Last weekend I went to Toronto for Rosh Hashana. It was good. On Friday night, Rachel and I went to Howard's sister Susan's house for dinner. It was a beautiful dinner. The family was very nice and friendly. I think they liked us too. It turned out that all of their kids went to the same summer camp that I went to in Nova Scotia so we knew a few of the same people. Susan's son's girlfriend lives in Kingston and goes to Queens, so he comes here often and I will get to see him again. Unfortunately, Howard's son Ethan was not in town for the weekend so I did not get to see him, but I will try again the next time I am in Toronto.

As Rachel's roommate's mother was visiting at the same time I was unable to stay with Rachel so I stayed with my friend Noah and his family. Noah is a good friend of mine from UBC who lived for me for a few months a few summers ago. On Saturday, I went to services at an orthodox shul with his family. I did not much like it because it was so big and everyone just seemed to be sitting/standing there listening to the cantor. After the services, I went with them to a family lunch which was quite nice. On Sunday we went to a conservative service at the JCC which was much more similar to BI and I liked a bit more.

On friday night, Noah and I went out to this place called the Madison. It was very cool. Just a few adjacent houses that were tuned into one big bar with tons of different rooms. After we left, we went for late night sushi, which is not the same as Vancouver. The prices were higher and the quality was lower, but then I guess it is still better than Kingston... Saturday night, we went back to the Madison with Noah's friend from high school. Again, it was a good time. Sunday Noah and I went around a few areas in Toronto that I was not so familiar with. We saw Kensington Market Chinatown, and the Concord Pacific area. Toronto is a pretty nice city. Of course, it is no Vancouver, but it is not as bad as a lot of people make it out to be. Rachel has a big apartment in a cool part of town which is quite convenient to classes for her. For me, it was just nice to be back in a big city after spending three weeks in Kingston with its university and its prisons.

School has been good so far. I just finished my first problem set today in microeconomics. It was definately a big step harder than anything they would have given us in undergrad, but after the math review we had, I was ready for it. Also, the great thing about the program is that we all have shared offices on the same floor of a building so it is always easy to find classmates with whom to compare answers and check to make sure that we are doing the problems in the right way. Now I have to shift my attention to the problem set we have in econometrics (statistics for economists) which is due wednesday.

I have been applying for a number of jobs lately. So far I have only had one positive responce which was from Goldman Sachs in their operations division in Hong Kong. Actually, after doing a bit of research, it is probably not the ideal job, but Goldman Sachs is one of the best companies in banking, so if they offer me a position (still a very big if) I think it would be good for my career. Other than that, I am still waiting for the banks and companies to get back to me. The federal government will start their big hiring push in a few weeks and I will send out some applications for the jobs there that interest me. This is more of a second choice because lately I have been much more intersted in private sector jobs than public sector ones. Even though the good private sector jobs will be much harder work, they just seem more exciting.

In Kingston studying at Queens. I got here last monday and I have been very busy ever since.

When I first arrived, I did not really have a place to stay lined up so I ended up at the Rest Inn on Princess st. It was the hotel that the taxi driver used to take his girlfriends to so I was not sure what to expect. My first few days exploring Kingston and orienting myself around campus were a bit dissapointing. I could not help thinking about Vancouver and how nice things are there. Kingston, by comparason, is very small and provincial and not particularly pretty. It was also tough not knowing anyone and thus taking all my meals alone. There isn't much that is more depressing than eating crappy takeout Chinese food alone in a cheap motel room.

Classes started quickly. On wednesday we had a welcoming lunch which gave me a chance to meet a few people. I was a bit happy to find out that Ryan, a guy I took macro with a few years ago, is now a PhD student here so at least I would know one person. What surprised me most was that there were a number of professors there working the room. They were much friendlier than UBC profs ever were. After the pizza lunch we had a "welcome exam" in math and stats. It was crazy. I could do some of the problems, I recognised others as problems that I used to be able to do,but there were more still that were unfamilliar to me. I walked out of the exam room an hour early knowing I had failed it and worried about the concequences. Afterwards at the library, I was talking on MSN to my friend Matt who had done his MA the year before and he reccomended a good book for me to study from, which I did.

The next two days were all about living in my hotel room and going to the math review. The whole thing was still quite intimidating and I was feeling worse because I didn't feel at all settled. Happily for me, Noah came on saturday to help me settle in. While he was here we went around Kingston looking for stuff that was going on, but even though we found lots of people, it seemed like pretty much everyone knew everyone else and that we were the odd ones out. After some bubble tea, we headed back to the hotel room to sleep. Sunday Noah took me out to buy a mattress and some furniture. It was a major life saver as I have no idea how I would have been able to do it otherwise. I am very thankful for the help he gave me. He has just landed a job in Vancouver selling mutual funds. He is very happy about that because it means he can stay in Vancouver and live a decent enough lifestyle. I hope I will be able to move back there someday soon...

That night reality struck again. I went to the office and found that some classmates were studying there. We stayed and studied math and stats until after midnight. The rest of the week was spent going to the math review, going to the other classes and doing the problem sets for the math review. Micro seemed good, mostly a repeat of Halevy's class at UBC. The quant/econometrics class was a bit crazy especially because the professor did not really teach, he mostly just scribbled equations on the board and expected us to follow. The finance class looks like the best one. The prof is a smart Australian guy with a good sense of humour. I think the class is going to be tough, but it will probably also be useful and applied.

The math review test was today. I, along with most of my classmates, had been stressing about it since the first test a week and a half ago. This stress only got worse as the problem sets got harder. I studied harder than I had in a long time. When I finaly wrote the test I was shocked at how easy it was. There were no bordered Hessians, no partial derivatives, no t-stats, just definitions and questions about continuity. It was a big relief. After the test I went to the grad club with some of my classmates for a beer. Very nice to be done the first component of the MA. Now all I have to worry about is midterms, finals, and my thesis...

While all of this is going on, there is also intense pressure to start applying for jobs. Because we are applying for the same jobs as commerce and MBA students, the hiring is all done in the fall/winter of the final year and some of the deadlines have already passed. I managed to get one application out to RBC but I missed the deadline on the Goldman Sachs job because I wasn't ready. At least now I finally have a resume and a draft cover letter that I can tweak depending on the job so I can apply for as many jobs as I like in the next few weeks. The great thing about these jobs is that they are good jobs in investment banking and consulting, things that I would very much like to do. It seems that Queens is much more connected with the job market than UBC and that coming here was a very good career choice.

Now that the intense week is over, I am reminded again of how few people I know in Kingston. I guess I want to go out, but I probably won't because I don't like going to bars alone. Maybe I will just make it an early night and try to finish setting up my apartment tomorrow.

Leaving in 8 hours, bright and early tomorrow morning.

My aunt got married today. It was a beautiful wedding at Sage on the UBC campus. She looked great, happier than I have ever seen her. I wish her and Howard all the best. The wedding meant that lots of family was in from out of town. I like seeing them, it is a good feeling to be a part of a family. My zaida gave a great speech about love which, although directed at Penny and Howard, was really about him and my baba. It was touching to witness.

Last night was my going away party. It was not like past parties, much smaller, no common thread among guests and it was held at 1215, a place I will miss... I must admit I was very happy to see Matt if only because I needed to be reassured that I will survive my MA in econ... Rae did not show up which, although painful to me, was probably better than the alternative. I have not seen her since we have broken up, although I still think about her every day... My new cousin Ethan was there. We drank all night to the toast of "to my new cousin". I hope to see more of him when I go back east as I had always wanted cousins my age... By the end, I had drank enough sake to feel happy.

Still nervous. I don't know why... I guess I felt this way when i went to Singapore... I can't wait until this feeling ends and is replaced by excitement... Classes start soon and I had better get ready...

I can stay at Jared's place until he gets back from the Arctic. This is great for me, but I feel a bit awkward because I don't know his roommates. I will try to stay there as short a time as possible and move into my own place...

I am leaving so much behind. This move feels so permanent. Even though I am going somewhere much closer, the knowledge that I might not be back soon weighs heavily on me. Why did I go to UBC? A school which has given me a Vancouver-based network which I will be abandoning? I should have applied to SFU to stay in Vancouver... I feel so alone in this move... Maybe I should be more like Vincent; going to San Francisco independently to estabilsh a new life... Maybe I don't want to be an expat after all... Maybe moving somewhere that I am not special is harder than moving somewhere that I am... Thinking of myself in the singular has not been hard, but it has not been fun either. Making plans for one is so much less fulfilling... It is not us and excitement, it is me and anxiety...

My parents are renting out the apartment. This is a big burden on me. If my room were to be left untouched and empty until I returned, the thought of leaving might not be the same... Maybe my attitude is wrong; I should be thinking about the MA as a temporary move that can be followed by anything, including a return to a beautiful, familiar Vancouver or an exciting and new Toronto, or anywhere else... They will be going to Paris for a month... tough life... Their lives are theirs and mine is mine...

My next post will be from Kingston... I will be doing something... I won't have so much time to think about all of these things...

This is the end of a very very good gap year, but as with all good things, it has come to an end and I have to move on.

Living with my head in the sand.

I know I am leaving on Monday. I know I will be starting a demanding Master's program. I know I should be packing and preparing, not wasting time. I know all of this but I have been doing my best to find any excuse I can to distract me from this imminent and massive change in my life.

Part of me feels a bit empty after the ending of a two year relationship. I feel nervous about starting a new program, studying things that I don't know I was particularly good at in the first place. I still don't have an apartment in Kingston, and I am not sure what I am even looking for.
Somehow I am much more anxious now than I was before my moves to Singapore or Beijing. Everything is serious. I am alone. I am probably not coming back, even if I want to. I am on my own to succeed or fail in a place that is far away, but still relevant to my life. I can no longer be pretending to be an adult by living "independently" in easy places like Asia or semi-independently in my parent's apartment in Vancouver; I have to do it for real. I feel like I am leaving my comfort zone and it is, of course, uncomfortable. The modern world is a lonely place. Maybe I just miss Rae...



Last weekend I went to San Francisco to see Vincent. It was great. San Francisco is a great city and I was so happy to see Vincent. He got a job stupidly high paying job working for a small hedge fund. The job is mostly quant related, doing complex excel models and such things, but he has been enjoying it and especially enjoying the life there. His apartment is in a beautiful Victorian walk-up in the Marina with a great view of the bay and Alcatraz island. The roommates are middle aged bachelors who are very serious about picking up chicks. They are fun people to live with for sure.

Vincent is one of my best friends and through some effort, good luck and coincidence; I have been able to see him in three different cities on two continents over the course of the last year. We have such fun together talking, joking around, and exploring the cities we visit. This time, we spent the weekend walking around in the day and going to bars at night. We took some great pictures of us in heroic poses around the city and especially near the golden gate bridge. I will visit again when I get the chance.

Noah has been staying with me for the last few days. It has been good to have him around because he is going through some of the same uncertainties as me, but unlike me his uncertainties revolve around not knowing what he wants to do for the next year. For me, knowing he will be a few hours away in Toronto would be nice, if that is what he decides to do. He has also helped with the rebound by going with me to meet new girls. That was a skill that had seriously atrophied in the last two years. All the time I spent in this apartment without taking advantage of it...

Now, my aunt's wedding weekend has started. Lots of things to do and lots of relatives to talk to. I am enjoying it, but I can also see where my sister's criticisms come from... Importantly, it is a good distraction for my final weekend here.

Tomorrow I have a going away party. In the end, I decided that having one is better than not. It will be small and the people will be from different parts of my life. I don't know if it will work... In some ways, it is an indictment of the haphazard way I have managed my social life since I have been back. I have not maintained many connections that I had intended to and I have met very few new friends. I guess working 9-5 and not having a driver's license were definite restrictions and having a girlfriend until recently reduced my need for friends for social contact... There have definitely been some hard things about adjusting to post-student life... which should be something to look forward to when I go back to school...