vivi torontali

Not caught up? Read Episodes 1-11 here.

That’s right, you read that correctly. After about three months of living here, I finally got employed. A couple days ago, I was very anxious because it seems like all hope was lost– I only applied for jobs I thought I was totally qualified for, yet it seems that no company believed I was good enough for them. After pulling off four years in an expensive university to become a seasoned audio engineer and professional artist, all that seemed to come out of it was a mountain of student debt. The worst part is, I’m one of millions going through the exact same thing.

My neighbor found a job listing on Facebook for a small company called 20 Grams. It’s a pet-friendly brunch place in the center of Copenhagen with incredibly fancy food and a diverse crew of internationals. I sent them a bangin’ cover letter, and they responded within hours. I was called in for an interview bright and early on Friday morning, hand-picked out of 300 applicants. So I woke up earlier than I have in many months and made my way to the city center. I ordered a coffee and waited a few minutes for the interviewing manager. Luckily I finished my coffee before he showed up, because it turns out he was Hungarian. I was caught by surprise, as I was not prepared to be interviewing in Hungarian before 10am. It may have been my first language and yes, I am fluent, but I am by no means an eloquent speaker.

The café itself is filled with all kinds of antiques and art. There is a giant print of Princess Leia on the wall by the register, and there are model boats just like in my apartment. The interviewer (spoiler alert: now my boss) took me to the courtyard out back, where it was silent despite it being in the city center. There was a cat, a chicken, and a very large domestic rabbit, all frolicking about in the backyard like it’s nobody’s business. I was told the staff goes out back after close to hygge since the day can sometimes be stressful. I knew then that I’d fit in well.

I was given a trial shift the next day, where I started off by washing dishes and learning how to make some of the food. I had never worked in a restaurant setting– the goal was always to get the customer in and out as fast as possible. After my three hour trial shift, my boss called me and gave me the feedback the staff left, offered me the position, and said he wanted to pay me for the trial shift as well since I was so helpful. It feels good to be working for a small company that treats me like a human being. What’s even better is now my family is in a really stable spot. Three out of the four of us found work and thus my mom can take a little more time to find the perfect job that won’t overwork her broken foot.

I feel I must explain my work experience leading up to this. When I was 15, just barely legally allowed to work, I was hired as a cashier in my local grocery store, Market Basket. After about a year, I transferred to their café, where I worked for another year and a half. I was there when COVID hit, and as a direct result I was one of the first in Massachusetts to catch the virus since it was before the state shut down and there was no mask mandate. In June 2020 I was hired at my local Starbucks. I was doing my senior year of high school online, and after the school day ended I would go to work in both the Market Basket and the Starbucks on alternating days. When I went off to college in Vermont I quit both jobs, and then struggled for a while to find a place that would hire an out-of-state college student like me. I then found Bruegger’s Bagels, a bagel sandwich fast-food shop that offered student leave. I worked there in between semesters, and it was the most miserable experience of my life. I was overworked, underpaid and very much underappreciated. I quit when it was evident the store and the upper levels of management were falling apart and I only had a year of college left. 

Aside from these, I had many different positions in college. Last semester alone I was making a three-song album in ten weeks while working as a project leader at the study abroad office, a sound studio technician, and a teacher’s assistant for an introductory studio engineering class. On top of that, I ran a fundraiser for my class’s art materials so that we can get our projects done without having to spend our own nonexistent money. We sold our past artwork in the form of prints, cards, stickers, etc., and we were able to fully fund everyone’s needs. All these different jobs were very fun and rewarding, but I was doing 15 hours of classes a week, 20 hours of work, and another 20 hours of class projects. After I graduated, three months of unemployment was much-needed.

Now that I have a day job, I can start working on my other professional goals, my art. I knew I wouldn’t be able to make a living off my artwork, but now I have the space to create and dream again. The semester before I made my album, I made a series of 3D-printed mountains from hand-traced topographic maps. If you haven’t already, consider checking out my work. After graduation I lost my Adobe Illustrator license so I can no longer edit my files. I’ve been working on a physical sculpture of New Zealand’s Mount Taranaki, a conical volcano I only almost got to see in real life. I’ve been missing my access to Illustrator and a 3D printer, but now I have ways around it given some time and income. My goal right now is to create a 2D jigsaw puzzle using 3D puzzle pieces. If you steal my idea I will sue you.

Additionally, my table runner has finally advanced to a new section. If you think a two meter long embroidered table runner can’t possibly take that long, think again. I go to sleep with sore fingers and forearms every night because of how much I’ve been working with my hands lately. 

In an effort to help my family learn Danish, I started (and finished) yet another project in which I wrote a bunch of words describing household items on pieces of paper and stuck them around the apartment. Most of these words were nouns that Duolingo taught me. Our microwave now has “en mikrobølgeovn” stuck on it. Talk about home décor! I’m also almost done with the whole Duolingo course– hopefully by the next episode I’ll be able to write about finishing it. My dad randomly got a three day free trial of Super Duolingo Family Plan and shared it with the rest of us, so once those three days are up I’ll start my one week free trial that it’s been advertising to me every day for the past 250 days. By the time they “remind me two days before my trial ends,” I’ll have finished the course and I’ll never have to watch a Duolingo ad again.

In just three months, I went from a mattress on the floor in an empty apartment to a well-established, stable life. I have plenty of artwork to create, a Danish course to finish and a lot of ginormous brunch plates to serve people. Every day for a different reason I think to myself “I never thought I would…” My life has taken so many surprising turns and even more in the past three months alone. As always, thank you for taking time out of your week to read about mine.