Separating with my partner of 10 years. Logistics are going to be rough since we’ve lived together for the past 7 years and I’m not sure he can afford a place without at least getting a part time job. We started dating a month after I turned 18 so I effectively have never been an adult without him around. Lots of adjusting to do, and fear ramping up a little. Somehow, having the official separation talk at burning man turned out great because distractions abounded, I was surrounded by a strong support network of friends and I could process the emotions without having to deal with mundane life management. My work contract at the makerspace also ends at the end of the month. So the next while will be interesting for sure. I wanted to go travel India over the winter but as a single young lady it might not be a good idea. I have to rethink that now. Go some tickets for a Halloween party in Detroit, will probably Roadtrip down with a few friends. So there’s that to look forward to. Also planning to spend a month out in nature picking mushrooms, hiking and fixing up our trailer before winter hits. It’s been a hard year. Hopefully with the changes, despite how hard they are, things will start turning around.
Just back from a ladies trip to Toronto to visit my sister for her baby shower. I always feel a bit out of place with the family, but it felt good to spend time with my mom, sister, cousin and aunt. 8 more days left at work, until i can fuck off to the woods. I really need to make plans for the future - and by that I mean puzzle in all the trips I want to do over the winter and not go over budget. There is the Detroit roadtrip already in the works, my mom offered a potential vacation to Paris with my father, talked to my playa crush over the phone yesterday and now i'm looking at flights either to mexico or oakland mid-november. And we've been scheming with my friend Jerome for a Taiwan bike trip and Nepal hiking trip over winter. Maybe it's time to consider that temporary move to Berlin I've been thinking about the past 5 years? Learn German and stuff. My issue is I only have about 10k CAD runway until I need to start looking for my next source of income. Many places to visit, people to spend time with but I don't want to blow through it all in 3 months and go back to the work life too soon. Time to plan and look for opportunities!
My partner of almost 10 years moved to Canada from Ukraine when he was 14. His dad and many cousins still live there. I've been there 3 times, and loved every visit. Once in 2014 with the Khreschatik still a mess with tires and army tents after the Maidan protests. That trip showed me the strength, resilience, convictions and nationalism on these people. By some strange life circumstances, I've gone to a tiny Ukrainian sleep away camp since I was 7, singing the Ukrainian hymn twice a day and learning songs. That's actually where I met my current partner, when I came back as a young adult to be a camp counsellor. And where I met who I consider my best friend Vlad, amazing artist that we do fun build projects at the dacha with. The camp has been cancelled the past 2 years because of Covid, I don't know if we'll ever bring it back since it's all on our shoulders at the moment. I'm personally only tangentially Ukrainian, from my mom's mother's side - but we don't know very much about it since she was an orphan. My mom still has cousins there on the Belorussian border. Needless to say it's been a hard week, it's a people close and dear to my heart. War sucks, Putin Huilo, Slava Ukraini, Smert' Voroham 😡
Already broke the news on chat, but I got a phone call yesterday that I was the accepted candidate for the job at the makerspace I applied to. Doing general admin work and help keeping the project running. I fucking hated the hiring process. The CV and motivation letter writing was okay - it was an exercise I haven't done in a while and got a lot out of doing that step. Interview was a bit unsettling, but it was fine. But then there was a second follow up interview, and i then had to write them a summary of what i said in the follow up since most of the board was not able to attend that one. And then they spent 20 days deciding who is the right candidate. Nevermind the fact I know all of the people involved, some of them quite closely. It made me acutely aware of the fact I really hate leaving decisions that affect me into someone else's hands. I legit thought of pulling out my candidature before getting an answer, just to get my agency back. The waiting game was torture. It also made me think about how I would handle things if I was rejected. And I don't know because it practically never happened. School applications or jobs, I only ever apply to one and get in. Which makes me wonder if it's because I only play it super safe? Or that I just know very well what I want? Or that i'm a dumbass for not playing the field and evaluating my options more broadly? Maybe it's something I need to re-evaluate and do differently in the future. But it's a little hard to change when my current strategy has generally served me well and I have no way of knowing what I might have missed out on.
2nd dose tomorrow yayyyy! Things are slowly unfurling and summer is starting to feel a little more "like before" again. Work is good, but my weird relationship with my boss will need some untangling i feel like. The work part i'm happy with - i'm just a little more worried about the friendship part that has been on... standby? since we started working together. I've recently learned he is separating with his long time girlfriend - a decision she told me about that they took a month ago. Something he has not mentioned to me at all. And i'm a little disappointed because it's the kind of information I share with my friends. But then again we had exchanged some flirty vibes before I started working there, and I believe their incompatibility around a potential openness of the relationship was one of the reasons for the separation. So I get it - but untangling and frank conversations would be appropriate just about now. On one hand, I'm happy not to get dragged into any drama and that our work relationship still feels efficient and good. On the other, I do miss my friend, hanging out and talking shit. I went though a loss of friendship through conversion to coworking with the girl I started my speakeasy tours with back in the day. This person I used to hang with all the time and try new restaurants and bars with suddenly became my business partner, with an opposite schedule since we were talking turns doing the tours. And it worked great, we made bank - and then she moved to live in London like she has been planning to do before we even met. So I never really regretted transforming our friendship, because she would have moved away either way. And that you can't hold on to things and relationships to avoid changing them. But it still hurts a little and I still miss the good times. Good thing the world is full of beautiful people, this one lady just came to our backyard tonight for a little meeting. A lady i've been hearing about from a bunch of my friends, and she is indeed just as awesome as all our mutual friend say. I haven't met new faces in ages - and awesome ones at that too! It just warms the soul.
My work-contract is getting renegotiated in about 3 weeks. I've been preparing a little, by writing down what I would like to get, with my negotiable vs non-negotiable demands. I've also made a little list of things accomplished vs things I'd like to develop/improve in the near future. It's a little nerve-wracking because the hiring process was a bitch, and they made me wait crazy long before giving an answer. I don't want to be working in limbo past my contract until we agree to the new terms. I also want to be paid 25$/hour (vs my current 20$) - the salary I've asked for initially 6 months ago. I don't really want to leave for money affairs, since I actually don't really need the money. But I feel it's a question of respect and self worth. My side-gig literally doubled my salary to 50$/hour when I told them I was leaving. I know I do good work and it will be hard to find someone as competent and committed as I am. But it's also the only job I feel like doing at the moment, and 20$ is better than 0$. I think they know that, so I'm scared we'll end up in an ultimatum-type stuck negotiation situation. But time will tell! My cousin works in HR and has agreed to help me position myself the right way, and be proactive in my contract re-signing, and giving me ideas of "benefits" I could ask for to soften the blow. I guess I can agree to be paid less in exchange for a shitton of vacation time...
Got my first shot today! Second one scheduled for september. And the province announced the de-quarantining plan, so things are looking up :)
Woke up with a sore throat this morning, so I had the pleasure of cancelling a fun work visit and a walk outside with a friend in favour of getting a Qtip shoved up my nose. I really hope it's nothing, because we had a mini-camping trip planned with our bubble for my boyfriends birthday this weekend, and we'll have to cancel if it's Covid. FUCK. Vaccines for my age group are still far far away, and I'm beyond tired of the social distancing. I really hope we can open things up at least a LITTLE this summer.
Made my first stamp that's not carved out of a potato! Thanks _refugee_ for the inspiration :) There's been some really good and significant progress in our plastic recycling non-profit. Enjoying doing tests, coordinating and onboarding new volunteers. Finally getting a little back into the marketing groove, now that my presidential duties on the board have settled down a little. Soft-launched the Patreon on the mailing list, will start posting on regular socials shortly and getting into the website re-design. The distancing rules are making things a little hard, but we've been finding solutions and things are definitely moving along. It's just too bad there is not real money in the project, at least in the short term. I'm definitely putting 30h/week into it, if not more and seeing progress has really motivated me lately. I'm really loving my life balance right now, where I'm leading a meaningful project, learning a lot and collaborating with people (which is new for me, i've aways been a solo-project kind of person). I have time for personal hobbies, seeing family, reading lots, cooking good things and keeping the house organized, having really good times with friends, spending time outside... Twice in the past 10 days I went to sleep with this overwhelming feeling of being loved and well surrounded - like this weird warmness in my chest on a regular day when i think back on some talks or moments with my buddies. I really really don't want to get a dumb job to take away my time. Shoutout to the Canadian government for paying my bills, but i'm a little worried this will end soon. Got a call from the Quebec revenue agency about some weird filling details in 2018. I always had a feeling my accountant did not understand a lot of what I do, and now I'm worries she mis-filled some of my income. I'm poor - so it's not like they can claim I owe them money but that's stupid and stressful shit I didn't want to deal with right now. Definitely going to get a new accountant, because I have a feeling the Federal governement will fine-comb the fillings of all of us fuckers that got free money come tax season.
Had a rough November mood-wise. Nothing particular happened, just my mood in the dumps due to the continuous self-isolation. Ordered some vitamin D, I heard it can be a game changer for seasonal mood regulation. The final push was hearing about Vitamin D deficiency in Cumol 's podcast yesterday. Let's see if it helps! December has been better already, my friend hired me for a 4 day work contract on a live streaming set, and it really made my week. She's worked on a big international music tour the past few years, but has obviously lost her job. She started a live streaming prod. freelance company, bought about 40k worth of equipment, has done virtually no marketing and is booked solid with many contracts already. It's super cool and impressive. Seeing her work and give pointers on how to properly lay wires, schemes to connect equipment etc was fun. The work itself was mostly monitoring a few zoom screens, but it was nice to be out of the house, hanging out with a few friends eating gross hotel food on set. It's also cool to be a low level tech with basic responsibilities and no high level planing stress from time to time. My last year's resolution was to find meaningful paid work - it's been my struggle ever since I've graduated university. I have done a lot of very interesting and diverse things and have a wide range of skills in many areas. The hard part right now is finding something at the crossroad of what i want to do, that pays well enough and also has enough flexibility and free time. Right now, it's looking more likely to be possible as a patchwork of different random projects - I currently have 5 ongoing work engagement, 2 unpaid - but I'm way closer to my goal since most of these opportunities I was not involved with last year. Started messing around with Notion this week, just to up my organisation game. I've steadily been getting more and more organized over the years, and I've decided to migrate my personal lists like the "movies to watch" stuff into this database from the notes app. I find it's a good platform to learn, and if it sticks could become a really cool way to track many aspects of my life and project plan. Going into hardcore isolation mode, because my parents decided to go against local regulation rules and do a small Christmas dinner at the country house. I'm not super worried since both my sister and her husband work 100% from home, and my mom only leaves the house to do groceries once a week. So the most likely propagation vector is myself. If i say I don't feel safe going, it will be basically admitting I don't care enough for them to isolate for 2 weeks. I've tried going the route of "maybe we shouldn't do this, what if the neighbours snitch and we get fined?" but have been labeled a party pooper. I'm a bit uncomfortable in the situation, but also they are adults. The family consensus has knowingly accepted the risks, so i'm going to roll with it. It's not like I've been perfect in that regard - see working on a 5 people set last week - so I can't really justifiably complain.
Yo! Had a great weekend with a couple close buddies out in the country. It's getting cold, fires are not helping as much as they used to. So it had a real feeling of the "last hangout". Brought some oysters to shuck, ate some delicious asian soup, bloody ceasars, a wild partridge gifted/ gutted in front of us from the friendly talkative neighbour... All around great low key thanksgiving weekend with a couple close friends. We also played Catan, for the first time ever for the 4 of us, with a game master that explained the rules (thank god for the briefing, reading those rules on paper would have been hell). I think my favorite moment of the whole weekend was a bit later in the night, when we were all mildly altered. We're outside, under the tarp playing dominoes while a big storm is brewing. Music on the speaker is some piraty gypsy-punk. My friend is standing in a bright yellow rain coat, looking a bit confused by the game rules. And then the storm and wind really picks up and we're in the middle of a tornado, trying keep the game going. We're shouting because the rain is too loud, the dominoes are falling, the beer bottles are just sliding away on the table with the wind while we're all huddled up around the game - is this a double ? is it my turn ? we're sinking! shit, i skip! we're going to capsize It felt like we were on a sail boat, in the middle of a storm, like old Italians from the 1950s. My first game night was a success. All following ones are ruined unless there's a worthwhile weather event.
It's my birthday this weekend! Will be going off in the woods with a few friends for a little time out of the city. Since I'll still be on antibiotics for my wisdom teeth extraction and had a rough couple weeks(years?) in my relationship, I'm considering taking it very easy substance wise. The consent conversation has started on our Board and the tension around the subject is palpable. It's hard to have conversations with people that preface the subject by "i'm a survivor", have thought about the subject a lot and have strong opinions on how to do things and best practices. By hard - I don't mean that they don't listen but that I feel a big gap in understanding and emotional involvement we need to bridge. They say "we need to enact policies" and are very eager to move forward. (Maybe?) because certain things just feel obvious to them. And when I answer that I'm not informed and not comfortable taking decisions for a community without more conversations with more people first, I feel it hurts them. Like I'm dismissive of their experience, when what I actually want is include more people in the conversation. Top down policies by what is essentially a vanity Board is the best way to make a community feel powerless - even if the policies are sensible. And making people feel powerless about consent is a powderkeg. Besides, this shit if hard for everyone and having this on the forefront of my mind is not easy. Doing it over zoom is also not the best because you lose a lot of humanity in the process.
Missed the Pubski yesterday in favour of a real life pub with ButterflyEffect ! Went to a nice Italian restaurant, then a shady dive bar to finish up with a student bar with greek blues. It was a fun evening, always happy to meet any of you internet weirdos in person :) In other news, I came back from a regional burn in florida about a week ago. Drove down 35 hours with the keg-o-fryers to serve some Poutine to americans with this badass crew: I think our tagline ended up being ¨I drove 35 hours for this?¨I had a blast, probably one of the funnest burns in my life, in big part because our team was just fire. Everything went smooth like (I can't believe it's not) butter, no drama, and showing up with poutine gives you superstar status the whole event. It took 9 burns, but it's like I'm finally getting the hang of it. I've learned so much about interacting with people, leading a team, frying potatoes and just how to be a better person in general. People were efficient, thoughtful and fun. I had some great talks with the camp lead, at the "Lost Island" which made you feel like you are living in a painting. Highlights include caviar in a jacuzzi, doing a little welding, seeing my friend rocking her first ever ranger shift tracking down a prostitution ring, getting bombed down by excessive fireworks like it's Dresden followed by the firefighters putting out the fire - worst burn I've even seen and got genuinely scared for my friend in a wheelchair when the crowd started panicking for a second, improvising an epic party at our camp the last night like it's no big deal ( With the worst cocktail ever: hot sauce, tequila, pickled jalapenos and corona beer. You know how we called it, we all got unwillingly infected) et j'en passe... A weeklong vacation by the beach while there was a massive snow storm in Montreal was definitely the right call, even if my finances are a little fucked now. But I'm back home now, working full steam on a bunch of stuff for free! Setting up the whole ticketing system for our local regional with low income options this year, getting an epic bar camp called MIRAGE started (and we're already in trouble because too many people want to join in on the fun) and working on the local Precious Plastic recycling project. Things are moving fast with the plastic: we are getting contacted by companies left and right. I'm really enjoying meeting people and doing what I guess is called Business Dev. But that also means I need to write a goddam project proposal today and I have no idea how and it's stressing me out a little.
Having a tough time today. I've come to terms with the fact that my summer bar tour work is not going to be happening. And I have only a couple months savings since I was planning on slowly ramping up the work right about now. The plan was to volunteer on this plastic recycling thing this summer, get it on track to be somewhat of a viable business by fall. But now that's also a bust since the makerspace shut down and all our summer proposals are not viable anymore. So I'm in this weird state where I don't have work - or anything to do - so the quarantine is boring as hell. But combined with an urgency to find some work. Ever feel stuck, like you should be doing things and working hard but are feeling paralyzed because you don't know exactly what? It's crazy stressful because I've never actually had a real job in my life, and working for someone else or doing some shitty work feels soul crushing. And while I have many other skills, making resumés and interviewing is certainly not my forté since I never had to before. I know my problems are not super important, since people are dying and worse case my parents will make sure I don't starve. But it still feels like crap when a month ago I was feeling optimistic about finally finding some work I want to do to now being totally lost. And having to revert to looking for meaningless gigs. Applied for some remote tutoring gigs and created an upwork account to maybe edit some videos. Also started writing a CV. Maybe something will help. The situation is evolving fast, who know what's gonna be the situation in a couple weeks. But todays's been the lowest day of my quarantine. I hope I can bounce back and regain some optimism about the future.
Name: elizabeth Location: currently in colombia Age: Almost 25... somehow it feels I should have it a little more together by now. Current preoccupations: daily planning of our trip, burning man related stuff (how did I get in so deep so fast?), people that are far away I wish I could spend some time with. Previous Preoccupations: travelling, making youtube videos (I've re-started the travel vlog, but more for fun now than before)
Didn’t find the motivation to go buy supplies for the embroidery stuff I want to make yet. But in the meantime, I’ve finished this octopus I started more than a year ago. I abandoned the project halfway because I thought I needed to go buy filling for it. But I realized I could just gut an old pillow and complete the project! I’m happy with how it turned out.
time for a new logo? "Hubski: pushing out the dark"
My angsty teenage self really liked Camu's l'etranger. I don't know how much I would like the book today, but I still find Nihilism a strangely comforting philosophy.
I ran into the asshole that crashed my birthday party again this weekend. It happened to be the craziest underground illegal private party i've ever been to. Smack down in old town, open bar, 2 amazing Djs in a tiny space and it was still pumping at 6am when I left for home. I had the greatest pleasure in shaming him for kicking a young girl out of an Uber at 2am because she would not sleep with him. He gave some weak ass excuse about feeling misled by her. I gave him shit for it and he kept apologizing to me the rest of the night. I think maybe he expected to never run into our crew again. Hopefully it taught him a lesson and he'll be less of a douche? I didn't know confronting someone could be so satisfying, and now i'm glad to put this whole ordeal behind me :)
Have you tried giving a bit less of a shit? I have trouble relating to any "pressure" you felt being here. I don't want to minimize your troubles, but this is just a forum on the internet. Sure, we're all real people with real feeling and lives. And we shouldn't be dicks to each other. I've myself made some great connections on here, and even met more than a couple awesome folks IRL :) But it's also just a forum on the internet after all. You don't need to have an all out or all in attitude. Just come hang out when you feel like it. And you can also take breaks from time to time without "quitting". And not get too bogged down about what some assholes on the other side of the world that have never met you think of you. There are more important things to care about.And because I give a shit. I feel like this is something most people discard about me.
Flying out to Cusco tomorrow for a 5 day trek to Machu Pichu (I never know how to spell it). We’re going to attempt a no tent, no guide trek of the Salkantay route. I anticipate it will be the hardest trek of my life. Never done a lot of hiking before this trip. But in the past 1.5 months we’ve gone up different size hills about 7 times. Altitude will fuck you up tho. I’m exited for the challenge! Edit: also just got my low income Burning Man ticket approved! I was on the fence of going this year since I blew so much money on travel already. Still have a month long expensive Africa trip next month. But now that I have a cheap ticket... i guess it’s time to work extra hard this whole summer and make bank. The friend I was doing the tours with last summer moved to the UK. So I can technically make double the cash. At the cost of no life for the summer. I’ll take that deal :)
The goddamn airline cancelled my flight back from India, and the flights back cost 4 times what I paid. So I just spent an hour on the phone and cancelled my 3 month long trip I've been looking forward to for months. We were supposed to leave the coming Wednesday. We were going to go to India, Sri Lanka and Nepal. Relax at the beach, take the most scenic train ride in the world, hike up to base camp, visit the sacred city of Varanasi, experience the complete mess and culture shock that India is supposed to be. It was going to be the best!!! I spent 200$ on vaccines yesterday, read Shantaram, bought hiking boots and have a whole word document with the details of the trip. And now we're staying in fucking dumb Canada for the stupid winter. I'm so sad and pissed off. I guess the upside is that we're last minute planners. So I didn't yet book any hotels or trains or tours, and didn't even apply for the visa. And we could always go to India next year. And probably we'll still go somewhere to escape the winter. Maybe Peru? Anyone has any recommendations of cheap cool places? I'm gonna spend today being sad about my dream trip falling through, but tomorrow's a new day and I'll see if I can get exited about going someplace else!
Got my new camera in the mail yesterday! So I'm back in the filming game :) I feel like I've been getting into a positive groove lately. However, I feel like my boyfriend has been in a funk for more than half a year now, and I don't know how to help. He seems unmotivated and uninspired by the work he's doing. I tried helping create a plan or some structure, but without motivation it just falls flat and I'm just nagging him - so i've given that up. He's good and knowledgeable in his industry. He's the best "helper" a team could have. Always solving problems, pro-actively. I think he needs some kind of change in environnement (anything really) like maybe joining an organisation, a club, school, a part-time work project. Or maybe do anything that makes him feel he's more in control of his life. But he just seems stuck and unhappy and it makes me sad :( Is there anything I can do, or should I just let him figure it out himself?
It’s just another excuse to do a party! Maybe i’m culturally unaware of traditions having grown up in a Russian household, but I feel there has been a proliferation of what I feel are corporation driven fake celebrations. Take weddings with the engagement parties, bridal showers, bachelorette parties, bridal luncheons... I feel that’s a bit too much. And they all have been codified with “what you’re supposed to do” down to the decorations and games. Has it always been like this and I was just oblivious? I feel the same about the gender reveal parties. Feels like a fake occasion invented by the party industry. But maybe it’s just because it’s never been a thing in my culture and now I see my generation of people throwing these, with the parents a bit confused about what’s going on. I mean, I’m all about parties and I don’t want to rain on anybody’s parade. We all need excuses to get together with friends and family and enjoy each others company. But there is a lack of authenticity in the cookies cutter nature of these that rubs me the wrong way somehow. Maybe it has to do with the fact that a lot of them are centered around giving someone presents and not the actual occasion. About the transgender standpoint, maybe I’m talking out of line here, but gender does matter! If it was all inconsequential, there would be no queer movement. Celebrating that you’re going to have a boy does not mean you will not be supporting them in whatever gender indentity they will later identify as.
Is it me or there are quite a few new faces around lately? Welcome all! Leaving for Colombia next week, still don't have anything planned. Anyone has some off the beaten path recommendations for Colombia, Ecuador and Peru? I get that the Machu Pichu is awesome (and we're gonna go) but otherwise a lot of the suggested things are very similar and I like getting sucked into weird adventures.
What a week! Went to burning man and met up with BLOB_CASTLE briefly ( got caught up during the week but I tried to find you again Saturday/Sunday. Didn't take a picture but I did leave a Hubski sticker on the sign at the dump). Won a luxury hotel tent with room service at one of the camps - best night ever. Room service literally brought us ANYTHING we requested. Got some instant street cred by name-dropping goobster at my arctica volunteering shifts. The mayor and Brad are some cool dudes. And met some dude at the cryptocurency camp that knows one of you Hubskiers too. How did my trip to Burning Man turn so Hubski oriented?! Great time overall, but the dude jumping into the fire and dying at the burn was shocking :(
Flying to Atlanta tomorrow! Gonna get that car and start driving up. Anyone on the east coast?
My parents just bought a Condo (supposedly ready in 3 years) for their retirement. My Aunt and Uncle have bought quite literally the apartment next door. I don't know what my mom was thinking because my dad will never agree to move from the house. Looks like she convinced him on the argument that 3 years is not soon and he'll be too old to argue then... I can't wait because in 3 years (when i'll be an established fimmaker) this will give me plenty material for my sitcom. It's a shitstorm coming. Seriously, now that I moved out I love hearing from my parents because their life is so funny now that I'm not involved in the middle of it. Endless entertainment! Just a couple weeks ago, they bought tickets to Cuba, drove halfway to the airport until they realized my dad's passport expired. Thankfully, my mom's passport was only expiring one day after their return (she got lucky buying the tickets!) They drove back home, dad took his Russian passport and flew out. Then, once in Cuba all was well until the day before departure when my dad realized he won't be able to come back to Canada without a Visa with his Russian passport. So they went on a crazy adventure trying to urgently get some papers from the Canadian consulate (I'll spare you the details). In this passport expiring extravaganza, my mom realized her Russian passport expired too and that her trip to Russia in a couple weeks was doomed unless she does something so she's currently running around consulates. As if that was not enough, once back home, my mom was complaining to me because she hid her laptop from theives and could not find in anywhere. Like WTF people! I honestly don't think i'll notice for a long time if they get dementia...
Got an email this morning about registering a tradestone profile as a vendor for Urban Outfitters, it's a bit frustrating that things are happening right before we leave to Asia for 4 months, but we'll figure it out, this is huge :D Speaking of Asia, I'm finally done with my site: http://elizabethtravels.com/ I even filmed a little intro video! I'm not a huge expert on web design and SEO so if any of you has suggestions on improvements, I'll be super happy. Looks like a lot of progress but since I'm out of school, I've been feeling really unproductive. I went and bought a notebook and started reading Getting things Done, hopefully with a system I will somehow make things better :)