I really do hope this snow dump will begin melting soon.  Of course, to do that it would have to stop snowing!  We’ve a good foot (or more) of snow on the ground and Drew was out shoveling yesterday.  You’d never know he bothered as the patch of snow that’s drifted down or blown in has replaced most of the work he’d done.

When we moved to Edm in 2003, it was snowing.  It continued to snow at least once a month right up until the first week  of July.  I remember being completely shocked until Drew reminded me that we’d moved both west and north.  About 600 kms north of where we’d lived previously.

There are some wonderful things about living in a northerly city – considering the many  territories and cities above us, I categorize Edm as northerly instead of northern – but the continuous winter is not one of them.  Spring tends to arrive very suddenly, trees budding one morning and full leaves arriving short days after.  The evil humoured ones among us would already argue it’s been and gone seeing as it was hovering between +15 and +20C a few short days ago.  The crocuses have been and gone and my tulips were – before the snow dump – coming along nicely.

To deal with the evil’s of snow I’ve decided to call a snow day and not drive to work today.  Granted, I’m just taking an extra vacation day so I can study for my exams later this week.  It seemed a good idea at the time.

On Saturday I was sitting in the basement giggling away to myself after reading about Joy and Aims picnic experience on Friday.  While it has been known to snow in the city well into the summer months I was feeling rather smug that the snow the meteorologists had been calling for hadn’t yet reared its ugly head in the city.  Of course, a few short hours after I’d read Joy’s post the white flakes started to fall.  It’s now been snowing for 2 days straight and isn’t scheduled to stop until sometime next week.

Shoveling snow this morning to clear walkways has only made a dent.  More snow has replaced the piles we removed this morning. I suppose this is supposed to teach me to keep my mouth (and typing fingers) shut when it comes to the weather around here!

School Update: My history term paper made it in under the wire and I have a few small assignments left to finish before Monday in order to complete the class.  After that I’ll be in “hurry up and wait” stage until the final grades are sent out.  My psych exam is next week and I’m busy trying to cram as much as I can into my little brain this week. My summer session courses have been selected and the textbooks have arrived.  I believe they start the first week of May.

When I was in the Philippines I had a student who was a wonderful lady. She helped me learn how to get around in the city, often took me around different shopping areas, and spent a good chunk of her free time making me feel at home. My fellow traveler (for two of my trips to Manila) and I became fast friends with her and looked forward to the opportunity to see her again on our return trips. She welcomed us into her home and her family. Over a series of 6 trips to Manila I spent many months in her company.

She’d always wanted to travel and see Canada and we decided we’d like to sponsor her for a two week visit to Canada. After talking her out of trying to visit in winter (she wanted to see snow, we knew it would be far too cold for her) we settled on her arriving in May and began writing the supporting documents for her visit. We agreed to help defray the costs of her visit and planned on her staying in our home for the 2 week duration of the planned trip. His wife was planning on booking the two week period off work to talk her around the province to sightsee. Since we couldn’t get time off for her visit Drew and I were planning on spending weekends traveling with them and had plans to spend our evenings with her. We wrote the sponsorship letters outlining our housing and care plans. An itinerary of our sightseeing plans was submitted (per the request of the consulate). Our friends booked her plane ticket and sent the information off to the consulate.

Today we learned her visa application was denied because she didn’t have enough money set aside to ensure she’d return to the Philippines when her visit was over or to cover the costs of her stay in the country. She’d scrimped and saved and, with the assistance of her brother, managed to set aside $1000 USD for the vacation. Considering she had a return plane ticket, no housing costs, no transportation costs, and no food costs, we’re baffled as to how $1000 spending money for a 2 week vacation was considered insufficient for her trip.

I know many people who travel to visit friends or family for similar or longer durations with far less money in their pockets and no real plans for what they’ll be doing or where they’ll be living.

What really annoys us is the fact that no where in the notice of refusal is there an explanation of what the government considers to be “enough” money to come to Canada on vacation. The letter advises that there is no appeal process for the decision and that the file cannot be reopened. A new visa request must be accompanied by another $75 processing fee (a significant amount of money for her) and has to have new information or the second request will be also be refused. Despite including all of our contact information on the sponsorship letters, not one of us (4 people in total) were contacted regarding our plans, arrangements, etc.

Attempts to learn just how much money was required for visa approval met with an inadequate response when we called the local immigration office. We were advised to call the consulate in Manila, incurring long distance charges, if we wanted to learn anything about the application. The rejection letter does not include the name of the officer who made the decision. Instead two initials appear on the document. Of course they won’t release any information regarding the file to any of us without prior written permission from our friend. I’m sure we’ll be requesting she do this asap.

I’m disheartened by the actions of our government officers. We’ll allow murderers, rapists and terrorists to stay in the country and give them years to fight deportation orders but won’t allow a law abiding citizen of another country spend 2 weeks in Canada visiting friends.

As a Canadian citizen I can hop on a flight to Manila and spend 3 weeks in country without requiring a visitor’s visa but there is no reciprocal agreement in Canada for Filipinos. It strikes me that were she a criminal and false refugee claimant she’d likely be granted entry into the country while her claim was reviewed and provided with access to social services. Because she’s trying to do everything by the book and fully intends to return home at the end of the 2 weeks she’s denied the opportunity to visit our country.

Some country we live in!

I’m attending the Technology, Colleges and Community conference this week. It begins tomorrow and I’ve been looking forward to it for weeks. It’s not the first online conference I’ve had the option to attend, but it’s definitely the most comprehensive. The only downside I can find is the timezone the conference is running in. I believe it’s a result of being hosted out of Hawaii. Sessions begin at 1pm MT and run until after 9pm. Of course, I didn’t know that until I finished the registration process this afternoon; being away at my mum’s meant I missed the pre-conference sessions. I’ll be at work at my usual time tomorrow which means I’ll miss a chunk of the evening sessions while I’m driving home and working on my paper. Perhaps I’ll luck out and be able to work from home on Wednesday and Thursday. Otherwise, I’ll miss many chunks of the sessions running in the evenings.

Next up: ISSOTL. It’s being held in Edmonton this year and I’m hoping to take a few days off and register as a student if I’m not able to go as part of the contingent from the college. I was trying to get a proposal together but am still learning all the ins and outs of completing the ethics paperwork and creating an effective research instrument. I’m sure I’ll have lots of time to learn how to do all these fun things in future. Of course, I’ll need a new “idea” by then. My fearless leader (co-worker, confessor, adviser) suggests that the concept I want to explore would make an excellent research question for an Honours thesis and I should explore it in that fashion first.

In the meantime I’ll just have to keep my fingers and toes crossed. Hopefully the team’s paper will be accepted. I’d love to see it presented.

I’ve a few short days left before I have to hand in my paper and have spent most of the past week doing nothing more than searching out resources, reading, tracking down proper citations, and banging my head against the wall. I’ve got at least another 300 pages left to dig through over the next day or two. I’m hoping I can somehow manage to string together many pages worth of coherent sentences in order to actually *write* the paper sometime this week. For the moment all I have is a mountain of notes, an outline, and a looming panic attack!

Oh, and if my history paper worries aren’t enough, sometime this week I need to start reviewing my psych notes so I can prep for my exam in 2 weeks. I suck at exams. I can know materials inside and out but the minute you put me in a little room and expect me to answer questions all the contents of my brain starts to leak out of my ears.

Returning to work is starting to look like the light at the end of the tunnel. I’m not sure that’s what is supposed to happen…