Yukon Jay - 小祥

To Vancouver and Calgary

It's my last week here in Prince George and end of my 1 year workterm with the government. Driving 8 hrs to Vancouver on Friday, get there around midnight. Then Saturday night flying to Calgary for the long weekend to visit a friend.

I'm gonna miss it up here... definately buy a summer home here or Smithers. So an average house in Vancouver is $700,000 and then $300,000 here. I mean it's only $1,000,000 altogether... no big deal.

Here's why I'll miss northern BC:

Strategizing Stratagem

With recent developments it looks more and more like I might go to graduate school next year.

The Asia-Pacific Initiative I wrote for Mining Association of BC probably won't fully take off till next summer due to personnel shortage. Alex informed me she quit this week and will be teaming up with Craig... Once I return to Vancouver I will instead be meeting with Michael, the president of the association. But before that I need to meet with Craig to discuss Stratagem's role in detail.

One might be wondering who Craig is. Craig is the consultant with own consulting company - Stratagem Pacific Consulting. We clicked really well since we first met and mutually would like me to join his company. Because he has "Pacific" in company name, he wants to further explore this Pacific Gateway - Vancouver as North America's Gateway to Asia. So far we've got a great relationship, not sure when I will join as full-time staff. Got to finish my Bachelors and then do my Masters... maybe work with him for a year in between. Even living in Prince George, we've managed to correspond at least once a week... so I am quite happy with our relationship.

So that leads to school. I can graduate before Sept 2007 and can move right to Masters. A month or so ago before switching Geography degree, I would tell you that is impossible. Scary thought... really need to raise my GPA from 3.00 to minimum of 3.33 because that's the requirements for my preferred programs. Odds of me achieving this.... 20%.

As for Craig... it would be a sweet job, will have to play it by ear. Oh and he's also an American... with no intention to return to the States. :)

Stupid Camera

Went fly fishing on Sunday with co-worker at Emerald Lake. We each had a pouton boat and saw a moose; mommy deer with Bambi and Bimbo; beaver pounding water warning me to stay away from his dam; and bats... that's right, BATS! We stayed till 11:30 so it was completely dark.

Anyways, took some pictures... stupid camera had ony 2x optical zoom... had to risk my life to get close to the moose by coming ashore. As we were loading the van, dropped camera and the memory card fell out... and didn't realize this till this morning. So can't post pictures. Camera is also not function 100%...

This is sweet... been wanting to buy new camera. Now I can feel less guilty about buying one... Canon PowerShot A700.

Reality Check

I might be contradicting what I said earlier, but I'm excited about moving back to Vancouver. Just looking forward to going back to school, possibly start new job, friends and surgery. Want to get the bloody operation over with.

Starting to get sick of the criticisms on the government's slow response to evacuating Canadians out of Lebanon. Evacuation of 40,000 Canadians out of Lebanon finally got started today, a day after 800 French and Germans have left and roughly 300 out of 25,000 Americans evacuated. Sure, 8 Canadians have died as a result of the conflict, but that was at the start of the war and many Canadians have moved closer to the embassy. Israel has even apologized personally to Harper about this accident. Surely most Canadians stuck there have now congregated near the embassy, or near ports... what are your chances of being bombed?

Just think of other nationals such as Nepalese, Sri Lankans or one of the 34,000 Philippines hiding in Catholic convents with no way out. The fact is many other nationals are still waiting for their government to help them.

I rather have a government a day slow than a citizen of other nations in the planning stages. Just be thankful you're a Canadian with a resourceful government.

But of course it is easier for me to tell people to stop complaining when I'm safe in the north, away from most metropolitan areas.

Pictures from Past 2 Weeks

Just thought I post some pictures from the many travels in past 2 weeks. Have been to Quesnel-Likely, Vancouver, Smithers, Chetwynd and Tumbler Ridge. In the map below I've circled in red these towns for those that don't know the geography. Look much better if click on map to blow up.

Me in Quesnel.

Just outside of Smithers... came to see Laurie and Kristal and to do some thinking. It is 4 hours west of Prince George.

Smithers is right at the base of the majestic Hudson Bay Mountain... now you can see why I came to clear my head. By far my favourite place in BC.

Town of Tumbler Ridge... cute little town if you ask me. This is 4-5 hrs northeast of Prince George.

Quintette coal mine which is now closed... right outside of Tumbler Ridge. Check out the sycline and anticline folding here. The guy in blue is the mine geologist. I'm telling you there's way too many geologists out there... we need more geographers!!!

Adjacent to it is Wolverine and Hermann. Wolverine will be open in 2-3 weeks and Hermann is in pre-application stage now... need to go through the Environmental Assessment Office, which is why we were there.

Just more of Quintette.

It's been a great summer seeing more of this province rather than flying overseas each year. I'll be in Calgary, Alberta in 3 weeks... need to see more of this country.

Fall Courses

Got back from Tumbler Ridge... a beautiful coal resource town. Funded by the government, it was built from scratch about 20 years ago simply for the Japanese as they were BC's primary coal customers. Of course when coal prices dropped and coal mines closed, average house was only $25,000. Now with record coal prices, coal mines are opening again and real estate has shot up to $200,000 two years ago. I should of bought a house before the boom!!!

A new coal mine is in pre-application permitting stage and we were there as a part of the Working Group for the Environmental Assessment Process. A formal meeting and interesting to see the views of First Nations. Gotta love consultation... should of pursued a degree in Dispute Resolution.

Anyways, way too much travelling the last 2 weeks. Looking forward to being in town for more than 2 days.

Also registered for my courses:
1) Asia-Canada 200 - Intro to Chinese Culture
2) Asia-Canada 300 - Asians and North Americans in Public Discourse
3) Geog 422 - Theories and Practices of Development
4) Geog 468 - Society and Environment in China
5) Geog/Hist 432 - Problems in Environmental History

Depending on the job with MABC, I will probably take 3 or 4 courses. Still working on details as to how much time I will have and what I want to do for them. Also need to figure out which course I want to drop... Truth is, I don't know which one. THEY ARE ALL INTERESTING!!! With Geog 422 I can see if I still enjoy International Development at a high level... decisions, decisions, decisions.

Now I'm just looking forward to going back to school after 20 months off.

I'm Graduating

Last 10 days have been nuts. Flew home on the long weekend, came back to Prince George for a day, and was off again to Quesnel and Likely. Back for a day and drove to Smithers for the weekend to clear my head. Came back yesterday and I'm off again to Chetwynd and Tumbler Ridge until Friday. I plan on staying put this weekend and just relax.

So I went to Smithers to clear my head... have been really unhappy for 2 reasons: leaving northern BC in 4 weeks and school. The time spent in Vancouver made me realize how much I love the wilderness up here... especially the animals - moose, deer, black bears, grizzly bears and wolves.

The main reason though, was school. I register in 2 days and have been looking at course schedules the past 2 weeks. The more I look at it I realized that my "Geography - Environmental Specialty" major conflicts with my Asia-Canada minor. Courses conflicting could postpone another year of graduation.

I spoke with the Director of Asia-Canada program, Yoshi, who I've relied heavily for mentorship past 2 years. He suggested I drop my minor and concentrate on getting my major done... a degree is a degree he says. Then I kept thinking about what Alex said about the Asia-Pacific Initiative - how Asia-Pacific is her passion (she did Masters of Asia-Pacific International Relations in Australia). Reminded me how much I love this stuff... so dropping my minor is not an option.

This Environmental Specialty program... what a bastard program. As the name suggests, it is very specialized. I still need courses from Geography, STAT, Resource & Environmetal Management and Environmental Science departments. The 4 programs together conflict with Asia-Canada... no matter how I arranged the courses there were problems.

So I made a compromise - I'm dropping out and switching to the regular Geography degree in order to keep my minor. This means 4 less courses to take and no conflicts. In my mind, I've already taken the important courses from Enviromental Specialty program such as Human Ecology and Institutions Management... I don't want to deal with the other bullshit courses such as GIS II and Environmental Science. I'm interested in Policy... and policy courses I've already taken.

I feel like I have taken a bit of a blow, not finish what I set out to do. But I think this is what's best. I also have more freedom to take what I want to... like taking Geog 468 - Society and Environment in China.

So I know 100% when I'm graduating folks... Fall of 2007 with 10 courses to go. Industry people in Asia, Canada and US... be prepared for when I finish. The new job in Sept for MABC is just the beginning... got my eyes set on Foreign Affairs Canada. I will also be mastering my native language Mandarin when the time is right... That I have not forgotten.