So long, and thanks for all the fish

And so it ends.

It was 1294 days ago that I first set foot in Nunavik and now it's the last day. As I leave, there are no awards, no fanfares, no hour long special featuring your favourite moments from all the previous seasons, as well as some never-before-seen outtakes and behind the scenes footage. Instead, I'm now just the man in the suitcase, sitting eating a last bowl of cheerios whilst surrounded by all my boxes (20 of them), waiting for the van to come to take me to the airport.

It's an ordinary end to what's been an extraordinary journey.

If you'd told me five years ago, when we were still back in the UK, that I would spend four years - three of them on my own - in an isolated Inuit community teaching English to college hopefuls, I'd have taken you about as seriously as a very unserious thing that had just won the world unseriousness championships. However, life never pans out quite how you'd expect, and here I am and there I was.

To paraphrase Celine Dion the blog will go on - I think - so keep looking in, but this particular chapter has now reached its end. Thanks for sharing the journey with me; you've been great company.

Taima!

Working from home

So, the first post of 2010 and the blog goes into its third calendar year of operation. Quite what the new year will bring is anyone's guess, but for the time being I'm enjoying an extra week at home. I have a further appointment with the dentist on Friday and I am not now due to fly back North until Monday, all of which is something akin to a late Christmas present (except the dentist part). I recently found out that my colleagues in Kangiqsujuaq got snowed/fogged in before Christmas, and some of them didn't get home until the 23rd; as a result the start of school has been put back a few days, so I won't be the only one returning to work a little later than planned.

Much of this week has seen me sorting out a variety of financial paperwork, the type of stuff that makes you wish you were an ostrich with a suitably deep bucket of sand nearby, but it has to be done and it's much easier for me to do it whilst I'm still in the south. Melanie went back to work on Monday so my house husbandry is also extending to washing, cleaning and cooking, the latter of which is currently inspired by Julie & Julia, a film which I was reticent to watch when Melanie rented it on Monday but that I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed. Speaking of movies, my other favourite of the holiday has been Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds, which must be as cinematically removed from Julie & Julia as Amy Winehouse is from sobriety; if Christoph Waltz doesn't get an Oscar nomination for his role as Colonel Hans Landa then there is simply no justice in this world.

For now though it's back to the finances, and an impending walk in the snow to the bank. Tim Hortons is inconveniently at the other end of town, but fortunately I feel in the mood for taking the scenic route today...

One year on

It's actually a year now since I started this blog, and lo and behold we're still going strong, or at least still going. This time last year I had no idea how much longer I was going to be working in the North, and when you fast forward to the present day I am still none the wiser. Yesterday Melanie started her new job as principal at King's Town School in Kingston, so you never know, I might be able to work for her next year! Until then though I am committed to the North, and although I really enjoy the teaching job I have here, it would be rather wonderful to be able to work alongside Melanie again, or at the very least live in the same house on a regular basis.

This is now my fifth year of living and working in Canada, and for four of those five years Melanie and I have had to live and work apart, sometimes on different continents. At least we are now back in the same time zone though and who knows, perhaps next year we will be in the same postal code. For now though we will continue to rely on the wonders of modern telephony to keep in touch, and the blog will continue to serve as a window into my world up here.

Here's to the next year!