Sonya's Patates Braavos: Edition #9 💌🥔

TLDR: gochujang, Iran, dragons

welcome note 👋 

Hello, brave patates! This week, I was a very brave potato and drove myself to an event. I don’t own a car but I do have my full G. I practice when possible (driving my siblings to school and work in Guelph) and David (my bf) bravely trusts me with his car. Jk, it’s fine. Driving is a cool skill to have.

Toronto peeps, I am now here until April 23rd. Ottawa peeps, I will be in town April 23-May 10.

random cool things corner

• I placed in the Top 10 in my writing group at the NYC Midnight Short Story Challenge (2500 words, 8 days)! The judges liked my fairytale 🙂 I advanced to Round 2 and I am now submitting a 2000-word drama about a truck driver in just 3 days (due tonight at midnight!). Thanks to my pals for reading and providing feedback! If you want to read the fairytale or the drama, let me know.

• I made red lentil soup with a Korean twist. I didn’t have tomato paste so I used gochujang instead (hot pepper paste). Together with cumin, curry powder, and my own addition of powdered ginger, it was a flavourful hearty soup. Laziness breeds innovation indeed 😂

• Has anyone seen The Menu?! I’ve wanted to watch it for a while, and it delivered—a brilliantly tight narrative, dynamic visuals, and I always enjoy exploiting a topic to the point of absurdity. Impeccable acting on everyone’s parts and fun societal questions to ponder. The final scene killed me 😂

  

  On the topic of TV, after finishing Game of Thrones, we are now watching House of Dragon (prequel with the author as ED). It’s like… the exact same as GoT. I like that. They even have the same theme song. Except they take gore and sex to the next level sometimes. I’m enjoying the soundtrack, fashion choices, and visuals. Great feed for my drama short story 😂 Also Matt Smith in this?! 🥵

• 

business updates

• Allied Voices for Israel—an allyship-building non-profit completing educational workshops to combat antisemitism on university campuses—is hiring me to do a bit of work and I sent them my contract. Will be nice to do something meaningful and educational. Love their focus on coexistence.

• Someone I worked with 2 years ago reached out to me and introduced me to a Chinese AI design software company that needs copywriting. Their marketing person is in Singapore. I submitted my proposal in USD - a goal I’ve had for a while.

• Submitted an estimate to my old school mate who submitted a proposal via my Business’s Service Page on LinkedIn.

• Telfer hired me for two articles, interviewing successful alumni.

🇮🇱 

This week I was going to take a break and not write anything about the Middle East 😂 but the Iranian regime said no, thx 🤷‍♀️

Iran sent 300+ drones and rockets to Israel, for the first time directly attacking the country. The USA, the UK, Jordan, Egypt, France, and even Saudi Arabia helped intercept the threats together with Israel’s Iron Dome, reaching 99% interception! Someone told me once, “Israel has such a superior army, they are to blame…!” Plz ask yourself WHY they even had to invent an Iron Dome. It’s a goddamn miracle there’s even that country there or Jews.

Anyways, we knew this Iran attack was coming for a while. No one in the Middle East is really a fan of the Iranian extremist regime or their 19 (!) proxies (Hamas, Hezbollah, Huthies) either. I’m not feeling particularly scared about this “declaration of war.” I am feeling very grateful for the allies.

Other resources and context: Eve Barlow, Blacklisted.

Also, in an interrogation, a spokesperson for the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist group reveals the fabrication of stories for propaganda and manipulation of the media (Fox can be questionable. Other resources have confirmed this story).