Category Archives: Work

An American Experience – A Note from New York (Steven)

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Children drinking Starbucks. If I had to guess what the one and only culture shock of visiting New York would be, that wouldn’t have topped my list. But as it stands, that seems to be the only time I even remember I’m not back in Calgary. Oh. And any time politics or religion surfaces in a conversation.
I’ve been in the US of A for three months now. I have to admit, New York is a lot more fun than I’d assumed it would be. The restaurant and bar scene is as varied and high-quality as I’ve ever seen. The jaywalking is fluid. The apartment costs $6000/month. The delis are delicious. The sirens are never-ending. The accents are cute. (I like the ones that remind me of The Sopranos best.) The tourists are annoying as hell. The health care is efficient. The shopping is prime.

However! I’ve tried my best to avoid partaking in the 5th Avenue pleasures because — wait for it — I’m moving to India next month! Yes, sometime in April I will join our Pune office for some summer heat and torrential rains. The company is moving me to the Indian payroll, which means a reduced salary paid out in rupees. Thankfully, rent in Pune hovers around $300/month and it’s possible to eat for as little as $5/day. The excitement is nearing one-month-from-Christmas proportions, so expect me to go a little crazy by the end of March.

I’ll have more details as the date approaches. For the time-being I’ll be in Chelsea, Manhattan and you can read frequent incoherent ramblings on my blog.

Employment is Good

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Ever since the provincial government announced its intentions to amalgamate school divisions in the province, I knew that my job would no doubt change in some fashion. After all, it’s hard to be Technology Coordinator for Gull Lake School Division when there’s no more Gull Lake School Division.Throughout the fall and spring, I made a couple attempts to position myself in a job within the new Chinook School Division, something that I thought would be suitable and interesting. Those attempts weren’t entirely successful, but I managed to draw enough attention to myself that I finally landed something.

Starting in the fall, I will be classified as a “Technology Catalyst Teacher,” a vague and non-descriptive title. Essentially, I will be in charge of professional development, as it relates to technology, in an area just a bit larger than PEI. I’m not exactly sure which schools I will be responsible for right now, but it will probably include Shaunavon, Eastend, Frontier, Climax, Ponteix and Val Marie. Whether or not Gull Lake, Tompkins, and Hazlet (my old stompin’ grounds) will be in the mix is still up for grabs. I may find out in a meeting on Tuesday.

Needless to say, this will see me on the road considerably more than I have been. It also means that I will no longer be teaching in the classroom. For various reasons, I’m content with leaving the classroom behind, marking being high on the list, but I’m not necessarily excited about the time on the road, particularly if the winter turns nasty. Technically, I’m working out of Shaunavon, but right now, they don’t have office space to accommodate me there, so I may maintain an office in Gull Lake in the short term.

As a result of these changes, and how little time I will actually be spending in Gull Lake, I have told the Outdoors Club students that I can’t see how I would be able to continue with that program next year That didn’t make them too happy especially because Chris Siemens, who has been looking after the Jr. program for the past couple of years, is on an educational leave next year. So it may well be that there will be no Outdoors Club next year. That’s not something that thrills me, but I’m going to have to suck it up and live with it, since it would just be such a huge hassle to try to continue in absentia. I had been getting used to the idea of letting go in a couple of years, so now I just have to distance myself a little earlier, I guess.

In short, I’m looking forward to the work, and the driving doesn’t bother me, provided the weather holds out. We’ll have to see how it goes.

Writing on Stone – Outdoors Club

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During May long weekend, we travelled to Writing-on-Stone Provincial Park in Alberta with the Outdoors Club. This was to be our second-last trip with the club, but since my new job wasn’t final at the time, the kids didn’t know that. Irene came along for this one as well.

We left on Thursday and travelled down to within a few kilometers of the U.S. border to begin our hike at the Waters’ Ranch at the south end of Police Coulee. Police Coulee is a landmark of some historical significance, as native people used to use it as a thoroughfare, and later rum runners used it to smuggle illegal whiskey across the border. Because of the whiskey trade, the NWMP set up an outpost at the mouth of the coulee where it meets the Milk River Valley, hence the coulee’s name.

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Setting up Camp
The boys choose to
camp on the hill
 Wendy takes Lois out
of the picture

We only hiked a few kilometers that night and camped pretty much out in the open in an area where the coulee was not yet terribly deep or steep. The next day (Friday) we hiked up the length of the coulee toward the park. We were lucky enough to have obtained permission from the Waters (the landowners) to hike this section. Some of the scenery is quite spectacular. I’m not sure if the pictures below do it full justice.

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Hiking under
the coulee wall
The Group
camp on the hill
 Lizards on the rocks

We arrived in our campsite at the park in mid-afternoon. This time, we were lucky enough to get the nicer group campsite. I had called immediately on the first business day of the year to make sure that we did. The kids really enjoyed the location, which is right adjacent to the “Hoodoo Trail”. They played games in the hoodoos whenever we had any down time.

On the second full day (Saturday), we arranged a tour of the petroglyphs. There were a few snags in getting that organized, but it worked out OK in the end. The kids were really good on the tour; we even received positive comments from the park staff on their demeanour. That afternoon, we spent at the beach. It was a windy day, but it was warm enough for swimming. The kids would run up to our campsite and then float down the river to the beach. The water was remarkably warm for the time of year, much warmer than I remember it from the last time we did this trip on the May long weekend. To top it off, the weather was fantastic, which was also a contrast to the previous trip. We capped off the day by hiking the Hoodoo Trail in the evening and taking advantage of the lookout point to survey the area.

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Police Coulee
NWMP outpost
in foreground		 Kelsey & Nicole Jordynn, Tiffany & Nicole

On Sunday, we took advantage of the river and put the canoes in the water several kilometers upstream from the park. We floated down to the campsite just in time to eat lunch there, then, after lunch continued to float further downstream to the next bridge, where Wendy and Lois, our two parent chaperons, picked us up. Once again the weather was great.

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We finished the day by climbing the hoodoos behind the confectionary.  The kids found this a blast, as the pictures will attest.

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That left Monday for the long drive home.  It was a good trip overall, though, according to the kids.  They ranked as one of the best trips ever.

Steven – 2005 Update

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Steven graduated in the spring of 2005 with a B Sc in Computer Science (Honours). He immediately began working for a software development firm in Regina called App Depot (AKA ADX Studio). He soon found that he was working ridiculous hours without much in the way of rewarding work to make it worthwhile. The management consistently bid on contracts and agreed to impossible time lines.So, he put in his resignation effective the end of September. At the same time, he began a prolonged application process with a company called Thoughtworks. Thoughtworks is an IT consulting firm which has an innovative corporate structure and some rather intriguing recruitment practices. Steven underwent several interviews and travelled to Calgary for several more stages before he was finally hired in early December. He starts work in the Calgary office on January 16th. He was able to slip up to Calgary just before Christmas and find an apartment just two blocks away from work.

He was a bit disappointed, on one count. If he had begun at the ground level with Thoughtworks. he would started with a four month training stint in Bangalore, India. However, the company decided to start him a rung or two up the organizational ladder, so he missed out on that opportunity. The upside, of course, is that he also starts with a wage that’s $10K more than he was expecting, so I think he’ll learn to live with it.

All this means, of course, that shortly after the New Year, we will be moving him up to Calgary. This is getting to be a bit of a habit, as we moved both of the boys last year at New Years too. With any luck, we can avoid the blizzard conditions that we had to cope with last year.