The best thing about WorldSkills

The 40th WorldSkills competition has been held in Calgary this past week — basically, it’s like the Olympics of the trades. Over 900 competitors from over 45 countries competing in 45 categories, ranging from plumbing to cooking; confectionaries to floral design; robotics to landscaping; cabinet-making to HVAC; interior design to web design; health and beauty services to fashion design. We spent a few hours wandering through, and it was a very cool experience (even though we were there for the last 3 hours of the last of 4 competition days, so we only caught the tail end of competition or finished products on display, rather than seeing the competition in full swing).

It’s the largest non-Stampede event ever held at Stampede Park; the largest event that Calgary has hosted since the ’88 Winter Olympics, with 2/3 the total number of Olympic competitors in ’88; the largest international competition after the Olympics; and quite groundbreaking for the WorldSkills competition itself, with a rather long list of “firsts” happening this year.

And the thing I was most grateful for this week?

Good weather.

I want Calgary to be recognized as the world-class, internationally-renowned city that it can be, and unseasonally cold weather can overshadow those elements to the detriment of the city’s reputation. I feel like I’m the parent of a misbehaving child when guests come to Calgary and the stereotypes about cold Canadian weather (at least, cold weather that’s not, y’know, in winter) are confirmed. But this week, all the children have behaved, and instead of having 10-degree (Celsius, of course) weather or, worse yet, frost or skiffs of snow during the first week of September, we’ve had 30-degree weather and sunny skies all week. (And this weekend, it’s cooled off a bit, so it’s more seasonal, but still nowhere near the unseasonal early-September frost and/or snow that we sometimes get.)

Because isn’t it nice that the world can go back home saying, among all the other raves and accolades about Calgary that are sure to be shared, that — hey, guess what? — Canada isn’t always cold!

Also? Oh my word. I think that the wireless internet at the house is going to kill me before the next 3 weeks are up. It’s been intermittent all summer, and these days, the only time I can get a signal is in the middle of the night. I think I’m going to strangle the router. Or the modem. Or something. So if I seem a little twitchy this week, it’s because the CADA office has been moving so we’ve all working from home for the past week, but I don’t have a reliable internet connection here, which makes it very difficult to get anything done, unless I go to Starbucks or the library, which I’ve been doing on a very regular basis for the past few days. Yeah. It sucks. No internet? Not a good thing. Especially not when I’m trying to start my school year from 2,000 miles away, work from home, and research my thesis, all at the same time.