So how about this?

I recently moved from Europe to Vancouver, Canada with my partner and my cats! We are hoping to start a new life here and soak up new experiences. I want to get my foot into the tv show industry and I'll be documenting what's going on, our progress on immigration and other randomness. I love cats, tea, tv shows, traveling,...

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Things are looking up! A lot! :D Wednesday morning my EI money finally came in, this should keep us afloat for at least another month plus it’s ongoing for now.

My partner got the job with the video game company!!! He was supposed to have yet another interview but they contacted him the day after his last call and told him they’d like to have him on board! We are SO HAPPY. This is going to help us so much and I am so glad for him too, that he can finally feel better. What a relief!! It’s a long weekend because of Easter so they wanted him to know before. <3

He also got a couple of new patrons on patreon, one of whom pledged $15 at once (his highest perk is $3 so that’s super generous)! 

Oh and I think I never got around to telling you that he was brought on board for a very cool project as a game/monster designer for a role play game that’s based on a sci-fi novel. He’s super excited to be able to work on this, even though for now it’s definitely more of a passion project. Money as with most our projects depends on the success of the final product. It’s a fantastic opportunity though and he can establish himself as a published game designer afterwards. :)

Pre-production for our movie this week has felt like a whirlwind. I am happy to say we got a good bunch done, but unsurprisingly there’s still a scary amount of work to do. We low-key launched our online store and we started pushing out our first casting calls!

We are progressing on crewing up, plus we attracted quite an audience on facebook through one of my job posts which was looking for women (ideally POC), which pulled in so many butthurt white men who were lamenting the discrimination and violation of human rights of it all... like... wow.

Good for us though, cause we made some really cool connections with people who supported us and it keeps driving attention to our movie. :) Follow us here btw, I am running the fall back down tumblr for the most part!

Oh gotta go. Talk to you later!

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After a bunch more phone calls and waiting waiting waiting, finally my EI claim seems to have been approved since yesterday! I am saying seems to, because I haven’t seen any money yet. Hopefully that’s something that’s gonna change like... SOON.

I am a little too tired right now to post everything that’s been going on in detail BUT! My partner had a translation test yesterday and will have his next interview tomorrow morning! Please wish him good luck, we really really want that job for him!

On my side we started officially our pre-production phase of our indie movie and moved into our new production office on Friday. Exciting!! Time to get cracking for real.

In order to save some money (cause going by bus or car everyday is pretty expensive if you are turning every cent around twice) I bought an old bike off of Craigslist for 30 bucks. It looks great, but unexpectedly the seat won’t come down, which means I can’t use it as soon as I wanted to. Another thing to figure out, just adding it to neverending the list...

Anyway, there’s movement at least and some good stuff happening, let’s hope we keep that momentum.

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New Deadpool 2 Trailer is out!!!! I am so excited and also protective at the same time, lol. I’m like SHUUUUUUUUUSSHHHH OMG YOU’RE REVEALING ALL THE THINGS!!! 

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:O My supposedly lost spoonflower order arrived today! That means I can start selling my first two patterns, yay!

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Tax reports done and sent off! Let’s hope the money arrives fast.

I was debating with myself if I should post an update right now or not, cause my mood is bouncing from high to low real fast these days and right now it feels more like a low.

But meh, might as well.

The last days were a mixed bag as pretty much all of 2018 so far.

This week’s absolute highlight was another incredibly generous craigslist encounter. OH and the visit at a soap maker, I’ll talk about both another time. 

EI  on the other hand is still being a pain in the ass, which means still no money for now. 

My patterns I ordered from spoonflower beginning of the year were apparently lost so they have to be reprinted and reshipped. Again... delay over delay.

I am beating myself up cause I have barely progressed with the logo design for that mobile app, but I have started noting down the things I have accomplished each day instead of just making to do lists and deleting things off. I think it’s good for my mental health to see that (and what) I have successfully achieved something, even if it feels like I barely did anything on that day.

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Aw what a great way to start the day! I picked up a little sewing kit from a lovely craigslist lady. Originally she was giving away a whole bunch of fabrics, patterns and sewing supplies for free. Someone else was faster than me to reply so she had already promised them they could come and get it. In my email I told her that I made it my new year’s resolution to finally learn how to sew and she was so excited and touched by this, that she decided to split off a little kit for me. So sweet! And go figure turns out she actually works in film too! She’s in the Costume Department, so she was doing a bit of spring cleaning. I feel so lucky! ;^; 

In other news my partner’s interview went well we think. Sadly the next interview partner is currently on a 2 weeks holiday (must be nice), so he’s gotta wait for them to return before the recruiting process can continue. Still keeping our fingers crossed!

The director of our indie movie and I finally had our meeting with our potential Costume Designers yesterday. They are super burned out from their current show that just ended and they would like some time to recharge, so we’re not sure if they’ll join us or not in the end. But we sent them the script and we’ll see where it goes from there!

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Yes, hello? I'd like to report a murder.🐈🔪 

You come home from a nice evening with friends and then you find yourself attacked like this, under your own roof! Rude.

We had a lovely time seeing them again and additionally they want me to come on board of their newest business venture for a very cool and promising app! :o So many interesting projects to tackle at the moment! They even gave us a little presentation with slideshow and everything. :P

Their concept would really fill a gap in the market and could be expanded in so many ways, this could seriously become a super successful thing (*ca-chingg*)!!

They’ll be sending over some mood boards and research they have already done on what they had in mind and I can hopefully get cracking on some first logo designs and corporate identity guidelines. 

I’m excited!

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FINALLY!!!!

The money arrived this morning on our account, I am SO relieved it came in before our rent was due *sweating*. We went negative again for a few days, because our phone bill was deducted, but now we are back and safe for a little longer. Thank goodness...

Some other great news came in yesterday too: a friend and previous colleague of ours contacted my partner, because he is going back to Amsterdam for a new job and he’s giving up his remote work. They’ll be looking for a replacement for him, so he offered to recommend my partner if he’s interested. Hell yeah he is!

Omg, that would be so amazing if that would work out!!!! One of the companies (there are 2) already asked him for an interview end of this week. Please keep your fingers crossed for us!!

Yesterday I also received an email that I have won tickets to the VIWIFF 2018 (Vancouver International Women in Film Festival) through my Union IATSE 891! Yay! Really stoked I get to see some of those films. :)))

Oh of the two craigslist items I had buyers for only one sold in the end. Oh well. 10 bucks are 10 bucks, anything helps.

Tonight we’ll be seeing friends of ours who are in town for just a few days. Things are looking up I hope!

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Having our weekly Sunday meetings for our indie film project always leaves me feeling invigorated. We keep adding new awesome people to our team and it’s so motivating to see the puzzle pieces come together and even if we haven’t figured out every single detail yet, everyone’s energy is psyching us up and makes us hopeful that we are creating something with real quality and value here.

I am feeling a little better than after my last few posts. No, the money from France has sadly not arrived yet, but I think because we know (sorta) where we are at it’s a bit more bearable. Plus through a very kind donation here on tumblr we were able to at least keep our account to stay on the plus side for now (thank you so much again). 

There might be a tiny bit of cash coming in tomorrow from some craigslist and fb sales I have posted... I hope they really show up. And also EI might kick in any day now (that’s a story for another day).

We went to A’s birthday party on Saturday and they completely overstocked on food. They ended up giving us (and pretty much all the other guests as well) two big bags of food to take home!! Well, that’s definitely keeping our grocery needs low!

I also got a ride home from the meeting today, cause our production designer by chance had to drive right by our house. Which was fantastic cause I wasn’t sure my compass card still had enough credit. Very thankful for all these little corner cuts the universe is throwing us the last few days.

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I am sorry this is such a poop fest on here. Unfortunately it’s true that you feel more of a need to “let it out” when things aren’t going well vs. the times that ARE going well.

Which we had. And have.

Like that 100 CAD Cactus Club gift card we won for Valentine’s Day, courtesy of our building. Such a lovely surprise and what a nice evening with great food and drinks.

Or the voice recording sessions we both did, which gave us enough pocket money to restock on fresh veggies and some basic groceries.

The pick-me-up apple cake my partner baked.

The praise I’m getting for my work on our indie movie project and the energy and joy of professionally connecting people from my network with each other and seeing them hitting it off like you thought they would.

Recording a voice sample under my blanket to apply for a VO position (cause why not) and hearing back from them that it was great and a nice sample.

My little maidenhair fern making a good recovery after all the trauma it went through (repotting, Vancouver winter, cat munching off all the leaves).

There are so many things to be excited and thankful about. I am aware of that and I am. I just want to get back to having a tiny bit more financial stability, so I can enjoy everything even more.

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The guy who was responsible for our bank transfer apparently had messed up and moved it to an account from which he thought the money could be transferred to Canada. He thought wrong and the order bounced. 

Gotta love professionals who know what they are talking about, especially if it’s your money you’re trusting them with, huh?

It took them a few days to figure out what was wrong. Once they did they moved the money to another part of the account from where it COULD be moved now. Which brings us to the current timeline of “the money is getting ready to being transferred”. Technically it’s supposed to take 3 to 4 days (are those business days? cause they’re never working on Mondays either...) and according to my partner’s mother about 1,5 of them should have already passed.

Best case scenario would be that the money arrives here on maybe Friday. On the other hand we took out money from that account when we cashed out on the credit card yesterday while the transfer was in progress. Which means worst case scenario would be the order bouncing again, because now there’s less funds available than we want to transfer. Which would mean more delay delay delay.

Ugh.

My partner’s mother will try to add some money to the account in hopes to prevent the transfer from bouncing in time. This is such a mess.

Today’s account balance reads 8 CAD. They deducted another $ 5 overdraft fee when we added enough money to be in the positive. Of course. (I miss my German account where this was not a thing)

On the plus side I managed to reverse a 70 CAD charge on my Dutch credit card and pay off the remaining few Euros I apparently had neglected to pay. Gotta love when those “your payment is late and we will punish you for it” e-mails are coming in from out of nowhere at the worst possible moment. I’m not even using my Dutch credit card anymore! 

Let this be a lesson kids. 

If you move abroad, like far abroad make sure you

a) have a bank that has lots of experience with international online transfers, that is easy to use and fast

b) stay far away from the Caisse d’Epargne

c) don’t forget about that zipcar account you made on your old credit card when you arrived and either cancel it or move it to a local account asap

Oh well. We’re out of cat food. Let’s use up that credit card some more, shall we?

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I’m exhausted. I feel weak, shaky and nauseaous. Anxiety is making me feel numb.

We have had some really really nice moments recently. But all the good things that are happening are still always overshadowed by our utter lack of money.

While the last weeks have been undoubtedly stressful it didn’t feel catastrophic yet, because we knew we still had some European money which we decided to move from the French account to our Canadian account. It would be enough to tie us over at least until film season is back in full swing. It was supposed to take up to a week arrive. Today is day 13 and the end of the month is coming rapidly closer. 

When I woke up this morning I immediately checked our account if the money had arrived. Like every morning these past few days. 

No money had arrived. But more money had went away. Today it was the car insurance payment. And yet another overdraft fee for having a negative account balance... 

My partner saw that the money had been transferred today, but only to a different part of his French account. Wtf?! Does that mean that’s the only thing they were planning to do? Do they think they are done now? Or is that the first step in now transferring the money finally to our Canadian account???

I really hate that bank. They are so useless. And slow. And incompetent. And unnecessarily difficult. Did I mention that we have to send someone PHYSICALLY over there (usually my partner’s mother), to make anything happen??

The fact that the money is still visible on a French account means probably we have to start the process again and are looking at ANOTHER week of waiting?? I really hope I am wrong. In another week all our big bills are coming in though, most notably our rent. It feels like we are fucked.

In our desperation we went to the bank today and cashed out both our credit cards to at least get our bank balance temporarily out of the negative zone. We are now 13 CAD in the positive. Hurray...

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Nice! I just got a call from a localization company I applied to a little while back. They were looking for German native speakers (among other languages) to read and record a bit of text. 

They booked me to come in on Tuesday afternoon for 1 hour. I’m quite excited actually. :) It’s just a small thing and it won’t pay much, but it’s something I always wanted to try out.Who knows, maybe this could turn into another opportunity if they like me. Also any money is good money at this point. Our bank account is literally negative right now.

My partner applied to do the same thing in French and we are hoping he’ll get a call soon as well.

Yay!

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I told myself I’d work on making today a good day (cause yesterday was fairly shitty). 

I didn’t sleep much, but I’m feeling like I’m on the right track. The production listings have been updated and finally there are some new projects showing up, which already makes me feel much better. I sent off two new applications today and I know there are a bunch of interesting shows in the pipeline, which I’d like to work on.

Also I am going to try and finally finish reading my current book. At least I won’t have to feel guilty then when I go back to work that I could have spent more time reading while I had the chance.

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It’s February and no lead on a new job yet. :/

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Happy New Year to everyone! I hope 2018 has been treating you well so far!

For the most part I’d say I had a good feeling so far, but mixed in with a bit of having to march at not my own pace. Having my partner’s relatives here started to suck my energy a lot, but it was nonetheless enjoyable. We did a lot of nice walks and hikes (this photo is from our absolutely magical New Year’s Day hike through Lynn Valley) and tried new things, which I really love to do. On the other hand I could feel it depleting me and I couldn’t progress with work, which started to stress me out a little.

Certain things are happening at suspiciously timed moments, like me being offered the Art Director position for the cool film project I briefly mentioned in another post and my new laptop arriving within 5 minutes after the call — both catching me in the only moments within weeks I was actually at home and receptive. 

Instead of starting the day off with the usual family sightseeing schedule, my partner and I wanted to take care of our car’s broken headlights in the morning and then meet up after with the others. Luckily for me that meant I had a very smooth unexpected laptop delivery and a very non-noisy surprising phone call.

My partner got lots of great re-bonding time with his sister in, which was very cute to see and which I hope puts him in good optimistic spirits for this year.

Unfortunately his father kept toeing the line between being okay and getting sick and sadly within the last days of their stay my partner caught his brewing cold and a few days later after everyone had left I caught it myself.

There goes the plan to apply for a new job right away! Treacherous body slowing down my ambition! And this after I had been doing so well at not getting sick all year! 

Today I told myself was the day I would send out applications, since I am starting to feel like the worst has passed. The very moment I opened up my laptop to access my e-mails our internet went down. An outage in our area specifically! 

Hah, go figure. 

I do get superstitious with this kind of stuff and took it as a sign from the universe that apparently today is not a good day to start applying. After all I have had this plan since last week, the universe was very aware that I already got postponed by being sick and that I wanted it to be today and still chose this exact moment to shut down the internet??

Fine, I hear you! I didn’t send anything out today. But at least I prepared everything to be a mouse-click away for tomorrow. Fingers crossed something awesome comes out of it. ;P

Also I finally ordered the first proof patches of my repeating pattern designs! I am very excited to finally advance on this project and be able to officially open my Spoonflower shop for business very very soon!

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Got pulled over by the cops for the first time here in Canada. Turns out one of our headlights is broken. How come something is always up with our car when my partner’s parents are visiting? 

The police man was nice though. He chatted a bit with us about the Festival of Lights at the Van Dusen Botanical Gardens after we told him we just came from there — super magical and pretty btw — he visited it recently himself and just asked us to get the light fixed, especially since we were driving around with a full car (not sure how this matters, but it seemed to?). No ticket or anything, phew!

We’ll try to get that sorted out tomorrow morning, never done this before but I guess it’s time for another first!