Busy

Very busy times. Head throbbing experience.

Work ain't going very well either. I now truly understand what "creative differences" is; and whew, it ain't fun.

Logic games and a nice Saturday

  Lately, I've been into logic puzzles or what not. I've been downloading a bunch of riddles and puzzles apps on my phone, been playing them on my spare time. I started properly playing this video game called "Antichamber" too. I just recently unlocked the yellow gun, which enables you to drag puzzle pieces. Unlocking that gun made me went: "oooh! I can now easily go back and work on all those other puzzles that I couldn't before!" That game has no direction whatsoever, which at times, makes me extremely annoyed. Even now, I am stuck at some places.

  There's these puzzles called "climbing the tower", where you kind of climb a tower but not really? Anyway, strangely, I have unlocked puzzle 1-5, and 7! There's no 6! Strange! I couldn't solve puzzle 5 and 7 so I think maybe that's the next gun?

  I've always liked all these logic puzzles and what not, that's why I even bought all those "Sherlock Holmes" puzzle books. But now, I don't know... I like it.

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