I did not succeed in finding employment under a Labour Market Opinion. I interviewed for one last week, but I wouldn't commit to the length of the contract (two years) because let's face it, I wasn't going to work in the kitchen at Julio's when I could be making some real money elsewhere. It was then that I knew I wouldn't be getting an LMO, so we made one more effort--entrepreneurship. I am by no means a business-minded individual, but I do have some great ideas for education, so we picked my best idea (a series of learning game apps that provide special education students remediation of prerequisite materials before learning new concepts, connected to a web-based database so teachers can monitor progress and easily tie it in to IEP goals) and I started writing a grant proposal complete with business plan.
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| Space Cats GCF game (Yes, I was going to hire an animator) |
The whole thing was actually kind of exciting, but at the same time I had a tough time writing it up because starting a business like this is so risky, and risk-taking like that is not my nature at all. Well I was writing up proposals for game apps and modules on Friday when I got the call from my father in law that the letter came from Immigration Canada. The letter specifically has written that applicants living in Canada are to either go to a border or the airport in order to officially land as a permanent resident. So Saturday we dropped the kids off at Courtney's parents and went to the airport. Upon finding the border services office, we were told that they couldn't do the job unless I landed on a plane, which isn't what the paper work said, but they wouldn't help us, so we drove to the border.
It was a beautiful day, and we enjoy driving down to the border, so we didn't mind so much. I dropped Courtney off at the Canadian border office because leaving the country for her means she'll have to surrender her permanent residency card, which we didn't want to do on the same day for time reasons. I went through to American soil and turned around to land in Canada. I was expecting a drawn out interview, but the guard asked me two questions, "Have you been convicted of any crimes since filing?" and "Have you ever been fingerprinted?" (Which I have, for my teaching background check - they still let me in). We waited while he did some paperwork and then he called me out and declared me a permanent resident of Canada, with all the rights and privileges of a Canadian citizen, sans voting. That's right, I can now be as apologetic and hockey-crazed as an ordinary Canadian citizen. But more importantly, I can work. I can't teach right away--my application for an Alberta teacher's license is still in evaluation and I'll write more on that process later--but I can do just about anything else. We drove home with a sigh of relief, but also with anxiety to start looking for work.
