I know that it's been a really long time since I last left a journal entry and quite a few things have transpired since then.

First I ended up getting laid off from a warehouse job I had for several years and had a bit of a struggle scraping by with day jobs from a crummy temp agency. In one of the jobs I ended up falling off the loading dock and injuring my wrist which ended up with me not getting work for that agency anymore. But where one door closed, another one not only opened but lead to a better and brighter path. After recovering from my injury over several weeks, I signed on with another employment agency where I ended up hooking up with an old friend and co-worker from my last job who was canned from there as well. Knowing that I was a hard working individual, he got me some very steady work at his warehouse and I eventually took over his position when he was fired for making too may mistakes.

During that time, I continued my education through high school upgrading which was a bit slow as I found it hard to work on my studies when work had me tired out. But I stuck to it and got excellent marks in all the courses I needed to apply to the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology, or SAIT for short.

When the Coronavirus hit, it turned out to be more of a blessing for me and my family than a curse as my family home was foreclosed upon and we were given the order to vacate by the beginning of May. This order was issued back in February of 2020, before the virus threw everything into lockdown, so it threw a wrench into those plans and my family was able to stay at our home rent free for over half a year longer than we thought. In addition, my laying off of work because of the virus made me eligible for emergency benefit payments to help keep my dream for a better education alive and well.

At the start of this year, I moved out of my family's home and into a downtown apartment while they were forcefully evicted over a month later. After several months, We are all finally settled into our new places and now experience financial stability for the first time in over a decade. I regret that I had to resign from my job so that I can take school, but I'm sure that I'll find some part time work to offset costs, seeing as there is currently a worker shortage.

I start my first day of college tomorrow and I am quite happy to reach this turning point in my life after years of struggling. I hope that you all have managed to find a ray of sunshine in your lives during these hard times as I can now honestly testify that life does get better if you're willing to endure.