2010 in Review the fourth

Alright, it’s time to wrap up my year in review. Finally. It’s taken me, counting this one, four days to do this. Yes, I could have done it all in one shot, but I figured it would be easier to do it in four installments. Plus, this helps bump up my hit count. Can’t have too many hits.

Well, time to recap the October, November and December of 2010 as I saw it in my life.

So, where to begin? I guess the first place to begin is in October. October saw my second internship end, an internship that did not keep me on. I would not have minded being kept on, but such as it is, I was not. On the flip side, not only did the internship pay me the token honorarium, I also got paid as a freelancer for the piece I did the week after the internship ended. It was an interesting event I attended for the freelance piece, and it was kinda fun, too. Now, if only I could get my money I would be happier.

I also continued to apply for many jobs and I received a few interviews. It took a while, but I finally seemed to be qualified enough for the jobs to which I applied. More on this later.

Athletically, there wasn’t really anything going on. Fall weather had kicked in quite quickly and I didn’t even go for a run. I think I did some biking, but otherwise nothing.

Personally, the only event of note was my high school’s 25th anniversary evening. It was a good evening. I saw some people I had not seen in a while, and managed to ‘Facebook friend’ one or two people I would not have done without seeing them that night. I also talked to a few of my old teachers about where things were going in my life, and got their perspective on how things were. They also validated some of my concerns about small town life and my desire to stay in a big city. I appreciated that.

I didn’t do anything for Halloween. But whatever, Halloween’s no fun unless you’re a kid or in university. In other, related but not-really, news, I attended but did not participate in a strip spelling bee. Interesting to say the least.

So, professionally, big things happened. Shortly after my freelance gig I interviewed for two jobs on the same day. One was via Skype and the other was an impromptu interview arranged mere hours (i.e. less than four) before it took place. Guess which one went better? If you said the impromptu interview, you win. Yup, the impromptu interview for a reporter/photographer position with the Westlock News yielded a job offer. So this meant I had to pack up in little over a week, see as many friends as I could and hop in my car for a long, six-day drive to Alberta. A six-day drive to a new chapter in my life. That was in late November.

December was taken up with jumping right in to my new job. And it was my first Christmas away from home. So it was quite the change. But I seem to be adapting. The house where I live is nice-ish. Old and somewhat rundown, but it is a roof over my head and I have a housemate. So it’s manageable. And the people at work are cool and much less taking-themselves-too-seriously than they were in Meadow Lake. So it’s a much more welcoming environment.

Well, that’s that. That’s my 2010. Check back regularly for more posts on whatever topics strike my fancy at the time.

2010 in Review the third

Alright, time to get cracking on Q3 of 2010, the months of July, August and September.

In July, my dragonboat season ended with the Hamilton regatta, where daBoat won yet another gold. And then I made a jerk of myself and likely soured the whole season for some people. And I regret my actions. I was upset and acted irrationally because of it. But it’s in the past now. Where it will stay.

July also saw me interview for and get offered another internship. Again, an internship is not ideal, but it is something to occupy my time and help me gain experience for the future. This internship was also considerably better than my previous one. With this one I was actually interviewing people regularly, writing and getting several stories in print or on the website, and doing some real copyediting. In short, it was a real internship in word and deed. I enjoyed it, and I feel it helped me moving forward.

Back to my athletic life, my ultimate season continued. We didn’t win much, and that greatly bothered me. So much, in fact, that I got suspended for one game for what I will call “unsportsmanlike conduct.” Bah, the other guy deserved it, so I have no regrets. In fact, the game for which I was suspended I was planning to take off because I had a camping trip planned and I needed to prepare. So, it was a pyrrhic victory for the league officials. Actually, my ultimate season ended in September with a playoff tournament. Again, we did not do too well, but it was a fun end to the season. A fun end to a frustrating season.

Speaking of the camping trip, it was with five members of daBoat, up near where my family’s cottage is. It was a fun weekend, despite the fact it rained on us the final day. And I again proved I’m an idiot at times; so I suspect I ruined the trip for some people. And for that I truly am sorry. There was no reason for me to act that way. But anyway, yes, the trip was pretty good. We went swimming, we went stargazing (I took some half-decent night sky photos) and we generally bonded. I would definitely go again if a trip were organized. And I would realize I’m a jerk at times and try not to act like one.

As August rolled into September, and I was half-way through my internship, I began to apply for jobs again. This way, if I was accepted I would have something to be tiding me over until I had to start the new one. Actually, that doesn’t make much sense. Whatever. And this time, applying to far-off places (e.g. Alberta, Québec, Manitoba, Saskatchewan (again)) yielded many rewards, the chief amongst them being interviews. Yes, plural. I had several interviews, none of which successful, throughout September. It was nice. And they served as practice for the interviews still to come.

So that’s my third quarter of 2010. It was perhaps the most useful three months of 2010 in that I was doing yet another internship, I learned more about what kind of a person I am and I did job interviews that yielded lessons about how to do job interviews.

Check back regularly tomorrow for the final quarter of 2010. It promises to be quite exciting.

2010 in Review the second

Alright. On to part two of my analysis, as it were, of 2010. This chapter will deal with the second quarter of the year, the months of April, May and June.

To begin with, I will outline things that ended here that started before April. These include my indoor Ultimate season (co-Champions, baby!) and my first internship.

Professionally, like I just mentioned, I completed my first internship of 2010 in May. After that internship ended, I continued to apply for myriad jobs. I even approached my old workplace from the summer of 2008, but they had already stocked up for the summer, so I was out of luck there. In fact, if I recall correctly, I did not have any interviews during this time period, which is disappointing. Nonetheless, I continued to apply. I needed work.

Personally and socially, I joined two sporting associations during this timespan. The first was TUC again, this time for outdoor ultimate. Unfortunately this season would not be as great as my indoor season. Oh well, you can’t win them all. The other association I joined was the same dragonboat team I had paddled with in 2007 and 2008: Paddlers Anonymous. It was good to get back in with them after losing 2009. The only downside to joining PA again was having to see the exe again. And then they made me paddle in the same row as her. It made for some quiet practices, let me tell you. During these three months, PA took part in two regattas, winning hardware at both. Quite a good time, I have to say. The season, and that of my TUC team, continued into July and beyond and will be discussed tomorrow.

Hmm, so what more is there to say about April – June? To be honest, I don’t think there is much more. Ultimate finished. Ultimate started again. My internship ended. I started back up with PA. What more could there be?

Oh yeah! The playoff run.

For the first time since 1993, the Montréal Canadiens made it to the Conference Final. However, unlike 1993, that’s as far as they got. However, it was still a ride while it lasted. Knocking off the President’s Trophy winner and the reigning Stanley Cup champion, when they’re two different teams, in the same playoff run? It’s never been done. EVER. Until this year. The playoff run invigorated a city. It made Halak a synonym for ‘Stop!’ It was exciting. But it all came crashing down when the League decided it wanted the Flyers to play the Blackhawks in the Final. And we all know how that turned out.

Anyway. That’s pretty much it for the first half of 2010 now. Check back tomorrow for how I chose to recount the events of July, August and September of 2010.

2010 in Review the first

As those of you who have been reading me for over a year now know, I do a year in review at the beginning of each year for the year that just finished. This post, and the three that will follow it, will be no different.

However, what will be different is how I do each of these posts. In my 2009 Year in Review series, I broke each month down into its parts. This time I will break the year into four quarters, but no further. This post will detail my January through March, but I will not label each event by the month in which it took place. Well, mostly.

On to the review.

January – March 2010

The year started rather boringly. Is that even a word? Anyway. Before 2009 ended, I joined the Toronto Ultimate Club, signing up for the 2010 Winter indoor season. That started on my birthday at the Downsview Hangar, and ran until some time in April, I think. I joined because when I was in school I played some intramural Ultimate, and I enjoyed myself. So I decided to join TUC to continue playing. But I have to say, speedpoint Ultimate is vicious if you haven’t been keeping in shape. How vicious is it? I had trouble moving and breathing without pain for at least the next three days. It was not fun. But was fun was coming in second in the league in the regular season and tying the championship game. So, in effect, my team was the co-champion for our league. Pretty swell, I have to say. And yes, I know, the season did actually end outside March. But most of the season was played before the end of March, so it belongs here.

In the personal realm, the only thing of note I did during these three months was make a trip up to Ottawa in January, ostensibly to buy a Carleton grad ring. And while that was the primary reason for my trip, thus rendering my use of “ostensibly” incorrect, I did have ulterior motives. I took advantage of the trip to visit Carleton’s J-School and talk to two of my profs and visit one of my friends who was TAing a class. And then I got a free dinner out of the deal. I swear I will pay her back, eventually.

And I have to say I do miss Ottawa and Carleton. Fun times, eventually, were had there. Fun times I have not managed to recreate since.

On a professional level, I started looking for work in January, after taking from mid-September 2009 until New Year’s Day off to just unwind and mentally unpack. In retrospect it was a smart move, but at the time I was getting antsy to get back in the swing of things. I managed to snag all of two interviews for different jobs before landing a (virtually) unpaid, three-month internship in February. It was not the most fun I have had at a job, but it was experience and I did get my name in print. So it was not all bad. And the honorarium paid for the gas for my commute. Like I said, it was a three-month internship, so it ran from mid-February until mid-May. And that was the extent of my working life during the first quarter of 2010.

In fact, I do believe that adequately sums up my less-than-exciting 2010 up to the end of March. Check back tomorrow for how I chose to recount the second quarter of the year: April – June. It was a bit more exciting.

2009 in Review! pt. 4

And finally, we have the final chapter of my synopsis of my 2009. Let’s get started, with October.

October 2009

What is there to say about October? Well, I’m going to tell you. I spent the majority of this month either sitting or lying on my couch or going for walks through Meadow Lake as I bided my time before my parents came out to help move me out. I bid take the time I had to read the books I bought while I was in Edmonton, as well as put a serious dent into Notre-Dame de Paris en français. I have been fighting that book for a long time. I should get back into reading it, as it has sat unread since I got back to Scarborough. Moving on. One thing I did do that did not involve sitting around alone was head down to Saskatoon for Thanksgiving weekend to visit my aunt (who is younger than me) who is going to law school at uSask. That was enjoyable because it got me out of Meadow Lake and I was able to associate with people my age in person, rather than via Skype or snail mail or email or MSN. Not that those are bad ways, but they do pale compared to face-to-face interaction. Anyway. I also read with Miss K.’s class a few more times. I would have liked to have tried to make a go of it with her, but that became completely out of the question once I quit the paper. I had no intention of remaining in Meadow Lake, so it would not have been fair to either one of us to try and make a go of it. Such is life, I suppose. So the days dragged on until the 21^th, when my parents arrived to move me out. The packing wasn’t too hard, since we had my car and the family car. So everything fit and I had to leave nothing behind. Which is a good thing. Okay, I lied. There were some things I left behind, like the curtains on my window and the table and couch in the apartment. But the good thing about the table and couch was that they came with the apartment, left behind from the guy who had the apartment before me. And I managed to turn a tidy profit on what I left behind. Which is never a bad thing. So now, it’s on to the drive home. As some of you have already read, it’s roughly 3,200 km from Meadow Lake to Scarborough. That previous post breaks down the trip into its component days, but here I shall elaborate a bit more. The first day was Meadow Lake to Regina. This was perhaps the second easiest drive of the trip. It was fairly straight-forward and flat. The worst part of the travel was the hotel in Regina. For some stupid reason it had full wall windows beside the door, so it was drafty and louder than it would have been if it had a solid wall. On the other hand, it was the same hotel at which we stayed when the family drove to British Columbia in 1997. The second day was Regina to Winnipeg. This was the easiest drive of the trip. Again, it was straight-forward and flat. And again, we stayed at a hotel at which we stayed in 1997. Day three was Winnipeg to Thunder Bay. I feel this was the worst day of the trip. We arrived at the hotel in the dark, and the driving stopped being flat and straight. This was an omen, for the land north of Superior is rocky. Very rocky. Day four took us to Wawa from Thunder Bay. Not much can be said about this day other than the road north of Superior is hilly, and there are times when you go down a hill and the first thing you see is Lake Superior, because the road takes a hard turn, often to the left. And if you don’t know anything about Wawa, it has several giant Canada Geese. Next stop was Sudbury. We stayed in an unimpressive hotel, close to the Big Nickel. Thus, the area was very drab. The cloudy, chilly and somewhat wet weather did not help. The next day was the final day of travel: Sudbury to Scarborough. It was nice to drive the 400-series highways again. It was good to be surrounded by traffic. I would say I saw more unique cars and trucks in the first 10 minutes being on Hwy. 400 than I saw in my four months in Meadow Lake. It was now October 28, and I was home.

November 2009

Once again, a month of less-than-stellar events. Like, nothing happened. I went out and about in Toronto, to re-explore my city. But I didn’t manage to see many (read: any) of my friends. The only eventful days were ones filled with unpacking and rearranging my room, bookcases and closet. I also threw out a lot of stuff I had had sitting around on the bookcases. So now my room looks a lot better than it used to. And I have a computer in my room. I would say the biggest thing I did was go to the opening of the Cavalcade of Lights. It was supposed to be a get-together with friends. No one showed.

December 2009

Finally, the last month of the year. I finally had a chance to see friends. It only took a month and a half for me to pull that off. And I still only managed to see two of them. Clearly I need to work on that. But the biggest news of the month was my trip to Jasper. Now you may be saying, ‘Tim, you already went to Jasper in the summer. Why would you go back in the winter?’ Well, if you recall I went in the summer to scope out wedding sites. I went in the winter for the wedding. Yep, I few to Edmonton, rented a car and drove to Jasper for Brandy’s wedding. It was a good weekend. Except for one thing. It was f—ing freezing that weekend. Jasper, at -12.9C to -38.1C was the WARMEST place in Alberta that weekend. In fact, on the 13^th, the day of the wedding, Edmonton set a cold record at the airport of -46.1C. This broke the old record, set in 2008, of -36.1C. I have never seen a temperature record set by that much. Insane. But I am happy for them. Even if I think they’re crazy for taking photos outside in that weather. Moving on. When I got back to Scarborough, I finally managed to get out to see friends. Yes, I only managed to see two of them, but two is better than none. And I got to go skating, which I haven’t done much lately. Not since earlier in the year when I could go skating on the Rideau Canal in Ottawa. Oh, how I miss being able to do that.

And that’s it for my synopsis of 2009. It was quite the interesting year, I have to say. So what does 2010 hold for me? You’ll have to check back regularly to find out. I promise you will be among the first to learn of my pending adventures. Except for one about which you will only learn after it happens. I have to keep it a surprise.

2009 in Review! pt. 3

And now, it’s time for part three of my personal recap of 2009. Today’s synopsis: July through September.

July 2009

This month started fairly boringly. Canada Day was supposedly a day off. Instead I was sent to Loon Lake, Sask. to take photos of the Canada Day parade, and do a Conversation with someone. Somehow working on a day when everyone else is off does not seem to me like a day off, does it? But I did manage to use the time I had after I got back from Loon Lake to put up my curtains in my apartment. Finally. From May 25 when I moved in, I had a blanket pinned to the window frame, which left a 30 cm wide section of the window uncovered, which meant people could look in my window whenever they wanted. Plus, I had to keep my couch away from the wall so I could hide stuff behind it. Once I put up the curtains, I had considerably more floor space, what with my couch back up against the wall. July continued fairly well. I took advantage of a weekend off to go kayaking for the first time on July 5. I had never done it before, so it was something I wanted to try. It was fun. Although I wasn’t able to go out in a solo kayak (Meadow Lake Provincial Park only had tandem kayaks), it was still good. In fact, it was better I was in a tandem kayak, because I had the girl who ran the kayaking to help me paddle when I got tired. Plus, since we were together in one kayak, we could move quicker and get off the water when the weather started to turn sour. You can read more about my kayaking excursion in the post I posted about it. I think I was managing to negotiate my emotional funk, especially when I started counting down the days to the two week vacation the paper takes every summer. For some reason the paper shuts down. Not that I’m complaining. In fact, I was stoked. It was a chance to get out of town for a while. But where would I go? Good thing that had already been more or less worked out ahead of time. For reasons I still don’t fully understand, I had been invited to go out to Alberta in general and Jasper in particular to scope out wedding sites for Brandy’s wedding. Again, I’m still not too sure why I was invited, but there’s no way I’m going to say no to a chance to get out of Meadow Lake. So away I went. Edmonton (my first stop) is fairly far from Meadow Lake. It’s about a four to five hour drive. And I will repeat this again and again: West Edmonton Mall is needlessly huge. Anyway. Next stop was Devon, just southwest of Edmonton, where Brandy and her parents lived (being the operative word here) to stay until we left for Jasper for the weekend (and by weekend I mean we arrived on Saturday in mid- to late-afternoon and left Sunday shortly before 4.00pm). So what did I (and we) do in Edmonton before we hit Jasper? A few things. We saw a play in William Hawrelak Park along the North Saskatchewan River. The play was A Comedy of Errors for those who were wondering. This was on the Thursday when I arrived. On the Friday, the big event was going to the Taste of Edmonton, where I met one of Brandy’s friends, the one who ended up as the Maid of Honour. And then it was off to Jasper. It’s a quaint little town in the Alberta Rockies. If you’ve never been, I highly encourage going. It’s very, very beautiful. And I haven’t even mentioned the mountains directly, yet. They are amazing. On a clear day, they are just plain spectacular. There is no way to properly describe their size, other than to say you don’t understand how big they are until you’re on top of one. Which, sadly, is something we did not manage to do. We could have done so, but not at 28,00 $ a person to ride the Jasper Tramway. Oh well. And in a way, a good thing too. It was getting late, so we grabbed lunch and managed to get out of Jasper National Park in enough time to avoid being delinquents who abused our privilege to be in the park. Not really, but we did get out later than what would have been ‘ideal.’ After a nice drive, we were back in Devon and I had the opportunity to meet a few more of Brandy’s friends. But by this time I was starting to feel sad, knowing that I would have to go back to Meadow Lake the next day. And I didn’t want to leave. So we went for a walk so I would have one last chance to spend some time away from having to go back, knowing full well I was just delaying the inevitable. The walk was good. We went into the North Saskatchewan River valley in Devon, and just talked about things. And then we got back and it was time to get going. But I didn’t make it easy for me. Just like I did in June, but in full view of people who seemed to care (as opposed to random airplane passengers), I bawled. And when I think about it, it’s funny because it wasn’t even my house or my family I was leaving. But it’s hard to leave somewhere where people seem to care. But this is where you learn who your friends are. From what I have learned, your friends are the ones who will let you cry, to let it out. And then I left. I had to. Even though her mom offered to let me stay longer (to which I think Brandy shot her mom a dirty look), I had to go. So I did. At least after I got back I still had a week before work started, so I had a chance to collect myself. It didn’t happen. It was the beginning of the end.

August 2009

To be honest, compared to July, August was nothing special at all. I kid you not. How ‘unspecial’ was it? So unspecial the only thing I remember about it is meeting Miss K. near the end of the month. I’m serious. All I did in August was work and sleep. Oh, and have trouble sleeping in the morning because I had this feeling of dread and fear in the pit of my stomach. Work was feeling more and more like a toxic environment. My only motivation was the fear of failure. And last time I checked, that’s not healthy. I was getting closer and closer to wanting out. I was trying to hack it, but everything just wasn’t going at all well. Friends were hard to come by. As in: people my age virtually did not exist in Meadow Lake. I was lonely. And as much as sending and receiving letters helps keep contact, it’s not the same as being face to face with the people with whom you are comfortable. So I was getting closer and closer to giving up and getting out of there. Little did I know I would receive the impetus to act in short order.

September 2009

The month started rather uneventfully. And then everything just fell apart in a way. Sept. 8 saw me be pulled into the boss’s office for a chat. Apparently one of my stories didn’t measure up to the standards I was never given. (Okay, that doesn’t make much sense. Here’s what it means: My work was held up to a set of standards. But these standards were never articulated to me. Thus, it’s hard to meet unknown standards.) And I was told that if I don’t start (doing something I don’t completely recall), the paper was going to have to find someone who will. Well, that pretty much sealed the deal for me. I’m already not enjoying myself here, and now you’re going to more or less fire me. Fine. I’ll just beat you to the punch. I won’t write much more about this in this public forum, but I did do up a little piece on it over on my FB. Read it for more on the topic. So six days after I was served with ‘shape up or we’ll ship you out,’ I filed my two weeks’ notice. Except instead of two weeks, it was more like several hours’ notice. And with that I was unemployed and plotting how to get home. And also with that I was no longer receiving a paycheque. And I like money. But it’s a price you pay when you quit. And I guarantee you there was no pun intended. But, one benefit to come from not working was I had more time to go to the elementary school where Miss K works, to read with the kids in her class. They’re Grade 1 kids, so their reading skills are less than stellar. But it was fun. And I got to help them with numbers. That took a bit more work. Did you know that fourteen is written ‘41’? If you think about it, it makes perfect sense. Think about it.

Stay tuned for part four: October through December. Coming tomorrow.

2009 in Review! pt. 2

Part two of my recap of the year that was: 2009.

April 2009

Another eventful month. C-Town wrapped up and I baked cakes and muffins for the year-end party. Thank you to Brandy and Nate for the use of Nate’s oven. It made baking the muffins a lot quicker. And then there was also J-Prom. I wanted to ask a certain young lady to J-Prom. I never did. But here is the open letter I wrote to her about it. I think she knows who she is. Either way, I’m not going to mention her name. I am apparently respectful like that. In other news, school ended. Finally! And in the span of no more than four days, I got hired to work as a reporter/photographer in Meadow Lake, Sask. And I mean it when I say it took no more than four days. From what I keep telling myself I remember, I sent out the application package by email on Tuesday, and received an email back asking when I could be interviewed later that day. We set up an interview on Thursday, and Friday I got a phone call telling me the job was being offered to me. In retrospect (as you either know or will learn soon) I should not have taken the job. But at the time I was more or less ecstatic. That is until my parents came up to Ottawa to start moving me out and we talked about it. That’s when the doubts started to surface. And they never really went away. But more on that later. Just before exams finished, I made sure I said goodbye to two of the more important people in my fourth year life, one of whom was moving out before me and one I did not know if I would see before I moved out. Both of these young women had been great friends and I shall endeavour to maintain contact as long as I can. And when one gives you no less than five hugs before leaving, you know you’ve made a connection that will be hard to sever. After exams, I came home to begin packing for my trip out to Saskatchewan and make sure I saw as many of my friends as I could. I succeeded in seeing the ones that mattered.

May 2009

The month started much like April ended, with packing for moving to Saskatchewan and going out to see friends before leaving. Considering I left on May 11, there wasn’t that much time to get things done. But get them done I did. And then it was off to YYZ to board a flight with Dad to Saskatoon to begin my new life. The last time I was in Saskatoon and Saskatchewan was the summer of 1997. Clearly I didn’t remember much from that trip in terms of what Saskatoon looks like. Because the parts of it we were in after we landed were none too impressive. I should have taken this as an omen. Alas, I did not. The drive up to Meadow Lake was nothing special. Neither was the town itself. Let’s get something out in the open: I am from a city of more than two million people, in a metropolitan region with in excess of five million inhabitants. Saskatchewan as a PROVINCE is just barely over ONE million. Meadow Lake is under 6,000 people. There are many, many ways I can illustrate how my life experiences and frames of reference make Meadow Lake virtually insignificant to me. But, again, more on that later. The first week in Meadow Lake was quite hectic, as I needed to buy a car, find accommodation (no mean feat in that place) and attempt to adjust to all the upheaval I had just endured. And of course I had to meet the new boss. He gave me a stack of back copies to read to get up to speed on the town and the news in town. The first day of work was interesting, as it snowed. Yes, it snowed on May 19 in Meadow Lake. I don’t think I have ever seen snow fall in May. But I was on the Prairies, so I guess that’s par for the course. But one thing I remember about the first day (other than the snow) was after the story meeting I sat in front of my computer and thought to myself, “I don’t know if I can do this.” But I managed to get through that first week, and was more or less settling in (as much as you can settle into a town of 6,000 when your home is more than 333 times the size). And then June hit.

June 2009

Okay, I’ll be honest. June started quite well. My major assignment was to go the junior high school’s Grade 8 camping trip, to see what the fuss was all about. It was quite the excursion. (Here is my first overt criticism of my place of employment.) I would give you a hyperlink so you could read my story on the camping trip. I would if the newspaper for which I worked had a website. It doesn’t. I don’t fully know why. If you ask me, how can you call yourself a reputable newspaper if you don’t have at least an online archive of your back issues? So because my former employers don’t quite grasp the power of the online world, there is no other way for you to read my story on the Grade 8 camping trip other than to contact me and I send it to you or you come visit me. I highly encourage the latter. I like visitors. [EDIT] I have since scanned and uploaded the piece to my online portfolio. Moving on. The other reason June started so well was I was returning to Ottawa to visit my fellow J-Schoolers, as well as graduate. And I couldn’t wait. In retrospect, this may not have been the best decision I made. And here I must explain why. But first the setup. The graduation ceremony was nice, except for the fact we had CTV’s Max Keeping give the convocation address. We could have had other, better people. People like Adrienne Clarkson or Ed Broadbent. You know, cool people. Anyway. After the ceremony I had dinner with family and then went to a post-grad party. It was a good party, and it was good to see my fellow J-Schoolers again. Then the next day I was invited over to Brandy and Nate’s for dinner (Brandy is Miss Five Hugs from my April recap). It was before dinner that I started having inklings my trip to Ottawa to graduate maybe wasn’t the best thing today. I was telling her that the party the night before might be the last time I see some of my fellow J-Schoolers for a long time, if not forever. And I couldn’t get that one sentence out without starting to choke up. But dinner was nice. And I like their cat. The next day was the ‘travel back to Saskatoon’ day. And it was one of the hardest days, emotionally, I have had in a long time. I pretty much bawled for much of the flight from Toronto to Saskatoon (I had a layover at YYZ). But in between the tears I managed to pound this out on my venerable MacBook. It was hard to write but it was also very cathartic to do. And then when I got back to Meadow Lake I had to go to a rodeo to talk to girls riding cows. Honestly, I should not have gone and just claimed I didn’t see the email about going to the rodeo (that I saw that morning in Ottawa) until Saturday morning (I arrived back in Meadow Lake Friday afternoon). No one would have been able to prove I was lying, and I really wasn’t in a very good mental state. In fact, I never really shook off that funk. But in an interesting twist, that first weekend back was interesting nonetheless. I went to a cattle branding. The air smelt like steak and there were bull testicles being thrown around and cooked. Apparently they’re delicacies. These Prairie folk are strange. Other than that, June wasn’t all that exciting. Except for the phone call I received on June 24^th. That call dissolved all the disappointment I was feeling over the hot teacher who would not accept my advances. And she was fairly hot. You can see her here if you so choose. So what was this phone call? Only Brandy calling to say Nate proposed. So what if we all knew it was coming? It’s exciting nonetheless. And so what if I live vicariously through my friends? Things were slowly trending downward in Meadow Lake; I needed any reason to be happy.

Part three: July through September to come tomorrow.

2009 in Review! pt. 1

I have to say that 2009 was quite the interesting year. And when you think about it, nothing else would be able to sum it up so succinctly. In this year I finally finished school, got and then promptly (in the cosmic sense) a job in another province, flew eight times (with only five flights in every other year in my life, total) and various other things. But I think the best way to wrap up this year is to go through it month-by-month. So, sit back and enjoy.

January 2009

The first month of my last year of school. It was more or less the continuation of the first four months of fourth year. To be honest, January was so long ago I don’t remember much of it. But I do know I did Centretown News and I wanted to be Editor in Chief after I did not get a control position with Midweek. And I did get the Editor role, on my birthday no less. It set me up for a good final four months of school. Plus, I got to spend some time with some people one-on-one. Granted it was for C-Town work, it was still nice.

February 2009

This month saw me spend two weeks (one was Reading Week) working at 580 CFRA in Ottawa as an apprentice. I am not too sure what exactly I learned, but it was a good experience to see what really goes on in a radio station. Oh, did I mention I also TAed a media/communications law class? I did that too. It started in January, and I did my first marking in (early) February, if I am not mistaken. Once again, this was a continuation of my best year of school since my (faux) OAC year in high school.

March 2009

Ok, now we’re getting into the better-remembered events of 2009. If I recall correctly, this is the month I started to apply for work for after graduation. You see, I already knew people who had jobs lined up, and I had never actually been in the position of not having a job. So I applied to everything and anything, provided I had the proper qualifications, all over the country. Some of the places where I submitted applications were: Rocky Mountain House, Alta.; Swift Current, Sask.; Leduc, Alta.; Bonnyville, Alta.; Prince George, B.C.; Sioux Lookout, Ont. and New Brunswick. As you can see, very few of them were in Ontario. Yes, I was willing to travel out of province to work. I just wanted work. As you either know, or will see, I may have been too eager. But other than that, March wasn’t all that exciting. I do believe this is also the month when I began to mark the case studies for the media/communications law class I TAed. And let me tell you, marking them was an adventure. I tried to be kind and fair. Okay, I was fair; I had to be. I couldn’t go and give people I didn’t like marks they did not deserve. And I had to be constructive in my comments; I couldn’t say something like this: “No, that’s completely wrong. How could you even think something like that was possible.” And trust me, it was hard, because some of what my students wrote was pretty dumb. It was like they didn’t even understand the subject matter. And some clearly did not.

April through June to come.