Yes, yes I can!
That’s right, the next big thing we’ve been waiting on… I got my Alberta teaching certification! After 10 months of waiting on Immigration, waiting a month for the Alberta teaching certification office to examine my Indiana credentials and deem me qualified to hold a professional teaching license was a cake walk. This weekend will be busy as I organize my resume and dust off my teaching portfolio that has been waiting ever so patiently to be needed again. The final step of fully immigrating feels so close to being complete now… there’s a light at the end of the tunnel, and I anxiously and happily await teaching again next school year.

Every morning of the week when I head into work, I spend a good several minutes driving straight at the city. We’re literally 5 minutes from the core of downtown, and there’s this perfect moment that I look forward to, even on the dreariest or most tired of days, when I come over the slight hill around a corner and the Calgary skyline comes fully into view. It’s my zen moment; I see the Rockies off in the distance framed by high-rise buildings of varying heights and designs, and I can’t help but notice the sky.

what? you didn’t know she had a job‽ man, these two don’t tell anybody anything – what do they think they have a blog for in the first place…
anyway, mama’s a school teacher but can’t teach in canada yet, so she started working in the hr department of one of th largest grocery chains in the country about 3 or 4 weeks ago – and she got a raise and a promotion already!
dad and i are very proud of her, and very excited! <4

You may know them as The White Stripes.
Whatever you call them, Lesley and I were lucky enough to get floor tickets last night to see them here in Calgary.
We arrived around 7:45 and milled around the foyer until the opening act was done (no offense, opening act, I’m sure you were magnificent in your own right) visiting with Caley, buying beer, making fun of what some people were passing off as stylish clothing these days (yes, mr. white belt and shoes with blue slacks, I’m talking to you).
The acoustics in the Saddledome are dreadful. Most sound techs try to overcome this through brute-force volume, and this was no exception; this tactic works in cases where …

We’re back home from Indiana and enjoying one last official day of vacation.
I spent two weeks in Indiana visiting my family and friends, and Lucas came down to join me after his deadline at work was over to spend the second week with me. It was non-stop action; I think our itinerary was full every single day. That was fine with me because I’d not seen most of the family and friends back home in about a year, so the more I could cram into the trip, the better! I won’t bore you with every single thing we did each day, but some of the highlights include getting to spend time with …

So the day we’ve been waiting 9 months for finally arrived: as of today, May 17, 2007… I am an official Permanent Resident of Canada! As I reported a few posts ago, I received notification at the end of April/first of May that I was approved for Permanent Residency, but today was the actual day I went in to the Calgary Immigration office to be granted the official status.

I know there was no reason to be nervous, but my stomach was doing flip flops all morning. I kept worrying that I would forget some important piece of ID, or the photos I had to have done wouldn’t be perfectly to spec… I was just worrying …