Since the move to Edmonton, I have been really homesick. In fact, it even culminated in flying back home one weekend just to see friends and family that I haven't seen in a few weeks. Now that I'm back though, I don't feel as homesick as before and there's really a couple reasons why. This post is going to explore some of those reasons:
1. Coworkers
One source of comaderie I get is from my coworkers. This is an obvious place to create friendships because you see your coworkers every day. In fact, I read that you will like your job more if you make a friend at work. It's not that I need a motivation to like my job more, rather, it is that extra something to make you enjoy going to work and it may even increase your opportunity to do things together after work or on the weekend.
Of course, the big problem with working at the Alberta Law Libraries is every coworker is female and they all have families and established lives. As opposed to a university setting where people are around my age, have similar interests and are at the same place in their lives (just beginning their professional careers and don't have families to go home to), I'm at a place where my coworkers all have families and they really don't have time to 'hang out'. It's something unfortunate that I didn't really think of when taking the job but certainly not a deal breaker; I really would have liked to have coworkers around my age and at the same place in their lives.
Despite all this, my culinary interests and age fit right in with the coworkers I have. I don't think I'm as good as I think I am and I think there is some bias but I do think that all the things I cook taste really good (yes, probably bias). This interest in food has definitely led to some interesting conversations around the office.
I think it's funny that my age fits right into the conversations we have: as I mentioned, most of my coworkers have families and a lot of their children are around my age. Often times, they'll make some statement about the youths of that age and I sit there, almost amused, at the observations they make.
2. Sports
This is a two in one combo - it's a great way of keeping fit and also meeting new people. For example, the University of Alberta has a great selection of sport clubs to be a part of. You really have to dig around for information yourself if you want to find the clubs that you can participate in. Sometimes even after finding all the necessary information, you don't have the right equipment to play with (my racquet is back in Van). I suppose I should have brought it with me or even brought it over the time I went back to Van but I just totally forgot.
I do think however, this is a really good option for the two reasons above - it also helps that there is a University club because it is more than likely that the people playing there will be around your age (though they may not be at the same place in their lives with work).
3. Professional Organizations
During my job search, I talked about how important it was to network with your contacts and find jobs through your network. Not only are a lot of the jobs not usually posted on sites like indeed or simplyhired, but recruiters will often rely on referrals from coworkers or trusted people to hire people for the job.
I was fortunate enough to be a part of the Toastmasters International Organization when I was in Vancouver and when I moved over to Edmonton, I immediately thought of joining a Toastmaster club. Not only would it be a chance to meet some new people, but it would be a good chance to practice my public speaking and leadership skills. Just doing a google search on Toastmasters and Edmonton brought up numerous groups and I, wanting to be more efficient with my time, decided to join one at 7 in the morning before work. Needless to say, the days I go to Toastmasters are very long days. This seemed to be the most successful way of meeting people because the first time I went, I said that I was interested in networking and a fellow Toastmaster invited me out to a networking event on that same day. I was late to the networking event, plus my networking skills aren't that great but I did get to meet a few people there and had some really good conversations.
As an aside, I was also thinking about joining a professional product management organization - I think that that is what I will be doing eventually in the future.
4. Meetup!
I remember after reading through many tech articles, reading about a site called Meetup but I never gave it much thought because I was in Vancouver at the time and had plenty of things to do. One day, a coworker no less, suggested to me that someone she knew who was new to Edmonton had looked online and found a group of other people who were 'New to Edmonton'. It was a good way of meeting others with similar interests (in this case, everyone was new to Edmonton). She sent me a link to the meetup.com site and I checked out all the meetups in Edmonton. Some look quite interesting, in fact, so interesting that I have joined the Chinese and Japanese group. So far, I haven't been to any of these meetups but I know that once I get into these meetups and become a regular member, I will at least have some sort of base that I can connect to.
These are just a few of the strategies you can use to meet new people and to try to establish a new base of friends to hang out with. Between work, Toastmasters, working out several times a week and trying to figure out which meetups to go to, you can tell I've been busy.
Have you moved to somewhere new? How did you cope and adjusted to it? How did you meet new people?
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