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?

The Weekend

  This weekend... has been... strange....? Well, strange is not the right word, different is much more proper.

  So I have my usual plan: Go to the gym, go celebrate a friend's birthday, then study... oh! And! Bake! This week, I was supposed to bake some chocolate chip muffins! (The Swedish meatballs on Wednesday turns out fineeeee, but I made so much, I ate it for 3 days). But unfortunately, something terrible happened. I was chopping vegetables and then I basically sliced a part of my thumb. From then on, my weekends was just me trying to keep my left hand static.

Figure 46.1: How it is (no photos because that's disgusting)

  There was just blood everywhere. I got my housemate to help me clean it up, but she obviously wasn't too happy about assisting me in the clean up of blood. Because of that, I had to spend my weekday doing activities that doesn't use my left thumb.

  The first few days, everytime I move it or accidentally knock it into something, it bleeds. Because of the lack of my left hand mobility, I can't cook anymore (more specifically, I can't chop the ingredients), so I ordered delivery instead. Oh ha haha I got food poisoning it from it. So now, my Friday consists of me constantly cleaning my left thumb because it bleeds periodically, and rushing to the toilet because food poisioning.

 Saturday morning, I finally get to Skype with my family again. Skype-d for a few hours, that was really nice. I was right! My entire family (at least the maternal side) now knows about this blog, and it's content is constantly circulating around them. Jeez! Old people and their amazing rate of gossip! Maybe it was a mistake to like my uncle's Facebook post! The household is still in post-grandma's passing mode. Apparently she owned a bit too many things, and they're having trouble sorting out all of the things she has. They would be having one last lunch with her caretaker all this while. Yeah, it'd probably be a solemn lunch, but it's a nice gesture.

 In the evening, there was a birthday party to attend. The venue is in some fancy restaurant, so I decided to just order a salad for the event. But because I know I probably won't be full if I just ordered salad, I decided to go to the Starbucks next door and load up with calories first. My friend was working in Starbucks that day, so I got a free drink from him! (Salted Caramel Decaf Latte with half syrup) I basically just read there, and talked to him when he's on his break, then goes back to reading when his break is over... Then its off to dinner!

  After dinner, we brought everyone to our home for (Jerry's) tea. Oh yeah, I'm known as the tea guy now. In fact, when Simon said: "Hey guys, come to our place after dinner!" A few of them went, "Ok! Jerry what tea do you have this time?" So we all talked until ~2.30am. One of them stayed over for the night because her place was too far. She usually stays over because she's always part of the group and she lives... not far... but she's lazy. She has her toothbrush here already and everything. So this time is no different right?

  Wrong. My (and I guess OUR) Sunday schedule was completely ruined. Well, she's having a guy problem right now. Yes and not really. She's trying to make this guy fall in love with her but she doesn't want to do anything about it. She's not exactly making any move or anything. She's also constantly bugging me because I actually personally know the guy (Starbucks guy to be precise), and she's constantly grilling me about him. I kept on telling him that we don't really talk about this kind of stuff. Yes he's my friend, but we're not that close of a friend. But noooooo. Oh yeah, there's a reason why I'm super annoyed about it. It's because this have been going on since June, this whole coming and grilling me thing. But this time, I have a secret weapon, and it is my housemate, Simon.

  Basically, Simon was good cop and I'm bad cop. I'm constantly giving the more "bad" answers (I don't think it's bad, I think it's just not what she wants to hear). Simon wraps my words around with flowers basically. Until...

  It is now 3pm. She's still here. My original plan of baking is now moot because the evening plan is to study. She's been here since she woke up at 10am, and we're having this topic until now. None of us have ate breakfast, and we're still going on about her guy problem. Simon too got impatient already and we both became bad cop-bad cop an hour ago. She's basically trying to be like a chessmaster, trying to make him fall in love with him and have him make the first move and all those stuff. At the end, she left because she has a meeting. Simon and I then supported ourselves by just getting some KFC delivered to us.

  And here I am now, just finished my only meal of the day because it's already 4pm. It has been a rough morning/afternoon, having a guest who doesn't want to leave your home for some completely made up problem she has (if you listen to her problem, you could tell all of this could be solved by her making the move. Yes she could be rejected, but I guess that's it then.). So now, I guess it's time to study and do whatever assignments I have. I'll maybe make my muffins some day? Or maybe I'll make 2 different kind of pastries next week! We'll see!

Figure 46.2: Side view of my wound

Fantastic Jobs And Where To Find Them

  Could someone tell me where to find them?

  So, there was a career fair today, went there and dropped some resumes here and there. Basically, I was just giving out my resumes as though as its just a pamphlet. Other than those 3 insurance/bank booths, there was literally no one else searching for someone with a background in math and statistics. Which kinda sucks, every time I talk to people, they told me that every industry uses stats! Even those booth people says so! Buuuuut, when I ask them about it, they're all "wellllll, yeah we do use it, but it's not what we're looking for right now". Which I get it, you want what you want, the fault seems to be with my degree honestly, despite growing up hearing that statistics is super useful, it's being used in every industry etc... the harsh reality is that yes it is being used, but they do not need new people I guess. It feels like the data department is just filled with them old dogs. Maybe the only time they're hiring is when those people finally retire, then there's slots for us. Good news is that I finally got a picture for my linkedin profile. I've gotten mixed reviews about linkedin, some says it's useless but some says it's super useful. Doesn't hurt to get one I guess!

Figure 45.1: The Career Fair!

  Some good news though! My study permit has finally been extended, which means I can finally start apply for all the other bureaucratic stuff! This is the pain of being an international student, but once it's done, it's done, I can feel my shoulders being figurative lighter now (not physically though, that's because I am always carrying my laptop around and its heavy). 

  That being said, I'll still try to apply jobs wherever I can though. It seems like, being a statistic major, there is a low chance that I'll be staying here in St John's. Lots of the companies rep told me that all these data analyst position are more common in big cities like Ottawa, Toronto, Montreal... So, yeah. Maybe even Frankfurt? Stockholm? Gothenburg? That'd be sweet! Not Berlin though, not a fan. Sorry >.<