So this website is still giving me issues. I may have fixed something tho, I don’t know if it will help. Maybe. It kept saying I had to update even though it was all updated, so I renamed the maintenance file maintenanceold and for whatever reason it worked. Thanks WordPress support.

So what is up with me? Well, my video game is a LOT more advanced and working as it should, I just might add some more assets and MAYBE another scene, besides the title beginning and end scenes I have to make. So I am thinking about it. I also need to do some thinking about music and sound effects, since I now know how to add them in Unity. So that’s kind of cool. I have until October, but the sooner I finish the better really.

I went to therapy today and ran through the rough list of things I had on my mind. Overall I think my progress in meeting personal goals is going well. I’m trying to stretch myself more emotionally though, for a few reasons. One is that I have noticed I keep my feelings pretty close to my chest, which isn’t very good for forming relationships or even friendships. So I am going to try and be more open about my feelings with friends. Another thing is I have not properly dealt with my grief around my Grandpa dying this spring, and also I think I probably stuffed deep down my feelings about my Grandma dying when I was doing my Masters in 2014. So I am going to try doing some simple things like writing letters as if they are being written to Grandpa, and lighting a candle at a certain time of the week and just thinking about them. I also think it is time for me to put up the pictures I have of them. I feel like I haven’t properly cried about it, and when the grief does hit me it’s at times when I am woefully unprepared or unable to deal with it. I know that’s just a thing that happens with grief, it goes on it’s own schedule. But if I could set aside at least some time to really think about them, it would help.

I hate that this laptop is so warm on a warm night when I want to cool down! FUCK!

There’s a case going on in Saskatchewan right now where a white settler farmer shot an Indigenous man who was in a car of other Indigenous people on the farmer’s property trying to get help for a flat tire. The man, Colten Boushie, was shot in the head and died despite not being any kind of a threat. It’s a very sad case, and there’s been a lot of racist hatred spewing out of people online in Saskatchewan. And for those of us who are Indigenous and live or lived in Saskatchewan, while it is shocking to see how cavalierly people advocate for our murders, it’s also not entirely surprising. It’s really getting me down, and being so far away I feel pretty helpless about the whole situation. As more facts trickle out, it gets sadder and sadder. I recently heard from someone who was at the rally in North Battleford and talked to his brother, that Colten was on a date with his girlfriend when he was murdered. The way the RCMP and the media tried to spin the story was that the Indigenous people were there to steal things, when it was a flat tire that made them seek help. In fact, a couple days later an article came out about a white settler farmer who was caught with stolen property from other farmers. So it was all misplaced hatred at an easy target, Native people. I hate it. I’m glad I left Saskatchewan but at the same time it’s where I grew up and I feel pretty angry that there were so few options for me to stay there and make a life. My reserve is in Saskatchewan, my traditional lands are in Southern Saskatchewan, even though people scorn the landscape, it’s something I feel a real connection to.

I can’t live in Saskatchewan for two big reasons, one is that there’s no film industry there anymore, and while some people think I’m gonna just make experimental shorts my whole life, that’s not actually my plan, as nice as experimental shorts are. And for another reason, the people who are doing the hiring are just as racist as any other Saskatchewan resident, which means there’s a big problem with my people not being employed even when we are trained and educated. My Mom couldn’t even get a full time teaching job with the University of Saskatchewan art department because people there were so racist. It’s not fair and that’s just the way it is. It’s gonna take some serious deprogramming for people to accept Indigenous workers.

I don’t really know if racist hiring practices are at work in Toronto too, but I haven’t gotten an interview, so who knows. At the same time, I am still trying to be a full time filmmaker and do my own projects, and I have a tentative plan for the next year to survive, it’s just very dependent on funding bodies. So nervewracking. I have an important meeting next week to talk about some things relating to a major project I have been working on, so I am hoping it goes amazingly.

Anyway, I really hope this website finally smartens up. Maybe that maintenance file was the last problem. Maybe things are resolved now.