On Spontaneous Eloquence

“My vocabulary dwells deep in my mind and needs paper to wriggle out into the physical zone. Spontaneous eloquence seems to me a miracle.” – Vladimir Nabokov, Strong Opinions

In May I spent more (than usual) time worried about the words I choose in everyday language. I became acutely aware of the differences in my written speech and my spoken one. I noticed that I had opted out for simple, quick words that popped into my mind like fireworks, instead of selecting the vivid and precise boulders of usually longer and mostly unpopular words. Words that communicated the meaning exceptionally, but words that also don’t spring into action at the slighted fancy of the brain. The words need mining. While I wanted to give them some spotlight, I ended up using the simplest normal words.

The more chipper, satisfied and energetic I was, the more my speech resembled a basic soap opera set. Exaggerating, I’ll even say, my speech was caveman-like! Sentence structure, all sorts of exclamations and exclamation marks. Well, the usual me, I guess, hehe.

Having learned English as a second language, I’ve always paid attention to my vocabulary, words I use, metaphors I create and more. Knowing more than one language makes you appreciate the variety of expressions that already exist and that could be created. Writing was not a problem. Writing allows for apt word selections and swollen metaphors because of the comforts of time and editing options, while speaking in person demands mental dexterity and immediate responses. I also couldn’t understand the incongruence between my written language and my spoken one. What the …!

So I entertained this worry until I ran across the aforementioned quote by Nabokov in Strong Opinions. That definitely relaxed me. Consulting with a couple of fellow lovers of words and letters, I found out it’s not an usual concern. Moreover, it made me consciously make an effort to give some air time to words we sometimes only see in print.

Progress! Yesterday for the first time I noticed that, while telling Meghann a story, I deliberately thought about colorful metaphors to employ. I took the time to summon a lengthier and sometimes even more pompous word where a simple one could suffice. I realized that ever since I consciously made an effort to decorate in-person parlance with more book-like words, I’ve been making some success. Now the only task is to continue to collect and use more of these epic words

Fun Update: randomly searching the web, of course, yielded this paper: “Consequences of Erudite Vernacular Utilized Irrespective of Necessity: Problems with Using Long Words Needlessly” . I smirked. Tell that to the author himself!

I’d like to say that I believe there is a difference between literary, fiction-oriented writing and to-the-point writing style of the everyday (journalistic, business, too). I just like my goddamn language, so I will savor every word I can.

On the other hand, I, too, was annoyed when students mindlessly employed long words to add potential zest to papers. But never in my life have I discounted someone’s intelligence just because they used complex words. And knew when to use them. More often than not, their speech was also more entertaining, with puns and humor, jokes and various references.

Year-Long Personal Project

On Sunday my friend and the talented photographer Eugen Sakhnenko updated his Twitter with “Working on Atlas – I love this project! I recommend everyone take-on a consistent longterm personal project.” And I thought, Damn Straight!

Then I thought about what my year-long project was. I mean, I had the 2010 strategy lined up and I get back to it every month and review. So that’s a project. In fact, to make sure that I follow my personal goals, I take advantage of the “Future planning” section in my analog planner (that’s right, I don’t use neither Calendar nor notes on my iPhone). Every month has 4-5 lines on which I can write my monthly goals. So far I have achieved every goal, except one. That’s been 14 things that I did. Some are simple, some are literally month-long (like my growing “Go to the gym _ times this month”) and so on. The point is, I set a goal OR a project and worked on that for a month. There are some improvements I could make, but give me a break, I’m learning and already doing a whole truckload of stuff.

But what about the creative side? To my defense, four of my friends and I have started a Photo Club where we disperse assignments to each other and come back a month later with prints of our work. That’s going well, albeit slow at times since we need to accommodate everyone’s schedule.

Then I realized that my creative ish project is the 3-books-a-month. I set out to read three books a month.Why? I like reading, I’ve always done it. Back in high school I’d read a book a week, but university killed that ambition. Now is my chance to read what I missed, to learn more and to improve my own writing. JUST LISTEN TO DR SEUSS: “The more that you read, the more things you will know / The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.”

I’m at 7 books right now, and have 100 pages to go in my current reading material. Plus, I’ve almost finished another book. So that will be 9 by March 31 (or a few days into April. Don’t be afraid to spill into a new month).

In 3 months I will update with my list of 18 and, hopefully, more Look at me and my S.M.A.R.T. goals. Priceless.

What are your year-long projects, if any? You can start at any time, you know.

I Hit the Jackpot, or Checkmark One of My Dreams

Four years ago I was sitting in the David Lam library at Sauder School of Business (University of British Columbia, Vancouver) and researched the “enemy” trenches. That is, I was looking at university programs in Toronto, Ontario.

Back then I realized that finance wasn’t for me. I mean, I could do it if I set my mind and heart to it, and I had flashes of success, but I also suffered from delusions. I kind of was lying to myself about financial sector being rewarding enough for me. I think I was doing the finance program to subconsciously appease dad because, really, he wanted to do it in Canada, but couldn’t for many reasons. Anybody who immigrated knows of potential career complications.

But to move to the brighter side: back in January 2006 I realized that I needed to get into advertising (and marketing). I always thought and daydreamed about it, always saw it as the right mix of creative and analytical… Advertising was the way. And since I worked pretty hard to get into west coast’s awesome business school, I didn’t want to give it all up and go into Arts at Ryerson (no offense, but those of you who dealt with either, or both, know what I mean) or start from scratch at OCAD’s Ad program. So I went for Marketing major and Finance minor at Ryerson.

…I got it with no problem, picked my courses, including hindrances like Stats 2 (I already did the whole year in the course of one semester at UBC), ITM 102 and other crap. But I had to suck it up.

In fall 2006 I moved to Toronto with only two suitcases, knew one person in the city well, and lived at a random house for a month. I set out some goals. I networked, I worked hard, I reached my academic goals (Deans list and Golden Key), I always worked part-time, I interned, I hustled and hustled and hustled. There were semesters where every week I only had one day off (and even then I had to study), or none at all. And yet I met the most people and partied harder than ever. I tried my hand at entrepreneurship and whatnot. I also learned as much as I could, asked difficult questions and always checked in with my inner self to make sure I was going the way I wanted to go.

In the past year I’ve steered in a general direction of where I wanted to go but I hadn’t quite hit the advertising agency jackpot. The biggest problem was me refusing to do internships for free. I put 3 hard years into communications, marketing, entrepreneurship, online marketing and social media jobs and positions. I simply can’t afford to not get paid. Who’s going to pay rent and bills; and the student loan? So I sucked it up and kept plowing, waiting for the perfect moment.

NO was not an answer.

Hard work was the way. Meeting people was the way. Marketing myself was the way. Sticking to my word was the way. Sticking to ethical practices was the way. Sticking to my heart was the way. Sticking to health and physical activity was the way. All of a sudden I had the most amazing vision of the future and the most fervor than ever before (recall my December and January posts).

This February I jumped the gun and got an interview at the raddest interactive agency (in my opinion) and wham bam I’m in their strategy team!!!! When I got the offer, I squealed like a piglet on the call with mom.

I worked so fucking hard for this. You guys have no idea how many all-nighters I pulled for business cases, for industry reports, for essays (btw, Philosophy Award, y’all), for all the stuff that I finished for myself or for group mates. Or how much personal life shit I went through in the first three years since my move. There’s a lot of blood that I shed for all this and I’m ready to give up even more, if needed.

Because I AM WHERE I WANT TO BE. All these years I had this vision. And today I am living in it. I have amazing opportunities ahead of me – international, national. Today, more than ever before, I am surrounded by inspiring, intelligent and interesting people. I have a chance to hit the gas pedal and shoot into infinity. Every morning I can’t wait to spring into action. I’m still just learning the ropes at this agency, and I’m thankful for that. Because soon I’ll be thrown into the water and it’s sink or swim from there.

I am lucky, yes. But I also made my luck my whole life.

I also realized that I can do anything I want. I could always have done anything I wanted. With my personality, passion, ideas and drive – the world is seriously my oyster, and crab, and lobster and all kinds of shrimp. Some people fall back on business and other “solid” professions because they’re scared. Or because they’re pressured into it. Or what-ever. Doesn’t matter. Other people are afraid to do something creative or risky because, well, it’s really risky. I can go into anything (well, except medicine) and succeed. This wonderful development in my life just proved that. And made me tad bit more ambitious. Actually, a lot more ambitious.

On that note, my personal development goals now revolve around artistic pursuits. Stay tuned to hear about creative successes.

I’m just gaining speed. I’m just gaining speed.

Atlas Not Shrugged [Projects]

My friend and a very talented photographer Eugen Sakhnenko started a 52-week long project on November 30. It is called ATLAS, and it is a weekly portrait blog that features interesting people. In his own words, it’s about “people that are doing something interesting with their lives.”As it stands, most of the people are from Toronto area, although Eugen has photographed bestselling authors and successful entrepreneurs from New York, too.

During the week of December 7, 2009 I was a featured person. I’m very glad that Eugen asked me to participate after he attended Slow Art (which I hosted in Toronto on October 17). I feel that it’s important to highlight and encourage people that are doing something exciting with their lives. Moreover, I like that this is a year-long project and social media-fueled. Readers can connect with those featured in the project, they can learn more about them and strike up a conversation. We’ve been retweeting announcements at the beginning of each week. I personally am lobbying for an excellent wrap-up party next year.

Please check out my profile and leave a comment It would be much appreciated, and you can learn more about me, if you’re interested. Moreover, stay tuned to more awesome peeps popping up every Monday morning on the same photo blog.

Coco Avant Chanel

Yesterday I cast in stone a decision to really do things my way and not to settle for pebbles. You see, tiny doubts and bad idea bears have crept around my cozy crypt (for alliteration’s sake), but not anymore. Do you even know how difficult it is to remain oneself in the world that is constantly harassing you to be a caricature of yourself? Dear Ralph Waldo Emerson said: “To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.”

Gabrielle Chanel did exactly that.

The first thing I did after watching Coco Avant Chanel is go to The Auteurs and add the film to my profile. There I saw 2-3 reviews by self-proclaimed cinephiles, saying they were disappointed about the lack of flair, flashy fashion and epicocity that the Paris fashion was then. What? Did you even read the title of the film!? The execution was subtle, and increasingly Chanelesque in composition and tone. Look what some idiot wrote: “Was expecting much more nuance and flair in the filmmaking, but all it contained were overdetermined references to Chanelesque style points: black & white, pearls, lace, and whatnot. Riveting?”  Gosh.

I viewed the whole story as a non-stop series of transformations; about the men and women, her surroundings and other elements that influenced her. Subtle, a little slow, but always emotionally vibrant. It’s also about true love, inspiration, determination and support. It’s not about how cool it must’ve been to be mademoiselle Chanel. It’s about being a strong woman going against the current. At least in my opinion.

In fact, what people labeled “plainliness”, I called elegance. Where some were looking for color and fluff, I was sensing the weight and texture, to somewhat speak in fashion terms. I loved Audrey Tautou; in my world she is on par with Anouk Aimee and Anna Karina. I think we all fell for Alessandro Nivola’s  (Yale grad btw) character a little too. But my favorite part is that it was not a rags to riches via marriage (thus complete denial of Gabrielle’s self) story, but a rags to riches via unrestrained imagination, hard work and daring to be different.

Following Tetro

To add to my previous post, the review of Tetro – I was the youngest person in the audience, it seems. Why is it that I was the youngest person in the whole theatre? Do young people do not watch Francis Ford Coppola? Do young people have no interest in cinema? Do young people even care about themes expressed in the movie?

The whole time I was watching it, I was thinking about following my dreams, about not going with the flow, and about not settling for the average. I’ve been told by my parents and by good friends and all sorts of people that it’s all right to lower my expectations and just take whatever “best” is available at my disposal. But my disposal restrains me to one city, to downtown, to be precise. And “my disposal” is actually not a limited radius, but an ever changing circle of desires, goals and aspirations.

And not even that. I was thinking about how with time I’ve had reoccurring thoughts of “Perhaps, I should go with this, perhaps, this is all right”. On some days I’m almost ready to shut down my wanderlust and the desire to leap into the unknown. I never, never feel that this is it. Everywhere I’ve been and lived, I knew that it was all just a transitory period. No location is ever permanent, no set-up is ever to continue and to be made into a routine.

Only someone on the same path knows. The great earth is so vast, it makes people so utterly sad.
— Engo, in case 23 of the Hekigan-roku

Toronto Ignite

So I wanted to tell you that I’ll be speaking at Ignite Toronto on August 25, 2009 at the Drake Underground. Michele Perras asked me to participate, and since I’m a Yes woman, I went for it.

Now, if you’re not familiar with Ignite, you should know that these talks happen globally. Speakers go on stage in front of hundreds of people and tell a story in 5 minutes and 20 slides that auto-rotate every 15 seconds. That’s some pressure. O’Reilly Media is behind all this, and I should say that I’m really excited to participate.

Now, I’m nervous. I’m hella nervous – I haven’t really done any public speaking before, and although I’m quite outspoken and have no problem presenting in front of a class (given that I prepared, of course), this is going to be a lukewarm shower welcome into the world of speaking on stage. I’ve got a couple of strategies I want to test out, and – wow, – even a couple of jokes. If all else fails, my slides speak for themselves, I just need to do a jig.

Oh yes, I am speaking about art, one of my most favorite topics. I had to do a bit of reviewing and lecture notes-digging before compiling the presentation to assemble crisp and easy-to-grasp points down. After all, it’s more important to drive home key points instead of trying to explain everything. Conceptual art does not necessarily come in 5 minutes, but I will try to spread the love anyway.

The event is at the Drake Hotel, and unfortunately for my friends who haven’t RSVPed, it’s sold out. But perhaps I can bum a video off organizers.

The Dying Man

I was 17 at the time, and because I fell in love for the first time, I read a lot of poetry. I love reading, period. I read Prozac Nation the year before and the suffering smart girl image stuck to me; luckily I’m affected with what I consider a Serially Positive Person syndrome, so I could never succumb to the all-encompassing depression, but you can understand the appeal. Anyway, I discovered Sylvia Plath, and the beauty of suffering, self-sacrifice and generally batshit crazy circumstances.

I will write about Sylvia Plath another day.

I want to tell you about my discovery of The Dying Man. This poem was written by Theodore Roethke in memory of W.B. Yeats. It consisted of five parts, and it was one of the strongest poems I ever read. I can not remember the circumstances that brought me to this poem – whether we studied it in English 12 class, or whether I owe its acquaintance to the undegrad English classes at UBC. Whatever it was, I remembered my favorite line, which I would love to even take to afterlife with me: “The loose air sent me running like a child– I love the world; I want more than the world…”

The whole part IV, “The Exulting”, is an emotional tour de force, an in-depth look at the soul that’s thirsty for life, is full of childlike wonder and does not ever want to cease its being. Here is part IV in full:

Once I delighted in a single tree;
The loose air sent me running like a child–
I love the world; I want more than the world,
Or after-image of the inner eye.
Flesh cries to flesh; and bone cries out to bone;
I die into this life, alone yet not alone.

Was it a god his suffering renewed?–
I saw my father shrinking in his skin;
He turned his face; there was another man
Walking the edge, loquacious, unafraid.
He quivered like a bird in birdless air,
Yet dared to fix his vision anywhere.

Fish feed on fish according to their need:
My enemies renew me, and my blood
Beats slower in my careless solitude.
I bare a wound, and dare myself to bleed.
I think a bird, and it begins to fly.
By dying daily, I have come to be.

All exultation is a dangerous thing.
I see you, love, I see you in a dream;
I hear a noise of bees, a trellis hum,
And that slow humming rises into song.
A breath is but a breath: I have the earth;
I shall undo all dying by my death.

PS.  Jellyfish photo is mine. (c)

Gimme 15, Gimme 20, Gimme 30

I’ve been saying this for two years now: “When I graduate and have a decent job, I will get a personal trainer to get in stellar shape.” This phrase became especially important when last semester I fell into Pizza Pizza’s trap and final examinations’ pit. Then I spent three weeks aboard a couch in my home base in Vancouver, and you can figure that my lady self-consciousness and body image concerns shot up (LOL).

So in April, my month of taking control and shooting forward through the highways of life, I went and got a membership at Extreme Fitness gym. Reserve your criticisms of this gym, please, I’ve done my research. Roger complained about Extreme, because there are a lot gym rats and avid bodybuilders that it’s not always pleasant to pump iron around them. On the contrary, this ardent drive sparks my own motivations to work out and PUSHHH TEH LIMITSSS. I just love this whole, YEAH! GO! attitude that’s at Extreme Fitness, because it sets my blood on fire.

I got a personal trainer and now love working out. He’s awesome, but many muscles keep hurting for days (although stopped this week). I am in the conditioning stage for another 8-9 weeks, after which I step into the muscle building stage and meet with a nutritionist to develop a proper meal program. On top of training 3x a week, I burn 1000 or more calories a week by running, however, I’ve yet to make hot yoga a definite staple of my workout week. Besides having to adjust a couple of elements of my current diet and burning even more calories, I’m on the right path and feel energized, happy and in control of my own self. *Runs off to the gym*

Bragging About Education Is Totally Acceptable

“Winning is not everything, but wanting to win is.” Vince Lombardi

I’ve been transcribing last term’s successes as well as its struggles on Twitter for the past four months now, but I’m done now, and would like to dedicate this post to my Bachelor of Commerce degree. I graduate with a 3.62 GPA, which likely puts me in a good position to apply to grad schools. I have not picked any specific programs yet, but they’ll most likely revolve around an MFA or a mix of MFA + MBA. Something new, something useful in tackling the future where I’ll be spending a lot of time.

It’s been a crazy ride, featuring Sauder School of Business (at UBC) and the Ted Rogers School of Management (Ryerson). Transferring credits set my graduation back one year, but no matter. Below I list some of the most valuable courses of my undergrad years for the skills they taught me and for personal and professional roads they opened:

1. Strategic Management – an amazing course taught by Steve Gedeon at Ryerson. The professor drilled into our heads the real value behind essentialization, or selecting and communicating most valuable information for decision-making purposes.  Answering the “So what” question is the second element that helped me to write stellar business plans and get my point across.
2. Modern and Postmodern Art - this course dipped me into the pool of beautiful as deeply as possible. I love them because not only did I learn about the key players of last century’s art scene, but I also discovered an infinite web of connections between pop culture, film, business and politics. And I try to keep tabs on my knowledge of art history.
3. Marketing Communications – mostly due to our dynamic professor Marla Spergel, I really enjoyed this course and got a taste of the advertising world. And also made a final and total decision to become part of it (the new advertising, v. 2.0 if you will).
4. Philosophy of Love and Sex – thank gods we got to pick electives; this course made me feel like I went through really amazing therapy sessions. Learned about multi-dimensional relationship dynamics, digged into the depths of “what is love and to love” questions and had the pleasure of working with one of the best and most entertaining professors I ever encountered – James Cunningham.
5. Industry Analysis – a.k.a. the economics of strategy. One of the hardest courses I’ve taken, full of readings and theory, it helped me grasp a better sense of strategy and market dynamics, made me want to read books on war, find joy in writing industry reports and standing my ground. The final A+ industry report I wrote is going into my portfolio of accomplishments.
6. Introduction to Quantitative Decision Making and Application of Statistics in Business – I combine these two classes into one, because they go back to back and are heavily related. Although I struggled through its first part, I cannot ignore its value because almost every finance-laden project and marketing plan needs it. I can also optimize with this baby and fight uncertainty. What a warrior. Stats will haunt us all forever.
7. Ethics in Finance – it sparked my interest in the markets that spreads beyond course content. It also set my ethical beliefs in a more responsible direction. Learned the root of the recent economic crisis and sincerely began to care for sustainable business practices, all thanks to the awesome Dr. Allen Goss.
8. Academic Writing - goes in hand with #1 because you need to be damn able to write coherently if you tamper with complex topics. Especially when your page limit is 10 and you have to communicate the essence of at least 40.

PS. 100th blog post

We Got 5 Years

5 years ago, when I was 17 and about to finish high school – first let me tell you, it was an exciting time because I was a genius in History 12, secured two hot career preparation program placements, got into the university of my choice, had a rockstar boyfriend, grand plans, read the some of the most influential books and was just so happy to reach the peak of my teenage days, – I wrote a collection of prose poetry a la Dreamtigers (you can read parts right here!).

Called From A Dreamtiger, with its mantelpiece is My Baby Krishna (the pictured object on the left), the collection centers on my perceptions of colors, relationships between numbers, memories of friends of the past, and travels. I was really proud of it because it was my first non-childish collection of pieces that really channeled . My writing instructors liked them, as well as MFA writing candidates that I used to talk to a lot. Back then I used to say that every five years I feel like writing about things from the past, and I will probably write about 2004 five years down the road.

In the past month I started to recall more and more little and big things from roughly 5 years ago – events, details, light, people, words exchanged. I remember the walks to the theatre in the falling snow, picnics in the forest, writing papers on the horrors of The Satyricon, frantically trying to comprehend the stock market in a race to win, Spanish visitors, multiple bars in Vancouver with equally multiple sins and vices, music and music and music, the film and modeling, bright future, eternal union, new member of the family, utter confusion borne out of fear of loss and changes, and more and more, expressed in frail and sensitive terms.

I feel the coming of the second chapter of my recollections, which I will add to the first and start looking for publishing opportunities.

You Like Girls? You Have to Know About Fashion Too

“…And that’s the way it is. That’s what I wanted to say.” 1 2 3 4 by Miss Kittin & The Hacker (download the MP3). I’ve grown increasingly annoyed with my wardrobe, as I still possessed 4-5 year old items that I would never wear again, despite my stubborn belief that I might use them. Last month I donated 2 garbage bags full of clothes, and I’m not done yet. My current wardrobe seemed disappointing too, as it represented a cool, eccentric university student look too much; the jackets, winter boots and sweaters were becoming a too old or too cute for my liking. So I decided to buy new pieces in line with the hip, sophisticated young woman image.

On a mission to sync my wardrobe with my new attitude and lifestyle, I randomly stumbled on a Henrik Vibskov unisex black crinkle trenchcoat at Delphic (they’ve got amazing stuff). Luckily it was on sale. I love its lightweight and interesting paper-like texture, metallic tone, and waterproof and windproof features. My interpretation is on the right (the belt makes all the difference), pardon the poor photo quality.

I also found a perfect elongated cardigan online, since the stores had either incredibly expensive goods (Henrik Vibskov yet again), or plain cardigans in boring colors. I found a Grey Ant knit cardigan ($352) at 75% off. More Henrik Vibskov – black stretch twill pant, originally priced at $236, and reduced to $59. If that isn’t great value for wardrobe defying pieces, then I don’t know what is. Can’t wait for them to arrive. Can’t wait for Jeffrey Campbell biz bootie – a perfect flat bootie with buckle detail, – to show up in the inventory, too.

High Achievements & Still Highs

Ibiza, Aug 2008. Rocking out with my socks out...

…on life Been hustlin’ and hustlin’ and hustlin’.

When I was at BBDO on Monday, the HR lady practically interviewed me right there and then. One of the many questions she asked me, “What was your greatest achievement?” Or the achievement I was most proud about. Historically, my victories have all been academic, as I haven’t actually embarked on that up-the-ladder journey (I’ll more likely be hopping up two or three ladders simultaneously) yet.

So, an achievement that I am most proud of so far is the one relating to me having gone from a B/B- GPA at the University of British Columbia (my finance dark days) to an A average, which then led to a Golden Key Society Membership. I have always been a straight A student, but some things happened at the university level and I had a lot of ground to cover to reach a Golden Key level. And I did.

Another achievement that I always think about took place in 1997 when my family just moved back to Russia (Magadan city) from Czech Republic (Prague). I was 11 and I forgot Russian at that point. But I quickly got it back. I was placed in grade 3, and our homeroom teacher presented us with a mathematical problem from the grade 6 curriculum. I did not have the math backing to solve the problem, but since all 40 of us 11 year olds had to present some kind of a solution to our teacher, I struggled. I struggled for 48 hours and couldn’t figure it out. I couldn’t figure it out until 2 hours before the class, when a strike of genius commanded my hand to write some grade 6 math gibberish (grade 8 by Western standards), and et voila – the satisfied and respectful face of my teacher always appears in my head when I do something amazing.