Tuesday night. Getting back into the groove of things with far too much ease, just like when I returned from the AirBnB odyssey on day 73-ish. Ho hum.

Today brought some objectively good news about my immigration process: the company’s lawyers have finalized my PR application and sent it off. At some point between now and February 4th, I should receive an update – hopefully one that would declare me an official permanent resident of Canada, eh. That’s certainly good news, but I’m just so worn out by the process at this point… (Reminds me of working so very hard to get a permanent full-time job at an Amazon warehouse after being a temp for six months. That was 10 years ago. When I finally got the coveted blue badge, I just sat there, satisfied and tired, as full-time employees in the breakroom congratulated me. Heh.) I wonder – and not for the first time – how different the world will be when that particular achievement gets unlocked.

And once I get my PR, I’ll be eligible to apply for Canadian citizenship just a couple of years down the road… I’ll be a proud Russian-American-Canadian in no time!

In covid news – and for once, not the American news, Australia’s state of Victoria has declared “state of disaster.” They’re entering a strict six-week curfew because of approximately 700 new covid cases. All in all, they had about 200 deaths. Granted, their population is about 1/13th of the US (25 million) but at this point, having 25×700 = 17,500 new cases per day would be a major win in the US. It’s impressive but also sad to see other, more functional countries take action while my former country is just shrugging this off. In another world, where I didn’t screw up my job interview, I would’ve secured my transfer to Australia in 2018. I would’ve lived through the massive forest fire of early 2020, followed by this six-week shutdown. That Aussie Grigory would’ve had an entirely different lived experience.

Back to the US, though: this interview between Trump and Jonathan Swan, an Australian journalist, really must be seen to be believed. If at some point in the distant future historians refuse to believe that Trump was a real person (or as bad as he was described), I hope the footage of this interview will survive. I hope the opposition party plays his “it is what it is” soundbite nonstop. He’s just… stupid. I don’t say that because I have different politics – I’m just calling it like it is. He’s irredeemably stupid in the same way that Carter was naive, and G.W.Bush was unprepared, and Obama was inexperienced. Just plain old stupid, arguing that the most important metric is the ratio of deaths to cases, even as more and more Americans get sick.

Someone online has joked that at some point, the White House will claim the US has the lowest ratio of covid deaths to acreage. While that’d technically be correct, it’d also be absolutely ridiculous – much like the way the Soviet Union used to brag that they produce more concrete per capita than any other country. So what, eh?

The US is in for a wild ride… Good luck, y’all.