So now what?

Well, work-wise, I have a contract booked, I'll be doing the binge-work thing in June, July and August in Nunavut.  I'm booked to go to Arctic Bay, although I try to never get too attached to the destination ahead of time, since they have a habit of changing.  However, I really like Arctic Bay so I'm looking forward to it.

As I'm sure you all deduced, I didn't get a job in Los Angeles while I was there.  I haven't figured out the job market there yet.  There is work, but it's almost all full-time stuff.  That said, I did apply for quite a few part-time and per-diem (which is the same as "casual" up in Canada) positions that I was well qualified for, but never heard back about them, and from what I could tell, they didn't fill those positions either.

Part of the problem is that it seems they do hiring strictly through websites, and usually there is no way to get through by phone to someone in human resources.  When theoretically there is a way, they don't pick up the phone, and their voicemail is full.

The experience I have as a nurse is very transferable to other fields, and in Canada they love it, but without being able to reach a human to explain what it is I do, internet applications have a way of getting weeded out, since I almost never meet the exact criteria they want in a candidate, and computers are very rigid about these things.  Sometimes I do meet it though, so I'm not sure if I'm getting weeded out for being foreign (although I had a local address), or if they just weren't very motivated to fill their vacancies.

There was one job I almost got at a university student clinic, but in the end they hired the other guy (they had started with 10 candidates and then interviewed two of us... and the interviewer really made it sound like she'd hire me... but that's how it goes.)  That's the only interview I had though.

So, I plan to return to L.A. in the fall and look again for work.  The good thing is that this time I will be paper-ready, having completed the licensing procedure and the Visascreen procedure (which is a slower and costlier duplication of the licensing procedure), and will be ready to work, if anyone will have me.

If they won't, then I can't really complain, I also like my current lifestyle of working ~3 months in Nunavut and then having the rest of the year to do what I want.  It's a little more rootless this way than I'd like since I can't stay more than 6 months in the States every year, but for now anyway, it's not too bad.  Financially it probably even makes more sense to keep working in Canada and being a visitor in the U.S., so if they never hire me, then oh well, it might be better this way anyway.

As for my blog, I plan to keep blogging, but while I'm in Ottawa posts will likely be sporadic.  Tune in now and then though, you never know, and when I go to Nunavut this summer I'm sure I'll be taking you on some photo hikes!