Hello everyone! It's been more than a year since I've updated this blog, hasn't it? I'm just as shocked as my readers, which probably ranges anywhere from four to five people.
It's been more than a year, I know. A lot of things have happened since that time.
When I last updated this blog, I was still living in Saskatoon, a city I've come to occasionally miss. But in 2017, I left the city because it reminded me of many unfortunate things that have happened in the past. It culminated in me leaving Saskatoon in an attempt to find myself, as well as other things. I worked, and that's all you need to know. Where did I go? I returned to the city I missed and also once called home: Calgary. When did I leave? Well, I left on October 29, 2017, to be exact. When I arrived, I quickly became homesick and paid a visit to Saskatoon again on November 10, 2017, but quickly returned to Calgary.
Eventually, work took up the bulk of my time. However, what I felt in Calgary while living there was a strange sense of freedom that I never believed I would feel if I continued living in Saskatoon (or Saskatchewan, for that matter). When I lived in Saskatoon, I felt stuck almost everywhere I went. This feeling was compounded with almost everybody I talked to. With others moving forward in other aspects of their lives, such as friends pursuing a Master's degree and/or having children, I felt stuck. I had to do something, but I wasn't sure what to do. I began looking at other cities, including Regina. Then, I looked at Calgary, and everything seemed perfect. Things worked out, despite the downturn there and I moved there!
When I lived in Saskatoon, I continually ran into people that I didn't want to see, including women I dated in the past in which relationships did not work out. On another note, I made it clear in the past that I have a 2014 Toyota Camry Hybrid that I love to drive. While I love to drive, driving in Saskatchewan can get old quickly, particularly with some "known" bad habits of fellow drivers in the province's biggest city, Saskatoon (there's even a Facebook group dedicated to it). For as long as I've been able to drive, I have always believed that Saskatoon was way too small, particularly its population. For some, the city's size is ideal as it has most services you'd be used to seeing in bigger cities, with a few notable exceptions. However, as someone who drives a hybrid car and also loves to drive, period, Saskatoon was tiny. Despite this, many fellow residents that I knew thought that the idea of me driving to the Real Canadian Superstore located at 2901 8th Street East was absurd, especially since I lived a lot closer to Canada's first Real Canadian Superstore located at 411 Confederation Drive in the same city. When anyone said that anything was "too far" in Saskatoon, I often rolled my eyes and ridiculed them. Sometimes, I would even smugly say "This is Saskatoon, nothing's far," sometimes followed by "Stop complaining. You live in Saskatoon," without further explaining my rationale for such a comment.
In addition to the woes of Saskatoon, I was also diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes--something that cannot be prevented, unlike Type 2 diabetes. As a diabetic, I inject insulin into my body twice a day. At first, it took time to get used to... but it's now a part of my daily routine. And in Alberta, health cards are still printed on paper, unlike every other province in Canada.
With this in mind, I instantly fell in love with Calgary's commutes and most of the time, I had no beef and/or concerns with driving on Deerfoot Trail during rush hour. The way the city was built, the traffic signals, the roads, the commutes, I loved everything about the city and began picturing myself living there long term. There were only two aspects of my life that felt empty: my family (particularly my mom) was in Saskatoon and I had no significant other. At the same time, I was thinking about someone that had ended any potential romance with me earlier in the year. Aside from that, I had no beef driving 20-45 minutes (it could easily be longer if there were accidents on Deerfoot Trail, it snowed or during rush hour) to wherever I wanted to go within city limits. I enjoyed it as I always felt there should be a "buffer zone." Of course, when people in Saskatchewan continued to gasp when I told them I drove 25 minutes each way to get to work, I laughed it off.
When 2018 rolled around, I decided to think about my future and what I might want to do with it. Considering a career change since late 2016, I finally began the process of narrowing down my choices of what I might want to study. At one point, I considered becoming an automotive technician, but that idea went out the window when I visited a Kal Tire location near my house to have a flat tire fixed and asked to use the washroom. It was located at the Marlborough Mall and used to be a Sears Canada department when it installed/maintained tires on vehicles. Eventually, Sears Canada stopped offering the service and the aforementioned space became Kal Tire. As a result, the Kal Tire did not have any public washrooms, as they used to rely on sending customers to the public washrooms inside the Sears store. Unfortunately, that Sears store closed in 2017 before all other stores across Canada closed in early 2018 because the company could find a buyer to continue its operations. As a result, the staff allowed me to use the staff washroom. As I walked through the shop, the smell made me realize that I would not survive a single day working in such a place. That was out.
Weeks later, an opportunity arose and I decided to seize it. However, I won't go into much detail (at the risk of revealing too many things). Let's just say the opportunity to return to school arose, financially. After careful consideration, I decided to become an I.T. professional. This meant that becoming a network engineer/technician/analyst was appealing. Thus, a months-long process began applying to schools. As I often went on Facebook, I saw ads for CDI College and other similar schools. However, I decided that I wanted my education to be from a school that's a member of Polytechnics Canada, given the choice. Liking the idea of living in Calgary, I first applied to become a student of the Network Technician program at SAIT. As a backup, I had applied to become a student at Saskatchewan Polytechnic's Computer Network Technician program at their Regina campus, but they put me on a waitlist. I also had to submit my resumé and a form that asked detailed questions. That form also indicated the way that I filled it out (handwritten submissions were not accepted) would be part of the final admissions process.
Once I had submitted the required information, I was asked to come in and meet with the program coordinator, who basically led me through a presentation. It also felt like a job interview. But on May 11, 2018, I received an email from her in my University of Saskatchewan alumni email inbox that stated that I had been conditionally accepted into the program and was advised to wait for an official admissions letter in the mail. The condition was that I must complete an introductory networking class online before August 31, 2018, which was more than enough time. However, what stuck out for me was that she told me to go home and go through my finances and make sure that I "really want to go into this program" because it's hard to "just drop $14,000" for tuition.
I received an official admissions letter later that week, which stated that I needed to pay a non-refundable $750 deposit by June 9, 2018. I waited until June 3, 2018, and checked my messages through the fancy inbox software they have at Saskatchewan Polytechnic and found that my status at that school changed from "Waitlisted" to "Accepted." With this in mind, I had another decision to make: Calgary or Regina? After much deliberation, I decided that I would move again. This time, I was moving to Regina. There, I'd at least know one friend. However, the tuition in Saskatchewan was about half of what SAIT was charging. Regardless of which city I lived in, I wouldn't be living in my own home. This did give me the advantage of being closer to home, which I had missed, even if Saskatoon no longer felt like home to me. By the end of May, I had paid my $500 deposit to Saskatchewan Polytechnic for them to hold my seat, and I officially started my first day of class in Regina on September 4, 2018.
As I continued to feel lonely, I also thought of a woman that I went on a number of dates with. I met her in Edmonton one day after attending my cousin's wedding in Edmonton in June of 2016. She worked for TELUS while I worked for Shaw Communications Inc. At the time, she also worked at a restaurant that can be found inside the West Edmonton Mall, one of the world's largest malls. On my receipt, she included a nice message... and a phone number. Thinking that it only happened in the movies, I believed the number could have been fake. I then searched the first six digits of her phone number on Local Calling Guide, which provides much useful information when it comes to phone numbers, such as who technically owns the prefix and its local area. I then found that the number was originally a Rogers mobile phone number based in Edmonton. Since she worked for TELUS, it was probably safe to assume that she ported the number over to TELUS from Rogers, given that you've been able to do that since 2007. At the time, I still had a home phone and decided that it would be fun to call her from my home phone and pretend it was the 1990s when only wealthy people and businessmen had cellular phones. She laughed when I said that, and it was quite a memorable laugh.
Communication between myself and her continued for a while, and she came to Saskatoon a few times to visit. I also visited Edmonton a number of times. The most memorable thing that happened was when she showed up at my home unannounced on the day of my birthday in 2017 to surprise me. Clearly surprised, I then took her to visit the University of Saskatchewan campus and gave her a tour of the campus (from a nonsensical point of view). I also offered to take her to dinner at some of my favourite places around town, such as Pink Cadillacs (which has since opened a second diner) or a chain that only had one location in Canada at the time: Fuddruckers (a location in Regina would open a few weeks later). I then said, "We can also go to MR MIKES SteakhouseCasual as they call it because I have a free meal reward or something like that." She said, "Let's do it!" Since Saskatoon only has one location, I decided that we should leave town... so I took her to nearby Martensville for dinner, where I had the most expensive ribeye steak... for free. If we had been in Calgary, I would have had to take her to Airdrie (though there's now a location on Symons Valley Road in that city) for dinner.
In 2017, she ended things with me, citing distance as the primary factor behind her decision. Unless one of us was willing to move to the other person's city, she couldn't see a potential romance working in anyone's favour. At this time, I started to think about Calgary more and more, since she decided she would attend the University of Calgary for graduate school. At one point, she did consider the University of Saskatchewan, but that didn't work out. Despite how much it hurt, I agreed to continue being friends with her. I thought I was fine with this until September of 2017 rolled around and one of my friends got married. By that time, I thought about her so much that it killed me, and I decided to end my friendship with her. I stated that I cared about her greatly and it was difficult for me to just remain friends with her.
I would move there later on in 2017 and reconnect with her in April of 2018. Unfortunately, this reunion would not last long, as she passed away on May 7, 2018. If I could wish for anything right now, I would wish for the extra seven months I could have talked to her, or just be there for her in general.
A lot of things happened in 2018, and I'm glad it's over. For starters, a friend of mine that I never thought would ever be single again, became single again (after nearly six years of dating). Not long after that, a considerable number of other women suddenly became single (and technically available).
It's now 2019 and I've been living in Regina since early September 2018.
As an adult, the return to student life has been more difficult than I had pictured. Due to some situations, I will likely be staying in Regina longer than I had originally planned. For now, I look forward to a potential new career, whenever that occurs. With this in mind, I will say that Cisco's CCNA curriculum can be quite intimidating and has kicked me in the rear academically too many times to count.
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