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Every time I come back to Calgary, I am pleasantly surprised by the changes I find it to have undergone during my absence. New clubs, new shops, new restaurants, new buildings are springing up at an impressive rate in spite the recession rhetoric being floated about. Opportunities for enjoyment and employment abound for anyone willing to seek them out, and I have found a perfect mix of both since my last entry.
Lucky for me, while the city has changed, my network of friends has largely stayed the same, which has meant plenty of people to hook me up and help me explore what’s new. Among my recent great finds are a downtown Korean Karaoke club, a blast from my Japanese past; Friday night dance parties at The HiFi Club
; hidden breakfast gem, Dairy Lane Café , around the corner from my house; the hard-training fun-loving Calgary Kookaburras all-women Aussie Rules Football league , of which I recently became a member; the Calgary Stampede url=http://www.calgarystampede.com/]- official excuse to wear jeans, excessively short skirts and plaid, and to eat as many free pancake-and-sausage breakfasts as you can muster - love it or hate it, you can not deny the lure 
Sunset on the Bow
Viewed from the Douglas Fir Trail, a short walk from our houseof free food and yeehawing cowboys. Finally, I’ve also been quite enjoying my own backyard, bathed in sun on nice days and a perfect barbecue setting for scrumptious Alberta Beef steak parties.
As you can tell, my ambitious mountainist plans have taken a backseat to my new city-dwelling adventures. I feel slightly guilty about neglecting the mountains, but between good times and a recent spate of cool weather, my obsession with the peaks has mellowed slightly if only temporarily.
Perhaps a contributing factor to my quest for weekends at home is upheaval of my schedule by the new job I started two weeks ago with a large Oil and Gas company. Through some serendipitous karmic twist of fate (seriously - I got this job because a friend of a friend was at a party with a guy from this company and just happened to start talking about the job and then about me, who was looking for one, and a week later I had sent in my resume and was called for an interview and invited to embark on an adventure that could define the rest of my life) I found my way into the Accounts Payable department
Pretty Fluff
On the Douglas Fir Trail as a Data Processor.
Though my job, or at least what I understand so far, consists mostly of data entry, the experience has been far from monotonous. Every morning as I settle into my cubicle, my traveler self feels as if I have been transported away from the Earth I know and onto a whole new planet - Planet O&G in the galaxy of Calgary. Rather than driving cars here they park invoices in a place called CCC World; they work 8 hours straight without a break so they can go home at 2:30pm; there is an unspoken rule that dress must be casual - anything too fancy will net a wide-eyed disapproving once-over; they even speak their own dialect. Aside from mind-boggling new words like workflow, cost centre and SAP, they even replace the words “you” and “me” with “yourself” and “myself” (e.g. “just get that report over to myself as soon as you can”). Sometimes they just speak in numbers.
There are so many foreign things about this place, I sometimes pinch myself to check that it’s real; but this is not to say that it’s bad. For one thing, our team is wonderfully diverse, with
Pretty City
It gets a lot of flack, but this looks like a pretty green city to me every skin tone and background represented; and also very friendly with boundless patience for my constant cries for help (along the lines of "HELP! I can't workflow this invoice into its parking space!!!"). Not to mention, the rate of exchange (the pay, that is) on this planet is very, very good.
Though I’m still dreaming up plans for the vacations I’m going to take with this new found money I’m earning, the next two years in Calgary are beginning to take on a stable shape in my mind. Maybe I’m going to make it in this new world after all.
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