2014

  • I left the mountains. I’m still not sure how I feel about that.
  • I lived in Montréal for two winter months. It wasn’t quite enough to get a sense for the city, but I know it a bit better now. I got around with English, particularly around McGill, but it’s not the ideal way to do things.
  • Participated in my first professional conference, PyCon 2014! It was fun and I will be back in April 2015. Palais des congrès de Montréal is a fantastic space and one of my more aesthetically-pleasing moments of the year came when I found a side aisle with an oasis of quiet and sun and electricity and World Sick on headphones and it reminded me how much I enjoy looking out on cold sunny days.
  • I went to Cuba and it looked like communism in the sun, complete with concrete bus shelters and road overpasses to nowhere. I also briefly visited Kitchener-Waterloo and spent a weekend in Quebec City in early April (it was still snowy and wintery).
  • I had a week-long layover in Iceland at the beginning of May and tried to make the most of it going around the island and into the Westfjords; a bit too compressed but still amazing.
  • I moved to London! I walked around London and didn’t get hit by a cab; I biked around London and didn’t get hit by a bus. See my post after three months and it’s been getting better since.
  • Out of London, I did the tourist thing and visited Stonehenge; went up to Edinburgh for a weekend of the Fringe Fest; and travelled from Prague via Munich through Switzerland.
  • I visited Poland at the end of the year, my first time in the country in 13 years. I was a little apprehensive — as a grown-up I’d been a Polish person, but I was always a Polish person abroad. Now I was briefly a Polish person in Poland. And I was alright at it. I could do it! I could be a Polish person. I didn’t fully fit in, but in the normal ways I don’t fit in in Canada: social awkwardness, etc.
  • I got a Nexus 5 and I broke the screen within half a year. My thoughts are mixed, a mini-review is forthcoming.
  • I had earphones and listened to a decent amount of music. Foremost were FM Belfast’s new album, Broken Social Scene, Crystal Castles, and The Rural Alberta Advantage including their new album. A new Stars album came out but I didn’t listen to it that much.
  • On a more mainstream note, Lorde’s Pure Heroine turned out to be a perfect city-by-dark album in November and December, Underworld’s Barking a close second.
  • I saw a satisfying amount of live music, not quite as much as in 2013 but no 2012-level drought either (last.fm, setlist.fm). I saw Broken Bells in Montréal, Owen Pallett twice, Mogwai, The Twilight Sad twice, Ólafur Arnalds, The Notwist, The RAA, and reunion shows from The Jesus and Mary Chain and Slowdive.
  • Musical moments:
  • January 25, 9 a.m., Vancouver late winter sunrise, driving a white Modo minivan over the Fraser Bridge southbound, Lorde — Royals
  • April 14, Montréal afternoon, first blast of summer, Young Galaxy — New Summer
  • late fall, London early-dark afternoon, Lorde — Team
  • We are faster than you and you know that we are strong.