thoughts on Canada (カナダ)

So, if things go to plan I'll be heading to Toronto in just under a month. I feel like it's time to address some personal pre-departure ponderances:

I still haven't got accommodation. Several people have been asked by me or on my behalf whether they know of anywhere cheap to live, or even if they're willing to except a student lodger for the best part of 4 months; but so far no luck. The general consensus from aforementioned correspondences and Craigslist is that I can expect to pay between £250 and £400 a month for accommodation, and if I take my stay as 4 months (it's actually just over 3), that's between £1000 and £1600 total rent. Once I have my student loan, hair sponsorship money, earnings, and other acquired money collected together and have spent out on insurance and other necessities, I'll have somewhere in the region £1500.

It doesn't take a great mathematician to see that's not a huge amount of spending money.

£500 (at most, as it would seem) has to cover food, travel and other expenses for 112 days in a completely new, bustling metropolis, of which I will certainly want to take full advantage, and it seems an awfully meagre amount for the task. I am open to any (and I repeat, any) suggestions on how to improve my financial situation before arrival.

A further reflection of mine is how I will experience the experience itself. Obviously my senses will relay information for processing via electrical impulses to various centres in my brain, which will then decode the information and feed it back to me in an coherent fashion, but consider beyond this: Will I be an exchange student or a tourist? Will I be taking full advantage of everything this strange new place has to offer, or just living frugally against a different cultural backdrop? Of course these questions are impossible to answer at this stage, but still important to consider. I don't want to return to London to find that I wasted the entire trip choosing whether canned spam or a loaf of stale bread is the most financially advisably dinner choice, yet on the other hand I don't want to return to a horribly overdrawn bank account with a vast collection of funny hats and comical t-shirts from assorted tourist attractions to be divided up between family and friends.

It's certainly a bother.

With the exchange being such a potentially amazing experience, I refuse to give up on it. Yet I must say it's becoming a struggle getting it all sorted. With just under a month to go, and as I have already mentioned in part, I am yet to find accommodation, insurance and a clear frame of mind in which to tackle it.