Category: Personal

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Fall-flavored Life: Why I’m Not Sure That Spring is the Best Time for Fresh Starts

flock of birds

Fall is all about pumpkin spice, photoshoots in parks, Thanksgiving, Halloween, and changing tires. This is how marketers see it. It works for me as well but only on the top levels. Deeper inside I feel that each Fall is a new beginning.

“Life starts all over again when it gets crisp in the fall.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald

Twenty years ago on the 1st of September, I went to school. What I remember about that day is being excited and uncomfortable. I was wearing a new dress with a tight itchy collar and carrying a super heavy bouquet that made my arms sore.

Eleven years later I was walking down the city center streets on my first day of University. I was excited again, but thank God I had no flowers. My life changed: new people, new routines, and most importantly – new notebooks. I am a proud notebook window shopaholic: my heart skips a beat every time I see the Notebooks and Planners department.

Four more years and I met my husband. It was a November night out. I remember breathing in crisp air thinking that I’m gonna focus on studies, I don’t need a boyfriend right now – my heart’s been broken, that’s why. And then I see him sitting with friends at the next table. They invited us to play a board game and several hours later only two people noticed that there was no one around and it was 4 am. And so the story began.

Also in the Fall, we had a baby. That September morning I woke up and thought “A nice day to be born”. Twelve hours later I was trembling, crying my soul out, and holding a tiny creature making his first breaths.

A year ago we packed our life in three bags and moved to Canada. September 22nd is the day when we heard “Welcome to Canada” from an immigration officer. We enjoyed Toronto as tourists and explored Edmonton as newcomers settling down.

This Fall I’m stepping into a new life again – a new career. On the 18th of September, I applied for a job the description of which made my heart beat faster. Creating content in English is my dream right now. I didn’t have the required experience, but they offered me to do the assignments, and apparently, it was a success. September 24th – the day we landed in Edmonton – was the day of the team interview. Introducing myself to a group of people over Zoom was challenging but they were so welcoming and friendly that I felt at ease. The next day I got a call. They offered me the job. I called my husband but a wave of crying and sobbing made it hard to understand what I was saying.

I am delighted to study again. Diving into content marketing makes me look at promotion emails from a different perspective. Can’t wait to start merging theory with practice!

This Fall no itchy collars, no immigration. Just the fifth anniversary of that November night, a great leap of faith, and some new notebooks.

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Do We Make Game-Changing Choices or Choices Make Us?

architecture black and white challenge chance

The best things that ever happened to me in life were happy accidents. When I was 14 I realized I didn’t have any hobbies, so I took up English because I had a kind teacher at school. Later I decided I don’t want to follow my parents’ steps and study law, or go for management because everyone else did. This is how my hobby grew into the university program I chose – English and Literature. During my third year of studies, I stumbled into teaching and fell in love with it. Meeting wonderful people, learning their stories, sharing what I knew about English, and helping make their dreams come true – sounds like a dream job, doesn’t it?

But I don’t feel I earned it. Of course, I worked hard developing lesson plans and reflecting on what works and what doesn’t, but I somehow didn’t feel that I made those choices deliberately.

There was a voice inside my head, and it’s still there, asking me “Are you sure you’ve found the career that matches your skills and ambitions best?” I don’t have the answer.

I am ready to try out as many opportunities as possible. It’s a real challenge since no one wants to hire a person with zero experience and let them learn everything on the fly. In Canada, I managed to get some experience in a retail chain store and ticked sales off my opportunities list. Sales make sense to me when my job is to explain why my product is different and how it will solve the client’s problem. I don’t want to push anyone into buying what they don’t need. I don’t believe that this is the way to build a long-lasting deep relationship.

I know that I need to sell myself as a professional. That’s exactly what I tried to do yesterday during an interview. The guy said “I am impressed with how prepared you are”, sounds promising, yet I’m not sure if that is a good sign.

Today I’m having another interview. The position is different; the salary must be a bit better, while the level of stress is much higher. This job is a revolving door, so yes, there is the communication component I’m looking for, but it’s just scratching the surface. I also spent some time doing my research, trying to dive into the industry, and I didn’t find a solid structure inside of it, nothing insightful or meaningful.

Don’t count your job offers before they hatch! Nothing has been offered to me yet, and I’m comparing the options like I have so many on my plate.

I do gravitate towards content creation, so last week I started two online courses: the first is “The Strategy of Content Marketing” and the second is about writing and editing. I can’t wait to absorb all the information I now have access to and put it to practice!

Maybe one day I’ll find a job which will let me create content in English. And this will be a different story.

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Loneliness on the Net: How LinkedIn Made Me Feel Isolated and Left Out

apple applications apps cell phone

Before moving to Canada I was afraid I would feel lonely. I have already gone through all those stages when you make life-long friends: school, university, first job. I’ve grown apart from many of them, but I still believe this is the time to network.

It’s not that I was scared to lose the friends I already had. My best friend lives in another city, so I know what a long-distance relationship is. I just was not sure how to build new connections when you finished all studies, have your own family, and don’t hang out because you are ready to zonk out at 22.30.

I calmed down when I started meeting people in Canada who are open-hearted and supportive. Surprisingly the online space was giving me trouble. Here is why.

LinkedIn is blocked in Russia, don’t ask me why. Of course, some professionals and companies still use it, connecting to the web with VPN and special browsers, but being an English instructor I had no need to have a profile there. I knew that it’s crucial for the American labor market, so when we got an invitation to apply for visas I downloaded that “special” browser. It took me sooo long to start a profile because of the low-speed connection. Anyway, I won. Now what? I didn’t know what to do next. I just waited until we moved and settled to figure out how it works.

Here we are, “Welcome to Canada!”. I started my job search, and the best tool for that is LinkedIn, right? But the majority of people I wanted to connect with were hidden from me because I didn’t have enough connections. I now have only 29, and I noticed that people don’t connect as fast as on other social media. They are not eager to accept someone they don’t know, but I can’t meet them in person, I don’t work with them and we don’t have mutual connections. You see, this is a vicious circle.

The online space where you are supposed to feel free and be able to reach out to anyone made me an outsider. I didn’t belong there. I still don’t, but I care less.

Have you ever felt left out because of the social media?

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Discover 5 Amazing Things Canadians Take For Granted

It’s human nature to compare. As an immigrant, I compare every day. After spending almost a year here, I noticed that there are five awe-inspiring things that you wouldn’t pay attention to if Canada is your home country. Let me know if I’m right!

1. Sky and Personal Space

My home city is twice as small as Edmonton, but 200.000 more people live there. To make a picture clearer: about 25% of Edmontonians live in apartments. In my home city, this proportion is close to 90%.

When we just moved here the air, the distances, and the space seemed astonishing. Now I’m more used to this insane feeling of freedom. Yet, every time I look at the sky hugging everything around me, I’m on the verge of crying. This freedom affects people: they respect your private space — a priceless thing for me. In my home town, I felt insecure because of all the stares and glares. I thought there was something wrong with my hair or my outfit was inappropriate, or the lack of makeup. Here I am comfortable no matter what I’m wearing or doing.

2. Sun and Green

Moving from the south of Russia I didn’t expect Edmonton to have so much sun. I was more afraid of wintertime and even bought a wool vest (which I never wore). The amount of sun you get here is unbelievable. A day when it’s -30 and the sun is shining is a blessing since the winters I’m used to were all gloomy, wet, and dirty.

We did our research before choosing Edmonton. When I saw “Edmonton has more than 800 parks” I couldn’t believe my eyes. Now I know that sometimes a couple of trees and a bench can already be called a park. At the same time, those huge parks scattered all over the city make me forget that I live in a capital city. I’ve never seen so much wildlife in my entire life: squirrels, hares, owls, ducks, and geese. A different life right next to you — a fantastic feeling.

3. Support for Parents

Last weekend I was looking for a new place to visit with my little one. I saw cool theme playgrounds: life under the sea, dinosaurs, bear lodge, space, etc. Every time I see a playground here I ask myself “Is it free?”. Of course, I know that we pay taxes to have that infrastructure. But in Russia I paid taxes as well and had nothing of the kind.

No one gives you the stink eye if your baby is crawling around the store or playing with dishwashing sponges. As a parent, I am more confident here.

4. Customer Service

It was a striking experience. We were checking in for our flight from Toronto to Edmonton. It turned out that we had booked extra baggage space which we didn’t need. It was around 50 bucks. When the lady at the desk told me that I could only reply “well, it’s our bad, no worries”. She spent the next 10 minutes trying to hack the system and return our money. I was shocked: she went the extra mile without being asked.

Our first steps to starting a new life were to rent an apartment and to buy a vehicle. We were sure that public transport would be enough for the first days (that was a big mistake by the way). So we went to several dealerships using LRT, buses, and on foot. When we were at the last dealership the agent found out we had no car and were traveling around the city on foot with a stroller. Instead of saying “That must be hard” she offered us a drive home. I mean, it was the first time she saw us, we didn’t buy anything with her and it was the end of her workday. But she was eager to help. This is the customer service I never got in Russia.

5. People

So we moved at the end of September, and Christmas was already in the air. I was sure it would be an ordinary day for us since we had no friends or relatives here. What happened is more like a fairy tale: a colleague at my first job invited us to celebrate Christmas with her family. Needless to say, it was so heartwarming I was crying before we left home.

Everyone said “Welcome to Canada!” after hearing that we moved a couple of months ago. They asked polite questions respecting our boundaries and offered help. It is a pleasure to share our story, for sure.

We got so much support that I haven’t been homesick at all.

If you are a Canadian, do you appreciate or notice these things? If you are an immigrant, do you agree?

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Why one letter matters, or am I just being bizarre?

“My name is Katrina”

This is what I say when I talk to people with hearing issues and those in a hurry. Actually, I am Katerina, and I do love the way it sounds in my mother tongue, with a royal sharp “r”.

Names are labels. You know, if a Peter broke your heart, you’ll try to avoid all the Peters you ever meet. The same is true for numbers. We normally use them to represent us as professionals, so my professional numbers are:

  • 6 years of university studies
  • 3 years of experience teaching English
  • 2 IELTS exams with 9.0 for Speaking

My personal meaningful numbers are different:

  • 1 sister who I love so much I let her borrow my clothes
  • 8521 km between me and my friends and family
  • 1 kid who breaks my heart every day and heals my soul when falls asleep next to me every night

And one blog which I’m starting to develop as a writer. Dream big, right? Start with small steps. Let’s see where this road goes.

Are your meaningful numbers different from the professional ones?