Opportunities!!

Even though my current situation of being jobless and travelling without a set itinerary may seem quite crazy to a lot of people, I can still take comfort in knowing that there are some strong opportunities on the horizon for me.
The most immediate opportunity for me right now is a possible microfinance internship with the Grameen Foundation. They are an international organization founded by Muhammad Yunus, who first developed the idea of microfinance – lending small amounts of money to impoverished people who have tangible skills and crafts, but lack the capital to grow their business – and he won the Nobel Peace Prize for it. The idea of this really interests me, and I really want to give it a try and see what I can do in this area. It’s all in the works right now, and could change at any time, but right now they are talking about having me start off in their Hong Kong office September 1st. After some initial hands-on learning and training, they are exploring possibilities for sending me to Indonesia (Jakarta) and/or the Philippines (Manila) to continue the work. The internship will be 6 months long. I’m really hoping this works out.
My other opportunity is to be a pilot with the Canadian Air Force. I’d have to say that other than family and friends, my number one passion in life is flying, and my dream job would be flying Search and Rescue airplanes or helicopters on the west or east coast of Canada. As some of you may know (assuming people are actually reading this!), I started the application process for this back in August 2008. Before then, I never even had a chance for this, as you needed perfect vision – uncorrected – for them to even consider you. It was only in 2008 that they started to allow laser eye surgery. Maybe it was the fact that even NASA had approved laser eye surgery for their astronauts that they finally decided to allow it. I got the surgery in August, and within a month I had 20/10 vision (better than 20/20 – just call me hawk-eye). After going through interviews, cognitive testing, and fighting through some snafu’s in the preliminary medical testing, I was invited out to Trenton, Ontario in May 2009 for Aircrew Selection, where you have to fly their simulator for 4 one hour flights, over the course of 3 days, with each flight test getting more complex. Man that simulator had the most sensitive controls you could imagine! After battling through the tests with severely sweaty palms, I got the great news that I had passed the testing. There were 14 candidates in total, and only 5 of us passed. Needless to say the 5 of us had some beers after that at the Officer’s Mess. We had Air Force pilots coming up to us and congratulating us, and telling us all the cool stories they’ve built up over their careers to-date. The 5 of us were then shipped over to Toronto for a long day of the most intensive medical testing I’ve ever experienced – it was the same tests they put the astronauts through. We lost one more guy at this stage, which really sucked because we were really starting to become a team, and a good group of friends. After making it through all that, it was definitely time to celebrate. Unfortunately, the one sobering part of this was that the Air Force had recently put a freeze on their pilot intake, due to some big training backlogs in Moose Jaw on the Harvard. So although I’ve passed everything, my application is in limbo until they resume their pilot hiring, which they say will most likely not start again until April 2010 (the new fiscal year for the Canadian Forces). The one thing I’ve taken away from this is that Pilot is an extremely competitive trade – it’s probably still the “Top Gun Effect” that draws so many people to the job – but I’m willing to wait it out, especially now that I’ve made it through all those hurdles. Whenever I need some motivation, I watch this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CI3JqFkXXSE
On the plus side, it gives me the opportunity to travel and try out the microfinance world…who knows maybe I’ll find myself in a position where I’ve found my new passion.