I’m in Madrid with my parents, doing all the awesome museums and eating delicious food and planning my other trips in the evenings. It’s a bit rough hearing my dad listening to the news about the Ukrainian bombings twice a day and discussing it a we walk around, but otherwise we’re in good spirits. Today is some Spanish celebration and the show of military planes above the city was a bit unsettling in this context.

Damn I missed traveling! Feeling excited about Detroit and Mexico next. I forgot how much I enjoyed planning and working some magic. Still get bouts of sadness and loneliness from the breakup, drunk texted half my friends yesterday evening to make more plans that will keep me busy. I know it’s partly just coping, but I’m happy to see my friends are there for me in those moments :)

Been keeping really busy, hanging with people every night to avoid thinking about my recent breakup. So far, it’s been good and lots of fun. I’m more concerned about my ex that seemed to be lying on his phone in the dark with a gout flare up with none of his burning man laundry done when I passed by to drop off car keys 2 days ago. I also hope he gets his shit together and I don’t have to be the bad guy kicking him out on the street come end of October.

Toronto this weekend for my sisters tea party baby shower.

Training my replacement at work - it’s tedious AF because it’s lots of different platforms, exceptions and particularities of people, admin work bs. She’s not the quickest and need to be repeated things a few times, but is also personable and has a good attitude. She’ll figure it out in time. I’m just not sure I can hang everything over in the 12 more days I have left.

It’s been an interesting few years. Went abroad to do filmmaking on a plastic recycling open source project. When I came back home, I found the local chapter and was swiftly made president of the forming non-profit. Also joined the board of our local burner org. So it was a lot of learning about governance, managing volunteer projects etc… And then I got hired as the second ever employee of a makerspace my friends started. I never really considered getting a real full time job, but with COVID I was getting stir crazy sitting at home and all projects were on hold. It has been tough - working with a good friend as my boss definitely fucked up our relationship. Especially when some tangential feelings got involved during his long term relationship breakup. A shitshow. But in the 1.5 years I worked there I definitely made the place better. Made major moves in optimizing systems, did a bunch of IT migrations, set up a ton of new workshops, increased our media visibility by a ton. Also learned I stay in situations that are shit for my mental health for loyalty.

I picked up some new skills and confidence building art projects with friends. Did a giant hamster wheel, a flame poofer, a 360 seesaw and a bunch of fixing around the country house and the 500$ trailer we converted into our room. Did some basic welding classes and want to learn sewing and basic electronics soon. I’ve been in a skill-acquiring mood lately.

Just passed the cap on 10 years with my partner. We’ve been through a shit ton and an ever changing relationship. But it may have run it’s course, had some really rough talks yesterday. We’re insanely different people than when we met… And somehow we had managed not to grow appart all these years until recently.

I’m incredibly lucky with the friends I have. I can rely on them, confide myself, have fun and explore. I feel real friendship is vastly undervalued in our society. Even looking at my high school friends, everyone else looks so lonely. While I’m feeling like the luckiest person in the world with epic caring thoughtful interesting friends.

Sitting in a bar in SF airport right now, on my my to Reno to help out a friends camp at burning man. I can tell it will be a rough year already. I’m going with a heavy heart, hoping to be able to disconnect and avoid my problems for the next 2 weeks, enjoy good moments with friends and see cool art.

Then it’s back home for a month at my job before the end of my contract, possibly a separation that will tear my world appart and then… who knows? But my dream trip to India is seeming unlikely since I’m probably not gonna go alone. There is still good chances for a 3 week hiking in Nepal and Taiwan round the island bike trip :)

Feeling like shit, don’t think the seasonal funk ever hit me this hard. But we got a curfew and a gathering ban in place, while a good party would make me feel better. Most my energy is going towards not up and quitting my job to fuck off to Mexico for 3 months and wait out the winter there. I think I’ve been crying once a day lately. I’m not exited about seeing anyone or doing anything, including my friends. Everything sucks. While “objectively “ everything is fine and I’m crazy lucky compared to many people around.

My sister's in town this week. It's such a stark contrast in lifestyle - she got married a few years back, just bought a condo in Toronto and is killing it as a PR person for Pharma companies in an agency. I bet she's easily earning 3-4 times my salary. She's super smart - I always tell my friends she's the person I could have been if only I liked following rules and decided to play the "career" game. She's winning the game for sure.

It's funny to compare and contrast, because I'm loving my life but like everyone I have my preoccupations. Most of mine are inter-relational stuff. Fluid relationship dynamics, very close friendships and fun projects are in the center of my life right now as opposed to career and money. And sometimes I wonder if I'm not just occupying my mind, with doing projects, maintaining and managing all these relationships just to keep busy. But then I have an amazing weekend with friends and would not trade it for the world. Feeling super privileged in my position, but sometimes quite disconnected from the "real" world since it feels not many people can allow themselves my lifestyle. Like I found a perfect little rare pocket of weirdness, and I'm scared ( or in a way, I know for sure) it won't last for too long. Life will change - and either I'll move on, or the people around me slowly will and I'll stay stuck in the times. Probably the former, but when the status quo is good, it's hard to not notice its fragility.

As a side note, was at at this lady's 50th birthday party last weekend. And TWO motherfucking (older) ladies just french kissed me without asking. Didn't feel too predatory, more of a boring housewife vibe, that used to be kind of attractive so is unaware of the concept that not everyone is happy to get their covid germs. Really irked me. And it's funny that I'm convinced a guy would have NEVER acted in this way towards me. My friend Erik (who is 45ish) actually stepped in to back me up after one of the ladies kept arguing with me that is was not about consent but "cultural differences" I did not understand since she's french. She didn't help her case - I might be more pissed at her assuming I'm not familiar with "cultural differences" as a well traveled person, born in Montreal that has gone to a Quebecois primary school, a French Lycée for all of high school, Russian school on the weekends and then an Anglo Cégep. URGHhh

That's me! photo from the official community announcement about my new job. I got this week to wrap up my stuff and starting my real work week on Monday :)

One thing that I hope i'll manage ok is my schedule. I'm supposed to be working 30h/week. Maybe for you productive peeps it seems like no big deal, but I haven't had a real job in YEARS. And since i've been time-tracking my stuff, I know I only get 4-5 good hours a day. My other time is spent doing home maintenance things, seeing friends and generally mucking around on the internet. I hope I'm just wasting too much time doing nothing and this job will just make me more organized and mindful with my time - not make me stressed and sacrifice things I enjoy doing. Time will tell! Exited to try this new chapter :)

Good clip finding! The clip form the speakeasy bar is actually from Montreal. They have burlesque performances twice a week (but it's not on my tour, it's a little small and out of the way). And that hand shake bit made me laugh too. Perfect video combo.

I've been reading the Pub, but haven't written in a while. I've been back from my travels for some weeks now and it was hectic catching up with life in the beginning. Not sure if I've shared the coolest day of our trip on here:

So this summer, we have decided to give Speakeasy Bar tours with my friend through AirBNB: https://www.airbnb.ca/experiences/185329

It's been going REALLY well, but I'm under no illusion it's gonna die down at the end of the season. It's been fun, challenging and I've had a number of crazy experiences already that keep it from becoming boring. Last week, a group of 5 cousins win the crown. I had a 60 year old lady flash her boobs 3 times (before we started drinking mind you), she also mistakenly invited her recovering alcoholic cousin and her claustrophobic sister that could not go down to the basement bars. It was a shitshow, but so much fun!

The "free drink" is the last thing left to figure out. The first place has 18$ drinks on the menu and it's been killing the profits. We gotta make a deal with a nice terrasse somehow, but finding who to talk to has been a challenge. Any tips on how to approach this?

You guys are my favourite secret Pub ❤️

Shooting my first ever corporate photo shoot today! I realized too late I MASSIVELY undercharged them, but then again I don’t really know what I’m doing and I get to chill in Quebec City for a couple days on their dime :)

It’s not like I have much else going on anyway

The American Rock Photography Job is coming to an end this week. Shoutout to kleinbl00 for the photo tips :)

Flying back home this Friday and I can't wait. I miss my boyfriend, my friends, my family a little (they visited me just 2 weeks ago) and we're moving! I fear I'm gonna spend all that hard earned money on decorating, so someone stop me. Was considering on splurging on some nice sheets. Am I a victim of advertising, or do nice sheets really make a difference?

Ready to view

Worker dudes, kind of sceptical of the whole affair. Got brought down by corporate to stare at the sun? Sounds stupid.

Less sceptical once it started!

Little pinhole moons were super cute.

My amazing idea - make the company logo pinhole style. I tried to explain to everyone how awesome it would be, but I don't think anyone really got it until they saw it in real life during the eclipse. I think it tuned out pretty well:

My little promo video of the whole thing. The actual eclipse footage is stolen from the internet since I didn't have the gear to film that. Not my best work since I was a little spread thin also taking pictures on the camera and iphone for the social media but I think it turned out decent enough.

It was a fun experience, definitely want to go see the real thing in 2024 (can't believe I was at 99! soclose!)

Snowstorm aftermath

Leaving for Havana tomorrow :) I hope it's spring when I come back....

We somehow accumulated a bunch of good beers in the fridge that don't do well at parties so we decided to make a night out of it to finish them off :

It was fun!

Furnished an apartment and renting it out on airBNB this week: it's my plan to sustain myself for this summer. It helps that my dad's the landlord but I still gotta pay rent.

I have some more vlogs to edit, it keeps me busy.

Just doing odd jobs, trying not to think about the future too much. Like, I seriously got no direction right now. Only goal being not getting a job and manage to sustain myself. Works for now and it will for a bit - I really don't need much money. But that's not a good long term plan...

We speak Russian at home (went to Russian Sunday school for like 10 years of my life) and I would say I speak without a noticeable accent. I would be "outed" as a foreigner in Russia if I had to write something because my grammar is abysmal or by using a strange name for a thing.

My #1 language is French (Quebecois and France French - I switch accents unconsciously depending on who I'm speaking to).

Then I would say my english is pretty good considering I grew up in an all French society and I didn't speak a word until about 11 years old. Strangely, I learned it at the Ukrainian camp because all my friends started speaking english and it was either learn it or have no friends. If any of you guys watched my vlog, you can definitely notice I have a strange accent because I don't speak it very much in everyday life, even if I spend lots of time typing and reading on the internets.

Learned 5 years of Italian in High School and we had pretty good teachers. I'm pretty average but it's a fun trick up my sleeve when meeting Italians. It's been a while now, but I'm good enough to watch Italian movies if the Italian subtitles are on.

Learned some basic Polish while on my exchange semester: I can comfortably get around, order food, haggle at the markets and generally go along everyday life. I don't think I could sustain a conversation beyond the "where are you from, what do you do, what is your favorite food" platitudes, but it's a decent start :)

I also understand Ukrainian fairly well: can't speak without muddling it up with Polish and Russian but after 3 years with my boyfriend and visiting his family there, my listening comprehension is good enough that I speak Russian and people reply in Ukrainian. I was pretty surprised, but people actually speak to each other like that there - in different languages but with 100% understanding on both sides!

+ learned like 2 words since my month in Vietnam. And people still don't understand 20% of the time. Tonal languages are haaard...

I'm just amazed how two very intelligent and capable people (They did figure out how to immigrate to Canada and build a very successful life right?) can get into so many stupid situations literally all the time. This whole paragraph was only 1 week worth of adventures, tune in next week for another episode of "La vida de los padres de elizabeth".