what's goin on? An update

Well, to those that read this, I figured I best give you an update as to what was happening with me. It has been awhile since my last post. Some good, some bad. Eb and flow. I am still in Toronto. And it seems different than the last time I was here. The last time I was here I wasn't really working....just a lot of looking for work. I still am this time around, but I'm offsetting my rent with some freelance work I'm doing for my friend Laura who owns a design firm. She's just starting out and can't hire me full time. So in exchange for my crashing at their place, I'm doing some web design for them. I don't feel as guilty this time because a) I'm doing work for my rent, and b) I'm busy doing work so it somewhat excuses my lack of handing out resumes since i got here. In general...it's just nice to work. I get the odd payment here and there and I pick up freelance projects outside this arrangement. So no full time work and still in debt...but not on the streets. I believe that with time I'll find something here. For the last little while I began thinking of ways I could make it work if I moved back....and then I realized I can't make it work in the situation I'm in. I have to say that It wasn't so much living in Charlottetown that pissed me off....it was more the patronage nature of that city. There was no way you could sustain yourself unless you had connections through family or friends. I'm somewhat bitter about that..but really I'd take those opportunities if they were presented with me. There are other methods that I'm looking at, but in the short term they wouldn't work. So this time, I do believe I'm here longer than 3-4 months. It's also a bit easier that I have other friends here. Good friends from Charlottetown....who in turn are introducing me to others from here and in some cases from back east. 2 of my best friends, Dave Noel and Jud Cameron are here and that makes the stay quite a bit easier. On the shittier end of the scale. I ended a relationship with a woman I started seeing back east. It's weird. I was in Charlottetown on and off for 10 years....had a couple of relationships that maybe weren't great. But this one....this was someone I enjoyed being with very much...unfortunately it was towards the end of my days there. We both knew that I was moving up front..and I tried to continue it after I left. But the knowledge that we wouldn't be in the same vacinity anytime soon was really making it hard to root myself here. Honestly, it's hard to be in any relationship in my situationn right now. This whole thing was one of the hardest things about the move to Toronto. But most of my life I've been through similar situations. I have the job, i'm unemployed, I find someone, I'm moving....so on and so forth. Instability is my middle name. Back to a positive note. To those who know me, I had lost 90 lbs. within the past year. But since arriving I stopped going to the gym and started eating poorly again. My outlook was looking down. I'm happy to say that last week I put a stop to this slippery slide. I began eating right and I made a return to the gym. And wow! There's no excuse for people here not to have a membership at a gym. Toronto owns and runs a number of gyms in and around the city. They're part of the parks and recreation department. This in turn allows the memberships to be dirt cheap! For instance....if you wanted to just use the weight room, a 6 month memberrship is $55. If you want a membership that includes the whole facility (basketball court, track, weights, cardio, and pool) it'll run you $50 for 3 months. Anyway you slice it, it's an amazing deal! Charlottetown should look into doing something similar with the now defunct Charlottetown Community Centre. To regular lurkers of this blog...and even new readers, I will be moving this blog to my own server in the near future. Since arriving, I've learned a few web tricks with the help of my friend Dave. I'm hopfully going to be implementing that knowledge into a new website for my work (verge) and a blog. When that all goes down, I'll let folks know. Until then, take care to all and I'll try and write again in the near future.