I am pleased to announce that I have new pants. This is not a trivial matter as I am not exactly Madame Average. Unless you mean average height of a man. I am too fat for fashion, but not quite a plus size, too tall for normal women's clothing, too short for the tall shop. I spent a lot of time roaming around the Eaton Centre looking for pants that fit. As I am leaving for New York, I thought it would be a good idea to have a pair of jeans withOUT the split inseams. I finally had success at Bluenotes. I'd been told to go to Old Navy - the chain with the HORRIBLE commercials that made me swear I'd never set foot in one. Today, I did, but after about five steps, I stopped, looked around at the horrible plastic people doing their shopping, turned around and headed right out. On my journey to find pants (how middle class is that?) I met lots of very helpful salesgirls and a couple not-so-helpful salesgirls. In the end, I am pleased with my purchase and I know where to go for jeans in the future.

The Eaton Centre is under construction. I don't really know how I feel about this. The Eaton Centre is in architecture texts and they're completely rebuilding it's lovely glass facade. It's lovely EX-facade. Of course, the whole neighbourhood is undergoing renovations and has been for several years since someone thought that evicting a whole lot of little businesses and putting a hole in the ground would make Yonge Street more up-scale. So, now, every block is under siege, but rather than men in helmets, cannons and food shortages, there are men in helmets driving diggers and dozers. I was afforeded a wonderful view of the massive pit that abuts College Park. There were so many people peering through the little wholes in the barricade, everyone representing the multi-everything that is this city, all totally fascinated. The most interesting moment came when the digger was patting the bedrock down into the back of a dumptruck. This massive piece of machinery did so with such gentleness that it looked like a caress. It was so neat.

In other news, there are two more days remaining of Eternal Egypt school tours. It's getting harder to push through the spiels, I have to say, not because of boredom but rather my own desire to enjoy these last days. Sadly, yesterday I spent all too much time acting as a disciplinarian, separating badly behaved children and reprimanding their behaviour. This is not my job. Shame on the teachers and parents that accompany these groups and take no responsibility. It was a little better today, but I really hope it picks up tomorrow and Friday because I would like to go out on a high note. This has been the most rewarding job I've had since the first summer I worked for the Ontario Government. That's saying a lot. Who knows, maybe working on the OPSEU bargaining unit in the up-coming round of negotiations will be even more rewarding. Even if it's in a different sort of way. Probably not, though. All said, Eternal Egypt is exhausting, and going away to New York will be VERY refreshing; nice change of pace.