Importing the car to Canada. FINALLY, it's done.

Last month, I presented to you a post about importing my car into Canada.  At that point, I had not obtained vehicle form 1 (the import form) because I was told I did not need it at the border.  In actuality, I DID need it, and so I had to take a trip all the way out to Pearson airport (on the other side of Toronto) to get it.  But now, the whole process is done, and my car is (almost) plated.

So, let's sum up, shall we?  For an American temporary resident in Canada, I needed the following things to import my little Toyota to Canada.  Things are listed in the order I got them.

-An Ontario driver's license.  This is pretty simple to get, and you only have to bring proof of residence.  I got it back in March, and I now have my real license instead of the paper one.  They confiscated my Pennsylvania license and gave me a copy in case I should ever need it.

-Vehicle form 1.  Very important and absolutely essential.  I went to the back entrance of Pearson and got it.  Because I am a temporary resident, all fees were waived, and I got a beautifully signed and stamped receipt and Vehicle Form 1 for a grand total of..... $0.  There were no RIV fees, no air cond fees, no gas mileage fees.

-Safety and emissions inspection.  To get the car plated in Ontario, it needs to pass the Drive Clean program.  Additionally, it needs to pass the safety requirements to get a Safety Standard Certificate.  Total cost should be around $100 for both of these.  Princess was a little lacking, so I needed some work done to pass safety (see below).

-Daytime running lights.  Ugh.  HUGE ripoff.  I have the option of turning Princess' lights off; hence, they needed to render that impossible, to the tune of over $200.  I asked them if I could just turn the knob to keep the lights on all the time, and they said no.  So now the lights are constantly running (except when the car is off, of course).  I don't like it, but it's essential for Canada.

-New brakes.  This was 100% my fault.  They told me in Pennsylvania last October that the brakes were rusting, but by the time I took Princess to get inspected, the brakes were totally rusted through.  New rotors and everything needed.  My total bill with the lights, safety, emissions, and brakes came up to about $700.  But now my little trooper is all fixed up and roadworthy.

-Title and registration.  I already had these.  I'd say they're essential to the process, but I think only the title is. Because I had my registration, they just took that.  I made copies of them beforehand because I didn't know what they would take and keep.  See below for what they did with them.

-Insurance.  Oh boy.  My insurance in Ontario is over 100% higher than it was in the U.S.  I got it through CAA, and I was walked through the process very professionally.  I also purchased roadside assistance.  My temporary insurance cards were emailed to me, so I could present proof of insurance.

I gathered allllllll these essential things up, trooped over to my local Service Ontario kiosk which is also a branch of the Ministry of Transportation, and obtained....

-My license plates!  Imagine me holding up my plates like Link holds up the Triforce.  That's how momentous this was.  The plates + registration for 1 year came out to about $90.  The Pennsylvania title was stamped "registered in Ontario" and given back to me.  The Service Ontario staff member helping out the guy who did all this for me said it was because "these things cost like $150 in the States, and we don't want them to have to get a new one."  This is the first time Ontario has expressed interest in saving me money.  However, my PA registration was confiscated, and I didn't get it back.  Instead, it was replaced with an Ontario registration, which doubles as a title essentially.  So I went in with all the stuff above, and I left minus my PA registration, but with an Ontario registration and front/back plates.

-Holes drilled in the front of Princess.  Poor Princess doesn't have a place for a front plate, only having been plated in Georgia and Pennsylvania, which do not require front plates.  I have to get holes drilled and bolts put in, but this should only be about $20.  This is the last thing I need to do before she becomes truly Canadian!

So yeah, the process is long and costly, and I'm so, so glad it's over.

Funny U.S. vs. Canadian words, part 2

By far, the most popular post on my blog so far (and the most searched) is Funny U.S. vs. Canadian words, part 1.  Those were pretty general, and I've learned some more.  The terms for things are just slightly different enough that I understand the words, but used in a context I'm not used to, I just get lost and have to ask for an explanation.  As a disclaimer, a lot of these are education-related (I do work at a university, after all), and many of them were observed from Ontario natives.  American English first, then Canadian equivalents.

"As-falt" = "Ash-falt."  Or, in the words of one Ontario native, "Ash-vault."  Asphalt, people!

Governor = premier.  Basically, the leader of a state = leader of a province.  For me, it's Dalton McGuinty.  Learnin' my politics!

Grades = marks.  Not incomprehensible, just a term you don't hear much in the U.S.

Napkin = serviette.  Ah, a French influence!

Nonprofit = not-for-profit.  I wouldn't have noticed it, but it looks so British!

"Pah-sta" = "Pasta."  I had no idea how to convey the Canadian pronounciation, but it's a flat a, like in "at."  I make great amounts of fun of them for this.

Powdered sugar = icing sugar.  It took me a minute to figure it out.

"Prah-cess" = "prohcess."  My way of saying process now sounds downright twangy.

Proctoring = invigilating.  In other words, watching university students take an exam.  Oh, wait, I mean WRITE an exam (see below).  One of the more boring jobs of a grad student, but it makes money.

Silverware/flatware = cutlery.  Oh, Americans, they think we are HILARIOUS for saying silverware, especially when we talk about plastic silverware.  I am guilty of this infraction.

Taking exams = writing exams.  This is a major point of confusion, because whenever someone tells me they wrote an exam, I think they created it.

Teacher workday = professional development/professional activity day.  Days that students get off so that teachers can catch up or do workshops.

xth grade = grade x.  For example, "The advanced school has them learning grade 11 math in grade 10."

Every day, I collect more funny Canadian words, so it's likely that there will be a part 3!

Accepting complements in science

Taking compliments to heart is something I need to learn to do.  People wouldn't go out of their way to tell you they felt a certain way if they didn't really feel that way, right? (Unless there's some deviousness afoot)

Case in point:  I gave a talk about the wonders of the nanoworld to a crowd of around 100 at Nerd Nite Toronto on Thursday night.  The talk went just as I wanted it to go, my ad-lib was ON, people laughed at my jokes, and I got lots of compliments afterwards. 

Me right before giving THE TALK.

I know it went well, but the one thing I can't help but dwell upon is the one question I couldn't answer.  This question was regarding alpha particle emission from gold nanoparticles/clusters.  We don't talk about nanoparticles in terms of nuclear reactions, and I embarrassingly didn't even remember that an alpha particle is basically a helium nucleus, so I froze a bit and really had no answer.  Upon talking to the asker later, I found out he was interested because of his job, but that still didn't make the question easier to answer.

I guess it keeps me human in science, though.  If you're just praised all the time and not faced with adversity, you're never going to grow.  The opposite is true as well.  I could give a talk on metal nanoparticles drunk and blind, but it could always be better.  Compliments tell me I'm on the right track, and roadblocks spur me to improve.

The Muslim community in Canada

The title there is a bit glib; what I am trying to get at is how Muslims as a whole are perceived in Canada.

I live in a very Muslim part of town.  There is a mosque right next to my building.  I am clearly an outsider in this community, yet no one has been anything but polite and cordial, or at the very least neutral, towards me.  I have felt slightly self-conscious about doing things like bringing home a case of beer to stock the fridge (and there's no hiding that), but no one has paid it any mind.  The women smile at me; we do our laundry alongside each other.  The children sled down the nearby hill when it snows and shriek and act like children do.  The men hold the door open for me, and I for them.  I even shared an elevator ride up with an imam tonight.

I think of myself as tolerant of other cultures and willing to try new things.  I wholeheartedly believe that a smile is universal in any language.  But I am clearly still at heart quite American.  I remember 9/11 very clearly, and I remember crying that day and in the days after.  My country has many, many problems, but it is still my country, and it was attacked.  A part of me, so ensconced as I have been in American society for 28 years, slightly flinches when I see overt signs of Muslim culture.  I will be the first to admit that this unconscious reaction I have greatly bothers me.  No one has ever done anything directly to me.  And it is the extreme minimum percentage of the population that desires to hurt my country.  Yet I think that there is an extreme anti-Muslim sentiment that is ingrained in America, despite efforts of some to downplay it.  So pervasive is it that it has even infiltrated the ranks of the most broad-minded and tolerant Americans.

What encouraged this post was the fact that I finally was able to catch I show that I've been wanting to watch called "Little Mosque on the Prairie."  This is a Canadian sitcom focusing on a Muslim community out in the middle of nowhere in Saskatchewan.  There is no laugh track, and the humor is clearly different from an American sitcom, but I was surprised at how delightful the characters were.  The main character, a liberal imam, even has a smart-ass Anglican priest as his close friend.  His wife (in the episode I saw, they were just married!  Aw!) is an Islamic feminist and a doctor, and her Canadian mother converted to Islam to marry her Lebanese father, etc.  The show is just very sweet, showcasing the camaraderie of the community, but also highlighting the hardships (the conservative pundits who aren't happy about the community being there).  When I first saw an ad for it in the subway, all I could think was, "Holy COW..... I am not in Kansas anymore!"  Having seen the show, I could only think that there is no way anyone would ever agree to run it on American television.  It's kind of sad, too; it's a lighthearted look at the everyday life of Muslim families, and it pokes fun at everyone.  Perhaps America is still a bit too sensitive for that yet, though....

Importing a car to Canada (Ontario) *groan*

This post is fueled by frustration.  On-the-phone-for-hours-being-kicked-between-3-government-agencies frustration.  I now know that I needed to import my car into Canada; however, the people at the border crossing didn't put the proper paperwork in order, so now here I am scrambling around to get it all done.

Taking a vehicle into Ontario for >30 days (or is it 60?  It's one of the two.) requires that you actually import this vehicle into Canada and get it set up with Ontario plates.  To get Ontario plates, you need Ontario insurance, an Ontario license, and basically all of the stuff listed here.  The notable part here is Vehicle Form 1, which you get upon entering Canada, except in my case, where they told me I didn't need it when I asked.  Whoops.  Wrong-o, border agents.  So I've got to drive out to Pearson airport and get that set up, which is a pain, because I live on the other side of the city from Pearson.

My view of Toronto when I first drove in here last September.... didn't know it'd be so hard to bring Princess here for real!

The rest of the stuff on that checklist is simple and obvious, like a safety inspection, emissions test, etc.  Vehicle Form 1, however is a beast, and you can read all about it here.  Luckily, because I am on a temporary resident work permit, and I will be returning to the U.S., the RIV registration fee is waived, so there's $195 back for me.  Nevertheless, there are taxes on EVERYTHING, even air conditioning, as can be seen here and here.  There are even taxes on the taxes!  That sample calculation scares me; a $50k vehicle from the U.S. would cost almost $4k to import to Canada if it was fuel inefficient.  Princess thankfully isn't worth nearly that much, only a bit more than $4k herself, I'd say.  Because she's 12 years old, she'll be duty-free (yay!), and she's relatively fuel efficient.  Her city mileage is 10.2 litres/100 km, and her highway is 7.4 litres/100 km.  Note there is a HEFTY tax starting at 13 litres/100 km and higher.  Canada's trying to be green, yo.

That's my (somewhat buried in the Pennsylvania snow) girl!

All in all, with the AC excise tax, the GST (which I can perhaps get waived b/c I won't be leaving Princess in Canada), the safety/emissions inspections, the registration fee, and the cost to get a plate-holder on my front bumper (Ontario requires a front plate, and neither Georgia nor Pennsylvania did), I'm guessing it's going to be around $500 just to get Princess into the country legally.  Insurance is a whole 'nother can of worms.  Therefore, this will have to wait until I get paid this month.  I never thought I'd say this, but thank goodness for my postdoc's salary.

Being quietly American (and southern) on the Toronto subway

I take the subway to and from work every day, and from my front door to my office comprises 45 minutes of walking to/from the station, elevator rides, transfers, etc.  After a couple of days of boredom with only my ipod to turn to for help, I decided to start reading on the train.  My first conquest was the very southern novel by very southern writer Flannery O'Connor entitled Wise Blood.  I first read Wise Blood in high school for class, and my notes are still scrawled in hot pink pen in the margins.  I couldn't help but think to myself that it was quite a wonderful thing, bringing something that was so innately southern into the subway system of the largest city in Canada.

Since then, I've become somewhat of an American rebel.  I downloaded Pete Seeger's American Favorite Ballads, Vol. 1, put it on my ipod, and have been bouncing away to favorite childhood songs ever since.  Pairing those with Roger Miller songs makes for a merry time, and they make me want to be out in the middle of America in a field, strumming away on a banjo.  Or listening to someone else strum.  String instruments elude me.

I eventually come out of my reverie and get off at my designated stop, but those little times with America and songs reminiscent of small-town America are pretty valuable to me.  They remind me that America ain't gone.... she's 140 miles away if I really needed to go, and it would only be a few hours until I'd be back amongst either family or friends.  I can be all business in Canada, if you'll just let me have my subway ride with "Oh, Susannah."

Separating people from their science

On a daily basis, graduate students and other researchers get figuratively beaten down by experiments that don't work, and they take it personally.  This can lead to depression, an unpleasant work environment, and even a poisonous aversion to science that can spread all too easily to others as they fall into the same trap.  We all get a little self-deprecating when we run into a spate of bad laboratorical luck, but when do we cross the fine line of failures in the lab extending to our views of our self-worth?

Back in the day, I heard about a professor who had some dubious dealings, and being a young scientist, this shook me down to the core.  I recall the poignant memory of feeling physically ill and shutting myself away for a few hours after hearing the news.  I remember calling my parents while taking a walk to clear my head, and my mom telling me, "Krissy, if you're going to be in this business, you've got to learn to separate people from their science.  They're people, too, and they make mistakes just like everyone else."

This advice from my mom, who is quite the scientist herself, was some of the best I have ever received, and it came at the perfect time (i.e., early).  Since then, I have encountered professors, researchers, and colleagues that  might choose different paths than I would in life, but I don't associate our disagreements with their science.  Their science and work is independent of and not influenced by their personal decisions (hopefully).  More, I don't tie in failed experiments with my self-worth.  If it didn't work, I 1) still try to salvage some knowledge out of it (a subject for another post, for sure), and 2) dust myself off and start another day.  It's amazing the insight a good night's sleep can provide.

This advice might be why I only had very minimal inklings of imposter syndrome just at the beginning of my graduate career (i.e., feeling like you don't belong or are not good enough for a certain professional setting), or why I have no problems talking to famous professors on a casual level.  I also have no qualms calling professors by their first name if they ask me to; I know a surprising number of people who struggle with this.  They are just people, and they are just as fallible as I am.

On the flip side, I am relatively disinclined to throw my proverbial professional weight around.  "Doctor" is reserved for formal introductions and solicitations of my money from my previous academic institutions.  I believe making myself approachable facilitates discussion and promotes teamwork.  Looking around at my environments past and present, this seems to be the direction that this new generation of science is taking, and I have to say, I'm liking it.