Certainly Uncertain (Conquering the Unknown, Part The Second)

Well one thing is for sure – V and I are clearly soulmates, as we think about the same things without even talking. It’s because we both operate at a specific frequency of awesome.

Something that has been on my mind a whole lot lately is where I would like to end up living. I’ve developed quite the love for Ottawa over the last few years, and it is a great place to be. Also, to carry over from V’s post it has most definitely become my comfort zone. Ottawa has Gatineau park (cycling, running, swimming, camping, etc, etc, etc), the Ottawa River, the Canal, a great sports community, all my friends, and it’s really just a great city. Point in case:

OTTAWA – Summer in 30,000 Frames from Will Cyr on Vimeo.

My city. No bigs.

That being said, I am wildly, WILDLY in love with British Columbia – specifically, Vancouver Island. Every time I go, I don’t want to come back. There are mountains, and an ocean, and just everything is wonderful there. If you’ve been, you get it. If you haven’t… you should really go. Seriously. I’ve spent about 5 weeks on the island in total over the last couple years, surfing and cycling, and just.. yeah. It’s my happy place. This is a picture of the Pacific taken from my campsite when I biked across the Island last summer:

For those of you who are curious, this is the picture of what a bicycle looks like when you pack it up to camp your way 227km across an island:

All this has been on my mind lately because I’ve entered “HOLY SHIT PLEASE SOMEONE HIRE ME FOR THE SUMMER PLEASE PLEASE oh god I am so broke…” mode, and said job hunt has encompassed Canada in it’s entirety. I do have employment at a local outdoor equipment store, and I could go back to serving, but option a) is minimum wage and option b) means I would probably kill myself before being able to enjoy any of my spoils. Also, nearing graduation (one more year is NEAR), I’d really like to get a summer work term that relates in some way to the four years of schooling I’ve completed.

This widespread job hunt has made me realize how many of the jobs I want are in not-Ottawa. So leaving Ottawa has been on my mind a little. And well, I’m really happy here. But I know I’d be really happy elsewhere, as well. Homebody me is all “but here is nice, and predictable! and you’re happy. It would be silly to leave”. Adventurous me is like “Shut the hell up. LOOK AT HOW MUCH COOL SHIT IS OUT THERE!”. Moral of the story: Homebody me is a big fat baby. So homebody me can shut the hell up. Because there is a LOT of cool shit out there! And uncertainty makes things exciting!

That’ll be the end of feelings-sharing time for today. In conclusion, there is one thing that is certain: my english class is the most boring hour and a half of all time… ever. As such, English-class-buddy and I spent it looking up cute animals on the internet. I present to you Basset Hounds Running and two of the cutest youtube videos I’ve seen to date. You MUST watch the seal video with the volume on.

Happy Friday!

C

Teaching English Abroad?

Being faced with the many incredible possibilities awaiting me after I graduate, I find myself a touch overwhelmed. The prospect of finding a “real job” is scary, so I’ve been trying to think about it as little as possible. However, last night, I went to an information session for a TESOL course and the more time that I spent sitting there, poring over the pamphlets they gave me, the more this idea appealed to me. I love traveling and have been looking for an easy way to get back to Europe and frolic around, completely immersed in culture…so this lined up really well! It looks like I’ll be taking the ESL teaching course after I finish exams, and we’ll see where we go from there. The countries I’m going to be looking at are probably Italy, Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Croatia (how great would that be?!), but there’s plenty of time to make decisions yet. This may be the ideal situation for me; taking a year off from all the science I’ve done to explore another country and make money, and then return to normal life and begin looking for a career. After all, I’m young and have quite a bit of time to make something of myself after I graduate…

Moving on. I just scared myself thinking about…the future…and need to take a break. Here’s a sexy car for you (well, it’s more for me):

In any case, there will be updates on this as I try to figure out exactly what is up with life.

By the way, today’s lunch is a chili-seasoned scrambled egg & roasted red pepper spread panini with cut wax beans. Just sayin’.