I attended no less than three Halloween parties this season -- the campus one near me (Saturday before Halloween), the departmental one (on the day of Halloween), and the Japanese Conversational Club party (but the day after Halloween). I dressed up as Chidi from the Good Place, at the least his general aesthetic, and that was enough to confuse everyone. Fortunately, the 'professorial' look I donned was recognized well, leaving me to just explain the backstory.
But these Halloween parties, obviously were an excuse to eat some fairly unhealthy food. Like pizza at the first party, and chips at the JCC Halloween Party. The departmental one featured an array of foods from different labs. The worst idea there was pasta with peanut butter (hearsay on my part) and the best two dishes were filipino noodles and a taco salad provided by our own lab. My role was much smaller, as I provided some edamame, and I was definitely overshadowed. But by the strongest dishes! There were too many sweets there as well....maybe I was just at the wrong event. Immediately after, I had to do animal training, which required much more walking than I could handle. However, after animal training, I had the opportunity to do a haunted house with my friend -- it was based on the Shining, which I still have not seen. Far from scary, the house was more inventive and intriguing in its atmosphere, having transformed the campus theater entirely.
The JCC event was much more of a social event (as the other two parties lasted....between a half hour and hour) but also had some unfortunate organization. There was games of Kahoot, which are much too fast for me, and a marshmallow swallowing competition. The scavenger hunt in particular was rather tough on my spirit, but our team won Japanese chips!
My other seasonal stories are this: on Nov 6th, the coldest day in Edmonton so far, I met my supervisor at 7 AM. (He was busy past 9 AM.) The wind certainly ate at my ankles, reminding me to cover them up better, as I made my way to the Hospital. That's right -- my building was closed, so I went through the hospital. Confusion reigned supreme for me during those first ten-15 minutes before I realized that I should go to the lab. There, we met and I did an important task under my supervisor's watchful eye. Doing on this own would have been much more difficult. Honestly, I was relieved to take care of it. Then my supervisor and I both left the lab at 9 AM -- which is when we normally START -- but we took the train in other different directions. Wisely/foolishly, I had arranged to pick up delivery from a train station near the southern edge of the city. I arrived there before 9:30 and had to wait an hour for the delivery food. This train station is frigid, barely covered by a 'building', taking all my energy to keep distracted. So instead of work, I watched anime on my phone using the WiFi there. That's right -- it's cold but at least there's the internet to warm me up.
The very next day lab work continued from 3 to 6 pm, so we found ourselves both taking the train. Again in different directions of course. I headed to the NDP meeting in the north part of the city, which was difficult to arrive at. The bus took a long time to locate. The address led to nothing in Google Maps, leading me to almost give up. But I found my way there. Very polite for a political meeting, and they even had donuts, which greatly helped my starving self. Again, the bus was a problem (maybe a common thread).
So there you have it: my earliest and latest days so far in the lab respectively were back to back.
No comments:
Post a Comment