This “term” I’m not taking Mandarin anymore. I had originally planned to continue my Saturday morning classes, but by the time I stopped procrastinating and tried to sign up, they had already counted the numbers and decided there wasn’t enough enrollment to start a class. So much for Chinese being the next English.

Instead, Pauline and I signed up for ballroom dancing classes put on by Toronto Parks & Rec (no tuition tax break this time boo). This was the first time I signed up for one of their programs since swimming classes when I was a kid, and it’s much easier now! I remember having to goto some school early on a weekend morning and lining up in order to sign up for swimming. Now you can call in and register via voice menus!

The catch is now you need a family ID and a client ID in order to sign up, regardless of the method you choose. The family ID is the same for all members of your household, while the client ID is unique to the person. Why you need to remember and give your family ID instead of the government keeping track of it internally is beyond me. Anyways, I had terrible difficulty trying to register Pauline in the course because I called in and spoke to an individual in order to register. Once you mention that you are trying to register someone else who doesn’t share the same family ID, they throw the book at you and quote you a practiced line saying they would have to call in themselves. So inconvenient.

It’s also a really dumb rule, because I easily circumvented it by going on their automated phone system and punching in all of Pauline’s info. To top it off, I was only charged $50 when I registered by automated means, compared to $75 the other way!

Posted by Kevin in Blogs Tags: dumb, government, toronto