Let's Check Out "Canada's Best and Largest" Job Fair!

Okay, so it's not as humongous as the job fair in Shenzhen (above). But the National Job Fair & Training Expo we're visiting next Tuesday touts itself as Canada's biggest and best. Our next field trip aims to check out this claim on October 5, 2010, at Metro Toronto Convention Centre, North Building, Hall C.
 
Most of us will be leaving the Southbound Platform of Sheppard Yonge Subway Station at 9:30 a.m. If you're going there by yourself, please make sure you are at the registration area by 10:15 a.m. Tickets, worth $3.95 each, will be provided to those who are on time. Don't forget your resumes and nice shoes!

The event hopes "to present the 2010 Fall Fair with more than 150 stands to visit with exhibitors from Ontario, across Canada and abroad. Meet with over 600 recruiters, career specialists and admission officers. On site opportunities: Thousands of job, education, training and career services in a wide variety of sectors to advance your career." LINC levels 4 - 7 went last year and had a productive time.

Hopefully, we'll have an encore next week. Check out last year's job fair participants here.

More Soggy Than Sweet, the MicroSkills Survivors

Right on time, we took the 9:30 train to Union Station, slid down to Queens Quay on a streetcar, and popped open our umbrellas for the march to Redpath Sugar Museum.

 Maybe we should've gone to the library, or "library," instead!

Yet, we were welcome and hosted--exclusively--by Richard Feltoe, curator and published author of books on Redpath's and North American history.



An informative video after, he fielded questions from all of us.

 A tour of the museum followed.

Redpath uses sugarcane, but here's how the other sweet source is harvested: beet.

Some of Richard Feltoe's publications

More questions ...

 And yet more questions ...

And one final group pic
 

 

Finally, the long-anticipated hike to Canada's Sugar Beach!

Forget those pink umbrellas--we believe in diversity!

Right. So, suitably drenched and unable to head toward Sherbourne Commons Park, we dived into a Loblaws, where we split. Some hardy survivors chose to hike north for St. Lawrence Market and perhaps the organ concert at St. James. But the rest of us ate Zumurod's pizza and headed home in soggy footwear in the nice, sunny weather that followed.

Sweetest Field Trip Ever? Tuesday's (Sep 28) Visit to Sugar Beach

WEATHER: Basically, bring an umbrella. The trip is on, whatever the weather. The satellite and radar map and weatherman have spoken:

Short Term ForecastUpdated: Mon, Sep. 27, 2010, 23:00 EDT

	Monday OvernightOvernight: 12:00 AM - 5:59 AM	Tuesday MorningMorning: 6:00 AM - 11:59 AM	Tuesday AfternoonAfternoon: 12:00 PM - 5:59 PM	Tuesday EveningEvening: 6:00 PM - 11:59 PM
	Light rain	Light rain	Rain	Cloudy with showers
Temp.	14°C	14°C	18°C	15°C
Wind	N 15km/h	N 15km/h	NW 25km/h	NW 20km/h
Humidity	100%	100%	94%	82%
P.O.P.	80%	100%	100%	40%
Rain	1-3mm	5-10mm	close to 10mm	less than 1mm

NOTE: As of this morning, September 27, we have confirmation of a visit to the Redpath Sugar Museum!
Also, since September 24, last Friday, Sugar Beach has outgrown its newest-park status. The title now goes to Sherbourne Common Park, located a stone's throw from Sugar Beach. Who knows, but we may just add another stop to our itinerary! Bring really good walking shoes and a load of energy bars!



Again setting off from Sheppard-Yonge Subway Station's Southbound Platform at 9:30 a.m., our next field trip takes us to one of Toronto's newest downtown destinations, Canada's Sugar Beach.

Check out the official site and answer the following questions:

1. Why the name Sugar Beach?
2. How many videos are available on the official site?
3. When was the Beach made public?
4. When was its official opening?
5. How are the rocks at Sugar Beach special?
6. What would you bring or not bring to the Beach?
7. In how many ways can you get there by TTC?
8. According to Google Maps, how long does it take to walk from Sugar Beach to St. James Cathedral?
9. What's the distance?
10. What are two questions you would like the answers to from our field trip?

Submit your answers by clicking on the Comments link below.

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How Affordable Is It to Live in Toronto? The UBS Answer

Swiss-based financial giant UBS AG has just "Prices and Earnings" guide to comparative purchasing power around the world. The study compares the salaries of people living around the world and their ability to buy various things in their own country.

Have a look at the following table:



What three statements can you say about Toronto's prices and earnings?
Record your statements in the Comments section, below.
(If you're wondering how the pictures were extracted from their .PDF file, here's the wonderful website that does it for you using the Print Screen button.)

Job Fair and More in Historic Chinatown and Kensington Market

UPDATE: Remember how we couldn't take a streetcar from Chinatown northwards to get home and went for a tour of Kensington Market instead? Remember seeing the police cruiser parked across the deserted streetcar tracks? Well, it wasn't a mechanical failure or track repairs. According to CTV Toronto:

An elderly man died on Tuesday morning after he was hit by a streetcar on Spadina Avenue, just north of Queen Street.
Toronto police say the 81-year-old victim had been standing on a streetcar platform on Spadina just before 11 a.m. when he stepped out onto the track area.
“The man stepped on to the roadway without checking northbound traffic and continued crossing mid-block, across the path of an approaching northbound TTC streetcar,” Toronto Police Traffic Services said in a statement.
The TTC driver, who is 35 years old, sounded the warning bell while trying to stop the streetcar, but it was no use.

Leo, Agnes, Zumurod, Irina, and Selina, accompanied by their publicist Joseph, stepped out into the sunshine outside the AGO, but where were the TIFF paparazzi?

 

Assured of our safety, all six of us went incognito into the University Settlement Job Fair.

 

That done, it was time to go get a bite. Write your captions to the numbered pictures below, and post them under Comments.

 

So, um, 'sup?

1. __________________________________

 

2. ___________________________________

  

3. ______________________________________

 

4. __________________________________

  

5. ________________________________________

Click on Comments, below, and share your funniest captions for the five numbered pictures above.

Field Trip: Tuesday, September 14, to University Settlement Job & Career Fair

LATEST: Those interested in chasing the stars later in the day may want to study this celebrity-sighted map as well as this TIFF hotspots map before heading out to the job fair. Weather forecast looks pretty good:

9am	13°C		Cloudy periods
10am	15°C		Cloudy periods
11am	17°C		Cloudy periods
12pm	18°C		Variable cloudiness

Summer will soon be past, and it's back to the job hunt again!

Next Tuesday, we're planning to attend the University Settlement job fair downtown, as a group leaving the Southbound Platform of Sheppard-Yonge Subway Station at 9:30 a.m. The address is: 23 Grange Road, Toronto, Dundas and McCaul St. near St. Patrick Subway Station.


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According to their website, the organization "have registered more than 20 employer exhibitors from different industries, including Government, Financial Services, Health Care Services, Customer Service and Retail Sales." Besides the opportunity to show your resumes and practise your interviewing skills, you can also survey the job market to see what jobs are in greatest demand.


More than that, some of you more business-minded may be interested in setting up a booth there--for free!--to recruit potential talent for your companies. All you need to do is to send in this form! Let me know if you need any help to do this.

So let's prepare ourselves for the field trip. It may be the first job fair for some of you and a great launching pad to your next career!