Citizenship Test!

On friday I had my citizenship test! The letter said that I had to be there at 1pm. At that time they started giving instructions about what was going to be happening in the next couple of hours, and they started calling person by person to the interview.

The interview is very simple, only basic question to see your level of english (where do you leave, where do you work/study, what do you do at work, etc). Only people between 18 and 55 years old need to take the test. Younger than that get the citizenship thanks to the parent that applied for them, and older just need to show their ID and go home.

After aprox. 2 hours, is time for the test. They give you an answer sheet with 25 answer rows, and a booklet with 20 questions; you can't and shouldn't try to answer questions 21 to 25, there are no question with those numbers! The test takes aprox. 10 minutes, but they give you 30 minutes.

After 1 to 3 months you should recive a letter indicating the day of the ceremony (if you have 15 or more correct answers), or the day and time of your appointment with the judge (if you have less than 15 questions incorrect). The test is simple selection (1 answer per question) and you have 4 options per question.

I thought it was pretty easy if you study ;) Now we wait for the next letter!

Canadian Citizenship Test

Well, have been keeping this one kinda under wraps, but in week and a half I'll be taking my citizenship test!

The test will be composed of 20 questions of multiple selection. I already finished reading the practice guide the goverment sends you when you apply. Now is time to practice a lot for that test!

These are some of the practice tests I've been taking:
http://www.v-soul.com/onlinetest/ (Be careful with some of the answers, I'm almost positive I have seen 2 different answers to what did the goverment do to make immigration to the West easier)
http://www.apnatoronto.com/canadian-citizenship-test-practice/
http://www.canadacitizenshiptest.net/ (Sample test)
http://www.citizenquiz.com/
Enjoy practicing!

Sunday fun - Port Rowan

This last weekend was a long weekend because of the Victoria Day Holiday, so it was a nice rest for some and an adventure weekend for others :) Mine I would classify as half and half, and one of the things I did during the weekend was to visit a town I didn't know, Port Rowan.

Port Rowan is a little town right next to Lake Erie with just a few shops and lots of farm houses everywhere, a little cute place to relax and have a nice time, specially if the weather is as beautiful as it was on sunday afternoon.
It was a nice day of looking at amazing views, walking hearing the birds sing, and eating a great ice cream!! That ice cream parlor is the cutest store I have seen, inside and out and didn't take pictures in it just because I was so mesmerized that didn't event think about it xD

So bought some ice cream, something like chocolate fudge brownie flavor LOL, and went walking down to the dock and the lighthouse, enjoying the little boat houses, and just listening to the birds and the water, so peaceful!!!

A really nice short trip that will forever remember :)

The IT market

I have received lots of petitions for specific subjects and how I see the IT market has been one of the most requested ones! :) Please remember this is only from my point of view, any comments about the subject are welcome.

I think I should start by saying how it has been my working life here in Canada. Don't remember how much I already wrote at some point, so from the start, it took me a month and a few weeks to find job as an intern (thanks to Career Bridge) in a software company as a C# Developer, got promoted to a full time position after 3 months and became the DB expert of the company, along with my C# skills of course ^^; after 1 year and a few months decided to change jobs and found one as a Java Developer where I currently work, but turns out they needed my C# skills way more than the java ones and became the sole owner of one of their internal products, to then become the DB Team Lead of the company, and still use my C# skills because I can never get away from that one hehe.

I have seen the amount of people coming in and out of the company and is MASSIVE, and I'm also in a Canada Jobs group in Linkedin and see all the job posts being announced every single day for the IT people. Without looking for a job I receive at least 2 emails a month from recruiters calling me for interviews, so I know the IT market is in pretty good shape right now.

In IT, from what I can see, the areas with more work are Developers (C, Unity, C# and Java on the top of the list), DBAs and Sys Admins (specially Linux).

And when talking about salaries, from the averages I have seen we have:
QA: $35.000-$40.000
Developer Junior/SysAdmin Junior: $40.000
Developer/SysAdmin: $50.000
Developer Senior/SysAdmin Senior/Team Leads/DBA: $65.000+ (based on experience)

For new immigrants to find a job in IT it depends completely on the area and how current they are, I have seen people take between 1 and 5 months. Obviously, the more current, more experience and more contacts you have, the better ;)

Glen Erin Trail

I know I said I wouldn't come back because I didn't have the time, but I've been receiving such amazing messages that decided to do like so many of you told me, to write at least from time to time. So is probable that I'll be writing a lot more in spanish, but I'll try not to leave this one die!

One of our latest aventures was to go again to Niagara Falls, but this time to try something different! Igor tried the Whirlpool Jet Boats, and he said it as AMAZING, so if you are thinking about doing it and have the money, please do so! It's worth it :)

Another thing that we did, was a whole adventure :) Close to the jet boats, there is a totem park and a liiitle metal staircase, which we decided to take to see where it would take us xD

It's called Glen Erin Trail and it takes you to the rapids, and if you keep and keep walking, to the whirlpool :D

The walk is not easy!!!

But eventually (after 2 hours) it gets a lot easier.

To get a lot worst :S

And after more than 2 hours, get to the whirlpool and more stairs to go up!!!

Is it worth it? Only if you really want an adventure and can handle the bad spots xD

More pictures :)

Ottawa :D

This long weekend we managed to go to a new city: Ottawa!!! We didn't have a lot of time because we drove there Friday and came back Sunday but we tried to see as much as possible :)

The parliament was really beautiful, I didn't expect it to be that big and amazing :D

The Notre-Dame Cathedral was cute from the outside and completely breath taking inside!

The river running between Ottawa and Gatineau...

And the Civilization Museum :D were we had a blast looking for eastern eggs xD

A really beautiful view from every step and a really nice city!

For more than 1.000 pictures (yeah, between Nelly and me managed 1000 pictures!) just go to my picasa :D There a lot of blurry pictures because I didn't delete them before uploading them, sorry ;)
Ottawa
Ottawa2

Taxes time!

Taxes time!!! I kind of like taxes time in Canada because is different to how is done in Venezuela. When we get to this point in Venezuela is when you know how much you'll have to pay the goverment, but here is when you get to know how much the goverment will return to you after all the money you already gave them ^^

You can do your taxes for last year at any point between January and April, but I like March, since is not at the very last moment and because we never do it at the very beginning ;) Is important to keep everything you think it could help you for the tax return, like:
* TTC monthly passes, GO monthly passes and in general any public transportation monthly pass.
* Mortgage receipts.
* Car payment receipts (only if you bought it, no leasing).
* Utilities receipts.
* If you moved that year, the rent of the van/truck.
* And in general keep everything that you think could help, worst case escenario, you wont use it!.

There are a few ways to fill yoour tax return, like using tax softwares, hiring an accountant or going to a place like H&R. This is our second year and we did it again with H&R, where they know exactly what they are doing and almost always will give you your tax return at the moment ;)

Niagara Falls in Winter

I left the blog again for a few days, because I was working the whole weekend, so I didn't have time to write ;)

This is one of the post that I owed you, Niagara Falls in winter!!! So far I've been there in winter, spring and summer. Without autumn I can say that summer is the most special because you can ride the Maid of the Mist, and winter is the most amazing because you can see this!!!





But be carefull and use a LOT of warm layers because it gets 3 times colder near the falls!! :)

Ice Festival 2009

I've been away from the blogger world for a long time, no reading, no writing, no commenting, but hopefully I'll be coming back in the next few days, I know a lot of you miss me :)

Too many things have happened in the last few weeks, but I should tell you from now that what kept me away from my blog was my job reviews. I know, is not the biggest thing, but I never said it was something too important or huge; the truth is that the reviews had me completely away, I could only think of them, I knew it was going to be good, but my salary raise would be discussed there too, that was what had me worried. The result? I can't tell you yet ^^ Although I had my review, I don't know how many people at my work read my blog ;)

One of the best things we've done this weeks, was on February 21st, since Igor and I were celebrating 7 years together :) (as boyfriends + married) and went to the Ice Festival 2009 :D


You could see a lot of people working on their sculptures from the very beginning, as an giant ice cube, or you could see them with a shape already.


And if you stayed long enough, you could see the result :)


Beside the contestants, there were some pretty amazing ice sculptures that were already done and have no idea who did them!! ^^


And although the cold was a little harsh, it was pretty much a very beautiful experience ;)

My new budget

After buying a house, moving to Mississauga and leasing a car, my budget has changed just a little bit... Well, a lot! xD So here you go, a budget for 2 with house and car living in Mississauga and working in Toronto :)

House payment -1,600.00
Hydro -150.00
Gas -153.25
Water -50.00
Fido -100.00 (Cellular phones)
Rogers -145.00 (Home phone, Internet and Cable)
Home Insurance -70.20
Life Insurance -46.21
Car Insurance -262.65
Car Leasing -259.18
Food -300.00
TTC -100.00 (Tokens that we use from time to time)
GO/MT Aiglee -200.00 (Go train and Mississauga Transit buses)
GO/MT Igor -150.00 (Go train and Mississauga Transit buses)
Car Gas -100.00
Total $3686

Of course this a 2 salary budget and you can always save not having cable and things like that, but you can have an idea of how much would cost now!

Buying a car

When buying a car, there are a lot of different decisions you need to take care of, like a new car or a used one, leasing or buying, budget, type, company and color and who knows how many more.

For us was pretty easy since we already had a year here and just bought a house, so our credit rating was pretty good. We wanted a new car and I really wanted a Toyota, so we went to Motorway Avenue here in Mississauga, that has all the car companies in the same street! that way is pretty easy to go from one to another one if you want to ask in different places and they compete for you, so you can get better offers ;)

We decided to lease a Toyota Yaris Sedan, which is like a very long rental (5 years in our case) and is more economic than to buy the car; if you do this, you can return the car in 5 years and just get another one! The monthly payments are going to depend in your initial payment and the price of the car.

It took us a grand total of 3 days to say which car we wanted and to have the keys in our hands, so it was pretty easy :D

The big problem now is to get all the snow off it almost every morning ^^

Medical emergency without healthcard

Many wonder if it's worth it to get medical insurance in Canada while you don't have a health card, would I be save? How much would it cost to pay for the emergency?

Well, when my mother in law was here a few weeks ago we went to Barry to do some snow tubbing, but as soon as we arrived she slip in the snow! She was in a LOT of pain so we had to take her to the hospital and get her to the emergency room.

The wait wasn't that long, maybe around an hour, although when you are in pain, I can imagine that it feels eternal. They take care of people in order of how sick you are or arrival, depending of how big the emergency is. The nurse saw her ankle and said she was sure she broke it, so she had to go and see the minor injuries doctor and have some x-rays done.

When the doctor saw her x-rays, he told her that yes, she had broken her ankle in 2 places and that they had to talk about the options... options? in plural? Well, he called a surgeon because she needed a surgery to fix those bones :S

The surgeon told her that having it here would cost around $6.000! Ouch! Since we couldn't pay that kind of money and she had medical insurance back in Venezuela, they put some kind of cast and sent her home. We came back, changed the flight and she is now in Venezuela waiting for her surgery there.

How much was the hospital bill? A little over $700! $100 for the doctor in minor injuries, $150 for the surgeon consult, $30 for the crutches and everything else hospital charges. After this I'm more than sure that people should get medical insurance when they can.

High-demand occupations

The list of high-demand occupations for Federal Skilled Workers has been publish! As soon as I read the news, I couldn't leave without posting about it.

You can find the list of occupations here:
Job Categories
If you don't see your occupation in a category, look in another one, don't give up!!

The information in the CIC web page says that everyone that has applied after February 28, 2008 and his/her occupation is not in the list, will be contacted to return them their money and the application form. You can read the news here.

There are 38 occupations in the list and among them I found medicine, chefs and cooks, IT Managers, University Professors, and almost everything in the Oil Industry, among others. Good luck to everyone waiting for this list!!! And remember that it doesn't matter if your occupation is in this list, if you have a job offer!

Buying costs

Once you've found the house and made an offer, you have to get approved for a mortgage with a particular rate of interest, make the inspection and wait... The mortgage broker will let you know who is going to be your particular lender and how much will be the rate of interest you'll pay. If you are giving 5% or less of initial, you have to have a mortgage insurance that will guarantee the bank their money in case you can't pay.

So, how long do you have to wait for the closing date? Well, that depends on different factors, did you sell your house? did the sellers found a house? Do you have the money? etc. The wait can be from 2 weeks to 6 months, in our case we are waiting 2 months from the date of the offer.

What do we do while we wait? Get the money!!! These are the things you need to pay when buying a house of $336.000 with $10.000 of deposit and 5% of downpayment:
- Lawyers and transaction Fees: aprox. $900
- Land Transfer tax: aprox. $3500
- Mortgage fee (CMHC fee+ references): aprox. $380
- DOWNPAYMENT: $16800 (5%) - $10.000 = $6800

So, after paying $10.000 with the offer, we still need to pay aprox. $12.000 more the day of the closing ;) So, don't forget to add all the other things you need to pay when buying!

And when calculating what you are going to pay monthly for your house, don't forget:
- Mortgage
- Insurance
- Utilities
- Taxes

The inspection

The inspection was really really interesting and we learned lots of different things. Normally an inspection is made to the house just to see what problems it has and the client (the buyer) has to decide if (s)he wants the house or negotiate repairs or a lower price.

The inspection includes looking for humidity, cracks on the walls, floor or ceiling, check if the furnace and air conditioning are working, check if all included electric ampliances are working (fridge, kitchen, dishwasher, etc).

They also check whatever they can access from the electric instalation and the plumming, the attic to check the ceiling of the house, water preassure, roofs and whatever they can see about the fundations of the house.

One of the important things to remember is that they can't break anything, so they wont break the walls to see if the plumming is ok (for example) and they can't never ever be 100% sure that everything is working perfectly, but they can always give you a better idea of what you are buying and if everything appears to be in working condition.

Our inspector is reaaaally good, since he is from Argentina the inspection was in spanish, and he explained EVERYTHING he did and how everything worked, like how to change the filter of the furnace, how to control the air conditioning, how to see if the roofs need repairs, and lots of other things :D

The cost? $320 payable with check, and besides the confort of knowing that our house is above average and the great class we got, he gave us that big folder where it explains in much more detail what we need to know about Canadian houses and the kind of things we need to do every month/year. :)

Making an offer

Now that you fell in love with a house, what do you do? You make an offer! An offer may become your final contract to buy the house, so make sure is well done; if you are using a realtor, great! they help you with that, if you are not, sorry but I'm not sure how do you do it by yourself.

The case is that the price the sellers are asking is not exactly the price that you pay, it may be more, it may be less, so you have to be prepared when you find THE house and stablish a final price for you. This is easier to explain with examples:

The first house we liked and wanted to make an offer was listed for $320.000, so we offered $308.000 (which was the price a similar house got sold a month before) and a few repairs that needed to be done. The seller sent it back for $318.000 and no repairs (final offer), so we decided not to buy it; it was too expensive for what it was.

Then, when we fell in love with our house, the listing price was $339.900 (a month before was $344.900), so we went to our realtor's office and saw similar houses in the same area to compare prices and see how much we could offer for the house, and he recommended us to offer $329.000, with a closing date of November 28 (the sellers were asking for October) and a deposit of $5000, and the house had to pass the inspection to our satisfaction.

We sent the offer and we had to wait for their answer, when we got it was $336.000, they accepted the closing date, changed the deposit to $10.000 and agreed to the inspection. Now we could have sent another contra-offer on top of that one but decided to accept :D So that was the beginning of our contract and our final price!!!

In other cases, you will see yourself paying more than the asking price if you have other people fighting for that house too. I have a friend that was buying an apartment, she made an offer and the seller communicated saying no to that offer and that they had another offer they were considering (they don't tell you for how much) so you need to send a higher offer to win the house. I think this one is really stressfull!!!

Another example is a friend that found her dream home. The house was listed at $349.900, she offered $332.000 (aprox. I don't remember this one exactly), they got it back for $345.000 and they sent it back for $340.000 (final offer), and the sellers accepted!!! :D So in this case, she managed to buy for $10.000 less than the listed price and the sellers where the ones to accept the offer.

There you have it, how close are the real prices to the listed prices and what you can expect to happen when making an offer for a house ;) Next step, the inspection!

Housing Area

Once we have the realtor and the mortgage broker, we need to decide what we want and where we want it. You may think this one is easy, but it's not so much when you need to take into consideration what you want, the location and the price.

We wanted a house, either semi-dettach (is like a big house divided in 2 in the middle) or a dettach, at least 3 bedrooms, at least 2 and a half bathrooms, open concept kitchen, a private garden, a garage, a finished basement, a nice location close to public transportation, not too old and under $350.000. Easy? not so much.

There is no way you can find a house like that in Toronto, so you need to get away a little bit. Ok, what about Vaughan? Too expensive! A house like that is more than $350.000, less than $400.000 but if it's more that what we can afford, why counting?

Ok, what about Mississauga? Nice choice! Is really close to Toronto and we can get exactly what we want, or at least close to that ^^

Really, for all the ones that are scared/mad/confused that we are "leaving" Toronto and moving to Mississauga when we said we loved Toronto, don't be! For me, all those areas (Vaughan, Mississauga) are very much Toronto, just a little bit to the side and with less buildings; I'll keep saying I live in Toronto, just that my mail will say Mississauga xD I'll still work in Downtown Toronto, I'll still be here a LOT, and I still love Toronto, nothing against it! It's just that our dream house was built in Mississauga!

Next episode, you have the realtor and mortgage broker, you fell in love with the house, how do you proceed?

First snow flakes Fall 2008

Today we got the first snow flakes in Toronto for this winter!! Wow, really soon eh?

Yesterday I got my G2!

Yes! I'm finally able to drive in Canada :D

The test was really easy, especially after the classes I took with one of the Ex-Examiners academy instructors. I thought it would be better this way since I had almost a year without driving and I was a little rusty, besides, they give you the tips to go for a perfect test!

The instructor came to my house and we had a 2 hours first class where he saw how good or bad I was. With that class he told me that I need it 2 more hours and the test. He charged me $30 the hour (which is the price all other academies I asked charge) and $140 for the car the day of the test.

The day of the test, he will give you 2 more hours (included in the price) of practice, and will take you to the testing centre, where you'll have the test in the instructor's car.

The test takes between 10 and 15 minutes, where you have to do regular things like turning right, turning left, stoping at a light and stops signs, parallel parking, three point turn and side parking.

So now I have my G2! :D If you want the name of the instructor, let me know! He is really good ;)

Mortgage Brokers

The second step after getting a real estate agent is to get a mortgage pre-approval. One major advantage of getting pre-approved for a home mortgage loan is that it gives you a firm idea of how much you can borrow. If you know how much you can borrow and how much you have for a down payment, you can easily set a maximum price as you search for a home. You will not waste countless hours looking at homes, only to find out afterwards that you cannot afford the mortgage. (Quote)

It is important to remember that the amount of mortgage you will qualify for is the maximum. It is the amount that the lender feels you can afford, but it is not necessarily the amount that you want to pay. It sometimes is advantageous to be conservative here. For example, if you qualify for a $100,000 mortgage and you have $15,000 available in cash for downpayment and closing costs, you are qualified to buy homes with a maximum selling price of $115,000. So as to not push yourself to the limit, you may want to look at homes that sell in the $100,000 to $110,000 range. (Quote)

How do you get a mortgage pre-approval? The easiest way is to get the help of a Mortgage Broker (which real estate agents normally have). A mortgage broker acts as an intermediary who sells mortgage loans on behalf of individuals or businesses, so (s)he will have a portfolio with different mortgages from different companies, and you'll have all the information in one place without having to go from bank to bank asking for one.

Typically the tasks of a mortgage broker are:

• Assessment of the borrowers circumstances. This may include assessment of credit history (normally obtained via a credit report) and affordability (verified by income documentation).
• Assessing the market to find a mortgage product that fits the clients needs.
• Applying for a lenders agreement in principle (pre-approval)
• Gathering all needed documents (paystubs/payslips, bank statements, etc.)
• Completing a lender application form.
• Explaining the legal disclosures.
• Submitting all material to the lender.

So, if you want to know how much you can afford is good to get the services of a mortgage broker that will explain everything to you, giving your credit history and others, but please don't do this without a real intention to get a house since they will check your credit history and that will stay in it, telling everyone that checks it that you already tried to get pre-approved.