-This Christmas I was fortunate enough to receive a range of winter hats as gifts. Two of the hats are of the balaclava style, which surprised me as I wasn't aware that I had made my fondness for these hats widely known. Anyway, one of the hats is a hunter's fluorescent orange, and quite warm. Not surprisingly, I used yesterday's temperatures as an excuse to break it out for the first time (aside from in apartment use) since arriving in Halifax. The hat was great, it really kept the cold away from the part of my head that it covered, which was most of my head. If you have the opportunity to get one of these I recommend them, even if they do stand out.
-Yesterday I was able to test the coffee/mug warmer that I pulled from the free crap pile on Thursday. While it seems to do its job I am not sure how much I will actually use it. I think I am a little more comfortable with my mug resting directly on the desk, rather than on some piece of electrical equipment.
-Yesterday Neil and I took advantage of some coupons that a international fast food chain recently distributed. Unlike most coupons, these are returned to the customer once used, meaning that they can be used repeatedly. The best of the two coupons is for a free, no-purchase-necessary coffee. Based on people in line ahead of us, I am getting the sense that this in particular has been a popular coupon, as it basically means free coffee for a month. I am pretty sure that I will make an effort to head back a few more times for free coffee before the coupons expire.
-Yesterday there was a story in the Chronicle Herald about university enrollment in the Halifax area. It seems that the Halifax Chamber of Commerce would like to see it slightly higher, and has even gone as far as to set enrollment goals. Strangely, it seems that these goals were set without the support of the university and without any offers of support from the Chamber of Commerce (at least that is the impression that the article gave me).
Not surprisingly, the enrollment targets have not been met. Thus the Chamber of Commerce is a little disappointed in the situation. Amazingly, the Chamber of Commerce seems to have failed to grasp a number of the challenges faced by the local universities when it comes to increasing enrollment. A huge impediment would seem to be tuition, which is much higher than one would pay in other Canadian provinces. Not surprisingly, as noted by the president of St. Mary's University, a relatively large number of students have decided to go to Memorial (where tuition is much lower). So not only are these universities going to lose local students to cheaper tuition, they are also going to have a hard time attracting out of province students.
While many of the problems faced by the universities in this context are relatively obvious it seems strange that the Chamber of Commerce would set a goal and then seemingly do nothing about fixing some of the problems so that their goal could be met. Additionally, it seems a rather strange that the Chamber of Commerce would try to involve themselves in such an area without the support of the universities.
I guess there is no pay-off for having read the above rant, I just found the situation rather amusing and absurd on a number of levels.
-It seems that we should be having a guest for a few hours this afternoon. In preparation for the guest's arrival I decided to make some humus and a sticky toffee sponge pudding (really, I was just looking for any excuse to make these things). While I think the humus should be fine, I am a little worried about the pudding. It seems that I accidentally doubled the amount of butter in the pudding. This has obviously changed the nature of the dough, hopefully not too negatively. I guess I will find out shortly whether my error has made the dish inedible, or whether it is a great improvement.
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