Nunavut Newbie v.2.0: Iqaluit Newbie: Ups and Downs

Yesterday was a long day.

For starters, my sleep is all screwed up. My entire life, I've always been a night owl who sleeps in as late as possible. When I do sleep, I sleep deeply and normally- as in, I don't walk, talk, or move in my sleep.

Since I came back to Sarnia, my sleeping patterns are markedly different, albeit in a good way. I'm tired by 10pm (probably because it's dark here), and then I sleep lightly until about 8-8:30am, at which point I can't stand to be in bed a second longer. I also apparently talked in my sleep last week (I randomly said Anthony's pet name, ha) and the other night I accidentally knocked everything off my night table in my sleep. I attribute the changes to stress, the fact it does get dark out here, and the twin-sized bed I have here. I've been sleeping on a queen-sized bed since early 2008 and I'm used to having space. It's also so warm in my bedroom as I don't have curtains yet, it's uncomfortable to lie there for any length of time.

After I woke up, I had to do several errands. One of which was switching my driver's license to Ontario. My mom had told me to go to the wrong building, so then I had to drive to the right building, where I was told I needed more identification. I had to drive all the way home, grab my passport, and drive all the way back. I was somewhat irritated by this because the drive is about 15 minutes each way through several traffic lights. Sarnia has become quite the retirement community so traffic is often moving at 45-50kmh, much to my frustration (I've gotten used to driving faster now). When I got home, I told my dad it was so annoying to forget something down here because in Nunavut, you turn around and drive 1, 2 minutes tops to go anywhere. Here it's a good chunk of time you're spending to get anywhere.

Anyway, I got my license sorted out, although I was sad to see it go. No more half-smirking when I have to give my license to people and they cross their eyes trying to figure out what they're looking at.

After a few more errands, I came home to find all of my totes had arrived. Canada Post has been very expedient in shipping my bins. They've only taken 3-4 days, tops. I opened all of the bins to inspect my items. When I got to the tote with most of the breakables... broken. Almost everything...smashed. My carvings, my expensive Princess House stuff, my housewares. Garbage. I couldn't hold back the tears when I picked up my beautiful inukshuk carving from Sanikiluaq and I felt under all the bubble wrap that it was in more pieces than I could tell.

One might say, "Oh, it's only stuff," and while that is true, I only kept the things that actually meant something to me. I sold SO MUCH of my stuff, leaving only my "invaluables." Needless to say, my giant pile of garbage put a giant pile of sadness on me for the rest of the day.

When I finished moping, I decided I would go and sign up for a YMCA membership as I had been planning to do that and I needed something to cheer me up. I've got that all sorted out now and I'm so glad to be part of a gym where I can actually shower after working out. Where I worked out in Iqaluit didn't even have running water (though no fault of its own, and I didn't actually pay anything to use the gym). I have an appointment today with a personal trainer (included in my membership) and starting tomorrow -- if I'm not too sore -- I want to start going to some fitness classes.

After all of that, I went out for dinner in Bright's Grove with my mom, her boyfriend, and my sister.

Here are a few photos to keep your interest.