Home, motivation, and what not

  Right after the Halloween party, somehow there was another party on Tuesday. It was supposed to be a small get together but we invited someone and that someone invited someone and that someone invited someone... and then there's 15 people in our home. I wasn't too happy about it, so I basically stayed in my room the entire night. One of the original guests was a fellow Malaysian and her boyfriend. In fact, she was the main chef of the night.

  So basically, the boyfriend came and accompanied me in my room while there's a party outside on a Tuesday night. Alcohol and all. We were talking about statistics, and the future. I think he wanted me to stay in St John's after I graduate, he kept on telling me about various small companies that are hiring. Unfortunately, I was pretty set on leaving the island already. I kind of told him: "Actually, I want to get a job elsewhere after I graduate." To which he said, "Oh, but at least try to apply locally, things might change." Yeah, I agree... but as you all know, I'm one stubborn boy. 

  We were talking about home, or more specifically, my home, Malaysia. He was wondering why I don't want to go back to Malaysia to work after I graduate? 2 reasons:

1. The pay sucks.
2. I know the moment I settle down at home, my window of working abroad has close shut.

  As much as I love Malaysia, working there is not something I want to do. Settling down at home, I feel, for me, is a sign of me giving up. As lonely as I feel from time to time, constantly living in new places without really knowing many people there, I do enjoy it. I enjoy... this life. I don't know how to explain it. I like the life of living in multiple places long term. Or at least, right now, I want to live in a place where there isn't many Malaysians. I know it sounds strange. I am not ashamed of my nationality, no, in fact I boast about it when I go to new places. I don't hate my own people too, it's just... there's this uncomfortable feel I get sometimes when I'm around comfortable things for too long. Comfort in this sense is not in the "safe" sense, but its the culture or something... I don't know, it's hard to explain through text. Maybe its easier when spoken too and I have access to hand gestures. 

  Anyway, yeah, we talked about home, and where to work in the future. In my mind, I'm dead set for either Ontario, Germany, or Sweden. I have decided to use my LinkedIn photo as my German resume photo. I've applied to many Canadian and Swedish jobs. Germany or Sweden would be ideal. I want to live in a place where English isn't their first language but they can perfectly speak it. This is kind of what I mean. It's not the most comfortable but yet there's comfort in it. 

  Well, I've been asked "so what are you going to do when you graduate" by basically everyone I spoke too. And every time I give the same answer. And every time, a little bit of hope leaves from my mouth. As time goes on, I'm starting to feel a little hopeless about my situation. I've always been a hopeful person (or is it stubborn? Are those two interchangeable?) , but this, this is uncharted territory. This is something that even by looking around, it doesn't look so good. I don't see no immigrant with a bachelor in statistics anywhere. It's getting kind of scary. And by that, I start to lose motivation. I have this "oh, what's the point?" mindset... I mean I still do, but now something happened. Just because I know that I have relatives reading this blog, I'm not going to say it cause i'ts a bit personal to the point that I don't want my relatives to know. Why can my friends know then? Cause my friends do not contact my parents. 你不用浪费时间问我父母，他们也不知道。呵呵，是故意的。 Basically, I have a goal now. A new goal. One that's perhaps more attainable. And that new goal is the pick me up from my hopelessness. It doesn't turbo charge me but:

  Imagine I'm running a marathon, but this marathon is special. I do not know where the end point is. So I kept running and running until I realised "what's the point? There's no end anyway, it's all bull", then there's this thing that say, "hey man, keep on going. I don't where the end is either but we will never find out if you stop". It's not a very encouraging thing to say, I know, but... hey... I gotta work with what I have. I aim to get a job in Germany or Sweden, and I still hold on to it. That is absolute. There are still things I want to prove, well not to the haters. I know these people don't hate me (I hope not, cause one of them is my dad), but it's like... the lack of faith? There were many times the people I hold dear to me kind of lost faith in me, and I kind of want to prove them wrong. Especially towards my dad, since I've mentioned him already. The man is my final mental boss.

  Oh yeah. This week's new recipe is lentil soup. There's officially 30 more days till classes end, so things have been ramping up. Time is now a luxury, so probably not gonna try and be fancy with the new recipes.

 

Figure 56.1: I gave my friend's boyfriend a statistical "puzzle".
Basically I taught him the fundamentals, then turned it into a puzzle.
This is him deep in thought. He was like this for almost 10 minutes.
It was about memorylessness.

A Special Specific Day with Jerry

  Hello and welcome to "A special specific day" with your host, Jerry Lim! Today, I feel like doing something special. I will spend basically every minute of sunlight outside my home! Wooo!!

  First up, I woke up early in the morning, and head to the farmer's market. I've never been to the farmer's market regular schedule, so I have no idea what they usually have. I usually attend it when there's special events, like the last time, when I went there for a vegan fair.

  So I went to the farmer's market and had my breakfast there, and guess what, I met an old friend there, having his "brunch". The last time I saw this guy was around the time of La Dame's funeral, as we were all friends of La Dame. We basically stopped hanging out at a certain time until La Dame's passing brought us all back together, then we fell apart again. The man was seriously jet lagged as he just return back from his Russia trip (he had a conference). We were basically catching up; he's doing his last semester in his PhD while I'm doing my last semester in my bachelors... then we walked around the market looking at the various stalls.

  The market was pretty cool, there were lots of food stalls selling all sorts of food. I went and got my breakfast from the bakery, while my friend (let's call him Siberiaman) got his from one of those Canadian-South-Asian stalls. There was also a stall ran by Russians selling perogies. Siberiaman bought some of the frozen ones, saying that its the closest thing to home here.

  There were plenty of stalls selling hand crafted things. Handcrafted jam, handcrafted gloves, hats, chopping boards, pet food... We basically just went through those real quick. I have no desire to buy any of those things, even though some of them are really cool. Just no need for them right now. As for fresh vegetables, there were lots of roots vegetables being sold by many of the local farms there. But that's the thing, there isn't any of the non-root vegetables, so you can't really do your grocery shopping here, it's all just turnip, potatoes, carrots, onions, and whatever roots I left out.

  After that, we went our separate ways. I was headed downtown while he was going to go home. We bid each other adieu and then we split.

Figure 55.1: Lining up for my breakfast

Figure 55.2: Cinnamon roll, chocolate cream puff, black coffee

Figure 55.3: Exterior of the market

How to make Post-midterm-exams Pesto

  Making pesto from scratch requires very little ingredients actually! All you need is

1. Basil leaves (important!)
2. Garlic (also important!)
3. Some nice fine cheese (yes)
4. Olive oil
5. A lovely jar for storing

Figure 54.1: Olive oil not in picture

  The tough part is in the mincing. First you chop the garlic, then you mince it together with the leaves. Don't put all the leaves together all at once though, or else it's gonna be too clumpy to mince! (Still possible, just more effort now). After you're done mincing it, toss in the shredded cheese (I use Parmesan) and mince that together with the minced garlic/basil combination! Keep on mincing, if you think it's fine, it's not fine and go back to work. Keep on doing it until your thumb goes numb and then you can toss it all into the jar.

  Once in the jar, pour in some olive oil and stir. Don't pour in too much at first, so you know if it's not enough you could always pour more, rather than overflowing it... and Voila! Pesto done! Now just store it in a fridge and use it for your pasta or whatever else dishes!

  FUN FACT: Apparently we're not supposed to cook pesto. What you're supposed to do is just lather it on something like butter to toast, and then stir it around. It seems I have been "cooking" pesto wrong this whole time. The reason is cause you'll spoil the fresh basil basically. It's gonna turn dark and meh.

Figure 54.2: Finished product! Might need some more oil.

  Although it sounds easy, the hard part is really just the chopping part. It felt endless. And the mess! Make sure you use a big chopping board or bits of cheese, basil, and garlic will go all over the counter!

Settling down

  As my degree is almost to an end, one of the thing that keep on running in my mind is the thought of settling down.

  Personally, I have no intention to go back to Malaysia. The other thing is that, it seems like there isn't any future here for me in St John's (according to my professors and many other recruiters I spoke to), which means there's a high high HIGH chance that I'll have to leave this place once I'm done.

  I've also often heard that your first job is usually not your permanent job, and you'll probably shift to some other job after you get some experience. These thoughts are scaring me. Must I always have little material belongings for I must always prepare to move? Not just that, does that I mean I have to go to a new place, and make new friends here and there? Corollary to that, does that mean I'll probably could never be in a long term relationship for the next few years as my stay at whatever place is not permanent?

  My friends back home, when they go abroad for their studies, they already have 2 things in mind: they either stay in whatever city they did their studies in and find a job there, or they go back to Malaysia. See, that's the thing, lot's of my friends went to study abroad in huge cities, where I believe it's easier to find a job no matter your degree. St John's, despite being the capital of a province, is just not big enough to have that opportunity.

  So here I am, pondering... Will I ever settle down in a place? What I mean by this is by a certain age of course. I don't expect a 60 year old man to be constantly moving around; if I do retire, I have to pick a place to retire too anyway. All these thoughts tires me out very much. I have no idea how one make friends outside university, or how one even find dates outside university (besides online dating). Pretty much all of my friends found their partner when they were in uni, and are still together, or they used Tinder and am now together, so I have no idea how does one find someone, and I have no intention in getting Tinder or whatever.

  The other thing is friends. I've always been told that you can be friendly to your colleagues, but not actual friends with them. Those that told me that are also in the cutthroat world of business, so maybe that wouldn't really apply to me, or this generation, but lets say that advice is true, which means the workplace is not really an option. How about those hobby places, like joining a DnD group, or some martial arts lessons? In my experience, I pretty much only see those people during those sessions. We never really did go out, or talk outside it. If we saw each other, we say hi, that's about it. In my university life, usually I make friends with other newly arrived folks too. We might not have similar interest all the time, but we bond through the fact that we are foreign. Heck, I don't think I really have any local friends. Lots of them already have their group of friends when I arrive, and then there's the language and culture barrier and all too. But you see, it's easy in university, because there's events held for all these new-to-here folks. Not just that, the date is extremely convenient. Since the semester starts in a specific date, its much easier to set that up. But for work is different, you don't get that luxury.

  I don't know, it's stressing me out. All these thoughts are also making me feel lonelier and lonelier. How lonely? Well... it's a "I'm telling all these to a blog" kind of lonely.

  Yeah but whatevs... It's all part of life isn't it?

Figure 53.1: ....

A Plastic Epiphany

  I believe it was a week ago, I was about to shave. I took my shaving cream and my razor out, rinse my face with warm water, and then I remove the plastic tip of my disposable razor. That's when I realized something. Since it's disposable, which means I pretty toss and buy new ones several times a year... that's a lot of plastic.

  That's when I look around my toiletries. It can't just be my razor right? Oh gosh, my toothpaste, my toothbrush, they're all plastic. My tongue scraper too but that isn't as severe as the others because tongue scraper is not exactly in the "disposable" sect, while you're suppose to replace your toothbrush every 3 months (which means 4 toothbrushes a year), and your toothpaste container... well depending on how much toothpaste you use then.

Figure 52.1: What I meant by lots of plastic

  Then some other thing hit me! A bar soap! Now I know why some people (other than preference) use bar soap over those squeeze bottles/top ones! Even less plastic! So there I was, with a warm wet face, razor on one hand and cream on the other, just standing in front of the mirror, having an epiphany.

  A lot of things makes sense now. The wooden toothbrushes, the powder deodorant, the bar soap... I'll probably try to get one after I'm finished with my current one. As for the toothpaste, I don't think I could switch to that black goop thing that the Giantess use yet, I think that takes a while to get used to. As for the razor, I've been looking up and there's this thing called safety razors. Safety razors are usually 100% made of metal, hopefully rust resistant, and you replace the blade once like every 2 years or something. Unfortunately, 2 aspect of it is preventing me from purchasing one right off the bat:

1. The technique used to shave with a safety razor is different from a disposable one.
2. It's hecking expensive.

  Which unfortunately means I'm going to stick with the disposable razor for awhile. But fret not, for I have plans to head to the local hipster barber and inquire about safety razors. I'm sure they will know all about it. Hopefully I will get one in the near future! 

  I've been trying to go green lately. I guess one of my proto-going green things is purchasing a kindle. At first, it was more for convenience and novelty reasons, "Wow, so cool! Wow, so light! Wow, I no longer have to carry so many books anymore!" Although the trade off means I have a smaller book collection on my shelf... and I can't exactly lend someone my kindle... but as time went on, I realized that the kindle does help me cut down my "paper usage". 

  I've also started using handkerchiefs. I bought a 6 pack the other day, and have them in my pocket ever since. I'm trying to not use any more of those serviettes, or tissues, or whatever... I bought a lunch box and I've been consistently trying to bring food to campus, thus cutting down on those plastic cutlery and, probably those Styrofoam plates/containers. Heck, the new mechanical pencil I bought, it's body is majority metal (unfortunately, there's still some plastic parts, can't be avoided), which hopefully means it gets to last longer.

Figure 52.2: Zebra M 301

Mini-rant

  Mid terms are coming up, so I planned for my entire day to be study time.

  Unfortunately, we have confirmed sighting of rats in our home. So I contacted my landlord, and he came and offered to help set up and the traps and everything but my genius housemate sent him off, saying "nah we could do it ourselves". Guess what, right after that, ALL of my housemates left because they have things to do, leaving me to handle this.

  I am mad as hell. Not only do we not have all the tools for this issue, my plan of studying is now all in shambles. And I can't afford to not do any of this. Why is it so hard to clean up after yourself when you're done using whatever huh?! I feel so ashamed when the landlord came and he saw all the breadcrumbs all over the damn kitchen. We all know who did, we all always tell the person, and nothing ever happens. My friends tell me to be like them, to not care just like them, because they can tell that caring is giving me a lot of stress. Well, to me, this isn't an issue of caring or not; to me, this is a normal human decency thing to clean up after yourself. You don't have to be a saint to clean. Heck, you're not a fellow fresh out of some tribe in a jungle, and it's your first contact with all these machines and tools; you're a goddamn university student. In order to enter university, you have to go through secondary school and primary school, so I know you're not a complete idiot. And the rest isn't doing anything about. I'm constantly bringing it up but it's always "ah yes it's annoying but that's how the person is". If that is really how the person is, then we should goddamn kick the person out rather than accepting it because "that's how the person is".

  I am seriously in a state of panic. I want to scream, I want to cry, I just spent the last 5 minutes punching my bed. That means I just wasted 5 minutes. I can't afford to do any of this, I really need to study, but I also need to clean the house and set up traps, which means I also need to go out and buy tools like latex gloves. All of this takes time, and time is something I do not have right now.

  I have said this already and I will say this again, I am mad AS HELL. I'm seriously considering moving out. Even though I'm not sure if I will stay in this province after I graduate, I am seriously thinking of moving out.

The Road to Health

  That road seems to be really bumpy for me. As my thumb is healing, guess what? I'm now having the flu. Guess what I have before cutting my thumb? Also the flu! I think there's this trend going on with my body now. Until I somehow receive some physical harm towards my body, I will be sick. What a cycle.

  Mid terms start next week. It also ends next week. Basically, next week (and probably now too) would be the most stressful time I will have in a while. Which means I will stay off working on my resume until next weekend.

  I believe late October/early November is the time to start applying for jobs at proper companies. For the past few weeks, I've been constantly tweaking my resume, constantly adding new things while removing other things. Been reading up lots of guides and stuff. Been reading up on the how to's of Germany's and Sweden's resume etiquette. Sweden's resume is like Canada in a sense that you don't need a picture on your resume. Germany on the other hand is like Malaysia's, you need a picture. The problem is I don't have a resume-able photo to put. I think I read somewhere that Germany's resume photo etiquette is like a passport photo, no smiling. My brand new LinkedIn photo has me smiling super wide, so I can't use that.

Figure 50.1: Autumn is here!

Thanksgiving and Thumb

  It's Thanksgiving here in St John's! So happy Thanksgiving guys!

  Anyway, we had a huge Thanksgiving dinner yesterday. I was in charge of the potato salad, while my housemate is in charge of the coleslaw, while our neighbour was in charge of the turkey (8kg!). Prior to the dinner, for the few days, I have been trying to finish my assignments and study for the exam. I've completed 3/4 of all of my work, but that 1/4 left is really really difficult, I'm going to work on it today and tomorrow. Did all my laundry and cleaned my room too (finally!). Anyway, I'm in charge of the potato salad!

  As you know, I recently cut my thumb, which means for the past week I've not been doing any thumb related thing. Most importantly, chopping things. One hand holds the item while the other the knife. Because I can't do that (heck, I got my cut because I was trying to slice a rutabaga), that means I have not been cooking meals at home. How could I? It's been a really expensive week constantly ordering out... 

  So for the potato salad, it's time for me to try out my thumb strength. After peeling 17 potatoes, it's time to chop them up into mini pieces. I did it! But I'm not gonna lie, somewhere in the middle, my thumb felt extremely tired and numb, and I had to take a break. The horrible part is that, I used to be the guy in the house people go to if they can't open a jar. But now, I have to go to my housemate for that. I tried gripping the jar and my left thumb just went jelly. It was an extremely sad moment to watch.

Figure 49.1: Notice the angle of the cut

  I think my potato salad turn out good though! I received praises from the guests. 

  One of my favourite memory from the Thanksgiving dinner was when we were playing this game called Drawful 2. It's basically like pictionary, but the catch is you're drawing it on your phone (so chubby fingers is bad!) and, I kid you not, the developers did this on purpose... there's no erase function. Yeah, people were complaining about the lack of erase function in the first Drawful game, so the developers heard about it, and publicly stated that they will not put in an erase function in the second game, but instead we're giving you 2 colours to work with! Anyway, there was this really really buff guy, like massive! He's a friend of a friend, and he brought pie. The man is intimidating as hell. He has the male equivalent of the RBF syndrome, coupled with his extremely huge body, makes him really scary to approach. Well, throughout the entire game, he was giddy as hell. He was like this little kid constantly jumping on his seat and all, it was pretty funny. 

  So yeah, the guests stayed till really late, I just went to sleep cause I was super tired. 

The Orange Incident

  You know you always read about all those things, where they joke about them remembering something dumb they did back when they were young, and then they kind of cringe on the spot. You know what's even worse? It's when you did something extra ordinarily dumb when you're an adult, and it kept on replaying it in your head. Mine would be the orange incident.

  I've always thought I had pretty good table manners, just like how I thought I am taller than the average male. Those sentiment unfortunately, as I learnt, only applies to Malaysia. When I left Malaysia, I am average at best for height, maybe even slightly below average, and my table manners are apparently "bad".

  This was last year, and I had quite recently been criticised for my "hands on" method on eating chicken thighs. Apparently, unless you're in your own home, or at McDonald's (or the equivalent), you aren't suppose to use your hands to eat. One is supposed to use a fork and knife to get to those hard to reach places in-between the bones part of the chicken thigh. My lack of experience with the table knife was really showing. I think I spent almost an hour just working on the thigh, and my wrist was already super tired.

  Fast forward some time, I was at the Giantess' brother's place, the whole family is there, they're ordering Indian food. "Oh no, technically this is a house right? Does that mean I can use my hands? But wait, everyone else is here too! What should I get??!!" At the end, I purposely got something that doesn't require hands (those pre-cut meat dishes). Hoho, I'm a genius. That's when, they served... sliced oranges.

  I've always eaten fruits with my hands (except maybe dragon fruit, those thing stains), so at the time, I was super panicky. Do I use my hands for these?! I waited for someone to take one... yes they used their hands! But how do they eat it? Do they eat it the same method as I do? By just going down on it? Its super impolite to stare at someone eating oranges, so I decided to wing it. I tried this really strange method of eating. It is completely ineffective, messy, and ugly to look at, BUT it minimizes the amount of hand touching. I've only took 2 slices before I gave up.

  Later she made fun of me on how I ate oranges. Ah man, I must have made an absolute fool of myself in front of everyone. That entire event kept on replaying in my head ever since then, and I cringe every time. It's horrible aghhhhhhhh--

Hoooahhhh

  I realised something during the past few months. My physical capabilities is strongly tied to my mental health. I guess I stay sane by doing things. Once my ability to do things is taken away from me, I kind of spiral into this horrible mood. Last week, I was sick. My throat was horrible, my nose is always leaking, my eyes are always droopy and my body feels weak in general. I can't do much, and it was horrible. This week, after cutting my thumb, I can't grab things with my left hand anymore (for now at least). Thankfully, lots of my academic activities like studying and doing my assignments can be done without really exercising my left thumb, so academic wise, I am on top of it. In fact, I am so on top of my academic because I can't do pretty much anything else.

  I can't chop vegetables, which means I can't cook. I can't go to the gym either, can't lift weights. Not just that, I missed my weekly bake-a-new-baking-thing last weekend. The good news is that my thumb stopped bleeding, but it still hurts even when something were to casually rub it. 

  The other thing I am stressed about too, is, you guessed it, my future career. Now that everyone knows that this is my last semester, I am constantly asked: "So what's next?" And I always give this nervous laugh, with a "I don't know." I can't ask people, because no one I know has friends who graduated from the field of mathematics. Every other stats person I know is well, like me, still studying. Asking professors doesn't help, because they always just go with "go get a masters in stats next". Career advisors just refers me to the field of everything else but stats, because everyone needs stats am I right? Sigh, this job thing is really stressing me out.

  I've been attending as many soft skills seminar as I can. Just yesterday, I attended this "RBar". What's RBar? R-Bar is a weekly scientific programming study group where we have a beer and tackle R issues in a cooperative group setting (taken from their twitter bio). I've always had my data handed to me in a silver platter for class. Yesterday's session basically showed us how to import data from more common data software, like Excel. I've taken a course where we're given data, and we're supposed to analyze it and then write a report about it. That course taught me that 20% of my time is used cleaning the data, 10% analyzing, and 70% writing the report. That course is the one course where the professor purposely gave us some really messy data, and it was our job to tidy it up, so that we could analyze it. So, yesterday's RBar was basically that too. Their solution is so much more neater though. They made so many directories so that it wouldn't be a total mess to navigate. Looking back at my directory for that report.... hehehe..... I wonder how did I even know what file is what that time...

  Been really busy with all these lately, rarely had time to do my own stuff now. I've basically replaced watching shows with reading, because with reading I know I could stop anytime, and spare time now is too tight. Which reminds me, I gotta do laundry.

Figure 47.1: Why does it feel like Duolingo is preparing me
for some Swedish heartbreaks?

Figure 47.2: What kind of data are they collecting??
TL: Why doesn't he kiss me?