The Pre-season

  Only a week left till the new semester starts, and it already feels like it's getting busier.

  I work as one of the orientation coordinators, which means my life right now is way more busy. As the day approaches, we got to make sure everything is set. Before this week, we call to do bookings and what not. Now, we call to make sure they arrive on time! The down side of St John's is that there's only so many businesses that deals in certain things (ex: everyone goes to the same Dominos for catering because it's the closest/ Everyone orders their swag T-shirts from the same company), and apparently there were cases in previous years that the stuff arrives late because they had lots to do that day. The final preparations are the most stressful, but it also kind of feels rewarding. The fruit of our labours are starting to come to fruition. The only problem I can see that my colleague and I aren't exactly public speakers, so I guess I kind of afraid of going up the stage and give us a speech during the orientation (and so does my colleague).

Figure 37.1: WELCOME WELCOME!

  Not only that, because classes are starting (and contracts and leases are expiring), I am helping friends move to their new places. Sometimes after work, I just goes straight to whatever place they were living and pick up some boxes and suitcases and whatnot and carry them to their new place. So, that's what I'm doing in the morning and the afternoon, what about the evening? Well, evening I play. I play and watch whatever video game or tv shows I want to watch before working on some other stuff. I've emailed the head of the stats department some time ago and he finally replied. I asked him about the viability of a stats degree and what not, and he reassured me that "yes, it's very viable". He also said some of his former students did some online course on SAS. I always thought R is transferable to SAS, but I did see some job postings where they only want SAS, so I guess I should start picking up SAS then! At night, before I sleep, I dabble in some Duolingo for German and Swedish). I've been trying to consistently doing the exercises on it. So far, it's pretty easy (as I did not exactly start from absolute beginner), but I'm sure the difficulty is gonna ramp up once it reaches a point, especially German.

Figure 37.2: Slowly but surely

    I've also been meaning to continue practicing American Sign Language. Unfortunately, I can't find any place that teaches it here. The only place so far that offers ASL is the Newfoundland Deaf Association. As cool as it sounds, the website looks shady as hell, and if it is legitimate, then they're probably not active anymore. The last update on the website was in July 2016. I did try calling them, but no one picked up. Shame, I really had fun learning ASL back then, but the tutor found a job elsewhere and had to leave the island.

  Been playing Dragon Age 2. At first, I was super confused about it's map system. Boy, Kirkwall is huge! There's this day and night system, and all these different levels. The games too early for me to be this badass lightning shootin' fireball spewin' mage, but so far so good! Love it when they clump up so I can fireball them baddies.

  No news from my family about my grandma. What that means is that there are no bad news (in this case, worse news) so far, which is good. The downside is that our family group chat has been awfully quiet of late, so that's bad. It has to be super rough for them, especially my mom. My mom's side of the family isn't like a "traditional" Chinese family in the sense that she does not have 7+ siblings, so they're all pretty close, and all of them around the hospital right now, even the uncle who left to Singapore, which is nice. My uncles got married and had kids at a very late age (I think one of them is around 50 now), and their son has only started primary school. What I'm trying to say is that at least my grandma gets to see all of her grandsons and granddaughter.

  Oh, I also went to the St John's vegan fair last week. As for food, it's the same stalls as always, nothing new. As for products though, everything is expensive! There was this still that proudly sold cinnamon bun for $4.50! Didn't buy any products that day, but bought lots of Indian food because they're nice. And since it's always the same caterer, I know they are.. uh... well, pretty good! There was this stall selling slices of pizzas for $2 each though. I didn't get them because I had food done at home already (I got biryani rice from the Indian place to go with it). The vegan fair is also held in this brand new building that was just finished constructed earlier this summer. I heard complains that it's smaller than where it was previously held, but the place is nice and bright, so hey~

Figure 37.3: Vegan Fair

Title

  First off, wow, what a grand finals for The International 2018. OG deserved the win, but good job to LGD too.

  That being said, I think I am regressing to my lazy self. My hair's growing into this wild patch of grass and I don't have the motivation to shave. I look like some homeless person, or some shut-in right now (well, that's partially right too I guess).

  There many things running around my mind. I'll just let you guys read the conversation. Sure, I could just type it out from my perspective, or you could just read it, and then... you know... uh.... stuff..

  Man, cancer's a bitch. I always joke that my grandma is one of the healthiest grandma ever. She has an active lifestyle, an amazing diet, socially active too within her circle, and most importantly, her posture. Oh my, her posture. I always tell my mom you need to learn from your mom. "Hey ma, you're always complaining about your back pain! You should learn from 外婆！Don't back your back! Kneel!", but she (me mama) doesn't listen >:(

  But cancer doesn't care. Cancer can hit the lungs of a marathon runner 10 years earlier than the man who has been smoking for 20 years. It's not fair, but it's what cancer do. So, from that side, I'm just feeling lots of emotions. I know my brother would be visiting home around next week and hopefully my grandma would not leave us till then. If given the choice, I'd rather her not leave us till I get back (in god knows when), but hey... a man can dream.

  The other thing I kept on thinking off is my future. Where do I go after I graduate? What do I work as? What the hell can my degree even do? A bachelors in statistics is feeling more and more mysterious. I've been asking around, I've been going to career advisors, and boy... Let me start with this: A degree in statistics is extremely extremely EXTREMELY unpopular, not because it is useless (everyone will say it's super useful, no matter their discipline), but because it is said to be really difficult. Personally, I don't want to go to grad school (at least immediately after my bachelors), I want to work, get a job and stuff. Career advisors sadly knows nothing much about the discipline of mathematics, and just kind of refer me to the business/engineering/computer science (because they all use statistics right?). I mean yeah... they all use statistics, even linguistic uses statistics, but we'll leave the linguistics to the linguist, the engineering to the engineers, etc. etc. The other problem is that all of my professors are in academia, so they don't know much, at least about the professional work market.

  What I want though, is to leave this island, somewhere new, and have my own apartment, my own kitchen, and maybe a pet bird. I still stand by my previous post, that I want to go to Deutschland, or Sverige, or some other parts of Canada, but not here. I don't hate Newfoundland, it's just I think its time for me to leave, start fresh, somewhere where there's more food choices. I'm currently making lots of different kinds of resumes, as different countries have different requirement. Germany's requires a photo (I'll take it once I get a haircut and a shave), while Sweden and Canada does not (due to some anti-discriminatory factor but my name kinda tells them I'm at least Asian). Of course, the hard part is actually getting a job offer, but I will not be deterred! I've already saved some of the German/Swedish job posting pages, and getting ready to submit my resume 1 month before I finish my studies or whenever they're hiring (hopefully around the time I graduate).

  The other thing that's constantly in my mind, is that school is starting. I can't wait to get back to classes. I just want to finish and graduate. Final hurdle, last hoorah, insert motivational line here.

  There are also many other mini things in my head, like constantly reminding myself that I need eggs. I've been rather sedimentary in my lifestyle lately, really really demotivated. So there's a lot of white noise in my head and the such too, but I'm constantly writing down the things I need to do on my wall, kind of as a reminder, and also as a motivation.



 

死亡

  I'm no stranger to people around me passing away. One of the most shocking passing so far was my cousin, who passed away in a car crash. I remember when my mom just came and told me: "Ah Pei 姐姐刚车祸走了。" I literally had this face: o_o. I didn't say anything, I just stared at my mom. I believe I was in college that time, I wasn't really close with her, but she's still family. I read the news article about the accident, there was a photo of her mom (my aunt) bawling at the funeral, it was a pretty sad photo. Unfortunately, I didn't attend the funeral. It was during exams and it was a few hours drive up north. Maybe I could have delayed my exams but my parents and I both agreed that it's too much of a hassle, all the things they have to sign and stuff so I remained at home while my parents go back to the hometown for the funeral. Yeah, it was quite surreal.

  I was in a long distance relationship with this girl (let's call her Torino) during my second semester here in Memorial. I believe she's second generation Italian? Her parents are from Vietnam but she was born and raised in Italy. What that means is that she has like 10+ aunts and uncles (like a regular traditional Asian family that era), and one of the closest aunt of her dads passed away (stroke I think). I remember it was a huge hassle. She was staying up all night translating Italian to Vietnamese/Vietnamese to Italian etc. etc. Not only was it an emotional time, it was also an extremely busy time, she had no time to mourn and to be sad.

  A few years after that, the Giantess' grandpa passed. I don't think I remember what was the circumstances. I wasn't there at the time (just like how I wasn't there during Torino's), but I remember about the things she told me. I remember that when I arrived, the passing of the grandpa was still... there... I was told that her mom took it really hard (it was the morfar/外公). And then that's when the passing of a partner comes in. It's not just the sadness and the mourning, but there's also a lifestyle change, especially when it's your partner, and you're the one alive I guess. Heh, morbid I know. She began her move out of her little lovely cottage to this apartment. I guess it gets lonely, and the house maintenance would be a little much for one old lady. The mormor was a sweet old lady though, can't believe she still remembered some of the English she learned from school.

  I remember I was just on my computer that time, text some friends back in St John's, talking bout work and stuff, when suddenly she messaged the group saying that :"Chester Bennington has passed away". Y'kno, I googled it to make sure it ain't a fake, and then I told the Giantess and my Liga whatsapp group. I will never forget that one day, I think it was 3 days after I heard the news, I was washing the dishes and suddenly I started tearing up. Yeah, looking back, that was pretty interesting.

  After I came back from Sweden to St John's, La Dame passed away just after a week after I saw her in the university. That one was surprising (kind of). When I saw her in the university, she was cheerful as always and she invited me to her place for Christmas just like every year, business as usual. Then suddenly, a close mutual friend messaged me the news. Apparently it was a heart attack. She fainted in the middle of a hike and the people she was with couldn't get her to some facility quick enough. I remember during her funeral, when we were all saying good things about her, one of the close friends got up and basically said: "I'm not sad, I'm angry!" Basically, her diet was atrocious. It was comprised of spaghetti, pasta sauce, and loads and loads of diet coke and pepsi. He said that he's been telling her that she needs to cut down on all these unhealthy stuff, and now it's too late. It was different, but that was him, he's that kind of guy and I respect him for it.

 The next year...a few months ago actually, I heard news that my aunt has passed away, and then like 2 weeks later, the uncle (the husband). That one was a surprise and also not a surprise. The uncle was basically a chimney, smokes like 3 packets a day. My aunt passing first just shows how destructive secondhand smoke is I guess. That one was sad, because her house was kind of the de facto gathering place for the family. It's the only house big enough to fit like, 15 households? Everytime I go back to Malaysia, I will most definitely visit her place. She's already a grandmother, having grandkids and all, and she had like 9 siblings. I could just imagine the hospital and the funeral was just filled with family. Not only that, because the husband passed not long after she did, it feels.... strangely okay... Like, everything works out at the end sort of thing.

  Just a few days ago, my dad messaged our family whatsapp group, telling us that the family has decided to remove my grandmother from life support, citing that the cancer has spread to both of her lungs. She's also been in a coma for awhile. My dad basically ended the message with: "So, I think we have to accept it." Boy oh boy, was I bawling that day. I called to tell work I couldn't come, and stayed home the whole day. I believe I was in my pyjamas the entire time. I was supposed to go to a friend's place to celebrate a birthday but I just couldn't, not with the mood. For as long as I have the ability to remember, this grandma is the only grandparent I have. I have not met anyone else as they all have passed away either way before I was born or when I was a little baby, so this one, this one is tough. Isn't it strange that I have never really used the word 公公 or 婆婆 in my life?

  My dad has been keeping us updated on grandma's case. My mom has been in the hospital together with her brothers with their mom. The latest update is that she's still hooked up to the life support machine, still in a coma, but is now stable. The doctor also did say that from now on, it's all up in the air. We have to wait for a few days to see what happens. I wonder what's happening back home. My dad has never been the emotional kind, and only send information that we need to know. How's my mom doing? How's my aunt and uncles doing? How's my cousin doing? She lives with grandma, I wonder what's happening over there? I want to ask but I also don't want to ask.

  Honestly, for an 83 year old lady, grandma is a goddamn fighter. She has been living an extremely healthy lifestyle. Back when she used to live by herself, she wakes up early in the morning everyday to attend Tai chi, goes to the morning market and do groceries, goes to the temple, tend to her doggies, make food, and then I believe she goes to sleep at around 7pm or 9pm. When she got too old, there was an argument going on in the family, whether she should move closer to her sons or not. We all live in the capital, while she lives down south. As she get older, she becomes more dependent, and we couldn't just drop by and check up on her if she's living 4 hours away. Basically, it was an argument if the pros outweighs the cons, as that means she has to give up all her friends, all this routine activity, to come live with us at the city. Well it happened, and my cousin moves in with her just cause.

  I dunno, the thought that she's going to go, not because she went, but because we pulled the plug just wrecked me. If it were just news that she has passed, I'll still probably be sad, but would be at peace with it quicker. But knowing that they have decided to turn off the life support machine just... ugh... It feels like giving up, y'know? I understand that her condition is less than ideal: old age, cancer on both lungs, coma; but still... It's.... I mean I have always been a stubborn boy, so it feels like I just can't accept this. I also see the grim reality of it, let's say she did survive, but what kind of quality of life would she be having? I just... ugh...



UPDATE: Well, I guess its time. She's not getting any better. I've been told that the priests have came and gave their blessings and all. Apparently, the cancer cells are already out of control and her age isn't helping either. Mom has not been talking on the group, it must be a tough time back home. I want to be there. I want to be there for all of this. I wanted to be there for Torino, for the Giantess, and especially my family but not only I'm not there, I have no one here with me. I'm physically and metaphorically on this isolated island. 

When It Rains, It Pours

  I've gotten news that they have just taken my grandma off life support. Apparently the cancer has spread to both of her lungs. She's also been in coma for some time already. Doctors says it's time.

  Man, I can't. I'm trying to move forward, I really am.

~(@.@~)

  The title of this post is exactly how I feel lately. Even having a good night's rest, I feel drained. I have no motivation to do anything, as if a spiritual vampire was sucking me off every night. Only reason why I got out of bed is cause I am adult enough to not wet the bed. Once I'm up, I keep on telling myself: "Jerry keep going, keeeeep going", because I can feel myself not wanting to do anything.

  Not only that, my headspace also has been rather... airy... It feels like my head is just floating around, wandering, with no clear purpose. I've been writing down everything I have to do, if not I will forget. This may sound ordinary, but I am seriously simply forgetting EVERYTHING. I had my housemates just come up to me and remind me of a plan that I have no idea I said yes to (and then I check the WhatsApp messages and I did say yes!) I even have to force myself to do the things I want to do. Heck, I personally invited my friends to go watch Mamma Mia!2 in two days (cause I really would love to watch it), but there's this buzz in my head that tells me to just skip it; or rather, skip doing anything, don't do anything, do what then? It didn't specify, it just gives me this feeling to cancel plans and stuff. It's so bothersome. I don't hate it. I'm supposed to hate it and I know I should hate it but right now I don't have energy to hate. Jeeeezzzzz

  Speaking about the buzz in my head, it's getting worst. It feels like... this (click to enjoy!). This obnoxious buzzing is seriously dampening my mood. I have not been doing much the past few weeks; been passing the time just by simply listening to music. It's been a rather... discouraging time. It's not like I'm giving up too... giving up means that there was something to began with, something like a goal, or a hope, but right now it feels like nothing, like that "thing" doesn't exists. I dunno... I'm just rambling.

  I did finally push myself to do most of the chores I have procrastinated for too long though, so that's nice. I've also recently said yes to joining a book club, so I guess I will be attending that too. I guess I have to find the time and energy to start reading book club books. How does a book club work anyway? I just say "yes" to things now. Do I really want to join this book club? Well... yes and no... it's complicated but it isn't too, I'm just too exhausted to explain and think. Here's a song by the way, it's pretty good. The lyrics are pretty nice and sweet I think. When you (yes you! the reader!) have the time, go check out the live version on YouTube.




  I guess I just seek solace in these blog post. One of these days, it's gonna be a positive blog post. And when that day comes, it'd be great, I promise (myself) :)

State of Mind

  I was extremely worried that after the exams, and after the last class of Aikido ended, I'd spiral into this self loathing lifestyle of sorts. I was kind of right.

  I could have slept for a proper 8 hours and all, and I'd still wake up feeling like shit, with no motivation to do anything. My room's a mess and I want to clean it but I can't bring myself to clean it. There's always this constant buzzing in my noggin and that bzzz is seriously demotivating. In short, I ain't happy. I'm not happy right now, and all this free time is pretty much not helping. My leg's also been acting up, so that's no good. I'm trying to do all the usual "feel good" things like do more of the things I like, reduce my social media usage, cleaning the place (still working on that), and other stuff. But still, I still feel... empty... demotivated, not sad. Well, I would say I'm sad because of this constant feeling of void, and not the other way around. There's been lots of gatherings and stuff lately (it is post-exam after all), I've tried to attend most of them and now I'm just burnt out. There reaches a point where it got no fun for me to at these gatherings but ugh, I dunno.

  On the brighter side of things, which I'm constantly trying to tell myself, is that I'm stubborn. I'm stubborn as heck when it comes to certain things, and right now this stubbornness is what I need. I guess I have always been stubborn. I am stubborn in games, in relationships, heck, even in terms of dining. There's a reason why I avoid all-you-can-eat sushi, cause I know the moment I get into that thing, I tell myself: quantity over quality, then I go home feeling bloated and sucky. In games, if I have this strategy, most of the time I'm just gonna go for it, and in relationships, well, I'm stubborn in the sense that I ain't giving up until perhaps I get cheated on or something (that being said, it's not like I ignore all the flaws, it's more that I accept it and what not). Like a bull in a china shop, this stubbornness can be bad, and I try to circumvent this by being extremely extremely picky about things. But hey, whatever. Right now, my stubbornness is the one supporting me through this tough times. My stubbornness is the one that tells me: "so what you have -33 win streak in your Isaac run, let's go!" (My God do I hate Apollyon)

  Either way, yeah, ain't good right now but let's go?

Figure 32.1: Platinum God baby!

Practice

  有时候，我就是需要用一用其他的语言。如果我不用的话，怕会忘掉。华语虽然我差不多每天有讲，但是不是每次有写有读，所以偶尔还是需要写一下。我知道我不是用手写，幸好我还知道怎样用哪一个字。如果你教我用手写一封信的话，我肯定不会写到将这么厉害。我也用这个机会来写其他的语言吧。

  Deutsch. Es is zu lange har, dass ich Deutch benutzen habe. Ich war am  Flughafen München, als ich zürück nach Kanada gehen. Ich habe 8 Monate in Schweden gelebt, und Schwedish und Deutsch ist sehr ähnlich. Ich habe Schwierigkeiten zu sprechen mit dem Flughafenpersonal. Ja, Ich kann Englisch sprechen, aber ich möchte Deutsch sprechen. Das ist schwieriger als ich dachte.

  Till sist, svenska. Jag är glad att svenska använder QWERTY tangentbord och inte det AZERTY tangentbord. Jag vet inte vad vill skriva. Min grammatik och vokabulär måste vara hemsk? förfärlig? förskräcklig? Jag är inte upptagen på sistone, alltså kanske jag nyttja(??) Duolingo oftare.

Figure 31.1: Hmmm...

    Macam inilah. Saya tahu bahasa-bahasaku teruk sangat, tapi saya kan tak ada pilihan. Kalau tak guna, akan lupa pulak. Nak taip BM pun susah sangat, kerana saya sudah biasa dengan "bahasa pasar", nak cakap BM betul-betul sangat susah. Aih.....

How to make Post-Exams Cinnamon Rolls?

  Exams are over, I have plenty of free time, what better way to use that free time than to show off my expertise in the art of baking. I woke up diligently at 8am, and began my baking at around 9am. I was feeling unstoppable.

  First things first, you got to have your ingredients.

Figure 30.1: The ingredients! 

Banana for mid baking snack.

  The recipe says it takes around 90 minutes total to finish. Obviously, as a pro myself, 90 minutes is too quick as it took me 3 hours to complete my masterpiece. So, if you want to be a master like me, make sure you have lots of time that day.

1.   Melt 50g of butter. Then mix the yeast, 8dl of flour, 3dl of milk and 50ml of sugar together. Stir it in a bowl or something with your hands. You could use some stirrer stick like an amateur, hohoho
2. After that, let it rest for 30 minutes. Gotta let the dough rise or something like that. 
3. While the dough is resting, let's make the filling. Melt another 50g of butter, then mix some sugar and 2 tea spoons of cinnamon. Stir it and voila.
4. Once the dough is rested, just whack it up on some counter and start flattening it into a rectangle. 
5. Then slice it like, uh, the side in which you get most strips? So like, the longer side would be top and bottom while the shorter side be left and right?
6. Once sliced, apply fillings onto it.
7. Roll them up and bake em it a preheated oven of 250C for like 8 minutes?
8. Oh yeah, don't forget to eggwash those babies before putting them in.

Figure 30.2: Something's off

  Uh.... uhuh... hmm... Well, the dough was strange. It wasn't very bready, it felt more like a cookie dough than bread dough.I felt like one of three possibilities happened:

• I killed the yeast by putting them in the hot butter too early
• Gluten free flour has a different technique to it
• I was not a master of the bake after all

  I still had some leftover dough, so I changed it up and made some cinnamon filled cookies instead.

Figure 30.3: I had LOTS of filling left, so I just put a lot and let it overflow

  Voila! This is a traditional post-exam cinnamon rolls cookies! Share it and what not!

__________________________

  I had a potluck to attend that evening. The reason why I made it GF was because I know there was a person who's gluten sensitive. Some other lady was vegetarian but it's fine, there's no meat here.

  I had a friend pick me up and then we all went to Middle Cove beach for the picnic! It was the "end of the semester annual potluck" of the Aikido club. The cool thing about this potluck is that, there were lots of adults. I have attended many potlucks since coming here, and I can tell you, the adults have a more refined technique. When I attend student potlucks, you could tell from everyone's dishes that we were all trying to be cost efficient (me included). Heck, this cinnamon rolls was pretty cost efficient too, only thing I have to buy is special GF flour, yeast, and unsalted butter. 

 

Figure 30.4: Time to dine!

  The members brought their families. The spouses and the kids and what not. Didn't really have an opportunity to talk with the kids, they generally ran around the beach having fun by themselves. I just realised I was once like them, my parents would bring me to some gathering, and then I'll go hangout with their friend's kids while leaving the adults alone and stuff. 

  We had our meals first, I purposely left my rolls to be the last to be served cause I said it was "dessert". Kinda is, you don't want to eat the sweet stuff together with the potato fish stew. That being said, boy oh boy were their cooking super nice. I need to ask them for the recipes the next time I see them in class. There was this potato fish stew thing, and there was this amazing rice dish. It had rice, vinegar, seaweed, carrots, and lotus roots I believe? That was delicious.The vegetarian lady (sensei's wife) made this potato dish with sundried tomatoes and chives. Greek boy made souvlaki, etc. We dined good man.

  So, when it's time to serve, the first person I offered my rolls to is whoever was sitting the closest. When it reached the gluten sensitive man (let's call him Sensei ER), I assured him it's gluten free and he took a piece. His girlfriend saw him munching into it and she immediately went like: "OH MY GOD, ARE YOU OKAY?" To which, he had to reassure his partner "yes, Jerry said it's gluten free, I trust him", to which she said "oh, it's just that I rarely see you eat pastries". It was pretty cool. They all liked it, the kids definitely loved it. One of sensei's son was just squatting above my plastic container, putting piece after piece into his mouth. 

  All in all, pretty fun evening. Came home to a bunch of people in the living room, napping and stuff. They then all went and cook together (there were 3 guests). Since I've already eaten, I basically only came in and have a bite or two, then I chilled with them throughout the night, went to sleep and stuff. It's one of the nicer days I guess, but now the week's gone, and the post-exam good mood has dissipated and it's back to reality. Whoop whoop.

Figure 30.5: Sensei complaining about his experience in Singapore

Silly Little Post

  So in my "All the Small Things" blog, I mentioned that I had a 15 minutes conversation about toasters at my work. For this to be interesting, you have to know the content about our conversation first.

  I was there to get some hot water for my tea, while the lady was there trying to toast her bagels as it's her lunch of sorts. It all started when she was complaining about the current toaster, how it is sometimes broken, takes a lot of time (and luck) to get it toasting. She was telling me that maybe it's time to get a new office toaster, and it's not difficult to just ask $5 from everyone and get a new decent one. She then said that there's a problem with this though:

• She's basically the only use using the toaster, no one else toast bread at the office.
• She's going on maternity leave soon, so she won't get to use it for long

  I then talked about the toaster I have at my home, and cue the small talk part. Yeah, that's about it, it sounds mundane as hell, but sometimes mundane has its moments.

  Anyway, I went to work again today, and went to the office pantry to get some tea as usual. That's when I notice a brand new, extremely shiny, silver toaster, and I was like :"huh, neat!" So I went to make my tea and stuff. As I was about to throw my used tea bag away, I noticed this:

Figure 29.1: The old toaster

  I don't know, I just find it super funny that there is a toaster in the bin. I guess I have never really dispose medium-large electronic items? It's.... amusing.... to me....

  Also, I called the City of St John's to report about a leaky fire hydrant. It's been leaking ever since I've walked by the place, but I guess I finally reported it. The problem is that I didn't know the address of the specific place. I told the helpline lady :"It's where the construction's at" but she insist she needs a civic address. Unfortunately, Google Maps couldn't help with this, so I just gave her the address of the closest store, hoping they would either look around it, or just see the leaky fire hydrant when they're passing by or something. Sigh.

Figure 29.2: Leak leak leak!

  Anyway, that's about it! I also got my bike fixed and now it's up and running. Just a short one today.

Mini Update

  Short update because.... my exams are finally over! Yippeeee!! I am now free for 3 more weeks! (That's a long time)

  That being said, my weekly routine activities are coming to an end too. DnD is finishing soon and so is my Aikido (at least for the semester), so honestly I dread the coming 3 weeks. It feels like I would have too much spare time and stuff. I have already begun signing up for activities and events (I have signed up for some resume and CV workshop later this month), and I'll try to attend more things such as that I guess.

  Not just that, my bike is causing some issues again! Jeez, I wonder how many times have I went and fix my bike. To be fair, the first few times was me trying to "upgrade" my bike, only for me to go back there and fix it because my "upgrades" were causing me more problems. This time, I found out my brakes weren't working when I'm going downhill, and I was trying to stop at the traffic light! Man, I could have just speed into moving traffic and perhaps get a few broken body parts.

  As annoying as this bike thing is, I'm kind of happy is happening after my exams, I need some stuff to pad my time. I guess I can read more now too?

  Exam's fine by the way, thanks for asking :)

Brakes: Man, I'm always so high strung, I want to relax too.
Rider: No you can't, I need you to be high strung!
Brakes: People are always complaining! "Brakes, you gotta be more chill!"
Rider: Don't listen to them, you're only useful when you're high strung!
Brakes: Oh is that what it is?! I'm just a tool for you?
Rider: Brakes baby, please...
Brakes: How dare you! After all this time, and that's how you see me?!
Rider: It's not what I mea...
Brakes: That's it, forget about it! Just go! Shoo!
Neighbour: Why are you talking to yourself.

All the Small Things

True care, truth brings

  Nothing major happens, but there are some small stuff here and there. There's always the little things if you think about it. So this post is more about the "little things", because it's always about the "little things".

   As noted, my insurance ran out, so I guess no more therapy and only self care now! Of course, like a regular person, the first thing a person should do a few hours their last session of physio would be to immediately resume their martial arts training! Lately, Chin sensei (the OG sensei of our club) has been teaching Tuesday classes, and his lessons are way more hardcore. He teaches aikido as though as it is some other "harder" martial arts (as opposed to soft, not hard as in difficult). He told us how our stance and posture sucks, as we're super open to a fist to the face or a knee to our kidneys and stuff, and he teaches us how to avoid those and open up the throats of whoever and karate chop them in the throat. He also say don't do that, because we're all friends here.

  I remember during weapons training class, he gives us examples on when to use the weapons. The weapon we train with is a jo staff (which could be used as a walking stick I guess), and he basically taught us how to go from "casual old man with a walking stick" to fight mode. The examples he gave is when there's an assailant rushing towards you or when a bunch of stray dogs are attacking you. Important note: Chin Sensei grew up in Malaysia, he migrated to Canada when he's around 20 I think, but his childhood is mostly in Malaysia, so stray dogs are a very common thing (but muggers are universal).

Figure 27.1: Jo staff (or a long stick)

   Lots of the older students always joke about how he has some kind of vendetta against dogs, and there's this French girl who was completely livid about that story, she ways constantly complaining on the fact that he's hitting dogs, but man, stray dogs attacking you are no joke. You can't outrun them, and they usually travel in packs of at least 5. When my family goes out for walks, my dad always carries a "walking stick", which he says is to defend himself against robbers and stray dogs. My dad is no martial artist though, but I would assume robbers who pick on a guy without a stick rather than a man with a visible stick. Also, we try to avoid stray dog territories, and if we do see them, we just do a 180 and walk back. It's not worth it.

I'll take one lift, your ride, best trip

  Wednesday was extremely sunny. It was also The Royal St John's Regatta (Regatta Day). Everything was closed (except the 24hours McDonalds, God bless you), and there was a festival going on in Quidi Vidi Lake. We took a bus there and it was just all people. It was 人山人海 (People mountain people sea (No matter where you look, the mountains or the sea, there are people // Meaning: A crowded place// ) There were food trucks, carnival like booths and stuff where you play games and win prizes. The last time I went to Regatta Day was 3 years ago, and it looks like nothing much changed.

  I got my face painted for a hefty price, and I had some perogies. We didn't do much, just walked around the place. I think we stayed there for too long though, my bottled water ran out and I refuse to spend $2 on bottled water, so I guess I was pretty much dehydrated for a few hours. We took the bus back and had a refreshing smoothie at the 24 hours McDonalds. The funny thing is that everyone wanted to stop at their respective bus stops to go home, and that's when I told my housemates: "Hey, rather then going straight home, lets stop by McDs for some smoothies", and suddenly everyone stayed and we were all in McDonalds. ALL of us then stop by our house and we played some games I guess. I went to sleep early that night, I was extremely tired, but I heard that the guests left around 2am. I wonder how they could stay up for that long.

 

Figure 27.2: There were also slides and stuff which I didn't go to ;__;

 Always, I know, you'll be, at my show

  Remember when I said time is my worst enemy? Well that thing carries forward to my job too. Not only must I wait for all the things I've said many times, now I have to wait for all these different parties to reply me. 

  So basically, my job right now is to organize the coming semester's orientation, which means contacting lots of people, and hoping they would show up and talk to the freshmen or something. This job is usually given to students, and the adults tries not to interfere. Their method of helping is bringing out documents and stuff because we students have no access to it. The problem now is that apparently MUN decided to streamline lots of things, so we no longer have access to lots of things. There's no "organizers email address" anymore as it is linked to our boss' account, so we're using our own personal email addresses. Our budget also have been reduced because they merged 2 departments together (including ours) but they didn't merge the budget (WHY?!). 

  But now that's the least of our concerns. Our concern now is that no one's replying to our emails. We emailed a bunch of student bodies, faculties, and a bunch of other things (Some merchandising company, event rental companies, etc.). My colleague even tried calling them, but it goes straight to voice mail. She left a bunch of voice mail already but still no dice. Our deadline is approaching and it's back to waiting again. As for the faculties, they don't reply to our emails! They only reply after we told our boss: "Hey, none of them have replied us and it's been a week!" Then our boss picked up the phone, made a few phone calls, and then suddenly everyone's replying. 

  The other way how we get people to reply is basically very passive aggressively state that "Hey, we've already contacted you 2 weeks ago but you still haven't reply yet. We're gonna go ahead and if you don't reply now, we're not saving a slot for you."

  That being said, the people at my job is super nice. I spent 15 mins just small talking about toasters with this office lady in the office pantry. It was such an experience, I feel like an adult that time, with my small and toaster talk.

Watching, waiting, commiserating

  The last little thing I could think of (well it's not little to me, it's a huge deal, but probably EXTREMELY little for you), remember my "A Blog Post about Nothing", back in the 20th of November 2016? Well, I've been going back to Binding of Isaac, and I've been trying to complete the game (I haven't bought the latest DLC yet though), and huhuhuhuhuhuhuhuhuhuh, I did it. 

Figure 27.3: Mega is only unlocked if you defeat Mega Satan with ALL the characters!

  That's not just it, I also finished all the challenges, including the extremely stupid and difficult BRAINS! challenge. So right now, I literally have 100% on my achievement..... 2 years ago. But cause there's this new DLC, I'm only at 68%. I'm currently contemplating whether to buy it or not. The reviews for the DLC wasn't stellar, so I'm a bit wary of it. It's a bit of a dilemma for me right now, ugh.

  The upcoming week is my finals week. I can't wait to get it over with, then I can finally.... actually I don't know. No plans yet. Do more stuff?

Say it ain't so, I will not go,

Turns the light off, CARRY ME HOMEEEE

Figure 27.4: The face paint was really expensive, so I kept it for a while more