I don’t have any more excuses for the fact that I haven’t made many entries since we arrived. We’ve got internet, I now have the time, and there’s certainly a lot going on. I have a desk, a laptop (not very powerful, but I should be able to type and maybe even get the odd photo posted).
How to get started? I’ll start with some random impressions of how life is these days.
If I were to give this time of my life a name, it would be Holding Pattern. We have already made some adjustments to living here. We know where to shop for food, and where some of the busses go (learning where they all go will take a lot longer). We’ve got some furniture, although the furniture and belongings we had in Cambridge is still MIA (last we heard, it was awaiting another driver to take it here from Ramsayville, Ontario).
On the job front, I should have a job, once the paperwork is done that would get me a Work Permit. It will take a little while (probably a month or so), but I should have a full-time job, and we can stop spending our savings.
I’ve made some friends, and we’ve begun to meet our neighbors and spend some time with them. We are a bit of an oddity, although I have heard of other Americans who have fled here. In fact, there is a new term, Brain Gain, which is the opposite of the traditional Brain Drain that Canada had to the US.
I’m still watching the occasional TV program from the US (we get all 3 of the major networks plus a smattering of other cable ones like CNN and Fox — which I now refer to as Ameri-Pravda). I still follow some of the political blogs like DailyKos and Eschaton. However, there’s a new level of detachment as I learn of all the awful things going on there: Bush refusing to meet with Cindy Sheehan (despicable of him, as always), the continued rise of religious blindness toward the teaching of Evolution and Science in general, the destruction of their economy by handing it over to Corporations and worst of all, the continuing awful quagmire of Iraq. I’m still concerned, but now it’s kind of that strange calm you have in the back seat of a cab as the driver careens like a maniac through the streets. “That guy is driving pretty recklessly!” you say to yourself, not realizing that if he has an accident, you’ll probably end up hurt as well.
So we are waiting for our furniture, waiting for the job, waiting for ‘normal’ life to start, but also enjoying the superb weather and the pleasures of discovering a new city, neighborhood by neighborhood.