Final Stretch (Final Version)
We're now nearly halfway through April, and I seriously cannot believe how fast time flew by. I started grad school back in September of last year, this is a fact, but I feel like I've simultaneously been in school forever/for a second. This weird perception of time is definitely strange, I haven't felt this before, but I imagine it's because of this worldwide clusterfuck bonanza that's been going on for about a year over a year.
If you're reading this newsletter, and especially if you, for some reason, have read my previous newsletters, I probably sound like a broken record. For that, I apologize.. That said, I feel like I'm almost at the end of my rope for pretending that I've been going to school in a normal year. I'm pretty glad that term is nearly over, and I hope I can hold on just a bit longer. A lot of other folks in the lab seem to share the same sentiment, especially with news of vaccinations being administered around the world. I can clearly see that we're all a bit more anxious than we've been, or perhaps we've always been like this but we're showing it a bit more, now.
The last week was a whirlwind of activity. I mainly worked on finishing up the 508 project with my partner Alison. We shot a small skit that we showed at the start of our oral presentation where we pretended to be a bunch of clueless programmers who didn't know how to debug software. This, of course, came naturally to me. After watching my classmates' presentations for 508, I can definitively say that our presentation was pretty silly. I'm glad that I stuck through with this course until the bitter end, it definitely gave me a better idea of what research is all about.
Yesterday, I met with some folks from the lab and went on a walk to Trout Lake Park.
Adam and I bought some banh mi to enjoy by the lake, and it wasn't too bad. It definitely could have used some more cilantro, but I'm a bit of an animal when it comes to that plant. Sitting right next to us was a budding musician who played the guitar and sang some very interesting lyrics. So interesting, in fact, that Jonathan and I exchanged some surprised looks between us. We then decided to go to a coffee place because Paulette was freezing (understandably so, yesterday was pretty darn windy). We ended up at Grounds for Coffee near Commercial-Broadway station. I decided to forgo coffee, since I already had two cups earlier that day, and went for an ice cream instead.
Elephant Garden Creamery was right next door. Jonathan got a Vietnamese Coffee and I got a Hong Kong Milk Tea. I'm no ice cream aficionado, but I thought the ice cream was pretty good, it definitely tasted like HK Milk Tea. I thought the price was pretty reasonable as well. It was $4.20 (hehe) for a child-size scoop in a cup, and ~$5 for a regular scoop. With our sundry foodstuffs in hand, we decided to make our way to another park.
McSpadden Park is where we finally ended up. It was nestled away deep within a residential neighbourhood, and I was definitely envious of the people who lived in the homes nearby. There were two incredibly beautiful cherry blossom trees at full bloom. I regret not taking photos of them, my excuse being my iPhone camera would not do the trees justice. We sat for a few more minutes, where we discovered the YouTube channel of a close relation of one of the profs in the lab, and who could forget the skill with which Adam managed to insult my entire family.
That's about it for this week. I think this newsletter is probably one of the longer ones I've written in a while. There's really no particular reason for this other than me trying to procrastinate from deadlines. I feel like writing these things every week has a sort of meditative effect. I'm actually not entirely sure who reads these, and to be honest, I really don't care all that much. There's a lot of push nowadays to basically monetize every aspect of your life, whether it be your hobbies or even your personality (YouTube influencers).
At the very least, these are going to make for some interesting reading a few years down the line, when I inevitably cringe at some of the stuff I've written.
Until next week.