When you start working at a new job, you hit the typical introduction points – where you live, what you’re into, and, inevitably, where you’re from.
So by way of introduction as I start my internship here at the Airdrie City View, I humbly submit to you that I am from Saskatchewan.
It’s amazing to me that people react to that information at all. Albertans seem to find the concept of Saskatchewan interesting. I cannot stress enough that it is not interesting. I guess if you find tractors interesting then yes. Otherwise, no.
If you’ve ever driven the Trans-Canada Highway through Saskatchewan, about the point where you would have made the remark “how unremarkable,” you likely would have passed through my hometown of Swift Current.
And yet, though I am quick to disparage the province’s inherent weird qualities and utter barrenness, I also not-so-secretly totally love it. Swift Current (or “Speedy Creek” as it is affectionately known) is a place I view with extreme excessive nostalgia.
I exalt the small city’s quirks, like the local combination vacuum-trophy-guitar store (in case you need to get all of those three things at the same time) or the one solitary tree on the way out of city you must honk at, by custom (the “Lonely Tree,” which has its own Facebook fan page with hundreds of members).
I can’t tell you how many times people have asked if I call hooded sweatshirts “bunny hugs” (yes). Or if I am a Roughriders fan (I pretend to be).
I live in Calgary now, and for some time I was noticeably slow to everyone on the sidewalks, walking in that “I’ll-get-there-eventually” small-town way.
I took a city bus the wrong way and ended up in Forest Lawn late at night, where I asked someone for directions who in return offered me a good price on drugs. Whenever I had to describe something trendy, I inevitably used the words “New York.”
I’ve lived with roommates on quiet suburban Calgary streets for five years. I take “bachelor life” to art form. I’ve eaten cereal for supper. I’m not saying I don’t know how to cook, I’m just saying sometimes you open a box of Honey Nut Cheerios and then they’re all gone. I doubt you can relate.
As I live with other students, our house often looks like what my mom would call a “nightmare.” Textbooks, trash, dishes frequently litter what is turning our living room into a new form of avant-garde expressionist art.
I’ve been interested in working in media for some time, since being tossed behind the controls of a classic rock radio station in Swift Current at age 17. I did my best to educate listeners about bands I had never heard of.
Now, one year to go on a Journalism degree at Mount Royal University, I understand concepts that were previously only mythic to me in Saskatchewan. I know all about “public transportation.” And “crowds.” And “airports.”
I’ve had the pleasure to write stories through Journalism school on an eclectic group of people in the city. A former child soldier from Sudan who is studying molecular and cellular biology. A street magician who runs his own variety show. Preschool music superstars “The Wiggles” (I was starstruck).
And I look forward to doing more of that during my time in Airdrie, meeting some of you and writing on events happening around the city. Especially barbecues. (See story on page 17) As a hungry student, expect a sudden influx in barbecue stories. I just think they’re a fascinating topic to write about/attend.
