8 years

Today marks the 8 year anniversary of the date that I made the move from Edmonton, Alberta to the Metro Vancouver region.

It is weird how time works. It both feels like a lifetime ago that I was in Alberta, and yet also seems like it was just yesterday at the same time.

A lot has changed in those 8 years. When I made the move out here, I was married. Now I am not. I'm okay with that. I definitely love the weather out here much better, but am puzzled at how much heat the Metro Vancouver area uses when it gets a little rainy out here. I just don't find it all that cold if I don't have to scrape off the icy windshields on my car. Now that I live in Richmond, I rarely see any snow at all. It maybe snows once or twice a year. Sinceriously!

In fact, Richmond seems to be in its own little pocket weather universe or something. We don't get too hot in the summer or too cold in the winter. When the weather gets rough in Metro Vancouver, we usually don't get it as bad as everywhere else in the region.

The one thing I will say I miss about life in Alberta is their magnificent thunderstorms. Richmond rarely see any thunderstorms, if ever. I really do miss those. I don't miss the hail storms, or blizzards, or -30°C winters, or tornado warnings; a really good thunderstorm is what I really miss.

I think I am pretty much the same person I was 8 years ago, only more confident in myself and less likely to make the same mistake I made before. I still have a very silly sense of humour. I still like geeky stuff. I still have issues with socializing, though I am finding I am getting better at it the more I age.

Career-wise things are pretty much the same as when I left Alberta. I have worked in a print production capacity my entire life. I felt in my younger days I really wanted to be a designer more than anything else. I would find the various jobs I had over the years would seem to steer me away from being a designer and would push me kicking and screaming into the production side of print production. Whenever that would happen, I felt frustrated and just wanted to leave the job.

When I first moved out here, it took me about four months or so to find a job. Once again, I didn't get on a design thing, but was labelled a typesetter, which I still have no idea what that meant, other than making ads I guess. While the pay rate was a little less than the designers, I did get better hours than they did, which I think angered them, but whatever. I was doing the same thing they were doing for less money.

I started to think about getting into film at that point in some capacity. A little known fact about me is I've always had a desire to get into some sort of film related thing; be it movies or TV shows, in some way, behind the scenes. My favourite courses in college were my drama courses. Not only did they teach me how to carry myself with more confidence, but I really enjoyed understanding character development and motivations for the characters in the class. I love understanding what a character is all about and imagining what that person would be like.

I decided to try going back to school to figure a way into the film industry. I went to the Art Institute to find out how I could go about doing that. The guy talked me into trying animation, more specifically visual effects. I did like the idea somewhat, but I did try taking animation before and it did not go all that well.

If I could just stick with the computer stuff, it would have worked. As much as I would love to admit I am an artist, sadly the talent just isn't there. Also, during the time I was about to begin my classes, the work I was working at suddenly decided to let everyone go and centralize everything out of Edmonton, in their desire to stick it to the unionized overpaid workers, I suppose. So suddenly I was about to go to school with no prospect of money coming in at all.

Stress got the better of me. I couldn't keep up with the rigorous school work schedule (seriously, the most work you will do is if you take an art program in college. So much homeword!), and I didn't know where my money would be coming from to keep myself and my cat in our apartment with food and so forth. So I dropped out.

It took me about a year to find another job. It was really hard to find design work here in the Metro Vancouver region, as I suppose everyone now is taking art programs at the various schools around here and there's quite a long list of applicants. I was beginning to think finding another job in print design was going to be impossible to do.

I then decided to try looking for a way onboard with the government's action plan thing to see if maybe I could take web design courses to expand my horizons. They do require you to fill out tons of paperwork for that sort of thing. One thing involved getting interviews from prospective people in the industry to see how in demand it was. I was on a design group on meetup.com and posted a message briefly describing my situation and asking for an interview for this mountain of paperwork, when I suddenly got a message asking me if I was really giving up on print or if I would be interested in working at her job.

I started working for a massive pay cut. Initially I was working on updating art files from Quark to InDesign. Really boring stuff. I felt like a massive failure. I then moved up to working in design, but it was limited to resizing or reworking book designs. Then, once again, as happened many times in the past, I got pushed into the production role I was trying so hard to escape. I felt somewhat dejected again. I accepted the role though and realized that after all the years of trying to escape the drudgery of production, I really knew a lot about it.

A few years ago, I decided to try advancing my career and decided maybe management might be a better option for me. I started taking a continuing education type of course on Business Management and voiced that desire to someone in the company who then took it upon herself to recommend me as a project manager.

However I still feel unsatisfied. I have this wonderful, stable job in a print production capacity, which should be considered extinct, but here this company exists. I still have that desire to get into film though, more so now than I ever have before.

Back to the topic of this blog... I still have my lovely Lucy as my wonderful companion. I've had her now for exactly 12 wonderful years and I couldn't imagine my life without her now. She's been with me through thick and thin. I love her to pieces.

After the marriage fell apart, I had little option but to file for bankruptcy, as the ex pretty much screwed up my life and left me with thousands of dollars in debt. A little while ago, I decided to get a car as a way to rebuild my credit rating. A year after that, I got a brand new car, and I've decided it will be my forever car, until it dies or I do, whichever comes first. Just this year, my credit rating has returned to a great standing and I now have two credit cards.

Recently, my former college roommate has come out here to visit me. There are two people in this world that I feel really close to. She is one of those people (my brother is the other). You wouldn't even know that 17 years have passed at all. We still crack each other up laughing with our random silliness. She is, however, encouraging me to try to reach for my dreams again.

So a new plan is starting to form. I'm not even close to giving up the job yet, so no worries about that. I just want to do something I love doing. I don't love doing this production stuff and this project management stuff. I want to be in film! It will happen! It must happen.

Anyways, time to end this cruise down memory lane. Until we meet again!