Happy New Year! 🎊
Alright, I admit it’s been a while – about half a year since my last post to be exact, which I left off nearing the end of my internship at Queen’s Park. This is my annual year-end reflection post (something I’ve put together in the past year and the one prior).
Closing Chapter of OLIP
In the last month of the internship back in June, us interns wrapped up our work in our MPP’s offices, went to Victoria/Vancouver, B.C. for a study tour, and jetted off across the pond to visit legislatures in Belfast, Northern Ireland and London, UK. Looking back, I feel a sense of awe at how much we were exposed to through the internship. I overcame my imposter syndrome and anxiety surrounding academia and research with my final poster presentation at the annual Canadian Political Science Association’s conference. And although I wouldn’t say I am most attuned to European politics, it was a fascinating moment (i.e. the height of Brexit talks) to learn first-hand from a variety of stakeholders and different contexts on what the various scenarios could mean for different communities and other states. More broadly, it was a beautiful setting (politics aside), to finish off an intense 10-months being a part of an incredible 10-person cohort of OLIP interns. I couldn’t have asked for a more loving and inspiring group to have gone through the experience alongside, through all the ups and downs we faced, we left the program bonded as a family! We have since met up, and I know we’ll continue to plan reunions and reminisce on this unique time in our lives.
Summer Travels and Gains
One of the major privileges of the internship was ending off being abroad with the option of booking return tickets on our own. We made use of the opportunity to continue along with personal travels. Myself and Munisha, aka one of my commuter crew queens, decided that we would travel together for about an extra month. In planning out where we would go, South Eastern Europe felt it would be an adventure as neither of us had previously travelled in the area before, and considering it would be peak travel season especially in Western Europe, this felt like a great fit for our fairly last-minute travel style. It turned out to be the most spontaneous thing I’ve personally ever done in my life. We had only booked incoming and outgoing flights and our first place of stay post-internship about a week in advance and nothing else. It sounds completely cliché (so feel free to call me out on it) but I felt so present throughout our travels. Given that our only major decisions to make each day was what did we want to do/see/eat and where did we want to travel to next, it wasn’t a challenging feat to feel fully immersed in our surroundings. Yes, there were some stressful and fatiguing moments, as with any sort of travelling for an extended period of time, but I’m grateful to have done this alongside an incredible person who was so patient, respectful, and communicative. Plus, it felt pretty badass as solo women travellers to traverse through the unknown and expand what we think we’re capable of.
Appreciation photo collage with Munisha along our travels 👯
Upon my return home in time to celebrate my baby brother Bryan’s 3rd birthday, I spent the remainder of the summer catching up with friends, mentors, and loved ones that I admit that probably didn’t give enough attention over the earlier parts of the year. I also got back into things I’m passionate about like community organizing and volunteering with the Girls Empowerment Movement (GEM) and a newly formed group called Climate Justice Peel (CJP)! In between this, I had a stint playing in an ultimate frisbee tournament, which resulted in a sprained ankle for the second time in a year (but I’ll try not to relive that pain again here haha). And I drank copious amounts of coffee with all of the meet-ups I planned, but I’m grateful for them as it kick-started some much reflection as a slowly rolled into some next-life-steps-decision making aka job hunting aka my pre-quarter life crisis moment…
Autumn Adulting
As the season changed to that of my favourite, I really dug into, for the first time in my life, seeking for full-time work. Not a summer position. Not a semester work-study. Not an internship. Full-time. To say that I didn’t feel, at times, overwhelmed by the prospect would be an understatement. Amidst writing cover letters, reaching out to my support system, and good cries, I did try my best to keep up other important things in my life. I continued organizing with CJP, which led to an inspiring opportunity to attend a train-the-trainer retreat with other organizers country-wide in Edmonton, Alberta. And with GEM, we went into our 6th year with our 6th full team and two project grants secured for the upcoming year! My family road tripped to Boston, USA to attend a family wedding, in which I learned more in several layers of my family’s history. I worked as a camp counsellor on two different occasions for student fall retreats and a short stint as an elections worker during the recent federal elections, and short period as an office receptionist. With a quieter weekday compared to past years, I was also a part-time caretaker for my brother and organized things like play dates and also spent more time with my aging maternal grandparents.
Final 2019 Reflections
In reflecting on my word for this past year, depth, I feel like my year lived up to this aspiration. Through the peaks of the year to times of self doubt and stresses that came through the job hunt or other life curveballs, I am forever thankful for the incredible loved ones in my life. Our relationships deepened as I have a greater appreciation for each person as a result of more quality time spent together. I’ve deepened my ability to not only practice self-care but also community care. I’ve deepened my understanding of people, especially those who have differing viewpoints than mine, but I also deepened my own values and solidified what’s most important to me. In what started off as a high-pace year working in an elected official office, to being very in the moment through travels, and slowing things down with job seeking mostly from home, I am proud of my own personal growth. Whether that be perseverance through these application processes or being content with a lot of uncertainty, I’ve given myself much more self-love that has not always been present in my life. I’ve started to, when I catch myself giving too much tough-love, to ask myself how I would be speaking if this were a friend and not me. We’re often a lot more compassionate to others than we are with ourselves. This simple perspective shift has helped me be kinder to myself, reeled in the overthinking I often do, and improved my wellbeing.
With all of these reflections aside, I’m incredibly excited to share that after months of applying, interviewing, being rejected, not getting responses, to having an increased amount of options, twists and turns, and making it through a final reference check… I’ve officially signed a work contract and will be starting a full-time position next week in Downtown Toronto!!!! I will be joining the team at Council of Universities as a Government Relations Specialist. To add to this fun news, I will also be making a physical move to Toronto, so do hmu if you’re free to be a part of more of my coffee chats. (And instead of extending this post any longer, you can check out this complementary post on job seeking advice I can share).
So yeah, this past year has been a whirlwind, kind of felt like dream at times, and defs a hot girl year! I put together this video montage from this year to recap:
20/20 Vision
It is perhaps fitting that I’ve chosen clarity as my word for 2020. I am hoping that I continue to gain clarity when it comes to knowing myself and the other facets of life in the year to come. For the past two years, I’ve been using my variation of the Bullet Journal, but I’m ready for a change. It was helpful this past year to write a sentence review of the day, track quarterly goals, keep a period tracker (much like in the year’s past), but I find that most of my deadline tracking works best via my Google Calendar and online, so I want to be more intentional with any journalling that I do. During this holiday break, my close friend Mariam and I dedicated time to create vision boards (a vision scrapbook for me) to goal set for the next year. I organized mine, unsurprisingly, in different categories like friends and family, community, finances, and wellbeing. It was nice to put time towards creatively putting together a booklet that I can turn back to throughout the year, but without the pressure I felt from Bullet Journal to track more excessively. I was also gifted a cute booklet of 52 Lists for Happiness, so a different prompt that can be completed weekly for the year. They range from, “list the ways that you feel lucky” to “list the scents, spaces, textures, and sounds that bring you joy.” So I’d like to try that out for 2020.
Okay, that’s it. Thank you for coming to my TedTalk. 😉
Until next time,
LB
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P.S. In case you were interested:
My #bestnine2019 were
My top songs for 2019 are here
The books I read
- Paikin and the Premiers: Personal Reflections on a Half Century of Ontario Leaders by Steve Paikin
- Doing Politics Differently? Women Premiers in Canada’s Provinces and Territories by Dr. Sylvia Bashevkin
- The Art of Happiness by the 14th Dalai Lama and Howard C. Cutler
- All You Can Ever Know by Nicole Chung
- Know My Name by Chanel Miller
- Born a Crime by Trevor Noah
Most-watched series/binges on Netflix
- The Good Place
- This is Us
- The Patriot Act
Youtube Recs
- Jubilee
- Bon Appétit
- Wong Fu Productions
- Epicurious
Podcast Recs
- Millennial
- Side Hustle School
- TedTalks Daily
Linda and Life Blog 