Sonya's Patates Braavos: Edition #5 💌🥔

TLDR: St. Patrick's Day, Eve Barlow, Business

welcome note 👋 

Hello, brave patates! Don’t worry, I didn’t forget about you. I was celebrating St. Patrick’s Day in Toronto ☘️ David and I saw the parade and then found ourselves at an unsuspecting Belgian pub with absolutely delicious schnitzel (mine was in a Jagermeister peppercorn breading!) where we enjoyed a Guinness pint.

ICYMI, you can read past newsletter editions here. Enjoying your time here? Share with others!

random cool things corner

• Profound Andrew Huberman (Stanford Neuroscientist) video on why enjoying the process is key for your dopamine release and quality of life: if you only chase rewards or pre-work and after-work helpers like coffee and drinks, you will spike your dopamine and dread the actual process. The trick is to learn how to get dopamine out of the process so you enjoy the journey and not the destination only. Key to the growth mindset.

• I attended the International Film Festival of Ottawa (IFFO) opening and met Armenian-Canadian filmmaker Atom Egoyan who was kind to take a photo with me. His new film “Seven Veils” is dark, haunting, and an incredibly tight storyline that will keep you on the edge of your seat the entire time, while you listen to Straus’s Salome performed by the Canadian Opera Company in Toronto. He was the Opera director for remounting the iconic and twisted production.

• I attended an incredible Jewish pride event with Eve Barlow (journalist and activist, writer of #1 Substack “Blacklisted” - highly recommend), Ben M. Freeman (Holocaust scholar and writer), Shai Deluca (interior designer and speaker), and Dana Levenson (former CTVNews anchor and speaker). Want to know what it’s like being a Jew? The event location was only released 24 hours before and we were not allowed to tell anyone or share it on social media. There was a security presence and a cop car parked outside. It was in a random industrial area. Because the speakers got sieged into their buildings at previous events. Because it’s 2024, in Canada, and it’s dangerous to be a proud Jew or gather in groups. The event organizers did a wonderful job of keeping everyone safe, there was a shuk (market) with cool items, and we even made a new friend! It felt like a breath of fresh air to feel safe around people and know you are on the same page.

business updates

• Visited my B2B high-tech design agency client on-site in their Kanata North office. They work with companies like Nokia, Calian, and Blackberry QNX. Very cool.

• My favourite client asked me to write a new sick story for his new business. Can’t wait to share more.

• Sent an estimate to a prospect I got from a Facebook group. He said he was going with someone else and I felt a sense of relief—creating the estimate was a good practice but we’re not the best fit for service and value. You win some, you lose some!

• Developed seven solid services I provide.

reading list 📚 and ⭐️NEW: subscriber submissions⭐️

• Covered a mother artist exhibition at OAG, which raised some questions.

• Covered a Women’s Day exhibition at a private gallery and had some things to say.

• Did you see something cool or meaningful this week? Reply to my email with the link and I will include it in the next edition!

food corner

I made a beet, strawberry, and feta cheese salad. I roasted the beets and it took 5 years to peel off their little skins.

I also made a strawberry matcha latte at home and even made my own strawberry syrup (which is just mashing strawbs with sugar and letting it rest in the fridge for 30 minutes).

politics corner: Israel-Hamas war 🇮🇱🇵🇸

• A director who made a film about the Holocaust refuted his Jewishness at the Oscars 🤦‍♀️ we refute you too, Glazer. Holocaust Survivors Foundation USA Open Letter to Glazer.

• Huge celebrities wore red pins for a ceasefire—the pins have red hands which is a symbol from when a few Palestinians lynched two Israelis… Incredibly offensive, ignorant, and unhelpful to reach any actual solution. Can’t imagine the public outcry if another group wore a pin symbolizing the lynching of a minority group.

• A random dude at IFFO was wearing a shirt with the map of Israel on it, with the words “occupied” across it. So the whole country is occupied? By the Israelis? Do you need a history lesson? How about when the Kingdom of Israel was destroyed by the Neo-Assyrian Empire in 720 BCE? How about the Romans that occupied the land and burned down the Jewish Second Temple and Jerusalem and renamed the land of Israel to Syria Palaestina? Have you even read the Wikipedia page for Israel? BOTH Palestinians and Jews are indigenous to the land. Jews returning to their ancient homeland of Israel is the greatest Indigenous revival in our history. If you are saying Israel is entirely occupied, then where should the Jews go? You want them to have no country and who should rule there instead, Hamas? Solid choice, congrats! Why don’t you go visit Gaza next? I’m sure they’d welcome you with open arms. By the same token, why do you live in Canada, which is occupied by the European settlers? What you doing about that?