Monday 30 September 2013

Into a globe of precariousness



Autumn is definitely arrived in Vancouver. I don’t know which flight it came from, and why the immigration officers haven’t been picky this time, but for sure it’s in town.
3 rainy days in a row, colder temperature and some chilly wind: summertime is already a memory.

Challenging the rainfall yesterday I went to Science World. It’s a sort of science museum hosted in a kind of futuristic globe. Admittance tickets are usually not cheap (25 dollars if I well remember) but for some reason this week-end there was free admittance, so I fought and win against the rain and my natural laziness.
I had always been curious to see what there could be in, and anytime I saw it when I was used to take the Skytrain I thought that sooner or later I would have satisfied my curiosity.
Yesterday I made it with a friend, but the final result was quite disappointing.
Not because of the too many visitors obviously attracted from the free tickets, who brought  swarms of shouting kids running everywhere, but because  I honestly was expecting something more interesting.
The museum is mainly about description of some things (for example how the brain recognizes humans faces), infographics, some documentary, and the very Vancouverite obsession for recycling, with a profusion of data on how much food and water is wasted, just to make people feel guilty even during a week-end with their families.
I’m glad to have saved my money 'cos I really hadn’t missed much.

I’m less glad for other things lately. A number of people I know have left or are about to leave Vancouver, including a former colleague of mine from Brazil who’s now in Toronto, a Mexican friend who’ll leave in a month, and even a guy from Pakistan I had met casually after over one year at Science World who is in the process to move to Toronto.
Those apparently minor events, combined of course with my nervous waiting for an outcome on my application for the work permit, have revived a feeling that was sleeping since Dublin’s time: the sense of precariousness. It is the awareness of being not stabilized at all in your goals and objectives, of feeling yourself pass, with nothing permanent to give you security and the impression you’re on the right path.
People coming and going reminds me I may be forced to go, sooner than I want.
This precariousness surrounds me, just like the walls of the globe I was in.
If it was summertime I’d spoil myself thinking on having a walk to the beach or Stanley Park, but unfortunately if I look up now I just see clouds and rain.


I hope some good wind of news will blow them away soon.