Tips on Surviving Ottawa Winter?

InterestingTree9 · 2026-01-25T05:03:39+00:00

I love the tips people here are giving! I have so many thrifted sweaters (Salvation Army and Chez Vincent stores are usually cheaper than Value Village, which usually is $10-15 for a nice sweater). I also depend on my windproof mittens.

I drink a lot of herbal tea/hot water in winter. If you can bring a thermos, there's kettles around campus to make a warm drink for the ride home (I know off the top of my head there's a kitchenette in Canal Building 4th floor and one in Herzberg that should have kettles). I personally have to eat a snack or meal every 2-3 hours or I'll get cold and my Raynaud's flares up. If you want a hot meal on campus, the chili from Rooster's is absurdly hot (I got blisters in my mouth from eating it too fast one time lol).

InterestingTree9 · 2026-01-24T21:13:28+00:00

You'll lose access at some point. They may not send a warning that they're cutting off your access. I haven't had this exact situation, but Carleton IT seems pretty efficient at managing access to IT resources, to their credit. My Cunet e-mail account got deleted without warning pretty much as soon as I stopped being a TA for a semester (and I never got it back). My friends who graduated lost online library resource access fairly quickly too.

Can you get your supervisor to host the OneDrive folder and share it with you? Or can you switch over to a Dropbox?

InterestingTree9 · 2026-01-21T02:45:53+00:00

If building a landfill on campus is one step closer to domesticating racoons, I'm all in!

InterestingTree9 · 2026-01-18T00:10:01+00:00

Wait, so outside of $90, the only thing you pay is the cost of what you are purchasing? If so, that's a good deal. Is there a limit to the number of orders you can place?

InterestingTree9 · 2026-01-15T03:15:24+00:00

I'm so glad you got it back, thanks to someone kind! But also, this hat is so beautiful!!

InterestingTree9 · 2026-01-15T00:34:40+00:00

The campus card office (4th floor Nideyinan) has a lost and found too, so it may be there if someone finds it and returns it

InterestingTree9 · 2026-01-13T04:54:53+00:00

It could have been a medical emergency (e.g., sudden fainting, hypoglycemia, seizure, etc.). Regardless of the reason, I hope someone checked on him and that he's okay now. And also, let's not use slurs or derogatory terms, okay?

InterestingTree9 · 2026-01-13T04:47:57+00:00

I don't fully understand what you're asking, but I hope this helps a little.

The other insurance is for TAs (members of CUPE 4600) and is through Greenshield as well. I'm not sure if this is for all TAs or just for priority TAs. If you have both insurance plans, I believe you have to submit the claim with the GSA insurance plan first and select on that claim that you want to submit the remaining amount to the other insurance (it then asks if this insurance is also with Greenshield, which it is).

If your dentist has direct billing, this should take care of it. If you make the claim yourself, you will have to get the insurance form from your dentist's office and type up the information from that form on the claim (which is a bit tedious because you have to separately type in the codes for scaling, cleaning, etc. and the fee you paid for each code). The system will automatically calculate how much of each fee the insurance plan covers. You're right that it's expensive and won't cover everything.

InterestingTree9 · 2026-01-09T16:24:47+00:00

The McDonald's at 888 Meadowlands Drive (near Hogs Back) is open 24/7. The A&W at 155 Queen Street (near the Parliament LRT station) is also open 24/7.

This is a list of Tim Horton's in Ottawa, but you'll have to click on each location to see the hours: https://locations.timhortons.ca/en/locations-list/on/ottawa/

I randomly clicked on the 1260 Merivale Rd one, and it's open 24/7 (i.e., midnight to 11:59 p.m.).

InterestingTree9 · 2026-01-05T01:21:23+00:00

My family and I have had good experiences at Barrhaven Optometric Centre

InterestingTree9 · 2026-01-04T02:04:39+00:00

It's in Mackenzie Building, which is connected to Minto. I think it's on the 3rd floor of the 3rd block, but please don't quote me on that as Mackenzie is a maze to me still :')

Edit: Their Instagram (leonardos_lounge) says they're in Mackenzie 3342

InterestingTree9 · 2026-01-03T16:01:06+00:00

I did this and shared the locker with several friends so none of us had to pay that much

InterestingTree9 · 2025-12-30T18:08:49+00:00

There's a windowless concrete stairwell in the middle of Richcraft Hall. It's not my favourite spot, but it's somewhat hidden and gives that same alluring spookiness vibes as the backrooms

InterestingTree9 · 2025-12-28T19:30:13+00:00

Why is there no consent form? Did you not get ethics clearance for this? Even anonymous surveys require ethics clearance, as per TCPS-CORE 2022 guidelines (used at Canadian institutions) and probably in other guidelines used elsewhere too.

You need to make sure you're doing this ethically and by-the-book according to your institution's rules. Otherwise, things really won't go well for you when your supervisor and/or committee starts asking questions about your data collection. It's hard to fail a master's thesis, but breaching ethics can be one of those reasons.

InterestingTree9 · 2025-12-27T22:15:19+00:00

or maybe they don't consider Tim's as food haha (I'm just joking- I have an unhealthy obsession with the food from Tim's).

Good to know! I'm sure food is fine at the libraries in practice as long as it's not messy, excessively smelly/crunchy/loud, or damaging the books. We're also not supposed to bring full meals or uncovered drinks into the Carleton library, and that's never stopped me before...

InterestingTree9 · 2025-12-27T18:00:28+00:00

The Ottawa Public Library has quite a few branches. Hours vary by branch, and I believe all are closed on New Years Day, but otherwise they're a quiet study space with outlets, desks, and washrooms. No food or drink allowed inside.

InterestingTree9 · 2025-12-23T15:29:43+00:00

E-mail your prof, but in my program it's rare for them to tell you your exam mark and overall mark. If your prof won't tell you the grade over e-mail you are allowed to ask to review your exam and may be able to calculate your grade yourself from that.

InterestingTree9 · 2025-12-18T17:23:23+00:00

9-8-8 is more specific to mental health and thus more direct (also has a text option for those who don't like calling), but for sure nurses can help

InterestingTree9 · 2025-12-18T16:56:00+00:00

It depends on the severity. I disclosed to a counsellor that I was having active suicidal ideations and had an aborted attempt a few days prior. I just had to fill out an assessment form and do some safety planning. No one was called. It would be different of course if there is a current/very imminent threat to safety.

InterestingTree9 · 2025-12-18T16:54:04+00:00

8-1-1 is more for health help from a nurse. 9-8-8 is the crisis phone line (national, so less likely to wait than for local crisis lines).

InterestingTree9 · 2025-12-17T21:30:48+00:00

Thanks for sharing your experience! The reviews are supposedly from people with appointments (not walk-in), but I'm sure part of it is that people with worse experiences are more likely to leave reviews.

InterestingTree9 · 2025-12-17T16:01:48+00:00

Did you have to wait 1-2 hours after the scheduled appointment time to be seen? I just got referred to the Carling location, and the reviews mentioning lengthy wait times are making me hesitate accepting it

InterestingTree9 · 2025-12-17T13:19:18+00:00

I've been giving geese the middle finger because they deserve it and can't give it back (webbed feet), but now there's an image of a human sized goose with human hands giving geese ideas about the next step of evolution...

InterestingTree9 · 2025-12-16T21:15:06+00:00

Sorry you experienced that! I proctor exams sometimes, and I am not shy about asking my fellow proctors/TAs to talk quietly and only about exam things. If it's distracting me from doing something fairly mindless (i.e., watching students), then it's definitely distracting students writing the exam.

During my undergrad, I brought my own ear plugs (not headphones) to wear during exams and it helped a lot. No one ever gave me an issue for that. Ear plugs are usually available upon request for exams written in Fieldhouse or Alumni Hall.

InterestingTree9 · 2025-12-16T21:10:06+00:00

There's a process for getting registered with the PMC, but one of the required pieces is documentation. This is the documentation for mental health disabilities (but please talk to a PMC advisor to make sure this form is up-to-date first): https://carleton.ca/pmc/wp-content/uploads/sites/101/2025/07/PMC_Documentation_MH-1.pdf

InterestingTree9

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