Weighing 2011

It’s time to take stock of 2011. I haven’t lost any money in the stock exchange, I haven’t been kicked out of home or office, I have not crying babies to be fed or a crying fridge to be filled at home.
If you live in a hut and after an earthquake you find out it still stands, yes, it’s still a hut, but the mansion beside is now just an amorphous bounce of bricks, so maybe it hasn’t turned out so badly for you.
In other words I shouldn’t complain too much, knowing this year has been simply tragic for thousands of people: credit crunch part 2, tsunami + nuclear hazard, Arab countries uprisings, and many other bad gifts left by a wicked Santa Claus the year before.
It should even be of no consequence to me the fact next year Italy will have 800,000 new unemployed: I have no job to lose.

Yet I’m not happy, because things haven’t gone as planned. Any Italian familiar with mal comune mezzo gaudio (in English roughly: A trouble shared is a trouble halved) may understand what I mean. That motto does not apply to me: I tend to be quite strict and demanding with myself, and to fail when the most of the others have failed is not a second prize to me, is just a failure.

It’s harder to define 2011. I should maybe classify it as a draw rather than a defeat. My second attempt to mark a turning point did not work out in UK. I did not get the job I was aiming for, but grabbed a precious internship that could be a step forward in the right direction. A draw then, not a defeat like 2010 when Italy showed to be a big disappointment to me after having left Ireland, but not a victory yet.

2012 is the turn of Canada: no draw here, only win or lose. Are you ready to play?

Countdown

 

One month. Everybody sums up this 30 days span in different ways: it can be excellent, tragic, bizarre, or simply ok. I have a clear and simple word in my mind for my next 30 days: countdown.

The inverted clock has officially started its rush today: on 18^th January I will be leaving for London, just to take the day after the flight to Vancouver.

In a month time from now I will be alone, far from home, in a B&B room near Gatwick airport.

It is as if I could see myself, lying on the bed, staring at my luggage in a soft lighting, with a tangle of hopes, fears, dreams and doubts stuck in my head.

I will be alone to take up this challenge, just like in Ireland years ago, afraid to lose but determined to win.

So, stand up soldier and load your gun: it’s getting time to fight.

When an insurance turns into a raffle

Last bureaucratic step: completed. I’m talking about something that got me really pissed off: the travel insurance.

I had never purchased one before, and I’ve been always determined to skip the travel insurance purchase option anytime I bought a flight. Even the insistence of Ryanair was ineffective on my conviction to challenge the destiny of my luggage. The “Are you sure you don’t want to buy the travel insurance?” window on Ryanair website was more or less like to ask me if I would have been hungry after one week of hunger-strike.

Canadian authorities unfortunately seem to be not as flexible as Ryanair terms & conditions makers: in other words they officially want that insurance in case, they say, I fall sick, I get run down by a car, or I have a close encounter with a grizzly bear searching for cuddles.

I said officially, because all the people I heard of who went to Canada with a working holiday visa were not been asked that at their arrival.

Hence my being pissed off, because I spent money for something that probably nobody will even take care to ask me about. But you know… let’s assume the immigration officer the night before had an argument with the boyfriend and she’s even more pissed off than me. Let’s suppose she asks me “Sir, can I see your proof of insurance?”, well, in that case I suppose I won’t manage to convince her saying my last flu was maybe 4 years ago, and when I look at the bacteria they get sick, not myself.

I’ll try to see the whole thing as a sort of inverted raffle, where I’ve been basically forced to buy the ticket not to lose anything, a sort of prelude of a much more serious raffle: the one to get a job.

Emotions are a stock exchange

As the departure gets closer (I’ll take the flight on 18th January) friends have started wishing me good luck.
They’re right: a stroke of luck has never killed anybody, and I will need it for sure.

I know you can’t only rely on luck when planning such an important thing like a move abroad, but now it is difficult to me to consider the issue only under a rational point of view.
Realistically I know it will be difficult to get a job, emotionally my impressions tend to vary a lot.
I can compare them to the trend of the stock exchange, with ups and downs.
Well… maybe I took the wrong example: nowadays it is more a matter of downs and downs, but it was only to get it across. What I mean is simply this: some days I think it will be an achievable objective, some other days I consider it as Mission: Impossible, starring myself instead of Tom Cruise.
Since I’m not a hero and there won’t be any stuntman to take my place, the happy ending is not granted.
Nevertheless the decision is made, and I’m not gonna turn back.

What about my shares today? Around 0, so no + neither -, and that’s why I’ve just written this post.

So come on guys, invest in me… gimme trust.

The beginning, i.e. my first post (welcome to my blog)

Lately I am going 2.0: I opened a Facebook account for work reasons, I’m using Twitter (same reasons), I already had a LinkedIn account, what else could I need to be a happy man? A blog of course!

Just kidding: the only reason I decided to open this blog is to keep track of my incoming experience in Canada. As we are basically made up of our past and present experiences, recording them somewhere may be useful, at least to read in some years time from now what I was writing, just to say “What a fool I was”.

I said in some years, but I don’t even know if this blog will be still open in some months: it’s survival is strictly related to my work survival.

I’m going to Canada by myself, with no job offer, only wielding a piece of paper that should grant me a temporary work permit. That paper, together with my perseverance, will be my only weapon in a battle I already know won’t be easy at all.

I have never had a romantic vision of North America, as the land of the opportunities. Now I believe that idea probably died in 2008 in everybody's mind with the credit crunch.

I’ll carry no illusions together with my baggage: I know it’ll be hard.

As a language for this blog I’ll try to stick as much as possible to English, since in my years spent in Ireland (and some months in Wales) I got friends who speak no Italian.

Nevertheless, I may occasionally use Italian, especially if it’s a post about Italy.

When I was a high school student and had to write an essay, I didn’t even think about the content: once chosen the topic I used to start and going on writing and writing, with no idea on what I would place two lines below. Ideas were coming out continuously and spontaneously from my mind, as if the essay was already written in my subconscious.

I hope somehow to revive that kind of magic to write this blog, since honestly I don’t even know how I will develop it, whether it will be a kind of diary, an account on Canadian society, or anything else.

The same applies to life: I have yet to find the right path for myself, since at the corner shop crystal balls went out of stock.

"A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step" - Lao Tzu -

Provisional post

Ok, I can say I'm pretty satisfied with the work done on my blog.

Being an absolute beginner in the magical world of blogs, it hasn't gone bad so far. The framework looks ok to me (but comments from random readers are well accepted). It only misses contents.

I'll start posting properly in few days.

This is a TEST

Questa è una prova

Prova.

Test.

This is a test.

Transmissions will start soon: stay tuned