blog.erwintang.com

In news that will probably be stunning to you, I’ve discovered that commuting sucks donkey balls. What a huge pain in the ass. Case in point was today. I had a 2pm meeting on campus to wrap up some loose ends from when I worked for a professor this summer. I woke up this morning at 11:05am. As I looked at my watch, I realized that if I didn’t jump out of bed immediately to get ready, I’d be late for my meeting. My meeting was still three hours away!!!

By the time I brushed my teeth, showered, got changed, grabbed a drink of water, ate half a croissant, and packed my bag, it was 12 noon. I was on a bus by 12:10pm. I finally got off the bus at UBC at 1:40pm. It took ten minutes to walk to the meeting and then used the remaining ten minutes to prepare. I was on the go from 11am essentially to get to a meeting for 2pm. Crazy.

If I was at SJC, I’d probably would have gamed until 1:45pm, put my game on pause, and headed off then.

I had dinner at SJC tonight, and there many, many new faces. I met a few people, they seem like good, decent folks, and I hope they represent SJC well. Of course, there are a few dorks every year, but it takes a while before they surface. After dinner, I walked over to the Thunderbird Residences with Patrick to see where my new apartment will be. It is in a sweet location. It is less than five minutes away from the engineering and computer science buildings. The Bread Garden is less than two minutes away. SJC is really close as well. Patrick and I were able to walk to my place, check out the outside, and then walk back within fifteen minutes. I am counting the days until September 20.

I got on a 99B bus at 8:30pm and did not return home until 10pm. When I got in the door, I just felt exhausted (still do). I didn’t even do a lot today, nothing at all that required my brain. A meeting and dinner, that was it. Still, I feel drained, like the three hours on transit today just sucked the life out of me. I don’t know how other people do it. I am not looking forward to next week when I actually have class.

I’m going to try to hold on until the 20th. The second day is almost over, that’s 1/10 of my ordeal over. One day at a time… one day at a time…

I was ready to make a big post, but then I ran out of time tonight. Instead, I’ll write about my future educational plans. I’ve said for many months that I’d stop at the Masters level, but maybe I’d be willing to reconsider. This school might be interesting.

If you’re reading this, it means I have successfully returned to my parents’ place after eating my last meal at St. John’s College. We had seafood pie. It was actually pretty good. There was an odd mix of old and new residents, though tomorrow, there will be even more new ones. During the day, the housekeeping staff cleaned out my room after I checked out. After dinner, I returned to my room and found the door unlocked! I knocked and heard no one respond, so I opened the door. My room was in sparkling shape. I don’t think I had seen it this clean since I first moved in. I lingered only briefly before I left my room once again.

As I expected, it took about an hour and a half to bus it back to my parents’ place. There are boxes and bags everywhere. The good thing is that I don’t have to unpack a lot of stuff. In twenty days, I will it to my new place at T-Bird.

So, I’ve got to take care of some stuff, and I’ll probably run off to get some Wendy’s soon. Take care!

In a scant few hours, I will cease being a resident of St. John’s College. Some 731 days, 480 dinners, and countless friendships later, I have reached the end of my time at the best graduate residence at UBC.

The last few days of packing and cleaning have brought forth some contrasts. On one hand, I feel like I just moved in yesterday, on the other hand, I think of all the people I’ve met and I realize how long I’ve been here. Some new residents have started to move in. They’ve told me about their first couple of days at the College. I’m in my last couple of days. Such contrast.

It goes without saying that the last two years have been the best of my life. It is not a coincidence for those two years, I lived at St. John’s College. For most of my post-undergrad years, I lived a boring and stagnant life. I was not headed in the right direction. One of the best decisions of my life was to apply for grad school. Why? Because it allowed me to apply to live at St. John’s College. I am so thankful for the Membership Committee for accepting me. Had I not been accepted, I’m not sure where I’d be right now. Living with my parents? Living in some lonely basement suite off-campus? What I do know is that I’d be less happy.

There are a lot of great things about SJC. Yes, the building is fairly new, the location is great, and your meals are cooked for you, but in the end, it is the people that mattered most to me.

In the two years I’ve stayed here, I cannot begin to count the number of people I’ve met. Each one of them had an interesting story to tell. Often though, it was the mindless conversations that were the most memorable. The ones where you’re sitting at dinner talking about a Simpsons episode, sports, movies, or why women love bad boys. Sure, this wasn’t rigorous academic discourse, but plain old random conversation. There were so many chances to interact as well. The dining hall was good, but so was the hallway. You’d stop and chat for five minutes and be on your way. There was also the benches in the courtyard. On the bus on the way to a movie. Dinner at a restaurant. Receptions before formal dinners. Waiting for your turn at bat during softball, and so on.

After all those months, I’m not sure if everyone understands how much that all meant to me. I feel so honoured that so many people were nice enough to let me know a little about themselves. That even if you spoke to me for only five minutes during dinner, I welcomed the experience.

I am almost overwhelmed when I try to think of all the people that I’ve crossed paths here at the College. I have this fear that I’ll forget about people who should be unforgettable. I’m afraid that I’ll forget the time someone bought a pitcher of beer and we all talked about Star Wars, and the list goes on. If I could, I’d keep all those memories forever.

My friend and fellow resident Patrick once remarked that living at SJC was like living at a country club. In many ways, he’s right. It was so much fun to live here. We had a social support network unlike any I had seen. I could work two hours at my desk and then decide I wanted to interact with my friends. In five seconds I could be out in the hallway knocking on doors to stir up some trouble. The probability of goofing off was high, all the time. Imagine taking all your closest friends and putting them all in an apartment building with you. The amount of bonding that goes on here is unbelievable. There are friendships being forged that will last a lifetime. I do not possess the writing ability to express how much I care about the people here.

Patrick once said to a former resident, Adrian, that living at SJC was like a dream. He then wondered if there could be anything wrong with SJC. Adrian, who had moved out by then, had an answer. He said, “There’s only one thing wrong with SJC. You eventually have to leave.”

I knew what he was talking about back then, but it is painfully clear now. All things must come to an end, even the good, hell, the best things. I wouldn’t have it any other way though. Better that I left wanting more, than me saying good riddance. Still, I leave with a heavy heart. The last two years have been intensely positive and who would blame me for feeling so. I am not the first person to have been touched by SJC, nor will I be the last. In the end, I am part of a much bigger cycle that has been in motion for years.

I wanted this post to be more elegant but it’s late and I’ve been exhausted for two straight days, so I’ll try to wrap this up.

I wish everyone I’ve met over the last two years could read this. I want to thank you for sharing your life with me. Thank you for taking time out of your busy schedules and interacting with me. Knowing each and every one of you was an honour I will try to never forget. I am a better person today because of all of you. You made my life better. No matter if we were friends for five months or five minutes, you made my life richer. I cannot even hope to repay the debt I owe everybody for what you’ve done for me. I can only offer you my friendship in return. In the end, I hope this will suffice.

I could write “thank you” until the sun rose, but it would still not equal the gratitude I feel in my heart. So, I will write it only once more… thank you everyone for all you’ve done for me.

For those who are moving on, I wish you good luck and hope we can stay in touch. For those who are staying, you know I’ll be around and I hope we can continue our adventures. In any case, goodbye my good friends.

I’ve just spent the last twenty minutes trying to clean my blinds and I’ve barely made any progress. I’m even using the preferred method with Swiffer dry cloths. Screw it. The checkout sheet says they’ll take $5 off my damage deposit if I don’t clean my blinds. They can have my $5, it’s not worth my time.

I’m thinking about going to McDonald’s.

I’m almost done cleaning, well enough cleaning for tonight at least. I still need to do my blinds and windowsill. What a pain in the ass. Oh, and behind my fridge. Damn. Still, it shouldn’t take too long. This room is almost inspectable now.

When I was cleaning today, I found my Mardi Gras beads from last summer. I took a gold coloured one and packed the rest away. I’ve had the gold string of beads around my neck all day. I call it my cleaning bling bling. People say it’s a nice touch to the cleaning routine. Yo, you feel me?

My back hurts. I’m almost done cleaning the bathroom. I’ve cleaned the shower and that surprising took less time than I had anticipated. I just sprayed on this crap and all the grime started to run down by itself. I splashed some water on the walls and it was shiny clean. I cleaned the sink, the mirror, and even the light fixture above the sink. Then I Swiffered the floor and I’m waiting for it to dry before I give it once over. I’m moving onto my countertop and sink in my little kitchen area next. The more I clean, the more annoyed I get at the SJC office staff.

I have spent most of the weekend cleaning and packing. It is not a pleasant job. For reasons still unclear to me, SJC administration has told me and other outgoing residents that they might be inspecting our rooms either on Monday or Tuesday. Ok, Tuesday is fine since it’s my last day anyways and I need to get out of there, but Monday? That’s dumb.

How can they expect my room to be completely clean when on Monday, I still have boxes cluttering the room? Who has their room sparkly clean a full 24 hours before departure? Aseem told me he’s not going to even try to get it clean for Monday, he’ll get it done for Tuesday. I’m halfway done anyways, so I’m going to go finish the job. Idiot office people.

This post is for all the gaming geeks out there. The other day I was thinking about all the games I finished while I was living at SJC. This may or may not be interesting, but here’s a list in no particular order:

Medal of Honor – Spearhead (thanks to Nic for counting the shells for me in the Ardennes forest)

Medal of Honor – Breakthrough (thanks to Patrick for buying this for me)

Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy (I had to rush through this because it was cutting into my school work)

No One Lives Forever 2 (the first game I played in 2003)

Contract Jack (it took me three days to beat)

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (I devoted 72 hours of my life into this game)

Max Payne (ask Patrick to show you his impression of Max going into bullet-time)

Max Payne 2 (did I mention Patrick also does the sound effects?)

Call of Duty (allowed me to live out my dream of doing LAN games at SJC, thanks everyone)

XIII (this will be the last game here at SJC)

When I look back upon the first couple of months at SJC, I cannot help but laugh how things were back then. I would say I know about 80-90% of the residents now. I know their names and what they’re studying. I can even tell you where they’re from. The flipside is that about 80-90% of the College knows my name and probably could give you a fairly good description of who am I.

This was not always the case, however. That might come as a surprise to some of my readers, but alas, it is true. I was really nervous in the first week I was here. I had a lot to deal with and my world had changed quite a bit. I was back at school, new degree, new residence, new people, it was a new life. I dreaded going to the dining hall. I wasn’t sure who to sit with and though I was eager to meet people, I felt awkward.

I remember one of the very first dinners, I sat down at this table with one other guy. I won’t mention his name, but let’s call him Andrew. I had met no one at SJC and I felt very green. As I ate, I mustered up the courage to engage Andrew in conversation. Andrew was as about forthcoming as a criminal during interrogation. He had short terse answers to my questions. I was like, woah, this is not going well, grad students must be assholes or something. It turns out Andrew just isn’t a very talkative guy at all, to almost everyone. Of course, at the time I didn’t know this, but I chuckle whenever I think he was the first guy I tried to talk to at SJC.

It was during the formal dinner in the second week of school that I met my very first set of friends at SJC. At the reception beforehand, I came upon this random dude. I introduced myself to him. He said his name was Nic. He also introduced me to his fiancee Marcia. They had just moved into a couples room. I forget what we chatted about, but we wound up sitting at the same table at dinner. After dinner, I’m not sure if we went to Koerner’s afterwards (an SJC tradition!), but we did go back to their palatial suite. The three of us had more wine and I admit I was a little tipsy. Somehow the conversation got steered towards Star Wars and Lord of the Rings. Strangely enough, that was when Marcia decided to get changed into her jammies and went to bed.

It was that night, I realized Nic and Marcia were very good people. Lucky for me, they thought I was an ok dude. For the next several weeks, I leaned upon them for support. Though I met a small handful of other people, they were my main set of friends. An almost daily routine consisted of me going over to their place to heat up a can of Campbell’s Chunky soup on their stove. I’d heat up my soup and chat with Nic and/or Marcia about our day. Sometimes, I’d stay and eat there. It was comforting. I even nicknamed myself Kramer because I was over there so much.

It didn’t end there. I used to eat dinner with them all the time. For four months, I can’t even remember how many dinners I didn’t eat with them. My routine was to go onto MSN, and signal either Nic or Marcia about dinner. I’d then go over to their place on my way to the dining hall, pick them up, and we’d all go over to dinner together.

While I got to know both Nic and Marcia very well, I didn’t realize at the time this was not a good way to integrate with the rest of the College. I remember one Friday night near November, I was at McDonald’s with Lindsey eating dinner. Lindsey was one of the few people I had actually got to know outside of Nic and Marcia. We were discussing the people in the College. She began rattling off names for me.

“Do you know so and so?”

“No.”

“She’s the one with blonde hair, lives in our hallway.”

“Nope, doesn’t ring a bell.”

“She’s going out with so and so.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, it’s obvious. Every one knows.”

“Hmmmm…”

“Do you know so and so?”

“Doesn’t he study poly sci?”

“No, that’s someone else. How do you not know this?”

It became clear I did not have my finger on the pulse of the College. I said I didn’t really care I didn’t know all of this, but subconsciously I did care. It seems stupid now that I’d be willing to live two years here and not attempt to get to know as many people as I could.

It’s funny to think that some of my closest friends here cannot remember talking to me once during the first four months of my stay. I simply had no interaction with them. I didn’t seek them out and I was pretty closed off. Damn that was dumb. Case in point, my neighbour down the hall Bryan is now a good friend. He knows my sense of humour and I know his. If you ask him about my early SJC days, he’ll tell you I was a mystery to him. He knew me as the guy with the message board on his door. That’s all he knew about me.

Another example, is my friend Rhonda. We’re close friends now, but I can’t remember talking to her until almost January. I don’t remember eating dinner with her during the first term. I don’t remember her at any of the formal dinners. Weird.

So something must have happened during the holiday break, because I came back a changed man-child. In January, I started branching out. It wasn’t even a conscious decision, it just happened. Sure, I continued to be close with Nic and Marcia, but it no longer pained me if I didn’t eat dinner with them. I began to meet and talk to other people and they got to know me. As this happened, I felt more and more comfortable with myself and with my place in the College. This change was apparent to Marcia, because one day she remarked at how I had opened up to more residents. I could detect she was proud of me, like how a mom is proud of her little boy when she sees him making friends on the playground.

So, here we are now in the present. In the intervening months, I have met so many people. It took me a few months for the real Erwin to emerge, but at least I made the change and I am so thankful for it.