AAI

  AAAIII(HHHHH).

  Because right after the shout or the gasp of relaxation comes a sigh of relief or a heavy sigh of "not again". Does this have anything to do with the rest of the text? No clue.  

  I know the same time last year, I was pretty much the downest I can be. It was... thinking back even still hurts.

  So what prompted this? Well... 2 things I must say...

  So like last week I went to my favourite vegetarian restaurant in St John's, Peaceful Loft. That place has been so much more popular now compared to when it just opened, so I can't go there during my lunch time anymore, because it'll be packed with people. So what I do usually, is to go there after lunchtime or right before lunchtime ends (~1.50pm), and then I'll just sit and eat while chit-chatting with the owner. The owner lovessss to gossip (in Mandarin of course). So he was telling me that the customer that just left (2 women and 1 man) were having an affair of sorts. He was telling me that these people are usual customers, and that one of the woman and the man is a couple. But recently the two women has been coming into the restaurant recently, all lovey-dovey-ish. As for that day's event, they were all lovey-dovey until the man comes in and then they were back to being "just friends". At first I thought maybe it was a in-the-closet thing, but then if it were, they probably wouldn't have express it in a public restaurant.

  So for this case, if it truly was an affair, then it was literally right under the guy's nose. Heck, the three of them were sitting at the same table. What about me? There's just this bunch of what ifs now that were running through my mind. All of mine has been separated by an ocean, what if there was always someone else? I always pull it back in and go like "nononono, she wouldn't do that", but then there's always this doubt in the back of the head though.

  Things I learned: Apparently the guy was an ass anyway, who always cause trouble for our lovely restaurant owner.

  The other thing was that I wake up one morning and I found out one of my beloved professor had passed away. It was the professor that I went to Germany with (and also my boss at the time). We, the German group, has kept in touch ever since that summer school, and the last I heard about him is back in March, where we were told in the group that he had pancreatic cancer. Some of us were hopeful, some of us were not, but we all agreed we should probably write a card. And so we did. Then this morning, I turned on Facebook and I saw his obituary right on my feed, posted by Memorial University. He was the former head of department for the modern languages department, and he very, very, VERY recently retired (last December). In fact, I was there for his surprise retirement party.

  I remember back in Germany, when we were visiting the gardens of Sanssouci Palace, his favourite part of the palace was the fences of the gardens. So much so in fact that every chance he get to come to Potsdam, he would take photos of it and try to recreate it at his backyard. He showed pictures and all. I remember during his retirement "speech" (the one where we all just went SPEECH SPEECH SPEECH), he said he's gonna sit back, read books, and work on his garden.

  I still have all the photos of him back then. I've messaged his husband.

  Man I don't know... I wasn't exactly a German major, so I wasn't super close to him, and yet I woke up and made my tea while tearing up. Didn't exactly have a full blown tear fest, but my eyes were definitely swelling up. Maybe, May is just not a good month for people near to me, haha. But yeah, another cancer case.

  So yeah, these are the two things.

  Man, when did I get so sensitive :p

Update: Just been told a friend is flying back to Malaysia for his grandfather's funeral. What an interesting day it has been.
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  Rest in peace, Dr Buffinga.