Three months ago I boarded a plane in Glasgow and eight hours later I was in Vancouver half way across the world, although in my home country, I was as far away from home, as I was in Scotland. When I lived in Scotland for the first three months, I remember being homesick it was the first time I had moved abroad. A friend who had moved to the UK from the Canary Islands said to me “The first couple of weeks will be exciting, than you will start to miss home and its comforts, and it won’t get better until after three months, but you will still feel out of place. Only after one year will you feel normal.” This couldn’t be more true, when I lived in UK I went through all of these emotions, and then some.

Today I’m at Starbucks in Nanaimo, having a coffee, and felt like I should write something to mark the occasion and I can tell you I feel pretty normal, I don’t know what it is about the island or maybe just being a bit more mature has helped, its hard to know exactly.

I spent the last three months staying at friends while looking for a place to rent or buy, a few times I was homeless (in between friends houses), my refuge was going out surfing and camping with friends in Tofino, this was how I coped, worrying about waves rather than where I was going to live. Tofino is a gem, and the people I have met a long the way have helped me get through the challenges of moving to a new place. I don’t think I would have predicted it would have worked out so well, people complain there isn’t enough to do on the island, that its not as exciting as Vancouver. I can honestly say that I feel I have only done maybe 5% of the activities available out here, surfing and climbing have been great, there are so many activities I haven’t done yet here, I’d like to get back into a kayak and runs some rivers, and this winter hit the slopes and maybe learn how to do some back country skiing. There certainly isn’t a shortage of things to do.

The last few weeks have been very busy, I finally found a place to live, I ended up buying a condo near the hospital, for myself and my girlfriend who is a Paedatric Nurse, this will be her first time living in Canada, she fly’s over next month, I can’t wait to see her. At work I’ve been promoted from developer to development manager for jigsy.com, it will be my first time as manager, and I’ve been learning as much as I can, its very exciting as I’ve been working in various jobs since I was 15 working for various people, looking at it from this perspective has been an eye opener. As a manager I support my team, not the other way round, if they need something its my job to support them as much as I can, in turn this will create a very strong team.

I’m looking forward to the next three months, I will be working on the condo, and getting ready for my girlfriend to come over. At work I will be shifting from full time development to project planning and managing an amazing team, our goal is a 10x increase in user sign ups, a great challenge.

So here’s to another great three months on Vancouver Island, I’m looking forward to it!