Making Friends is Hard. So is Math.

First thing is first - I am officially employed! Yay! I've been offered a few positions, but in the end I decided to take a job in retail (gasp, I know) because it had the most room for growth, the word "manager" in the title, and the salary was as competitive as the other positions.  So yay, employment finally!

With that out of the way, I've been right back at checking up all the time on my U of M application and received some startling news.  I may have to take Math 12.

Now you're probably asking yourself, "dafaq?". You have a Masters degree! This makes no sense.  Well friends, let me explain:  I didn't actually take Math 12 in high school.  I took university entrance Math 11 and did so piss poor in it that they did not recommend that I move on into Math 12.  To get into an arts program in university, you only need Math 11 with a 65% grade (which is exactly what I received).  I was told by my high school counsellors that if I enter the BA program at UBC, I could then switch into the BSc program and do my math equivalents then.  This is what I did, it was a disaster, and I ended up returning to arts.

U of M has some pretty strict requirements governing prerequisites for courses and they take them very seriously.  I was hoping to take STAT 1000 (Intro stats essentially), but the prereq is Math 12.  When I approached them on the subject, they told me I would have to take a course equivalent to Math 12 before I'd be permitted to take stats.  I think this is crazy, so once I register (or don't if the system won't allow), I'll talk to the professor of the course and get in the other way. Because it's crazy. I could understand for first year math how Math 12 may be essential, but not for stats, sorry.

Numbers and formulas are starting to become my life. Between my intro to finance class that I'm taking free online through Coursera and studying for the GMAT, my brain sometimes gets a bit twisty.  But it's interesting to note that until recently, I was very math and number averse.  Upon further reflection, I realized that the major reason I hated math so much is because teachers told me that I wasn't good at it and it wasn't my thing.  My grades in math didn't reflect this until 11th grade. How can this possibly make any sense? For my teacher friends out there, it's something to think about.  Perhaps it's time to change our mindset around how we teach math.

Making friends in Winnipeg has also been a challenge.  I'm part of the meet up website, but I haven't found anything that doesn't seem weird or creepy.  It's almost to the point where I'm considered making my own ad, but in a way that would be weird and creepy.  Something along the lines of "Hey! New Winnipeg people, let's go to this bar and hang out!" Why doesn't that exist? Why is it always some horrible structured event at somebody's house?

A Little Pizza Heaven

On a different note, I always forget about this little pizza place! It's called "A Little Pizza Heaven" and it's located right on Osborne in the village (pretty much next to The Toad).  I've eaten here a few times, only once sober.  I think that's the main draw of this place: It's open late and it's situated between so many bars that it becomes a pizza stumbling block.

Believe it or not, the first time I had tried this place was when I was sober.  I got two slices of ham and pineapple (my absolute favourite and they had some pizza by the slice for lunch - very rare in my experience).  I thought the pizza was really good for the price and I especially loved the garlic infused crust that this place is apparently known for.

On a more hilarious note, after a few "Bulldog Margaritas" at Saffrons, one of my roommates and I decided that pizza was an excellent idea and proceeded to walk down Corydon to Osborne to get a slice. Even though I was more than slightly tipsy, I still realized that the pizza I had received was "pineapple" pizza. Yes ladies and gentlemen, it was pineapple and cheese.  At the time, I didn't care, it was hella delicious.  The next day, however, I couldn't stop laughing about it.

I recommend if you're in the area.  If you can order from anywhere, I'm sure there is better in the city - aside from the garlic, there isn't anything really "special" about this place. For what it's worth from a local (I live less than three blocks from this place), I will continue to frequent A Little Pizza Heaven.

6.5/10

Huzzah!

I've had a good last few days. I had two interviews on Friday and both went well enough for me to go through to the second interviews that should be sometime next week.  There is hope for my joblessness! Although a week of applying indiscriminately for everything I was remotely qualified for sort of helped.  :P  I also finally figured out all of the stuff I needed to become a part time student at U of M this fall. Huzzah!

I also have successfully acquired my Manitoba Drivers License!

BUT back to Winnipeg food! Om nom nom!

Kawaii Crepe

This little creperie is located in the Osborne Village right on Osborne.  Styling itself as a "Japanese-style" creperie, the concept of the restaurant is very cutsie (after all Kawaii is the romanized spelling of the word for "cute" in Japanese).  The creperie offers both savory and sweet crepes alongside a myriad of bubble teas and "fusion" teas (black or green tea with a flavour shot).  You can order crepes for inside or to go (each time I've ordered it has been to go since the restaurant is always busy and is quite small).

The first time I went to Kawaii Crepe, I wanted to try their bubble tea.  I got the honeydew flavour.  For me, it was just "OK".  I'm not used to the frozen slushy drink-style bubble tea, which is what this was.  The tapioca pearls were cooked perfectly, which was a nice change from a lot of the bubble tea places I've been to. I didn't want to review a creperie based on just this bubble tea though, so I decided that I needed to get a crepe at some point.

One night, I was feeling like I needed something sweet so I decided to go try the crepes at Kawaii Crepe.  I got the milky way (Nutella and sweetened condensed milk) and an almond bubble tea.  The bubble tea was a bit disappointing as the almond flavour was the typical artificial style bubble tea flavouring packets.  The crepe was quite good, but certainly overly-sweet (which should be a given based on what I ordered).  The two together were simply too sweet for me.

I figured the over-sweet was my fault and decided to go back to the creperie to have a full meal (a savoury crepe and a sweet crepe - holy schmoly it turned out to be a lot of food!).  I had the uptown on multigrain (avocado, chicken and peppercorn mayo) and the divine brown (butter and brown sugar).  I wasn't too impressed with the multigrain crepe and I thought it tasted like a normal crepe, but with flax seeds in it.  This texture wasn't all that pleasing, but it wasn't all that bad either.  The filling of the crepe was absolutely delicious.  It was also a large portion - between the two crepes, I ended saving half of my savoury one for lunch the next day.  The dessert crepe was delicious as well, perfectly cooked and exactly what I wanted.

For those who complain about the service on Urbanspoon, I found my service to be really friendly on all three occasions I've been there.  Similarly, give the girls a break on how long it takes to get your crepe! They're working their butts off back there making every crepe individually.  I've even seen them take crepes off of the pans and throw them away because of poor consistency.  This is a good thing. They want to give you a quality product and actually care! My longest wait for a take out order was 15 minutes during a rush.  Not bad at all given how many crepes they're pumping out.

7.5/10

On a completely different note, I have to bring your attention to the fact that I have found a beergarita in Winnipeg. They're called "bulldog margaritas" and they're on special at Saffron's on Friday night (a double for $10 bucks). Pretty sweet deal. Here's a pic with roommate-Steve!