The Imbecilic Pioneer

I COULD try to stake a claim for being someone that likes to go against the grain, a pioneer who refuses to conform with the masses and instead blaze his own trail. It would be just as easy though to make the argument that I am an imbecile who decides upon his path by merely going against conventional wisdom.

One year and four months ago I left my decent, safe job as a journalist in order to travel to Canada with a bunch of my buddies. Several people tried to convince me not to do it, one lady actually went so far as to promise me that I would never again have such a good job and I would regret the decision for the rest of my life.

My mother, although not quite so doomsdayish in her predictions, did also warn me of the dangers of leaving a good job with the country in its current state but she knew as well as I did that I couldn't be swayed. I realised the risk involved in being one of the only people in the country to leave a decent-paying job just for the hell of it but I could never have forgiven myself if I hadn't done it.

Had I stayed in Limerick I would have developed a lot more as a writer in the last 16 months and would no doubt have widened my network of contacts which is now mostly defunct. At the same time though, if I had remained at home for safety's sake, my mind would have been eaten away with thoughts of what I could have been doing in Canada with my friends every time I got pissed off with work or the everyday routine. I could not have lived with the "What if?"s.

Also, it's not as if I have nothing to show from my time in Vancouver thus far with the most rewarding prize being my very own Canadian. If I had known that a lady like her was within my grasp over here, I wouldn't have spared a thought on the merits of remaining in my job in Ireland but would have jumped on a plane with my first pay cheque.

Romantic endeavours aside however, I have also learned how to do manly things such as landscape, service machinery and frame a house this year. In varying degrees, I have enjoyed the work I have done and I am certainly glad of the new skills, experiences and friends made. What I am most grateful for from my various careers in Canada though, is the strengthening of my conviction that I want to write for a living.

In all honesty, I was able to keep up with the hardest grafters over here and I impressed all those who took a chance on employing me, but I also learned that labouring is not the life for me and therein lies the benefit of leaving the comfy job at home. Because I stepped right into working as a reporter after University I did not appreciate it, as is the case with all things for which you don't have to fight.

But having experienced some of the alternatives, I now know that I loved the work of meeting and talking with people, of searching for stories and creating something that occasionally might have made others think, chuckle or just pass the time. It took over a year for me to realise it but this is an epiphany I may never have had were it not for the decision to pack my bags and leave in May of 2009.

Unfortunately the kind of work I now realise that I love is hard to come by over here, especially if you are technically an illegal immigrant. Out of all my friends that came over here in 2009 I am the only one remaining and although I'd get a slagging for admitting it, I miss them and all the other friends I've left at home.

Canadians are as nice a people as you could ever find, I've no problem saying that as a nation they are more welcoming and obliging than the Irish. The one thing lacking though at times, is the "craic". It's not at all that they're boring or not fun in any regard, it's just that the mentality and the humour is different.

That Irish element of underlying lunacy and the appreciation of unpolished roguery just doesn't feature here for the most part. Even though both elements can be as much a curse as a blessing, I feel as though I need them around me. It has occurred to me that my homesickness may only have been brought on by viewing home through rose-tinted glasses but just as I had to know if my hopes for Canada would be realised, I now need to know if my recollections of home are accurate.

With that and my predilection for going against conventional wisdom (the wisdom being that Ireland is the last place you should be going right now) in mind, I have decided to come home. It won't be for a while yet but it will be sooner rather than later. And just like I did over a year ago, my girlfriend will be leaving her home to see if Ireland lives up to the most likely unrealistic expectations I have created for her.

All job offers appreciated!

Octogenarians from the Planet Castratus

QUESTION Time folks. See this lady here? Attractive, right? Dressed like she's about to hit the town, wouldn't you say? None of those are the actual important question here, they were more hypothetical ones just to establish some important points.

The main question for you today is, how do you think a dressing room full of men from any sport of your choosing would react were this lady to walk in looking like this directly after a game?

Would they greet her as though she were just another member of the coaching staff? Or perhaps would they engage in some whooping and maybe even some hollering?

If you're answer is the former then I can only presume that the dressing room full of men you were thinking of is the octogenarian bowls team from the Planet Castratus.

You see this little lady's name is Ines Sainz. She is a sports reporter for a Mexican TV station in the States and she's caused quite a stir on this side of the Atlantic in recent weeks. While awaiting an interview on the sidelines prior to kick-off in a New York Jets football game, Ines grabbed the attention of warming up players who consistently "overthrew" the ball in her direction so they had to run by her in order to retrieve it.

Horrific isn't it? Imagine men in their 20s and 30s - professional athletes no less - acting goofy in order to run past a hot lady in a pair of arse-suffocating pants and a top that provides worse coverage than an umbrella made from nets.

Poor old Ines' nightmare didn't end there however. As is standard practice over here she, along with some other reporters, went into the Jets dressing room after the game and was subjected, nay tortured, to the aforementioned whooping and hollering.

Predictably, a variety of different groups who have self-appointed themselves to the position of spokespersons for all of womankind were up in arms over this. The most vocal amongst these mostly hysterical and radical groups were the Association of Women in Sports Media whose moaning prompted the NFL to conduct sensitivity training with all of its 32 teams. The bill for this training will be footed by the Jets.

Not being accustomed to sports coverage North-American style, the first question that crossed my mind upon hearing this story was, what the hell was she doing in the dressing room afterwards as players got undressed and had showers?

You could argue that TV rights payments have made these players all millionaires but does that mean that they have to lose the right to wash themselves without having the ogling eyes of the press also present? Should they also be allowed follow them home?

I've been informed though that it's standard practice for the media to be allowed a few minutes of coverage inside the dressing room after games. Although I don't understand why they can't just wait until the post-match press conference, as in European sports, if sports fans and players can tolerate it here then so can I.

What I really can't comprehend though, and I'm about to get soap boxy and perhaps a little controversial here, is why they would allow female reporters to carry out this coverage.

Of course it's all in the name of equality and - unlike some people have claimed in arguments regarding this issue - the same standard applies to male reporters going into female locker rooms after major sports events in North America. I can't understand why that is allowed either but in this age of political correctness, common sense is all too often sacrificed in the name of equality.

Again though, if that's how it has been done over here for decades, even though I don't agree with it I can let it slide without getting too rowdy.

What does get my dander up though is how an apparently professional journalist, yes the one in the skintight jeans and boob-friendly shirt, can walk into a room of young adult men dressed as she was and complain when they react like a room of young adult men. If she is a sports reporter then she should know that the dressing room is a place where a lot of farting, belching, cursing and yes, un-PC chatter about girls takes place. If she can't take it then for the sake of all concerned she should stay away because those kind of activities are as essential an element to many sports as the bloody ball.

Many of the aforementioned womens groups have also claimed that Ms Sainz is suffering for her good looks. Once again they are about as on target as a blind drunk wino taking pot shots at cans on a fence 200 yards away. The "suffering" she endured was as a result of the unprofessional way in which she dressed.

I've worked as a journalist and never once did I come to the office wearing a tight pair of crotch-hugging trousers, no matter how badly I wanted to, because it would have been deemed unprofessional. If you wear clothes that show off your arse and considerable cleavage then don't be shocked when people react to them. It's akin to a stripper getting indignant for a customer staring at her rack.

You know the way in the Dail you can't libel yourself regardless of what you say? Well a dressing room - regardless of whether or not it's for professional sports - is a similar kind of haven. For some men, it's the only place where they can actually speak freely without fear of offending the ears of the easily-offended.

If those sensitive souls can't take boys being boys in their last remaining refuge then they shouldn't let the door hit the behind of their skintight jeans on the way out.

Becoming Dad

I have noticed many signs over the last couple of months that indicate I am slowly but surely morphing into my father.

On three occasions this week alone I have fallen asleep on my couch about five minutes after sitting down to watch some TV. It only took 25 years for me to start working a job somewhere near as hard as himself - who has never once stayed awake for the closing credits on the Late Late show - and the effects on my evening time energy appear to be the same.

Like my father, my head tends to tilt back at almost 90 degrees when I'm couch sleeping, giving all and sundry a delightful view right up both nostrils. It was sleeping at this angle that gave my lady reason to notice that I'm cultivating a veritable forest of nose hairs that, if allowed a few more weeks of unimpeded growth, will soon be a Hitler-style moustache. Guess who else in my family has a pair of bristly nostrils.

Strike three is a tendency I have developed really only in the last couple of months but one which Dad has had for as long as I've known him. The other day, my aforementioned lady was making us dinner but was short one ingredient so I offered to go to the shop on what should have been a ten minute excursion but one which took over half an hour.

I can't really explain why it took me so long other than there just happened to be a wide variety of worthwhile distractions along the way. You know the sort of thing; interesting newspaper headlines, a new brand of cereal that had to be investigated, a couple arguing that I felt the need to eavesdrop on for just a while. All the usual things.

The reprimand I received upon finally returning home prompted a real sense of nostalgia as memories came flooding back of my father returning from short errands that turned into epic journeys. His distractions tended to be more in the line of car dealerships, which he could rarely pass without going in for a look, and car magazines both of which could render him MIA for lengths of time that would drive my waiting mother cuckoo.

In a way, it's oddly comforting to develop habits that my father probably embedded in my psyche at a very early age, even if some of them drive those around us a little barmy now and again. I don't reckon I'll ever be quite the man he is, but if I do end up adopting most of the quirks and foibles of someone, there's nobody else I'd choose.

Boyfriends, girlfriends, cowboys and lawyers

PARTNER, in my opinion, is a term that should be reserved for the head honchos at legal firms and the acquaintances of cowboys. It should not be used to describe your significant other.

At what point did it stop being alright to call someone your boyfriend or girlfriend? It seems that once certain people hit a certain age, somewhere around the mid-30s by my reckoning, they think it's childish to use those terms and instead revert to the far more clinical 'partner'.

It's not that I don't understand the reasoning behind the reluctance to use 'boyfriend' or 'girlfriend' once you are a certain number of years or failed marriages into life. I'm sure there is a section of society that thinks 'boyfriend' and 'girlfriend' is the reserve of teenagers and 'partner' is for middle-aged divorcees.

What I don't understand is why the latter demographic are so afraid to use youthful terms to describe their 'partner'. Chances are this is the one aspect of their life in which it's still appropriate to use teenager terminology because as one grows older, and every element of their life becomes dominated by reason, a romantic relationship is the one constant that continues to defy logic.

It's my experience that a girlfriend can excite, inspire, frustrate, infuriate and delight in ways that nothing else can once you're out of childhood. I can't speak for having a boyfriend but my lady reliably informs me that I can at the very least frustrate and infuriate to beat the band.

A relationship, by it's very nature, is illogical in that it requires us to go against our most primal urges by being monogamous. But therein lies the beauty of the whole logic-free situation, it doesn't really make sense to shack up with one other individual, especially these days when the chances are greater than ever that it will end in acrimony.

Yet all over the globe people of all ages continue to pursue these wondrously illogical relationships, displaying the kind of abandon normally reserved for teenagers. Surely then when labeling the other participant in this foolhardy arrangement they should stick with the lighter, more youthful names, rather than a term as sanitized and safe as 'partner'.

Antonio

ON ONE or two occasions in the past, I have been known to lament about the woes of having to sweat a little at work.

Being more inclined towards the leisurely elements of life has meant that the prospect of sustained exertion has always prompted in me some degree of horror. Occasionally though I come across someone like Antonio who rightfully fills me with shame for feeling anything other than grateful for my many privileges, among them the opportunity to work.

Amongst the group of Mexican workers on our site Antonio is the boss and, being the only one fluent in English, he is also the one with whom I converse the most. Only yesterday though did we get round to the story of how we both came to live and work in Vancouver.

In a nutshell (because that's all it's worth) I told Tony the story of how wanderlust had brought me to Canada and regular lust had resulted in my staying after the rest of my initial crew left.

Tony's trip to Canada started much earlier in his life than mine. At 16, with very little English, he left his home in Mexico for the US and settled a few hours south of Vancouver in Seattle. Despite the obvious language problems he managed to get enrolled in a high school where he would go on to master English while also keeping up with the other students in their regular classes.

Not having the support of a family in Seattle meant that once school ended at three, Tony would go straight to a nearby restaurant where he worked as a dishwasher until after midnight.

After proving himself to be a hard worker, and improving his English, he went on to become a busboy at one of the city's most exclusive restaurants. There he would sometimes make up to $250 a night thanks to the tips of the super wealthy clientele, amongst which Bill Gates was occasionally counted.

After he left school, he found daytime work with a framer and although it was lower paid than the busboy gig, Tony had found work for which he had a passion and an aptitude.

The most amazing element of this story, however, is not how Tony went from such humble beginnings to owning a successful framing company. Even more unlikely was the confluence of events that led to him meeting his wife, with whom he now has two children.

In the same month that he turned up in Seattle with almost empty pockets, Tony's wife enrolled in the same high school after her family had moved to the States from their home in Poland. Within a year the two were dating and within three years they were married and on their way to Canada and new opportunities.

"It's amazing the way things can work out to make two people from completely different parts of the world meet like that," he told me after we had finished work on Friday. Listening to him talk, it was obvious that the wonder and fortuitousness of their paths crossing has not been lost on him over the years.

Although he had a happy youth, Tony swears that he does not remember ever owning a single toy and having built a relatively comfortable life for himself in Vancouver, he now takes great pleasure in spoiling his two daughters.

And while he seems more likely to credit his life in Canada to God or good luck, I reckon it's down to his likeable nature and fierce work ethic, both of which I am most jealous.

Either way, I'm glad to have heard his story. Nothing like a dose of perspective to show up seemingly fret-worthy woes for the minor issues they truly are.

John, Jan, Joan or Juan?

FORGET whatever nonsense I may have spouted in the past - and spouted I have - about doing hard manly work in Canada. It has been made abundantly clear to me in the last week that during my sojourn as a landscaper I was labouring under the misapprehension that I was doing hard labour.

Two weeks into losing my building site virginity and only now have I been able to sum up the energy to do anything other than collapse in a heap and whimper after a day spent on site. The orchestrator of my agony is a framer who inexplicably decided to take a chance on me upon hearing I was unemployed.

For those not in the know - a group that included my good self up until a few weeks ago - there is another kind of framer apart from the one who creates a nice border for your photos.

Unlike all the concrete-built houses at home, builders in British Columbia use wood to make houses in the vast majority of cases. It's an obvious choice for a province with 149 million acres of forestry, most of which has remained unchanged since before Europeans came here.

Unfortunately for this European the lot of the apprentice framer seems to consist almost exclusively of hauling 16-foot two by tens (see how I've learned the lingo already?) from the side of the road on to the first floor of an under-construction house. Before my Canadian reader(s) accuses me of being a pansy, the first floor in Euroland is what you would call the second floor.

My co-workers are an interesting bunch, none moreso than the boss himself, a white amateur rapper who specialises in Christian rhymes. The religious element of his sounds is due to a turnaround in his life two years ago when he decided to shun alcohol and all sorts of other fun and replace it with religion.

There are a handful of characteristically friendly Canadians and also some very amiable Mexicans who could not quite agree between them on the pronunciation of my name.

"Hi, my name is John."

"Hello Jan, I am Antonio."

"Nice to meet you. It's not Jan actually, it's John."

"Joan?"

"John!"

"O, like Juan?"

"Close enough."

The Mexican workers remind me very much of what the Irish were probably like when previous generations came to North America in search of work and a new life. Fond of the occasional drink, they often come into work with more of a stagger than a spring in their step but they are ferocious workers and power through whatever task is assigned to them without a hint of hesitance.

They are in no doubt helped by the fact that they are seemingly unaffected by the scorching sun which from 9am onwards makes me look like I have been swimming in a sweat pool with all my clothes on.

It's back-breaking stuff at times, but the experience and company is good, plus there are rumblings of a potential journalism job, or alternatively a deportation, a few months down the line so I may not be here for too long.

But for now the building site is my new stomping ground, and thankfully it's providing me with plenty of material to potentially write about. Next week; The Honey Bucket.