her but I could not say anything, not in Canada, not on a bus full of people. I could not just come close to her and tell her that she was killing herself by drinking that stuff.

She was siting there drinking exactly what was a no-no to her, because with every sip she was adding to her weight and health problems.

If she is going to consume that stuff, she'll continue to grow bigger until she is bed ridden and helpless and very sick, and she probably does not see the connection.

In 12 oz of cola there is 40 gr of sugar, about 8 tsp of sugar. http://http//www.askipedia.com/askipedia-article-006-219.htmIf you drink one can of cola for a year, you'll consume 65 pounds of sugar. What do you think it will do to your system?

Do you seriously think that you can play with your health like that and get away with it? Lots of sugar make this drink highly addictive, and you'll be craving that drink over and over again.

We bust marijuana growing, but drinking coke is legal and Coca-Cola company is flourishing. Is there any sense in that? Or is just me, stupid immigrant, who does not understand the divine wisdom of successful business?

Who cares about your personal health, we have plenty of young and eager doctors to help you with your medical problems and lots of medications to prescribe to you.

I think same as with credit cards we need a wake up call with our food industry.

There is a saying in my old country:"We don't see forest bend the trees." Exactly, we don't see it here.

We don't see that our children can stay healthy and all we need to do is just a little effort - just take out poison from our shopping carts, that's it.

And when we'll do that - companies like Coca-Cola we'll be out of food industry too - for good.

Is it involuntary conspiracy or what? - Our teachers.

I am thinking, why don't our wonderful teachers teach us at school main basic skills of survival in this modern and complicated and stressful world?

This civilised world (and I will be talking just about the civilised part of it) full of things to do and to consume, to buy and to sell; things to make us happy, things to make us sick and kill us. Should we know how to navigate in this world successfully, without being lost in these urban jungles? We have to know mathematics and how to read and write, chemistry and geography, it goes without saying. But how about life skills? How about the ability to earn money? To have some classic education is not enough for that.

Should we know how to stay healthy, how to avoid poisoning our bodies and eco-system, how to be happy and prosper, and not to worry too much about unimportant things. We need to know in our stressful world how to survive without stress and depression, how to stay away from needless suffering and financial ruin, from failed relationship, from poverty .

Why some people can make it and prosper in this world and why others live in tears and misery? I am sure we all can do it successfully, we just need the right skills, life skills. We need just basic elementary lessons at school. Some basic life education is definitely missing from our curriculum.

"If I knew this 10 years ago..." If only I knew better..." But we did not. And sometimes it's too late. And sometimes we never know.

And sometimes society we live in just does not let us know or does not allow us to do this and that. And sometimes we are just not cut for it.

The world around us is changing rapidly. Jobs are more demanding and less in quantity.

Harder to find. Prices, inflation are out of this world. We still need to eat and live somewhere, to get somewhere we need transportation. We need to go faster and more skillfully. We need new ability to handle things. The East creates a new leader in economy - we have to adjust to that too.

We have to start teaching our children a few skills of survival in this world, not just pet and pamper them till they are 16 years old and full of drugs, infantile ambitions, inflated self esteems, computer games and absolute inability to survive, when desperate parents kick them out of the house into this vast and unfriendly world. They live on the streets with no place to go, no skills to use, other than stealing and prostitution. To spend 10 -11 years at school and be unable to make a living. Any kind of living! Isn't it pathetic? I think so.
12 years at school and all you know about life is how to use drugs? Or beg on the corner? You do not need any education for that!That means, we, parents and teachers, failed at one point. We do not deliver necessary skills, really necessary, that can protect our children and help them to survive. They really need that.

Back to the drawing board...

Well, I cancelled Distributel, with regret I should say, because I really needed a cheaper Internet connection, but their speed is too slow in comparison with Rogers. They were giving me 2Mb and Rogers 7Mb. I was afraid to lose some functionality on my computer.

I do not want a bad service, I want a good one.

Rogers is good. They just too darn greedy, they want us to pay for everything. I do not even want to try Distributel, because then it will be hassle to cancel and order again and question is open still: what should I order and what should I get for my money?

Distributel very decently returned my deposit without any delay and they earnestly told me about their speed, so I cannot complain. I just don't know, where should I go with my question and I still do not want to pay Rogers extra for my bandwidth.

It's enough, that they've caught me with that telephone contract for a year. I cannot cancel that without paying fines. Very smart move, Rogers. One more loyal customer for you, congratulations! May be I should join http://www.ihaterogers.ca/ as I am not the only one who is a"happy" customer of Rogers.

I am sure, that for the money they are charging us, they could at least educate us, stupid customers, sending us some informative brochures, explaining us how to use our connections to our advantage, what we need to have and why. Instead they make their plans large and complicated, but how many customers really understand, what they are paying for? Then they could really have loyal customers.

I hate wasting money and with this new technology I feel lost in space. I cancelled my cable TV, but now I am charged for bandwidth, I am not even sure what it is and how to measure it, but I am paying for it and it irritates me immensely.

I hate feeling stupid, but I do feel like that. Every time I try to save some money, I am getting something else to pay for. Is it my fault? Should I just use dial-up for my Internet connection and be happy with it? Am I missing something? Or am I just turning into informational junky and I need the Internet connection 24 hours a day like a dope for a real junky? May be yes, may be no.

I know that $100 a month turns into a thousand+ a year and I have to earn those money before I spend it. I better spend it good. So back to the drawing board... who's next on line to be my Internet provider?

How I ordered a new Internet connection or...

...what's my mothers maiden name?

You might ask me: what is the link between Internet and my mother's name? I can tell you: it is very important to know it, because if you forget it, how you are supposed to get a new Internet connection or telephone line?

I am tired of good old Rogers. I've had it for 10 years I think(the Internet connection), and now with new technologies and companies, I need something new too, because old Rogers charges me more and more on top of it's current plan and other companies promise to give you more, at least it looks like it.

After some thinking and "googling"I called to Distributel, http://www.distributel.ca/ as they advertise unlimited bandwidth. Don't ask me , what it means, I do not know. Tried to learn, still don't know. Beyond my understanding, too stupid, I guess, technologically challenged, to be polite. But never mind. The fact is if it costs less, I'll take it. I need to save some money, at least money, that I do not have, because money that I have, well, not enough for anything.

Okay, to make long story short, I ordered their service on July 29 by phone. Today is August 5 and I am still waiting for somebody somehow to show up. Please, guys, show that you are genuine. Do something. Connect something to something, so I do not have to call you every day and diligently tell you my mothers name.

Are you absolutely sure, that you need to ask me it every day?

I've paid you already, just come,please.

No, life is not that simple. I have to call them again, today.

It's like a secret game, I just have to know the rules. I will call them and they will ask me my mother's name, as it is very important for them to know.

Do you want to know it too? No way! I cannot tell it. Its a very important secret between me and Distributel, ask them.

I already paid them $130 dollars for the right to ask me every day when I call them my mothers name. I hope one day they will get tired of asking me that, or may be they will remember it at last and just will come and connect me to a cheaper version of Internet.

I really and truly need it. Cross my heart, and hope to die, no kidding.

Is poverty a bad word?

Yes, I think it is. It feels like a weak, helpless sort of a word.
There is so much desperation and helplessness in it.
Poverty.When you are poor there is no way out, you are at the bottom of social ladder, at the bottom of everything. You are a looser. You feel like one, an you expect people to feel the same. People are polite in this country, they are not going to laugh in your face, to call you names or anything.
They politely turn away and pretend that they don't see you, that they are not embarrassed by your poverty.
Poverty is especially badly felt when you see so many people around, who look prosperous and happy, with nice new cars and rich looking houses. They have businesses and money, they are not poor. You subconsciously or consciously feel envy.
You think: why me? Why am I poor,without money and hope, without future?
It's easier I think when you grow in poverty, you don't know anything better.
I wonder sometimes: how does it feel when you've lost millions suddenly and you don't have anything?
Do you feel like a poor person, or not? Is it a matter of tolerance, tolerance to stress and disaster?
Can you handle a big loss if you are accustomed to move around, to manipulate big money? Well, I never had a lot of money, but I know how poverty feels and I don't like it a bit. I prefer comfort and money. At least some comfort and some money, if you please.
I don't imagine living in a shelter or without running water or shower is all about poverty, though I lived like that in my old country for many years, but never considered it a norm. There is no norm in indignity. I never could get used to it, or accept it.
I will probably will be struggling to maintain that level dignity as long as I live and hopefully I will never see my extreme poverty in this rich country, it would be extremely unfair.
Though who knows? They say in my old country:"you can't claim your stake against prison or poverty."
I guess when you came to a new country with nothing but holes in your pockets, you have to run pretty fast to outrun the ugly toothless face of poverty, smirking at you from all corners of your life. But so be it. I am not going to complain.
I am still running.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_threshold

What do you have to lie about if you immigrated to Canada?

Every year about 250,000 permanent residents come to Canada. Sometimes more, sometimes less.

New immigrants come to seek old things: better life, more money, something better for themselves and their children.

Most of them are not rich. They saved some money, they are qualified to come and live in Canada, but most of them still facing on of the biggest problems: finding a job.

For me it was never a problem to find a job in my old country, but when I came to Canada and became immigrant, everything changed. Nobody needed me there.

To make things worse we moved to a small town south of Hamilton and there a middle aged immigrant woman with a thick European accent that betrayed you right away, without local experience and local education was completely out of place...

The worst thing was that nobody told me anything. I was walking around trying to find a job in all wrong places, places that would never in a million years hire me because they have a lot of qualified people with Canadian experience, who is eager to take the position: just pick and choose. But they never told me that and I continued to walk around, to send my resume, trying to get noticed, to get an interview.

And they would invite you , polite listen to you and very politely tell you that they will call you next week as soon as they would make a decision. And you sit and wait and they never call, because they never intended to call anyway.

That faceless politeness was more damaging than real rudeness.

It took me quite a while before I realised how everything worked, what unemployment meant to a reluctant immigrant, to any immigrant for that matter.

I was not better or worse than anybody else. It's just every employer tried to hire the best and I definitely did not fall into that category.

I needed a lot to learn. Well, if I was alone without a family, I would have left for sure and went to a big city, like Toronto, to get more chance and more experience, but I had to consider my family so I had to stay. I tought it would be better, I was wrong...

We bought a house, kids were going to school. I spent 10 long years in a small town of Brant county, without a job or education, reluctantly. Of course I was busy, helping my kids, my husband's business. Helping, helping, helping... Nothing to myself.

Finally I got some job at Tim Horton's. I had to lie about my education. I did not put on my resume that I was a University graduate, you do not need that to serve coffee and donuts, that's for sure. I learned that in order to get any small job, you have to go down, you have to forget a lot of stuff that you know in order to earn some money. You have to lie.

Now I am in Toronto. With my present employer I did not have to lie about my education.

May be because I work for a company, that was created by my compatriots, who needed me with all my education and more. But sometimes I think: what if I tried to get the same job but in a similar Canadian company, were all my bosses were Canadian born people, would I've been hired, especially if I did not lie about my education? Probably not.