The good news, part 1

Since Toronto is crawling with cute new media boys in dark-rimmed glasses like Mr. O, the chances of getting a labour market opinion (LMO) in his field were pretty much nil. We sat about listing off his "special skills," most of which were not marketable (ahem), and ended up with the most obvious, language. When I moved to Finland, my so-called special skill was native-language journalism and writing skills in the international business language (oh, barf) -- something that pretty much every single friend of mine in Toronto possessed. Seeing as the demand for native Finnish language writing in Canada is pretty low, Mr. O was very lucky to find a translation gig at an agency specializing in Scandinavian and Baltic languages. The pay is um, about half what he makes here, but advertising is hugely overpaid everywhere. Translators, on the other hand, are one of the few species of keyboard monkey which are underappreciated even more than your average freelance magazine journalist. And having taken a translation course or two during my time here, their job is anything but easy.

But I digress. The point is, Mr. O has scored himself a J-O-B. After rocking the standard exam like it wund't no thang, we heard back a few weeks later that they were adding his name to a list of lucky winners, and then a few weeks ago we heard back that the LMO had been accepted, and Mr. O could proceed with the application for a temporary work permit. This is the biggest milestone we've passed so far, as (assuming the app is accepted, knock knock) it means that he will be able to enter the country with me and work instead of posing as a tourist. And the money will cover basic expenses instead of taking from our savings. Aw yeah, we be cruisin'!