The Newcomer Feel

It’s not what you know… it’s who you know.

If you’ve followed this blog even a little, then you really don’t need an IQ over 160 to conclude that professionally I haven’t been a very successful (an understatement to the depths of hell) newcomer to this country — so far (okay I should be an optimist at least.) I ascribe this unfortunate turn of my life to the professional field I belong to. Too many ‘old Canadians’ (not in age) for too few jobs in too small a playing field (a case of sour grapes perhaps to blame my incompetence, I’m willing to accept.)

Enter the ‘newcomer feel.’

Yes, ‘the newcomer feel.’ I was reintroduced to this phrase recently. And it struck me like a snail-paced TTC ‘rocket’ while I was going through a weekly ritual of intellectual self-immolation. ;)

I wondered, if you’d pardon the climatic rhetoric — how long would it take for one who ‘implanted’ himself on this soil after ‘unplanting’ himself from another, to get acclimatized enough to bear fruit ripe enough to enjoy. (Going overboard with the plantation analogies, I can see that.)

This is my third year in Canada. Yet, at times, it feels that I’ve landed just last night. Some of the most embarrassing moments, like with a three-year-old child, have been not knowing what an ‘elder’ native would take for granted — socially, culturally, educationally, literally, professionally.

Then, I see people who immigrated decades ago and still finding themselves ‘out of the loop’. Or is it my flawed vision (chances are, it is.)

I’m sure what I’m describing must be Immigration-101 at any UN or IOM-sponsored degree programme, for any country in the world. But since I find myself right in the middle of the so-called Immigration-revolution that is the Canadian way now, I somehow am more sensitive to it.

In any case, ‘the newcomer feel’ is a wonderfully rediscovered idea that I would now think and theorize more about, during my ongoing Canadian adventure.

Stay tuned!