Five-day long weekends

In Quebec, if there were something akin to Japan’s “Golden Week,” it would probably be around June 24th, “Quebec National Holiday,” to July 1st, “Canada Day.” Children’s schools usually finish around June 22nd, marking the start of their two-month-long summer vacation.

Thankfully, my workplace has “Summer Fridays.” We get nine Fridays off during the summer, from around Quebec National Holiday until mid-August.

Actually, last month I switched from working five days a week to four. At this age, free time is more precious than money. Of course, my income dropped to 4/5, but as my income decreased, my tax bracket apparently shifted down, so I actually end up with an extra $5.8 per day. It seems like a better deal cost-wise, ironically! 😅

Combining these two holidays with Summer Fridays, plus my four-day work week, I’ll have two consecutive weeks with only two workdays each. That’s two five-day breaks! I wish I could just make it a two-week vacation, but since I’m still a salaried employee, I don’t have that kind of freedom, which is a shame. (In my case, I took my summer vacation during this period last year, so it’s my colleague’s turn this year.)

Despite these wonderful consecutive days off, fortunately or unfortunately, I have absolutely no plans!

Maybe I’m being spoiled, but I’m not good at skillfully creating something in fragmented bits of free time, and that concentrated creative time I need never seems to come. Usually, noise and interruptions pop up one way or another, and each day just slips away. Thanks to this long break, I finally got that “concentrated time.”

During the first five-day break, I finished about 30 super-rough pages, not even close to what you’d call a proper storyboard. This part of the process is truly tough.

And now, after deciding it wasn’t good enough and re-editing the script, it looks like it will be 64 pages long this time. So, I’ll be redoing the storyboard during the second five-day break… But I want to believe I’ve at least taken a step forward. I’m so grateful for this long break!

Cheers to Summer!