My niece's visit went well. I've already talked about our trip on the steam train. We also went swimming, blew bubbles in the back yard, and went downtown to see the Parliament buildings and the Busker Festival.

She left (early) yesterday morning. Luckily, I was able to go back to sleep, since I didn't have to go to work.

When I got up, I started my day by applying for Employment Insurance. I was able to complete the application on-line, but still had to drop off my Record of Employment. I decided to put that off until today.

I also sent an e-mail letting people know that I'd been laid off, and canceled my RRSP contributions for now. Another logistical issue - I had to find new classes at the gym. There's no point in driving out to where I used to work to go to the gym. Instead, I'll be going to one of the two locations close to the house.

After that, I went back to updating my resume. I had started doing that at the beginning of July, so it wasn't as onerous a task as it might have been otherwise. I'm letting it sit for a while, then I'll go back and revisit it.

Today I got up and went to Service Canada to drop off my Record of Employment. While I was there, I went down the hall to Northern Lights, and talked with someone there. Northern Lights is a service that helps Canadians looking for work. One of the questions was "what factors have kept you from finding a job". "I've only been unemployed for a day" wasn't an answer.

They recommended that I do a course on the job market for high tech, so I will hopefully be able to do that next week or the week after.

I was laid off in 2007. In that case, I had 2 months as a full-salaried employee, followed by a generous severance package and outplacement help.

This time I don't have any of that. However, I do have more marketable skills and more recent job hunting experience. I'm also not nearly as burnt out as I was the last time.

Right now, I'm busy. I'm setting up networking appointments, scheduling courses, and dealing with the logistics of not having a job.

I know that, as time goes on, a lot of the stuff I'm still busy with will be gone.

Last time I was laid off, I found I had to take an afternoon nap every day. I have been too busy to need that yet, but I know that job hunting forces me to organize my day differently. Time gets split between attending networking meetings, setting up networking meetings, reading job postings, and applying for jobs - but it's not a typical 9-5 day.

It will be interesting to see what happens.