Delivery

 I feel very grateful to live in toronto now. I just beat the competition for a condo on the waterfront in a quiet area. Very secluded as well. Driving past the area i feel a sense of accomplishment. I won. I can drive on this long winding road by this park lined with trees, the city behind me and the lake peeking out of the leaves. The sense of newly found freedom is mine very soon. Bye to all the “hip” restaurants and concept bars. I am a step closer to my goals. 

Another win is my 1 year completed at GSK. 

crazy for stationary (inspired by Wonder Pens blog)

Once again I have bought too many things to write in. I got a new full-sized olive coloured traveller's notebook and refills from Vancouver, I still have a "test/ideas" A6 MD blank notebook. I have another MD Cotton F2 sketchbook (partially unused), and I'm still journalling in my hobonichi original 2023. 

I feel a guilty ecstasy looking at the new 2024 hobonichi planners that are out, but I really shouldn't be pre-ordering....

I haven't been drawing at all except in a TN white blank refill that I felt was less precious and more ok to waste. 

I need to practice digital drawing too.

New TN and still the same A6 hobonichi

Inside. I keep changing covers, but I think the 🐑 cover looks the best alongside the olive leather. 

 Look at this guilty pleasure purchase. All refills and accessories (for scrapbooking on the go! I think a pocket refill is the next one I need.

My first hobonichi - original A6 size in simplified Chinese. I'm surprised it is managing to stay so flat even with tickets & things pasted in (2 thick cards)! makes me even more conflicted on what to buy - Original or Weeks?

This notebook was from Nina. I think it was from China or a Chinatown. I love the changes in paper type throughout- dot, blank, kraft paper. The cover was pretty, but I must have felt like it needed some more decoration. I think at the time I had a lot of random stickers from TCAF, trips to blue mountain, random purchases…it definitely made the book more unique!

The back cover. The stamp is from Kylin’s trip to Thailand. The pizza skateboard was from a girl I went on two dates with. Taiyaki was memorable! David and I hung out and tried these big ice cream filled taiyaki. The businesses in Toronto open and close so fast it makes it the stickers much more valuable. 

A sneak peek into my MD grid notebook. Somehow I feel like the dot grid notebooks are more rarely seen on the shelves nowadays. I bought this first notebook at the Harborfront Center goods store (forgot name). I saw its unique wares after a run, and should really have gotten that flat water bottle. The store is now closed, but I remember coming upon these rows of cream white books, curiously flicking through the differently sized notebooks, clean as a cat’s tongue. The wax paper cover intrigued me. Admittedly I got tired of writing in the same-sized journal in the same format, so I started sticking random things I found on the pages. Anyways, all that to say I think this note and previous note were the real starts to my bullet journalling/scrapbook/smashbook journey that led me to my beloved TN. 

Another cool sticker added to my collection. I think the notebook’s size is B6? Plenty of room to paste big things in compared to my A6 Hobonichi. 

The quote of the year I had to introduce the journal with. Also first time including any stickers within the notebook for planned use. These dots don’t have a lot of utility I’m afraid. 

stretch

 Being careful not to feed the fb marketplace and online shopping gremlin

again i feel pulled in too many directions. maplestory at work, pharmacy on the weekends, new canadian impressionism being that spark in my week that time is always trying to slow down for. tamagotchi tomorrow, still need to set up my airtags and clean my room. sell my stuff so i can clear up my apartment. 

Worlds

It’s too difficult to be a full-time scientist and have lengthy, enjoyable, leisure time. I feel I have no choice but to be a part-time scientist. 

Just think about it 

So many articles pushed out by journals every year, by full-time academics who live in the post secondary world, where words have significant meaning. Each time a handful of papers is added to the evidence base for one of a million diseases we advance treatment, or disease state understanding, which is translated to actionable items to us, the part-time scientists and full time healthcare workers, akin to the shouting of brief directions by a farmer to his workers. In order to fully become a competent scientist, I need to stay up to date on the evidence and refresh what I know, but there’s no more capacity on that right now.

I feel so far removed from this world, that even now, reading scientific literature gives me a headache. I hated reading papers in undergrad and i still hate it. I’d rather dedicate my time to learning about the useless, such as how to wield a palette knife or the newest generation of tamagotchi. This at least gives my brain some stimulation. Perhaps my brain has craved this for a long time. 

This world of part time scientist fits me better, but there’s always guilt in not dedicating enough time to my craft, to benefit patients or society as a whole. Don’t even get me started on optimism and how it benefits leaders in the healthcare system. To be explored later.

There’s the creeping feeling that I’m not supposed to be doing this, which started in pharmacy school and now makes me stop and think at least once a year. 

Is the world of science the one for me? Have I become jaded? Is my inner chemistry somehow unbalanced or undergoing changes as I grow older? Careers can be changed, I keep telling myself, but despite these doubts I keep chugging on. These appointments cannot be missed. The work must get done. Bills need to be paid. 

Hamilton

pros:

lovely nature and trees (have yet to go hiking)

very comfy house. 

can get back to my hobbies and am making progress on my book (the three-body problem which K has his own copy of!!) 

being on my own, seeing all the things i can achieve (which is a lot so far). testing my independence and pushing it one step further by living alone, driving alone, running errands alone. 

gas stove

cons: 

the pass to like ratio. opened up hinge to see what it was like and there were lots of caucasian guys working in .... construction and receiving? ooh one crane operator. Gianluca moved back in with his mom since his stepdad got sick and realizes that's a "-ve" for some people so puts it as his first thing on his profile. Blake loves the ocean and sharks. you think you've found someone attractive, but hey he's a pipe fitter. everyone loves tacos and tequila. 

the neighbour. someone who tows your car for being in your driveway without informing you is guaranteed to be a little crazy. 

I've been agonizing over whether to buy or save on shampoo...the longer time goes on the wider the sunk cost gap grows. which leads me to...the fact that I couldn't bring a lot of favourite things (favourite sunscreen, favourite clothes, COAT??) to hamilton. 

more to come!

story

sally and nathan were a potential couple long before they became friends. 

nathan met sally on a dating app. they started talking during the pandemic [long dark winter] and studied together. he was up in the north and she was in the city, and he enjoyed her alternative pace of living. 

sally found nathan’s presence soothing and his sense of humour wholesome and kind. she was finishing up her degree while nathan was just starting his. they had different backgrounds but she was okay with it. 

things started changing during the tail end of the pandemic and lines started appearing outside stores. sally took the opportunity to meet more people, and soon she was going on other dates with men in real life, instead of over video chat.

nathan’s life remained the same. 

that was possibly the reason why nathan was so keen to ask sally out, but she kept deflecting.

in the end sally made a decision and told nathan she wanted to be friends instead of something more. 

so they were now friends. friends that sometimes joked about sex and made suggestive jokes with each other. the bond was seemingly still there.

over time, sally becomes fed up with dating. she returned to nathan on a video call and ranted about her life. nathan seemed to enjoy the updates, but sally didn’t know that he was also going on dates with other people. 

he told her one day offhandedly as he was planning a city [toronto] trip. his new girlfriend lived very close to sally, and sally supposed that was the reason he told her. she wonders if he would have said anything if new girlfriend didn’t live in the same city…

sally its now single. she looks back on the [pandemic] long dark winter times with nostalgia. she remembers a time with nathan where they shared a mutual understanding and  camaraderie. sally sees the world as her oyster, any and all people on the neurotypical bell curve are compatible to her. 

 

Thinking about my calgary friends

 I woke up this morning with the idea that I should go to starbucks and buy a pumpkin spice latte and drink it outside on a patio. The first day of October demands a day such as this. Yesterday and Thursday I barely went out, so I need to make up for all of it today. 

 There were some police cars outside my building today. It seems like some glass fell from my building? Seems like such a small issue for 4 cop cars and a couple lengths of police tape. 

Later

It turned out to be a person that jumped from my building. Poor person. Their body was covered by a blue tarp but my roommate said she could see the body when they removed the tarp for a second. The first day of October, ruined for them.