Blame Canada

Well, I don't know about the grown-up part, but it was my birthday last Saturday so now I'm a year closer to 30 (which is when I'll probably have kids - help! Three years left of my own life!!!).

As I said before, Canadians will celebrate absolutely anything, and this included my birthday : ) The whole family came round for dinner, and I got presents and a cake and everything! All we needed was goodie bags and I would have felt five again : )

Another random Canadian celebration is Victoria Day. When I said I had no idea what this was, people here were pretty surprised - it's actually the Queen of England's birthday! So it's pretty weird that Brits have no idea when it is, let alone celebrate it. Honestly, we're such a dour, party-less lot. But here in Canada we had fireworks and more cake and a day off last Monday! So it was a pretty good weekend all round.

Other than that, not a whole lot has been happening. I was housebound with a pretty harsh cold for most of last week, and because we had Monday off this week has been slow to get going (although I have written another article - but this one's for the free paper so it's not paid).

So it's a pretty short blog today (collective sigh of relief). I'm working on getting more stories/a job, but both are kind of slow in coming so I'm a bit bored. Oh well - if anything life-changing happens I'll be sure to let you know!

I've done my usual thing of not posting on the blog for ages, then spewing out five sides of A4 when I do get round to it. Sorry. So I thought I'd break this entry into two parts.

Previously on Suzie's blog... I mentioned my parents in law. These guys are great. I stayed with them for six days last week while Joe was on business in Germany. Although most of our evenings were spent in front of the TV, it was so nice to be part of a functional family where there's a mum and dad and they actually speak to each other and talk about mundane things.

And boy, does my mother in law know how to talk. Even if we're just sitting in front of the TV, it's not enough to just sit there and watch it. Oh no. That would mean silence. We have to conduct a conversation while I try and work out what's happening on CSI (which isn't difficult considering every episode's the same). If the conversation is about the TV show, my MIL will either (a) ask me what's happening, even though we've been watching exactly the same show for exactly the same amount of time, or (b) tell me what's happening, even though we've been watching exactly the same show for exactly the same amount of time ("Oh, so he just shot her." "Yes, ma. I kind of got that impression from the way blood is spurting from a bullet-shaped wound in her head.")

But these are superficialities. As a person my MIL is one of the warmest, huggiest people you could meet. She also makes great food, even if she does convince herself that it's healthy ("the meat's not really fried." "Yes it is, ma. You put it in a pan with oil. Then you heated it up."). I feel like I can tell her anything, and ask her any question (like "Is it possible for you to talk to me while you're driving without weaving between lanes?" Answer: no). She's my Canadian-Italian mum and I love her to bits.

The day after I got back to Hamilton (along with Joe), my article was published in the Hamilton Spectator! On the front page!!!! There, sandwiched between a whacking great photo of one of my interviewees and the article itself, was my byline: "by Suzie Chiodo." On the front page!!! And, because I'm a permanent resident now, I'll be getting paid soon (cha-ching!). From now on, in the words of Yazz, the only way is up.

Well, sort of. I'm finally a permanent resident of Canada! That means I can live here, work here, whatever. I'm not a citizen, but I can become one in about three years (giving me triple nationality - English, American and Canadian). Pretty much the only thing I'm not allowed to do till then is vote.

Those who are Canadian get to vote about once a year, thanks to the incredibly shaky nature of Canadian politics (there's a minority government in power at the moment). The choice isn't that great. We have:

Liberals
Centre-left, slightly more lefty than Labour in the UK. They're the ones in power, and because they need the support of the NDP and Bloc Quebecois (see below) to stay there, plus the votes of the countless interest groups round the country, they spend most of the time giving people what they want rather than actually governing. Kind of like a parent who has no idea how to raise their kids, so just gives them everything they want to shut them up.

Conservatives
I'd be tempted to vote for these guys, except the leader (Stephen Harper) resembles a tele-evangelist. They also have no clear agenda - but then none of the other parties do, so that's no biggie. They have done the very un-PC thing of opposing gay marriage, which gives them some sort of backbone. I like that.

NDP
Known in Ontario as the 'the party which banned the word Christmas'. When Ontario had an NDP premier (PM rules the country, premiers rule the provinces), it was all 'holiday trees' and 'seasons greetings'. Most people I've spoken to have never quite forgiven them for that, and seeing as Ontario is Canada's most populated province, the party doesn't really stand a chance. Fine with me.

Bloc Quebecois
Sorry, I made a mistake in saying none of the parties have an agenda. The BQ does have an agenda - to destroy Canada as we know it (ie separate). Seeing as Quebec needs constant nappy-changing by the government just to keep unemployment stats from going off the counter, I hardly see how it could function as an independent nation. But whatever. Most non-Quebecers have a deep mistrust of the BQ - and it doesn't help that its leader looks like Eric Idle's evil twin.

Because the above parties spend most of the time bickering between themselves, it comes as no great surprise that Canadians aren't really interested in politics. But they do love Canada. Not in an arrogant 'Canada is better than everywhere else' kind of way - they're just happy to live here. The immigrants feel the same, as I found out in my roving reporter role. There's little feeling of discontent, or being hard done by, or being excluded, like I sometimes sensed in Britain. Newcomers are often poor, but then they save money and move to a nicer place, and their children go to university and get highly-paid jobs. It's simply easier to make it in Canada, and immigrants seem to feel the same as everyone else here. They know Canada is more beautiful, spacious, plentiful and friendly than most other places on the planet.

And I'd have to agree. The other day I was at my parents-in-law's house (their parents came from Italy after the war without a penny to their names). It's custom-built, has three huge bedrooms, two bathrooms, a massive garden with rocks and a waterfall, and a deck outside where you can stick chairs and tables. I was sitting on that deck watching the sun set over Lake Ontario, ruminating on the fact that this beautiful house cost the same as our crappy ex-council in Ladbroke Grove with human crap in the stairwell, and I thought 'I love this place.' I'm part of a close-knit, warm Italian-Canadian family with big hugs and great food and I feel like I belong. Just thinking about it makes me want to kiss the ground : )

This is a slightly unprecedented midweek entry, but there's a reason for that. Today is May 5th (or at least it is in this time zone). That means today is my mum's birthday. She would have been 55, but she died of cancer 13 years ago.

So why am I telling you all this? First of all, moving to a new country throws up a lot of emotional stuff and that includes grief. Lately I've been thinking about my mum a lot. Since I've been here I've had at least three dreams about her still being alive.

Secondly, although I've been thinking about raising money for cancer research for years, this year I've decided to actually do it. So here's what I'm going to do:

Remember Terry Fox? He's the guy who ran halfway across Canada with one leg before dying of lung cancer. Well, every year in Canada they do something called the Terry Fox run. It's really a series of local fun runs, only about 10km, and anyone can participate to raise money for cancer research. It takes place in September and I'm going to run it.

This is where you come in. I need sponsors! My target is to raise 5000 Canadian dollars, but I think we can do better than that. I know September seems miles away, but all you have to do is click on the link below, pledge some money, and then forget about it until I email you after the run demanding the cash : )

Here's the link: http://www.terryfoxrun.org/ENRunner/default.asp?s=1&RunnerID=13205

Click against cancer! Do it now! (please)

By the way, I've now put photos next to my earlier blog entries (February and March)! Take a look and see the face of Canadian life...!

Just a quick one this week, as I'm trying to finish my articles for Friday, and that's pretty much all I've been working on so there's not a whole lot else to report. Although trying to find out about the immigrant community here has been an experience - I've interviewed a Buddhist monk, a mad Vietnamese woman, a Filipino nurse, a Laotian pastor, and various Sikh, Hindu and Muslim leaders.

What I've found out is that newcomers here are willing to work hard, settle in, and call Canada their home while keeping hold of their own culture. Most of them moved here for a better quality of life and more opportunities, and are continually grateful that they can have those things. It all seemed to be pretty positive - it left me wondering what newcomers to Britain would say about their experiences.

Speaking from my own viewpoint, I've found there generally is more opportunity here. I've only spoken to two or three editors, but their attitude seems to be: “We’ll let you show us what you can do,” rather than “Why should we let you work for us?” as I’ve found with some of the bigger British newspapers. Here, it's not so much who you know as what you know. Which is good for me cos I've got a big brain and no friends : )

Although that's changing. Last night I hung out with a few people from my home group, including one girl who grew up in northern Ontario. It's pretty rural up there, and she had some great stories about ‘Deliverance’-style inbreds with extra thumbs, missing arms and scabies (eww!). Her dad was a headmaster and often had to make visits to pupils’ homes. On approaching one house, he looked up to the second-floor window to see a horse staring back at him. When he knocked on the door, a woman answered and he told her what he'd seen.

She sighed in exasperation. “Did thayt horse git’n here agin?”

I also had a chance to give my paranoid backwoods yokel impression (“Ahm nawt payin’ ma taxes!” okay, you had to be there) which went down a storm. It’s weird that stuff I say without thinking is absolutely hilarious to Canadians. But hey, anything for a laugh.

Speaking of which, there was a glimmer of hilarity in my perpetually boring driving lessons the other day. To punctuate his monotonous drone, our teacher occasionally sticks on a cheaply made and hideously dated video about road safety. Last Thursday he excelled himself.

The video was presented by someone who'd obviously decided his nipples needed the support of his belt and wearing polo necks was cool and masculine. He'd say things like: “But Patrice, how do I control my car during a skid?” and “The human brain is like a powerful computer” (followed by a shot of a machine that filled the entire room and looked like a cross between an 8-track and a spaceship).

His narrative on how to overtake was accompanied by hilarious Atari style graphics and beeps that got faster as the cars sped up. Every now and again a ‘scientific’ looking diagram would come up showing how drivers’ brains worked, with flashing red and blue arrows labeled ‘input’, ‘processing’ and ‘output’. The best bit was when the presenter started driving round a racing circuit with a huge flashing contraption on his head, with absolutely no explanation of what it was for.

Anyway, for those of us who’d been sitting in a classroom for 4 hours (yes, lessons are that long), it was hilarious. Unfortunately we've had nothing but blackboard drawings and bits read out of books since then. Still, there's only one lesson to go and then it’s cheaper insurance, here I come! Now I just have to move out of the car crime capital of the country…