Repatriate Me!

Today, we finally received a letter from Canadian Immigration. I am officially qualified to sponsor my wife. We are now 50% of the way through the visa process. At this point all the paperwork gets posted from Mississauga back to the Seoul Visa office to be processed.

We are also instructed that while we have met the minimum requirements (no info if we exceeded them or not) the visa office in Seoul may request additional information and documents. The entire letter was three pages long and reminded me of all the obligations I agreed to undertake as my wifes sponsor and in large bold ALL CAPS type informed me that THIS IS THE ONLY COPY THAT WILL BE ISSUED TO YOU – I have scanned it to ensure we don’t lose it and have a record of our Client number and Kit ID number.

Jan 29, 2011 Comments(0) Tweet

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Since I’ve made the change to move to Toronto I’ve been trying to figure out the best area to live in. When I made my trip to Ottawa last summer, I found out where I would likely live, but that doesn’t help me now that I’ve changed to Toronto. I’ve posted on two of the message boards that I’m active on, contacted a few facebook friends in or near Toronto, and have contacted a number of ExpressionEngine developers based in the GTA and have gotten a lot of recommendations. Before I share the recommendations, one thing I know is that we’re not going to be living in the downtown core. We’re interested in the suburbs, but hopefully not too far from downtown though that isn’t too important.

Areas that have been recommended to me:

1. Ajax
2. Aurora (but also expensive)
3. Bolton
4. Brampton
5. Durham
6. Ebitoke
7. High Park area
8. King City
9. Markham
10. parts of Mississauga
11. Richmond Hill
12. Vaughan

The problem with this list is that there are still too many choices. Guess it’s time to learn a little more about each area including rental costs, commuting time, access to subway and transit, and schools. If any readers have thoughts on this, I’d appreciate it.

Needless to say this is my project of this week. Narrow things down to 2-3 neighborhoods so I know where to focus on when looking for housing on Kijiji and also arranging a short term rental for when I land.

Jan 22, 2011 Comments(5) Tweet

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This is my first attempt at time lapse photography and I’m very happy with the result. Have plans for a few more before I leave Korea and will probably find some other good locations to do this in Toronto once I arrive. Please comment and let me know what you think.

It’s best viewed full screen – the video is full HD 1920×1080 so go and enjoy.

Shinchon Timelapse

Jan 20, 2011 Comments(3) Tweet

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My readers may or may not know that I run a web development company, CreateSean, where I build web sites using ExpressionEngine and MojoMotor. For the past two and half years this has been something I do on the side while I teach full time at a university here in Seoul.

Now that there is only just over 5 months until I move to Canada I’m starting to feel the pressure of finding employment. My business makes me some money but not enough to live on for a family of four. Recently I started watching craigslist jobs in web development for Toronto and most of them require a working knowledge of PHP which I do not have. I have tried a couple of times to learn from a book or web site but it didn’t work for me. I think for PHP I need to take a course in a classroom and am now looking for somewhere to do that in the GTA once I arrive.

At first I thought I’d audit a course at the University of Toronto, but couldn’t find one nor information on whether auditing courses is available or not. I then did some googling and found a number of classes that can be taken online with an instructor or in person. The online ones are cheaper, but not viable for me here in Korea due to the need to be online in the middle of the night – may do this option once in Toronto thought. The courses all seem to be from 2-5 days in length (6-7 hours each day) with costs ranging from $700 upto $2500

1. Accelebrate
2. Hott Training
3. Last Minute Training
4. Software Training Academy
5. Webucator

I’m more concerned about the quality of the course than whether I get some sort of certificate (though that might be useful too). The thing is anyone can make a web site and add testimonials that are attributed to past students/clients even if they don’t exist. So the question is how to ensure that the course I take is quality. I’m also interested in taking a second course in intermediate/advanced php/mysql once I’ve completed the introductory level course.

I did contact the Software Training Academy listed above as they offered an option to proceed at your own pace with asynchronous instructor feedback. However the email I sent from their contact form bounced back to me which does not exactly inspire confidence.

If anyone has recommendations on a course to take either online or in person in Toronto (preferred) please let me know.

Jan 18, 2011 Comments(1) Tweet

toronto - repatriate - employment