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