~(@.@~)

  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