Lost

Friday after french class, I had to find the magic Canada Post office that would take my student loan paperwork and turn it into eventual money. So I took out the campus map and carefully oriented it to match the streets outside, and struck out confidently in the wrong direction.

We walked 3 blocks before we realized the building #'s were going the wrong way, but the good news is we did find a Gap so Gord knows where to go to spend his Christmas giftcards. And we did eventually find the post office and I got everything stamped and signed and sent off, so they can't kick me out of school for not paying the bills.

It's very hard to go through life with no sense of direction. I can't tell where to go from looking at a map. I move by landmarks, as in, ok, we pass the bookstore, then the pastry store with the purple and gold sign, then there's that tree...This works very well for places I've been a couple of times and not at all for going new places. Walking back from the post office, I remembered our walk as - Chinese food, pub, noodle house, bank. You want to know what street we were on? The one with the student loan cashing Canada Post, and the chinese food place, pub, noodle house and bank.

Maybe this is what comes of growing up in the country, and taking the same road to school every day for 12 years. I never knew what Range Road we were on - hell, I think I was 14 before I realized they named the roads around our place. I figured everyone just knew where to go if you told them Holt's road, or Lawrence's or whatever. I guess it never really occured to me that you could go places you hadn't been before. So now I spend about 50% of my time lost, but I'm learning my way around, and at least if I don't know the names of the streets I like, I know what's on them. Chinese food, pub, noodle house, bank....