Slow Start

After months of planning and stuff, the science orientation finally happened. It was 6 hours of crowds and crowds of people, furniture moving, and many more. The team was all satisfied with the end result. I heard there were comments from my supervisor's supervisor, that it wasn't "perfect", but if you wanted the perfect event, it is destined to fail then. There were many hiccups throughout the events, but we pulled through. We made up things on the go and I think we all did a good job.

  Now that this is over, it's time to focus on classes. The new semester is starting, and hopefully its my last.

   My dad sent me photos of my brother and my parents together (as one would do when visiting), and gosh, my mom looked horrible, she looks like she barely slept for the past few weeks. I can't blame her though, if my mom was in a coma, and I'm constantly visiting her hoping for some action from her, I'll probably have plenty of sleepless nights too. Not just that, when I was talking to my dad, my dad told me mom's watching TV (at 11pm), that's way past her bedtime. I wonder how home is doing.

  That is one of the less nice things of the conversation with my dad, the other not so nice conversation was that he wasn't too happy that my future plans include Germany and/or Sweden. Basically along the lines that: "If you wanted to go to those places, you shouldn't have went to Canada to begin with." But it's not that simple, if not because of my experiences here, I wouldn't even think so much about those two countries. Before that, all I cared about Germany is that their World Cup champions and they have nice car, while Sweden is ABBA and Zlatan-land.

  Actually, ever since after secondary school (when my parents are less strict towards me), I've been wanting things that my parents do not agree with (I'm not including things like tattoos but my parents weren't happy with that either). First off, I didn't want to be an engineer. That was the toughest message to send to my parents. I kinda made myself have bad grades in physics back in secondary school just to let them know that "Hey, I really don't want to be an engineer" (and now that I'm in university, I now know just "engineer" means nothing, there's civil, mechanical, electrical, etc. etc. and they're all different). My parents either wanted me to become an engineer or a doctor, but doctor was out of the question because that requires many many years of practice and it gets too pricey, so when I said I didn't want to be an engineer, and my grades were out, I think my entire household was in turmoil. There were lots of screaming, and accusation that I will have no future and stuff like that.

  The other thing that my parents weren't happy about is that I want to study in Canada. They think it's too far, and were hoping if I'd study somewhere closer. When I was looking at Canadian unis, my mom was researching about other non-Canadian, nearer unis like those in Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan... I remember it was just so annoying that she kept on pushing all these unis while I already told them, "hey, I want to go to Canada". I mean, all these aren't exactly small life choices, especially for a guy from some small insignificant country (Heck, the two people I dated didn't know where Malaysia is initially!).

  Although I don't mind furthering my career in Canada, what I want is to migrate to Germany or Sweden for work. That's what I want. My stay there is amazing and I wouldn't have had that opportunity if I hadn't been to Canada. But you know, that's the hard part, finding a job in those 2 countries. Do I intend to defy my parents again at this stage of my life? Probably. Is it selfish? Probably? But its what I want, and I intend to see this through.

  I have not live in Germany as long as I have in Sweden, but from that month, I thought it was pretty nice! Maybe it's different if I were to work in the big city, as I was studying in a rather small, quaint area, but it's nice! As for Sweden, I remember at one point the Giantess thinks that I do not want to come to work in Sweden, but I'm gonna tell you what I told her, and that is that I loved it. I love the atmosphere, I love the people, I love it all, and it doesn't matter that the tax is high because I'm sure the pay covers it, it'd be cruel if it does not. So yeah, that's my goal. That's what waking me up in the morning. Honestly, this summer was cruel as hell, I was like a headless chicken, but this... this is my goal, this is what pushing me forward, to do things I thought I will never do. Nothing is set in stone, and I'll be damned if I give up just like that.

__________________________

Figure 39.1: I guess Swedes does this?