A year after landing in Canada
If this is any indication of time fleeing, we should really cherish our current moments. Time is flying super fast!
I can still vividly recall the days I crossed the border and frantically looking for an apartment. The year was filled with excitement and a lot of homesickness. Winter was pretty brutal especially for immigrants like us. There wasn’t really much going on and it was a big hassle to just step outside. Summer is a different story. Festivals and events are popping up in corners and people are just everywhere. If it weren’t for the garbage strike, it would have been even better. Some events got cancelled because of it and the city is no longer clean now.
Social life: I have managed to make a few friends but rarely hang out with them. Of the two friends that I normally hang out with, one has to leave the country as her visa is expiring this summer. I happen to hang out a bit more with co-workers but they also say it’s tough in the city to make friends. Everyone is so busy with his/her own thing. Not long ago, I was also very busy with school work as well.
Job: I am still at the very job I landed first. This week, there was a massive lay off at work and a number of coworkers in my office got laid off. I am dejected and at the same time realized how the timing played a big part. I got here right before the global recession and was lucky enough to have landed a job within a month. While I was in NYC, I noticed how little response I got from Canadian companies as opposed to the ones from NYC. I was attributing to the fact that I didn’t have the local phone number and that they might not be interested in hiring people from far away. The sheer number of jobs available here is a lot fewer for sure. I wonder how it’s like in NYC now. Could it be that there was a delay in the recession hitting Canada? Or, maybe I wasn’t just aware of it until it is happening right at my work. At one point, I was thinking we are over the worst and recovering already.
Apartment: Three months ago, I received a notice that my rent is going to go up about 20% once the lease is expired. I have been looking for a place to move but the prices are comparable else where too. I heard renting is harder this time as people are trying to sell the houses and renting more.
Utilities: Bell’s mobile internet service can be intermittent. It won’t even admit that. Instead, the little browser will say .. please check the address again. I had it bookmarked in favorite and there was no room for mistyping. It happened one too many times that I have now accepted that the service was just temporarily down. I also know that I am paying double the price for what my friend is getting at Telus. But she’s a long-term customer there. I certainly have to renegotiate my contract though. Rogers, on the other hand, always charges me $5 more every month! There is always a balance carry over of $5 every month although I paid in full. I called them after three months of being overcharged. I was bounced between 4 different reps and finally got it settled. I saw it happening again, but haven’t got the time and energy to go through the claim process all over again.
Provinces: the different provinces act as if they were in different countries. Even the regular phone plans do not include other provinces. Unlike in the states where phone plans are usually nation-wide, Toronto has it’s own GTA plan. Nationwide would be a lot more expensive. Even Verizon service Canada plan covers the whole Canada for regular charge. This summer, I got a chance to visit Ottawa, Montreal and Quebec. It was really nice and was very impressed at Ottawa. I plan to share the experiences from the trip later.
So far, so good.
