A Year in Review
A year in Review
Technically I’m late. My year end would have been November 14th but with everything going on, it did actually slip my mind. Maybe subconsciously I toasted myself with a ginger ale Boylans’ but I’m pretty sure that’s a weekly toast anyways.
To start, I’d like to say that I’ve learned a lot the past year. Anyone can say that, but I definitely mean it. I think the biggest educational experience for me was learning how a powerlifting competition is run. I just always assumed the athlete walks up, does their lift and moves on to the other 2 lifts. But oh, there is so much more to that. There are height variations, there is depth, there is sumo vs conventional. There’s gear, there’s suits, there’s no gear and no suits. It was like a whole new world for me and I didn’t stop asking questions.
The next big thing of the year was goals. I had set a goal to be at 5 events and reach a certain monetary amount before the end of the year. I managed to be at 7 events and the 8th will be this weekend at BC Provincials. I did reach the monetary amount as well. With online sales like Black Friday/Cyber Monday, those contributed to the final push for the goal.
The most expensive lesson I learned this year was forgetting the conversion rate of USD to CDN. Ouch! I ordered supplies from the US, which arrived promptly and impressed me, but the kick to the wallet brought me to my knees.
On a personal level, when I see people that I don’t personally know, put my stuff in pictures/videos on Instagram/Facebook/social media, it makes me feel really proud and often makes me think of this meme:
Except I’m holding a shirt and not a baby otter because that would just be weird.
On the dark side:
While everything does sound good and optimistic, I do want to clarify that it is not all sunshine and rainbows and cotton candy. Trying to find suppliers to work with takes research and sometimes you have to pay for samples of their work to make sure it’s up to your own standards. And that’s even if they respond to your inquiries. The biggest disappointment has been that from an entire page of manufacturers, less than a handful have responded to my inquiries.
There are also the long days (and nights), always working on something. If it’s before an event, it’s making sure everything is packed and ready to go. If it’s after an online sale, packing everything up and shipping it out. Almost everyday, it’s updating the social media, emailing people, responding to messages/inquires. It’s always being “on”: seeing something and then working it over in your head to design it, criticize it and discard it only to do it again 10 minutes later when something else pops up. I have notebooks and scraps pieces of paper, full of ideas, it’s just a matter of bringing them to life.
But I love it all and will continue this journey.
For the next year, I’m looking forward to kicking it off at the UBC Powerlifting competition and am just finishing up some details for other comps (read: paying vendor fees). I’m also looking forward to releasing a little secret side project that I’ve been working on, stay tuned for that.
As 2016 comes to an end, I’d like to wish everyone a very merry Christmas and a happy New Year. Hope Santa leaves a lot of gains in everyone’s stockings.
Sadia Kuraishi
Silver Diablo
