Job Hunting and Food Shopping 101

You always hear the same thing from employ­ment offices, career man­age­ment coun­selors, and books like ‘What Color is Your Para­chute’ (I guess it’s spelled with an extra ‘u’ in the Cana­dian print­ing): The best way to find a job is Net­work. So, since I fin­ished my con­tract at IBM, that’s pretty much what I’ve been doing. It takes patience, per­se­ver­ance, and some­times I felt as if I was just spin­ning my wheels. Finally, this week, it looks like I’m start­ing to break through. I got a nib­ble here, a nib­ble there. Noth­ing per­ma­nent, and noth­ing that I could say is ‘The Big Break’, but it’s start­ing to look like I’ll be employed again, if not this month, prob­a­bly next month. Don’t want to jinx it by writ­ing any more about it at this point.

So, what have I been doing this sum­mer (besides Net­work­ing)? There was the Gay Pride Parade (took a lot of pho­tos of that), berry-picking on West­ham Island (Tay­ber­ries and blue­ber­ries), a lec­ture and piano recital by Sarah Davis Buech­ner, my friend from child­hood who is now an inter­na­tion­ally famous con­cert pianist, and a bunch of mee­tups; one for Blog­gers and another for Graphic/Web Design­ers. I’ve been to the Library a cou­ple of times, but haven’t gone to the movies. I’ve been adding a lot of music to my iTunes library, partly in prepa­ra­tion for when CBC Radio 2’s Clas­si­cal Music is snuffed out (Labor Day, I think is the day the music will die). Inter­net radio and my col­lec­tion will sadly have to suf­fice until Van­cou­ver gets a radio sta­tion that car­ries that sort of music (I’m not hold­ing my breath, though).

I have been to Granville Island quite a bit; nearly daily in fact. Sev­eral ven­dors have begun to rec­og­nize me, and I fre­quently get to make some small talk with them. The other day, one of them asked if I worked on the Island (appar­ently peo­ple who do get a dis­count). Per­haps some day I will (there are quite a few busi­nesses that are located there).

It’s taken a while, but I now know where to get the best mush­rooms, who has the fresh­est can­taloupes and the which butcher has the best steak (or the best meat­loaf). It’s really ter­rific to be able to find some­thing that’s fresh, in sea­son, and bring it home and make din­ner around it. Sum­mer­time has brought bushels of cher­ries and blue­ber­ries to the mar­ket (and I got a cherry-pitter so that we can get many of them and freeze them for those days in Feb­ru­ary when we really need them), as well as heir­loom toma­toes of every shape, size and colour com­bi­na­tion). Seafood con­tin­ues to be excel­lent (although some­times pricey), and turkey is still amaz­ingly good (and def­i­nitely not just for Thanksgiving!).

It’s been a quiet sum­mer, but I bet that soon, it won’t be so quiet. Fam­ily will be vis­it­ing in a cou­ple of weeks, and I’ll be very sur­prised if I’m not doing a com­mute of some sort within that same span of time.

The end of the sum­mer is always her­alded by the PNE (Pacific National Exhi­bi­tion), a great big ‘county fair’ that takes place on the East­ern bor­der of Van­cou­ver. There’ll be another fas­ci­nat­ing Bar­Camp, the self-organizing con­fer­ence that this year I’m help­ing (a lit­tle) to orga­nize. Soon after that is the Fringe Fes­ti­val,  a cou­ple of film fes­ti­vals, the start of the Symphony’s sea­son, and the other annual events that make for for a full year in our lives here in Van­cou­ver.  The ongo­ing suc­ces­sion of the year’s events is a com­fort, partly because of the rhythm of it, but also because there is always some­thing to look for­ward to.