I’m very anxious to be moving to Montréal soon enough. I’ve looked at a few apartments downtown. Some were very sketchy, small, in a rough hood, but some of them were very classy with the old exterior look. Either way, I had to pass on all of them because I’ve already made that one mistake in the past where I signed on a one-year lease and wasn’t even working at the time. I found a nice apartment in downtown Ottawa a couple years back before I moved to Vancouver to get away from the Nepean area (where I went to school at the time). It was right in the middle of downtown so everything was just in walking distance, except for work. I had to take a one-hour bus from downtown Ottawa to Kanata and then an hour (if not more) back home. That was exhausting.

I didn’t start working right away when I got the apartment so I was really just sitting there with all of my things in place and just applying job after job for at least 4 months until I heard something back. I was really glad too because I was running short on funds at the time, so that would’ve really sucked getting evicted that I couldn’t pay for my rent in my nice downtown apartment. It worked out in the end that time, but I wouldn’t want to go through with it again if I had the chance to (even though I really want to move to Montréal right now).

Even though I’ve been away from Vancouver for a few weeks now, I do miss it quite a bit. I miss the scenery I would see every day on my way to work (ie. the mountains, friendly people communicating, the forestry, etc.), and I would like to return there someday, but the only way I would like to go back is if I brought a few friends with me. They don’t realize what they’re missing on the west coast. Amazing employment opportunities, lots of things to do on our spare time, the different atmosphere and people – it’s all around a nice place to live; I just couldn’t stand living there on my own, even with the new friends I made out there.

So, after all that splurging, I’ve been debating whether I should continue with this WordPress-styled blog or whether I should move my domain strictly to my Tumblr blog. I’ve recently signed up for an account there and have been reblogging and liking articles everyday, whereas I’ve really only been going back to my WordPress blog maybe once every few weeks. I feel like I’ve abandoned it quite a bit, as much as I wanted to update it more frequently. It’s just finding the motivation to write about something that is the most difficult part. I’ll try and keep up with the WordPress theme for a little while longer, but I’m afraid if I just go back to barely relying on it, I’ll move my domain to something that I update frequently everyday rather than just bi-weekly or monthly.

Hopefully the next time I’ll write again, I’ll be out of the country-life and in Montréal working. I can’t tell you how useless I feel right now from being unemployed for more than two weeks.

Why you may ask? Well, sit down my little Internets, I’ll tell you why…

When I initially moved out here from Ottawa back in September, I wanted to escape the madness that was happening both at work and in my life. I needed a break. I needed to escape. That is exactly what I’ve done.

I was originally going to head back to school this Fall, however due to the shortage of funds I have in my piggy bank and the fact that I can not have financial assistance through the bank or tack on to my existing student loan, I have decided to move back East.

When my current work contract was due for review and renewal, the offer was handed out to me to stay with the company that I’m currently working for right now. It is, by far, the best place I have ever worked at to-date. Not only have I never been stressed out the slightest, but also they treat their employees (and contractors like myself) with dignity and respect. You might be laughing at that since you’d think every workplace should have those rights, unfortunately that is not the case back when I was living in Ottawa for those five-or-so years I worked and went to school there.

So, if you hate Ottawa so much, why are you moving back East?

Slow down my gentle Internets, I’m not finished with this story yet…

So, where back East will I be heading next in my journey of life? I have decided that I will be moving to Montréal.

Before I was going to move out of Ottawa, I was deciding where I wanted to move to. I’ve always fascinated myself living in Montréal, but I always wanted to get out of the Eastern portions of Canada. If I decided to move out West, no one would know it and me would give me the boost I needed to start a fresh new life. Meet new people, and enjoy those tasty lemons that life was going to hand over to me. I really had my hopes set on Montréal at the time, but the only timeframe I would’ve had to move there would have been at the end of the year, whereas I needed to get out of Ottawa then, so it gave me the option to move out and try out something new.

I’ve now been living in Vancouver for close to ten months now. I’ve experienced everything that I wanted to and met the new people I wanted to see, but when I had the option to not renew my contract, I felt that the timing was right and that it was okay for me to head back East to spend this summer with my close friends and family.

Vancouver has treated me very well during my short stay, but there are many things that I’m looking forward to when I move to Montréal.

Firstly, the music scene is much better out there now then it will ever be in Vancouver. I could not find any good indie band joints to chill out to and watch new bands inspire us with their music. None.

Secondly, Vancouver is too quiet of a city on the weekends. No loud thumping dubstep bass noises that you can hear from across the city for each club and strip club. Actually, come to think about it – are there even any strip clubs in Vancouver? Anyway, that’s not important.

I’ll miss Vancouver more than you can ever imagine, but it’s time for me to head back East and have a few drinks with some old friends again. Sad to say this will be my final post living on the West coast. So, until next time… see you on the East side.

Hope you all have a great weekend!

http://bit.ly/kvVjef

When I woke up Saturday morning, I had the file sitting on my Desktop and played it back in a sober state of mind.

Who would’ve thought I was able to do double-bass and play the piano at 1 am while half-in-the-bag?

Anyways, let me know what you think of it and if you’d like to hear more of my drunken lullabies: http://db.tt/gSAg2ps

All percussion, guitar, bass & piano/keyboard was done by me.

I’ve been sick with bronchitis for over a week now (coming close to two now come Monday if things don’t shape up), I’m getting irritated by my family (yeah I know family is all we have and blah-blah-blah…), and I’m just tempted to just go offline until things shape up. No phone, no computer (except at work of course), and just go completely Amish. I feel like technology itself is just taking a turn for its worse on me. I’m never alone without someone bugging me by text messages, phone calls, or e-mails. It’s nice that the Internet has enabled us in many ways to communicate with family and friends much easier, but it really does come with a price, and that is the loss of all privacy.

I think this all has to do with me living on the west coast. People must feel that since I now live so far away, they have to communicate with me all the time to see if I’m okay. I’m okay and have never been better in my entire life. I’ve explained this many of times, yet its their non-stop concern that is bugging me. It’s as almost as if I’m living back at home again, growing up. My family needs to realize that I’m no longer a teenager anymore. I’ve been living on my own since I was 17. I’ll be turning 23 later this year and I have many years of experience being independent now.

I now I must sound bitter in this blog post and I do apologize. This is really the only method I’ve resulted into releasing what’s been building up in me the past few weeks. I’ve made the commitment on leaving everything and everyone behind back East and starting a new life. Now that I’ve been settled here on the West coast for almost nine months now, I think they need to know that I’m okay and that I don’t plan on returning anytime in the near future. I’ve made up my mind that this is where I want to be in life.

They decided to renew my contract at work for a few more months which is a sigh of relief since now I know I’ll be employed and making money until I return to school. I’ve fully decided to go along with starting a new career. Sure, school is twice as expensive out here than it is back East, but I don’t want to go back there. It’s weird because money has never bothered me in the past; yet, since I moved out here, that’s all I worry about is money, money, money. After a long discussion with my sister, she really did point out a reasonable fact that is, even if I decided to go with a student line of credit through my bank, it’s at least going to a good reason and that is to further my education. It could’ve been for a down payment on a car, a mortgage for a house, but considering I won’t be getting either of those two at least for another 10-20 years, this is a justifiable reason to, in a way, tack on some more debt to what I already currently owe now in student loans. I’ve already been accepted, I’m already on the waiting list to move into the student residential building on campus, why would I want or need to back out now? It’s a win-win situation and nothing but good things will come out of it, and for what? To add on another $10,000 bones on my existing student loan? Bah. I worry too much. This is going to be great!

Also, I started a Tumblr blog since it seems to be something that everyone has nowadays, so if you like to see funny things I’ve found on the Internet (mostly through other Tumblr blogs and Reddit of course), feel free to visit it at http://michaelnugent.tumblr.com, and make sure to follow me as I’ll shoot you a follow request right back!

That’s my reaction after coming back from Montreal this past weekend. The trip itself was everything that I expected and more. The ideas of just being with all your friends and just never stop drinking for two days straight is all worth it in the end.

I waited exactly two months for this trip. It started around the middle of February where I wanted to at least plan one more trip back East until I head back to school in the Fall before I can come back down again by the Christmas holidays. It was either the long weekend in April or the long weekend in May to come down. Either by pure anxiety or just planning things out right, I decided to go with the long weekend in April because it is also the Easter weekend where I could see my family to have our annual dinner with them. Overall, everything went as I expected.

When the Friday arrived, I packed my things as quickly as I could, hopped on the SkyTrain down to the Vancouver airport, then managed to have an hour to kill before my flight left. Perfect timing!

When I landed in Montreal, the first thing I realized was there was still sunlight out. I remember the last time I flew directly to Montreal was for New Years where the days were shorter, so I would get to the airport by sunrise, then by the time the plane actually landed, it was already dark outside. The only real sunlight I would get during that day would be from through the small windows by my seat.

I managed to have a friend pick me up at the Montreal airport and after several detours due to construction, we made to our buddy’s place where we would be staying for the weekend and were gathered by a cool refreshing Canadian Club drink. That’s how I always know I feel like at home. Granted, I did have a few drinks on the plane before arriving into Montreal, as I wanted to keep a nice buzz going by the time I landed and sure enough I did by the time we made it to our final destination.

It had been an extremely long time since I last drank so I did kind of go through quite a bit of that bottle by myself as I couldn’t recall how to pace myself, so by the time we were actually heading out to the bar, I was extremely tipsy, but that’s okay.

We just ended up going to our usual gathering place called La Biftek, which is a very casual college bar and one of my favorite places to head to for a few drinks.

By the end of the night, we made a trip to La Belle Province (which everyone should at least go to once if they ever make a trip there), and then headed back to our buddy’s place to just finish up the night.

I don’t think we actually went to bed until around 4:30am, which I was okay with because mentally that’s only 1:30am Pacific Time. That is another reason why I love that city so much: It’s literally the city that never sleeps. Everything is open 24/7, or at least until the very late hours of the morning (ie. 3 or 4 am), and no one usually goes to sleep around that time anyhow. So, if you ever wanted to live or work there, make sure you’re accustomed to being a night owl.

The thing that killed me the most was waking up at 9am that morning. None of us got more than four hours of sleep, but we went on with our day and grabbed a bite to eat and some coffees to keep us awake.

We decided to go to Burger King out of all the places to eat for breakfast because when you’re hungover, the only thing that will get you back to the top is greasy food. Nothing is greasier than a cheeseburger with multiple patties. Afterwards, I desperately needed a coffee, so on our way back we decided to go to McDonalds as I think they serve the best coffee over everything else – including Starbucks and Tim Hortons.

We all got our large coffees and the way that McDonalds is now laid out, it’s a very casual place to sit down and eat or consume your drinks, so we ended up finding a large enough table to sit all of us down at and we just sat there drinking our coffee and just talking about anything. We were there for probably a good half-hour to 45-minutes, but it was awesome. Why? Just hanging out with your friends and just talking about anything. Right there it reminded me of my old hometown.

I grew up in a very small town of roughly 3000 people (the kind of place where everyone knew one another), and we only had one establishment where everyone would go to see their friends and strike a conversation, and that is Tim Hortons.

That Tim Hortons was in the same spot for decades, and up until a few years ago, they recently moved to a new location. Sure, there was a lot of controversy about the idea and how it wasn’t the same way as it was before, but the environment was pretty much the same. You’d see the same folks there just hanging out and drinking their morning or afternoon coffee with their friends. Just talking about anything.

I would remember way back in the day when I was working at a part-time job being a dishwasher at our only fancy restaurant in town, and I would always finish work around 10:30 at night and walk to the Tim Hortons (which was a good 20 minute walk away) and see one of my friends working the counter. I would normally order a small coffee and a small box of Timbits and just wait there casually until my Mom would pick me up around 11:00 to go home for the day. Just sitting there and talking with your friends about just anything is so small but just so welcoming. It really hit me when we were just sitting there doing the same thing in Montreal. I know it’s silly to explain this and most of you probably won’t understand the feeling, but it brought me back to my youth days when life was so simple.

Now, going back to what was happening in Montreal, after we drank our coffees, we lounged around at our buddy’s place trying to brainstorm what we could do for the day until the hockey playoffs game started that evening against Boston. We ended up going to probably the most angelic place ever: the Arcade. Now, this wasn’t any ordinary arcade, it had everything from retro games to modern racing and Guitar Hero games. We spent a good couple of hours there until we ran out of coins, but I loved every moment of it.

After that, we ended up going to the SAQ to get some pre-drinks, watched the first three periods of the game before it went into overtime, then rushed over to one of the bars where one of our old highschool friend was working at. The Habs ended up loosing, I was still very much hungover from the previous night, but we ended up getting quite a few pitchers and once it touched my lip, I was golden again and I actually drank quite a bit again that night.

By the time we got back, it was around 3am again, and we ended up just casually drinking and talking until 4am that morning again, then we had to get up around 8:30am to leave so we wouldn’t get another parking ticket again.

I literally was running off of ‘no-sleep’ mode that weekend and when I got back to my old home, my Mom wanted me to do a few things with her computers which involved quite a bit of thinking to do, then by the time we had our family dinner going, I realized I had to try and act like I was awake until 9:00 rolled around where I just passed right out.

For whatever reason, I was up by 6am the next morning and couldn’t fall back asleep (even though I was hoping to get a full twelve hours so I could get back on track with the lost hours of rest that weekend), so I finished up what I was doing with the computers, packed my stuff, then flew back to Vancouver.

I literally didn’t feel like working at all this past week, so my motivation just wasn’t there. I didn’t even want to even come back here since I had so much fun this past weekend, but c’est la vie.

On a side note: I’m now a huge fan of Air Canada. I’ve always flew WestJet in the past, but lately their customer service has just been God-awful lately where the flight attendants have just not been friendly at all. On my return flight, I decided to bite the bullet and try out Air Canada. When I arrived to the airport (late mind you), the customer service representative told me they managed to change my flight from connecting to a direct one, and then on top of that, my on-flight meal was free (which was a deli sandwich, snack, and a beer). The on-flight television service is much better than WestJet’s satellite TV viewing, and overall they treated everyone very nicely. All I can say is, WestJet has lost my customer service and I’ll be flying Air Canada from now on… whenever the next time will be.

Still haven’t quite decided what I want to do with my life yet. I’ve still been accepted to BCIT for the New Media Design & Web Development program which I think I’m really going to like, but I dislike knowing that I’ll need to get a bank loan in order to pay for it. I already have a student loan that I’m currently trying to pay off right now and won’t be done doing so for at least seven more years. I still can’t believe I’ve been paying it back for close to three years now. I guess that’s the beauty of working – you just don’t realize the money that you’re getting to pay these little things off.

I fly out to Montreal in less than two weeks and you have no idea how excited I am for this. I’m still disappointed that it will only be for four days, so I’m going to try and cram in as much fun as humanly possible. I fly out there the Friday after next, and I plan to get pretty tipsy on the flight there. It’s about a six hour flight just to get to Montreal from Vancouver, so I think that’s plenty of time to get inebriated (hopefully not too much to the point where I’m making an ass of myself, just enough so that when I arrive, I’ve already had the partied started since 10 am).

While I’m in Montreal, I’ll be with some old friends and just having a good time like we always do there. It’s always the same things that we do (not a downside by any means): pre-drinking at a friend’s place, bringing a few road pops with us (hiding beer in our jackets or sweatshirts and drinking along the way), hitting up La Belle Province for some greasy cheeseburgers (by far the best food I’ve ever had in my life), drinking some of the beers we brought with us in there, then bar-hopping until 4 am. I’ve never had such a group of friends who are just that crazy when it comes to drinking, which is why I miss being back East so much. I don’t consider Vancouver to be much of a party city, more along the lines of just casual drinking with a few friends, then heading home around midnight or so. That is positive in some aspects, like the fact that I no longer spend $100+ every weekend just on booze alone. I actually have money left in my wallet come Sunday. I can’t even imagine how much money I’ve spent just on drinking when I lived back in Ottawa. I’d say enough that I should get some tax redemption for it.

While that’s all happening in Montreal, I’ll also be secretly looking around at apartments and possible job opportunities if I choose not to go along with school in the Fall. The only problem I have with Montreal is that the majority of jobs out there require you to be bilingual, which I used to be somewhat when I lived back in my hometown, but once I moved over to Ottawa then Vancouver, I’ve forgotten pretty much all of it. I updated my resume and posted it back up onto Monster and Workopolis so my theory goes that if I hear something back before the beginning of June (when my contract finishes here), I’ll consider moving there and heading to school next Fall in Toronto, but if I don’t hear anything back, then I’ll continue on going with what’s been scheduled which is going to school here in BC and paying an arm and a leg for tuition. The price for two semesters here is the same as two years back in Ontario, and this program is four semesters, so you get the idea. It would be nice to go to school back in Ontario because then I can just throw it back on to my OSAP and I wouldn’t really loose much because the amount I’ve paid back in the past three years would be the same amount as what I would need to go to school for two years over there. Anyways, we’ll see what happens. If I don’t hear anything for new job opportunities in Montreal, then I’ll be here on the West coast for another year.

I also wonder if I would even enjoy working back East. One of the biggest reasons why I moved is because working there is just a big headache. Everyone’s always grumpy, your boss is always breathing down your neck, and you basically wake up every morning wishing your workplace caught on fire the night before so you wouldn’t have to go into work that day. Here on the West coast, everyone is just so patient, and they don’t give two shits about anything, really! I’m still trying to grasp my head around that. It’s not that they don’t care about their jobs or career; they’re just in no rush to get anything done. I like that. That’s me in a nutshell and everyone here is like that.

After my two-day journey back to Montreal, I’ll be heading home on the Sunday to visit my family and head over to my Uncle’s place for some Easter dinner. Having a home cooked meal again is the biggest thing to look forward to when coming home for a visit. There’s just nothing like that in this world. After that is all said and done, I’ll be heading back to the Ottawa airport around noon to fly back here to Vancouver and transferring in Toronto. I would love it if I could stay in Toronto for a little bit to visit, as I haven’t been there in over a decade. So many people I’d like to meet and catch a beer with. I guess I can only hope that my connecting flight gets delayed for a few hours and then it can become possible. We’ll see…

For something that didn’t happen a lot in the past few weeks, I’ve sure written a lot about what’s going on. Hopefully I’ll have something to write about next week before I fly back East, if not, I’ll see you guys next month!

I’m sure this is a pretty common question amongst men who’ve rather fallen head over shoulders (instead of head over heals from a woman’s perspective) for a girl they’ve met at a bar, in class, or even online. They key question is when to actually take the next approach to go from a healthy friendship into something stronger like a relationship.

In the past I’ve always waited too long or just missed the opportunity to take advantage of asking the question, but in reality, the only time that you can miss being proactive of the situation, is just by not asking at all. The worse that can happen is that they either just don’t feel the same way as you do with them, or they’re in love with another individual (hopefully not with one of your closest friends).

To this day I’ve still regretted not asking the question to someone since high school, but in a way, they’re probably happy with the way things are right now in their life, and you have to respect that decision with any individual. When the timing is right, you’ll know. When it’s just the two of you and you feel that connection (or “spark” as they would probably refer to it by in something cheesy like Sex In The City), it may not hurt to bring out the question.

In the past, for whatever reason, I felt like long distance relationships would never work. Even if I were just an hour’s drive away, it simply would just not work. As the years gone by and I moved across the country, I know a distance of 2000 miles wouldn’t work, but I’ve just been too picky and stuck up in life. Sometimes you just need to take chances, see and make it work. If you don’t have the chance to see them every few days, at least make a trip out of it every weekend. It’s always something to look forward to by the end of the week.

My last relationship failed because it felt like we were always seeing each other. You do need to respect each other’s space and if they want to go out drinking with their friends on a Friday night, let them. I’ve never been one to say “no” to such a question, but I have met the jealousy-type individuals who would just not let them have fun on their own time. They wanted to be together all the time. It’s no surprise that it didn’t work out for them, but at least they hopefully learned from that experience on how they could improve when dating in the future.

Maybe I’ll find that right person in my life out West, maybe I’ll let go of that seven-year crush, maybe things will just get better for me relationship-wise, but as it stands, don’t ever let something slide when the moment is right with someone.

It’s not only that which discomforts me, but also I miss being around those who’ve made me happy and comfortable in the past. Moving out West has made me very independent and on my own, but now that I’ve proven this to myself, I think it’s time to head on back home where I belong with friends and loved ones.

I hate to admit that it’s becoming more lonesome as time goes on by. I miss hanging out with my old friends and (as sadly as it sounds), going on the train back home to see my family again. The train ride itself was the most exciting part about heading back home. Just boarding the train, adjusting the seat, plugging in my laptop, and just logging in to the free Wi-Fi that was available and getting work done in the hour trip.

Being in Ottawa has always been all right (considering I was just a train ride away from being home again). Now that I live on the West coast, it’s at least a six-hour flight away from actually getting to an airport that’s still an hour’s drive away from home.

Anyways, the point is – I applied to Humber College, as I wanted to last year to the same program that I also applied to here at BCIT.

The rule goes as follows:

-       If I get accepted to both colleges, I will decide to go to Humber in Toronto. It’s two years instead of one, but I’ll at least be able to tack that on to my existing OSAP loan and not have to worry about paying two separate loans once I’m done college, or…

-       If I get accepted just into BCIT, then I know it wasn’t meant to be, and I’ll be staying here in British Columbia for another year. Not that I’ll be upset about this decision, but it will just be another year away from my friends and family.

I was born and partially raised in Toronto, Ontario and I’ve been there every Summer until I was about ten or eleven and then stopped going. It is still considered a second home to me, but I just never felt that I needed to go back when I was growing up. Just thinking about going back again sort of makes me excited to apply to a college that’s near the city. It’s even better knowing that it’s just a five hour train ride away, or an hour flight if I was really anxious to get home. Either way, I think it would be best for what I want to be in.

The only reason I moved out here was to find myself and try to see what I wanted to do with my life. I LOVE the West coast. Don’t get me wrong. This is really an amazing place to live, but I feel out of place just living here. Different people, different culture, different life. Too different that makes it comfortable for me to live in. I just hope with this decision that I won’t feel too disappointed if I get accepted into Humber College and then regret it afterwards.

It would be kind of nice if my sister does get accepted into the University of Toronto. She applied earlier last year and if she does get accepted, that means that we will both be living in the same city, which will be kind of nice. Right now she lives in Calgary and I live an hour away in a different province, but still accessible.

I don’t know. This just feels right. It’s felt so right since I moved out here. I’ve already proven to myself that I can just up-and-leave a city and start somewhere new, but it just hasn’t felt right since I left Ottawa. Don’t get me wrong – I won’t ever move back and work in that city ever again, but I’ll still visit it every now and then. I’ll still feel the same way with Vancouver. It’s treated me so well in the six months that I’ve lived here, but I feel that, unless you’ve lived here all of your life, you don’t really fit in well with those who are already comfortable living here. I know if I move back to the East coast, I’ll blend in very easily. I know when someone is from the East coast right away just by their personality and attitude. It’s hard to come by, but it’s very obvious when you do find it. I want to be by those people all the time. Feel… right in. It will also make it easier to be back with the same family doctor and optometrist, dentist, and whatnot. I can still see myself moving back here later in the future, but right now, I think it’s best for me to move back East where it feels like home.