sunshine in vancouver is good for the soul 🌞

💌 life in van (the highlights & lowlights)

in my previous newsletter, i mentioned my hectic travel plans of going to sf and alberta road trip with my team. the transition between the two trips was even more hectic than i had thought it would be - from our flight getting delayed from sf, staying up until 3am to get work done and re-pack, to then waking up at 5:45am to haul myself to the office and then leaving early for a 6pm flight to calgary. anyways, getting home was the BEST - during my work trip, one of the things i realized was how important it was for my mental health to go outside, and even take a walk. in alberta, it was like -22 everyday and we were in small towns so there wasn’t really anywhere to walk to (not that i wanted to walk in -22).

since being home, i’ve been running (omg how LONG has it been!!??!!), climbing (wow it’s been ages since i’ve touched rocks!!!!), cycling (cycled to seymour dam the other day 🥳), and hiking again (woot woot). it’s honestly just been so nice getting to do all those things again with the homies.

💘 some gratitudes this month:

• sf trip!! sf trip!! very grateful to have spent some quality time with the homies from edmonton 🥰 

• spending quality time with our neighbours with the quality time = skeletoning in whistler and penguin sliding down a mountain at 90km/h 🌟 

• spending very good quality time with the homies at our monthly potluck (which might be on pause for the next while since niall and i are swamped hehe) and at the joanna-indra-harmony bday party ✨ 

• just grateful to be living in van in such beautiful weather tbh - sometimes i think it’s so wild how i can literally always see the mountains and that i can get up there in 30-60 minutes ❤️ 

• niall + helium balloon being my models @ a cute lil wreck beach photo shoot (see below for a cute shot)

🚫 some anti-gratitudes this month:

• (still) feeling burnt out at work but it’s not showing up as apathy

• job market not being as active as i would’ve hoped it would be so my job hunt STILL PREVAILS 🫠

• my partner (at work) driving me home drunk from a team social in whistler wheeeee

👩🏻‍💼 corporate girlbossing without girlbossing too hard

this month, work has been alright, but busy. from grinding on three projects simultaneously (along with ten billion internal things), i feel like i finally had my first breathing day today. with my atco project wrapping up next week, i had some time to reflect on how it went.

to be honest, this was one of my favourite projects so far, and i’ve been able to identify components of the project that made it so good, including:

• my team on the atco project overall - it felt really empowering to have a manager that felt invested in me and my learning as well as a partner that trusts my work and expresses his appreciation (i.e., saying thank you, telling me i did a good job, etc.)

• the type of work - i realized in this project that i don’t hate consulting as much as i thought i did. rather, i really enjoyed attending the focus groups in alberta because i finally saw the value in my work and that experience really humanized the whole consulting thing for me

• the pace of the work - the pace of the atco project was super fast and i feel like we got so much done in such a short amount of time compared to more dragged out change management project. i liked working in a fast higher stress environment and just felt more productive overall

so who’s to say - maybe i don’t write off consulting completely but maybe it’s the type of consulting i specialize in…

🥤 sipping joos

man, what haven’t i been consuming this month?? first off, i’ve been watching (& forcing niall to watch) a bit of physical 100 season 2! nothing else notable tbh…

actually does anyone have any dress site reccos? my friend’s wedding is coming up at the end of june and i literally don’t know what to wear hehe

📈 personal stats i want to track