The big event this week was the arrival of my jeep (aka Funmobile). Now that I have my wheels I have started exploring Toronto. My first stop was IKEA to get a comfortable chair. However, it took me 4 hours to assemble it. I bought 2 chairs but will wait on assembling the second one until I have a bottle of wine handy.

On the job front, I have been to so many meetings in 2 weeks my head should be spinning. However, when there is so much activity going on, you just let a lot of the noise drift by and try to pick up what is important. So far I seem to have a different skill set to the other people on the team I work with. They are all very bright and experienced people, but their experience is limited to Ontario. Since there are some aspects of Health Care that are more developed in BC, I am bringing that to the mix in Toronto. I work in Performance Measurement which is mostly about data analysis. I am going to learn how to do GIS which should be interesting. My first project will be set up a database of service providers with census data to map gaps in services by geographic areas.

My rental accomodation leaves a lot to be desired. Last night I was awoken at 2 am by drunken men shouting in the street. The apt faces a busy street so it’s hard to get a good night sleep. I am going to start looking for real estate and hope I can find a quiet place where I can still walk to work. I am about a 40 min walk to work so I take the subway in the am and walk home along Bloor Street which is fashion central.

I am spending more money here because I take public transit everywhere because everything is too far away to walk. My personal possessions have not arrived yet, which includes my bike. I hope there will still be some biking weather left by the time my stuff arrivies. The weather vaires by as much as 10 C in a day and varies from very humid and warm to chilly but more often warm. I don’t have a good sense of what clothes to wear by the thermometor so I take layers with me. It is always more humid than Vancouver.

Since I arrived 2 weeks ago, I have been shortlisted for 3 other jobs, 2 in Vancouver and 1 in Ottawa. However I think I made the right decision to move. Although the move was very challenging, with finding a tenant for my place in Vancouver and getting rid of stuff there, etc, I feel that I am now working with a team of professionals who understand and value my skill set. I feel the health care system here is better resourced than in Vancouver. The computers here are all the lastest hardware and software, which was not the case in Vancouver. The doctors here are engaged in the planning processes as are faculty from the U of T.